Prince
The Daily News
1 This one landed.
2 Cross-generational. Many of you spent much of the evening listening to his tunes, watching his videos, and pouring down tears all afternoon, and all evening. And it rained.
3 Prince already was for the ages.
4 Already a bazillion words, buzzing since yesterday. I stared at the comments, the loss, the hearts and the spirits that this man's music touched.
5 More than anything, I felt an eerie feeling of disbelief.
6 The first thing I did was check to see if it was a hoax.
7 After that, nothing made sense.
8 I was glad to have found a pretty good video to help people along yesterday. It gave a good overview of Prince, and just what a phenom he was. He was telling people that he was to produce his own material at seventeen.
9 Seventeen. It boggles the mind. And he won. We all won.
10 He brought such a range of styles, and continued to define exactly who he was. Musically, he just had it. From birth.
11 A few weeks ago I thought of Prince, and how he was still touring and bringing it. I thought of how genuinely refreshing that was, and that if anything, he could still play the hell out of a guitar.
12 That came crashing down yesterday, knocking a lot of us off our game.
13 I'm sure people are already tired and on to the next big thing, but I wanted to make sure I gave a salute to one of the greatest ever.
14 Keep it up, man. Wherever you are now, which is always everywhere, keep it up.
15 That news tugged at more people than you'll ever imagine.
16 My guess is that you know that.
17 Class act.
18 Rest well. Send love down here. Send lots.
19 Moving On, Part One: How do we return to the land of the living?
20 I'm not sure, but I'm guessing the sooner, the better.
21 I do have a rather embarrassing story to share, if you'll
indulge me. This all took place before I had heard the news, but it's a fun story.
22 I had the morning to get some chores done yesterday. Since I moved in I wanted to get my back yard together. I've done a little gardening, enough to get by up to this point.
23 But yesterday I decided to put a clandestine plan into action.
24 I have collected around fifteen or twenty flower pots of varying styles over the years. When we moved from San Jose to Sacramento, I threw all of them into a box. I wanted to bring San Jose with me, and those flower pots always carried me through my summers over the years.
25 When I got to Sac, I unloaded them in the garage, and then moved them over to the side of the house.
26 Sides of houses can get tricky. They can exist as a mini-garbage dump, or they can become a summertime bistro.
27 Or they can become a curious combo, which happens to most people who have sides of houses.
28 They lived through that dusty drought, the flower pots did, followed by the more recent rains, and they looked terribly sloppy. The past couple days they baked in the sun, giving way to my insidious plan.
29 I waited until the coast was clear, and began moving them out, and loading them onto the T000000NDRA. I positioned them so they were protected from winds. Bungee cords ran over, under, around and through them. Some were heavy ceramic ones, others clay, and still others, plastic imitations of the real ones. Those ones needed extra care when protecting them from highway winds. I worked at getting them all secured.
30 Midway through, I heard this voice from across the street say, "Good morning, Bud!"
31 It was an middle-aged woman, standing next to a much older woman. I met both when I first moved in. We had met at the street mailbox, and occasionally would say our morning hellos.
32 "Good morning!" I said. "Beautiful day!" I kept working, but awaited a response. It's the right thing to do.
33 I was loading this ceramic pot with the word "Hydrangea" on the side onto the back of the truck. It was the largest, the heaviest, and best of the bunch, with a slight distressed look, and a beautiful color sketch of a hydrangea on it. It weighed around a bazillion pounds.
34 "Are you moving?" came a polite inquiry from across the street.
35 "Huh? Uh, no, just going to get these cleaned up and ready for summer!" I said. I smiled, then walked politely back into the house. I came back out with a cloth and began wiping and emptying each pot, dusting the outsides, and emptying any loose dirt onto my lawn. I wanted those gals to see me doing that.
36 Sounds intriguing.
37 The plan was this: We have a Chevron station a few blocks over. It has an awesome car wash. My plan had always been to load all those pots onto the bed of the T000000NDRA, get all surface dirt off them, and then sneak them through the car wash.
38 Anybody lookin'?
39 I figured there would be a minimum amount of dirt, and that it would disappear in the ground suds. It's Chevron, for gawd's sake, and it is in a river town. I was certain it had seen worse.
40 Still, I felt a little funny about execution. I got over to the Chevron, saw a couple of men standing in front, and decided to park on the side street.
