Prince

We went to the same junior high school in north Minneapolis, although separated by about four years. Later, I went to high school with his future bass player, Mark Brown, who played in a band called Fantasy that wowed at Washburn High's talent show.

When I was in college, I made a lot of the party tapes for my fraternity. At one point, one of my fellow Phi Psis ripped a cassette of Prince's "Dirty Mind" from the tape deck and threw it under the refrigerator. I was funk and R&B, he was San Francisco alt rock in the days before Prince found a way to fit his music in to anywhere.

Later I was an extra in his first move, Purple Rain. The girl I'd taken to the premiere shouted out, "That's you!" at a point where the camera had me full screen dancing to the music of The Time, guys that really were my favorite (I played basketball with some of them), but at the time I wasn't sure (we were too far back in a sold out Skyway Theater).

I met Apollonia there, introduced myself and brought her over to a friend who was involved in a touchathon, one of those things where the last person touching the car got to take it home. (He won eventually, a yellow Le Car if I remember right, and I'm sure it was due partially to the fact that I brought over a celebrity at two in the morning during a break in filming and introduced them).

Even before that, I'd see Prince out at the local clubs usually with his then girlfriend, Vanity, who also recently passed away. The last time I saw both of them, together or separately, was at an Alexander O'Neal show at an upstairs club whose name I no longer remember, a club where I saw a girl I'd once crushed on in high school. At this point though, I'd become too cool to ask for her number.

I could go on, but this isn't about me or the memories and stories I have of the time or the movie or the music. Prince died and although truthfully I wasn't a fan of much of his music, he picked up Minneapolis and put it on the national music scene, borne by the strength of his innovation and incredible guitar skills.

I'm reading this morning he may have had an issue with prescription opiates that may have had something to do with his death. This would just make it sadder, like Robin Williams' suicide (or anyone else's). In other words, if someone were around these talented people that recognized that they needed help outside themselves, perhaps they could have gotten it, and perhaps they'd still be with us.

Rest in peace, Prince. You made a mark on my early life and I will never forget.