41 My guilt was palpable. I knew I was in the midst of some sort of covert op. I walked over to the front of the store, gave a half smile to the fellows guarding the joint, and walked to the counter. A woman in her seventies turned and almost knocked me over. She looked like a suspect in an Agatha Christie novel.
42 She disappeared and I approached the counter. The clerk was a girl who couldn't have been over seventeen. She smiled, and asked if she could help me.
43 "Uh, yeah, I just want to get a car wash," I said. I felt like Richard Kimble.
44 She was about to ask, "Which one?" when I interrupted her. "Just the cheapest one, " I said. "It's just for my truck." I stopped short of mentioning all the pollen and stuff.
45 She gave me the receipt, and I boldly drove right past the two front men, and turned left into the car wash entrance.
46 My heart pounded. I'm not kidding. If someone had come up and stopped me, I probably would have broken down. I checked my code three or four times before punching all the buttons. A green light popped on. I pulled forward into the wash.
47 I drove right up until a red light had me stop. I rolled up all the windows, popped on some music, and the car wash began. I made it! Grateful Dead music played along; I can't remember which song. Sometimes, it's all one long song, so it made no difference. I had made it!
48 The wash slowed down, and gave me the green light to move forward, where the wind dryer awaited. As soon as it cranked up, I got whirled in. I moved slowly. It rumbled over the hood, and then slammed into my side windows. I rolled forward a bit more, and I heard a loud thumping noise in the bed of the truck.
49 Looking into the rear-view was a scene right out of The Wizard of Oz. At least five of the lighter flower pots flew at least five to seven feet in the air, and swirled around one another in a mad dance. I heard rumbling and larger pots clunking into each other. I kept cursing and looking around.
50 I again looked into my rear-view only to see that another car was IN the wash, watching the flying pots!
51 I got out, looked straight down, collected as many of the pots as I could, gave the Sacramento wave to the guy in the wash, and dashed to the truck. Just as I was getting in, this gal came up to me holding around four flower pots.
52 "Here, you didn't see these ones," she said. I smiled and said, "Thanks. Didn't expect it to get that breezy..." but she was back in her car, a thing of my past, just that fast. I got into the cab, threw all of the flower pots gathered along with the ones she gave me into the back seat, slammed the door and moved swiftly forward.
53 As I pulled out, I worried that it had all been caught on film, and that I was going to be embarrassed by authorities, or maybe even by news crews in search of an idiot.
54 I inched out and looked off to my left. At that exact moment, three SUV police cars flew into the gas station in military fashion.
55 I moved slowly and deliberately, ice running through my veins, as though I had just assassinated the President of Burundi. I stayed calm. As I pulled onto the street, I noticed another T000000NDRA in the right lane. I deliberately pulled up next to it, so I would have a cover.
56 I learned that one from all of the Oswalds that kept popping up in the JFK story. That guy was in around seven hundred cities at the same time.
57 I eventually turned left, and headed home.
57 I pulled back up into my driveway. Thank goodness nobody was outside. I gave a sigh of relief, and checked the back for damage control.
58 Not much. A few of the lighter pots had wound up leaving mud in the back seat. It hit a blanket I keep back there for moving stuff.
59 I then walked to the truck bed to analyze the real damage.
60 I opened the gate of the TOOOOOONDRA. The Hydrangea pot had fallen apart and clunked into pieces before my eyes. I was crestfallen. A couple of smaller pots had been damaged as well, but overall, not bad.
61 They were all just as muddy as they would have been if I had taken a quick hose to them in the first place.
62 I brought them all to the back yard, put them on an umbrella table, and rinsed them with the hose. I cleaned everything up, and even managed to hand clean three or four really nicely. As I did, I felt the sun hit my sun shades. I looked up and smiled.
63 For once, I thought, I had really lived.
64 That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
65 Hope it gave you a few chuckles. I hoped to have hot oatmeal fly through my nose when came around to editing this.
66 I didn't. Sorry to disappoint. I DID have some hot oatmeal, however, and enjoyed re-reading this nonsense.
67 I still have more to do. It's raining. I just smiled. So, perhaps, should you. It's a good way to get through the day.
68 I gottago.
69 Have a GREAT weekend.
70 See you again.
71 Peace.
2 Cross-generational. Many of you spent much of the evening listening to his tunes, watching his videos, and pouring down tears all afternoon, and all evening. And it rained.
3 Prince already was for the ages.
4 Already a bazillion words, buzzing since yesterday. I stared at the comments, the loss, the hearts and the spirits that this man's music touched.
5 More than anything, I felt an eerie feeling of disbelief.
6 The first thing I did was check to see if it was a hoax.
7 After that, nothing made sense.
8 I was glad to have found a pretty good video to help people along yesterday. It gave a good overview of Prince, and just what a phenom he was. He was telling people that he was to produce his own material at seventeen.
9 Seventeen. It boggles the mind. And he won. We all won.
10 He brought such a range of styles, and continued to define exactly who he was. Musically, he just had it. From birth.
11 A few weeks ago I thought of Prince, and how he was still touring and bringing it. I thought of how genuinely refreshing that was, and that if anything, he could still play the hell out of a guitar.
12 That came crashing down yesterday, knocking a lot of us off our game.
13 I'm sure people are already tired and on to the next big thing, but I wanted to make sure I gave a salute to one of the greatest ever.
14 Keep it up, man. Wherever you are now, which is always everywhere, keep it up.
15 That news tugged at more people than you'll ever imagine.
16 My guess is that you know that.
17 Class act.
18 Rest well. Send love down here. Send lots.
19 Moving On, Part One: How do we return to the land of the living?
20 I'm not sure, but I'm guessing the sooner, the better.
21 I do have a rather embarrassing story to share, if you'll
indulge me. This all took place before I had heard the news, but it's a fun story.
22 I had the morning to get some chores done yesterday. Since I moved in I wanted to get my back yard together. I've done a little gardening, enough to get by up to this point.
23 But yesterday I decided to put a clandestine plan into action.
24 I have collected around fifteen or twenty flower pots of varying styles over the years. When we moved from San Jose to Sacramento, I threw all of them into a box. I wanted to bring San Jose with me, and those flower pots always carried me through my summers over the years.
25 When I got to Sac, I unloaded them in the garage, and then moved them over to the side of the house.
26 Sides of houses can get tricky. They can exist as a mini-garbage dump, or they can become a summertime bistro.
27 Or they can become a curious combo, which happens to most people who have sides of houses.
28 They lived through that dusty drought, the flower pots did, followed by the more recent rains, and they looked terribly sloppy. The past couple days they baked in the sun, giving way to my insidious plan.
29 I waited until the coast was clear, and began moving them out, and loading them onto the T000000NDRA. I positioned them so they were protected from winds. Bungee cords ran over, under, around and through them. Some were heavy ceramic ones, others clay, and still others, plastic imitations of the real ones. Those ones needed extra care when protecting them from highway winds. I worked at getting them all secured.
30 Midway through, I heard this voice from across the street say, "Good morning, Bud!"
31 It was an middle-aged woman, standing next to a much older woman. I met both when I first moved in. We had met at the street mailbox, and occasionally would say our morning hellos.
32 "Good morning!" I said. "Beautiful day!" I kept working, but awaited a response. It's the right thing to do.
33 I was loading this ceramic pot with the word "Hydrangea" on the side onto the back of the truck. It was the largest, the heaviest, and best of the bunch, with a slight distressed look, and a beautiful color sketch of a hydrangea on it. It weighed around a bazillion pounds.
34 "Are you moving?" came a polite inquiry from across the street.
35 "Huh? Uh, no, just going to get these cleaned up and ready for summer!" I said. I smiled, then walked politely back into the house. I came back out with a cloth and began wiping and emptying each pot, dusting the outsides, and emptying any loose dirt onto my lawn. I wanted those gals to see me doing that.
36 Sounds intriguing.
37 The plan was this: We have a Chevron station a few blocks over. It has an awesome car wash. My plan had always been to load all those pots onto the bed of the T000000NDRA, get all surface dirt off them, and then sneak them through the car wash.
38 Anybody lookin'?
39 I figured there would be a minimum amount of dirt, and that it would disappear in the ground suds. It's Chevron, for gawd's sake, and it is in a river town. I was certain it had seen worse.
40 Still, I felt a little funny about execution. I got over to the Chevron, saw a couple of men standing in front, and decided to park on the side street.
41 My guilt was palpable. I knew I was in the midst of some sort of covert op. I walked over to the front of the store, gave a half smile to the fellows guarding the joint, and walked to the counter. A woman in her seventies turned and almost knocked me over. She looked like a suspect in an Agatha Christie novel.
42 She disappeared and I approached the counter. The clerk was a girl who couldn't have been over seventeen. She smiled, and asked if she could help me.
43 "Uh, yeah, I just want to get a car wash," I said. I felt like Richard Kimble.
44 She was about to ask, "Which one?" when I interrupted her. "Just the cheapest one, " I said. "It's just for my truck." I stopped short of mentioning all the pollen and stuff.
45 She gave me the receipt, and I boldly drove right past the two front men, and turned left into the car wash entrance.
46 My heart pounded. I'm not kidding. If someone had come up and stopped me, I probably would have broken down. I checked my code three or four times before punching all the buttons. A green light popped on. I pulled forward into the wash.
47 I drove right up until a red light had me stop. I rolled up all the windows, popped on some music, and the car wash began. I made it! Grateful Dead music played along; I can't remember which song. Sometimes, it's all one long song, so it made no difference. I had made it!
48 The wash slowed down, and gave me the green light to move forward, where the wind dryer awaited. As soon as it cranked up, I got whirled in. I moved slowly. It rumbled over the hood, and then slammed into my side windows. I rolled forward a bit more, and I heard a loud thumping noise in the bed of the truck.
49 Looking into the rear-view was a scene right out of The Wizard of Oz. At least five of the lighter flower pots flew at least five to seven feet in the air, and swirled around one another in a mad dance. I heard rumbling and larger pots clunking into each other. I kept cursing and looking around.
50 I again looked into my rear-view only to see that another car was IN the wash, watching the flying pots!
51 I got out, looked straight down, collected as many of the pots as I could, gave the Sacramento wave to the guy in the wash, and dashed to the truck. Just as I was getting in, this gal came up to me holding around four flower pots.
52 "Here, you didn't see these ones," she said. I smiled and said, "Thanks. Didn't expect it to get that breezy..." but she was back in her car, a thing of my past, just that fast. I got into the cab, threw all of the flower pots gathered along with the ones she gave me into the back seat, slammed the door and moved swiftly forward.
53 As I pulled out, I worried that it had all been caught on film, and that I was going to be embarrassed by authorities, or maybe even by news crews in search of an idiot.
54 I inched out and looked off to my left. At that exact moment, three SUV police cars flew into the gas station in military fashion.
55 I moved slowly and deliberately, ice running through my veins, as though I had just assassinated the President of Burundi. I stayed calm. As I pulled onto the street, I noticed another T000000NDRA in the right lane. I deliberately pulled up next to it, so I would have a cover.
56 I learned that one from all of the Oswalds that kept popping up in the JFK story. That guy was in around seven hundred cities at the same time.
57 I eventually turned left, and headed home.
57 I pulled back up into my driveway. Thank goodness nobody was outside. I gave a sigh of relief, and checked the back for damage control.
58 Not much. A few of the lighter pots had wound up leaving mud in the back seat. It hit a blanket I keep back there for moving stuff.
59 I then walked to the truck bed to analyze the real damage.
60 I opened the gate of the TOOOOOONDRA. The Hydrangea pot had fallen apart and clunked into pieces before my eyes. I was crestfallen. A couple of smaller pots had been damaged as well, but overall, not bad.
61 They were all just as muddy as they would have been if I had taken a quick hose to them in the first place.
62 I brought them all to the back yard, put them on an umbrella table, and rinsed them with the hose. I cleaned everything up, and even managed to hand clean three or four really nicely. As I did, I felt the sun hit my sun shades. I looked up and smiled.
63 For once, I thought, I had really lived.
64 That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
65 Hope it gave you a few chuckles. I hoped to have hot oatmeal fly through my nose when came around to editing this.
66 I didn't. Sorry to disappoint. I DID have some hot oatmeal, however, and enjoyed re-reading this nonsense.
67 I still have more to do. It's raining. I just smiled. So, perhaps, should you. It's a good way to get through the day.
68 I gottago.
69 Have a GREAT weekend.
70 See you again.
71 Peace.
~H~
fin.
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