prince


staples center
los angeles
5/26/04

dearly beloved,

if u ever want 2 get through this thing called life, make sure u go 2 a prince show at least once.

and if you go once, you’ll be back.

prince popped up through the center of his stage last night at the sold-out staples center dressed in white. pure of any sin. and the definition of sexy.

an x marked the spot on the center of the arena. his gold microphone awaited him. his 8 peice band including horn section featuring james brown’s legendary sax man maceo parker and blonde bombshell candy dulfer waited for him. and the screaming LA crowd who were amazingly on-time waited for him on this, the second night of an unprecidented five-night stand of los angeles’s premier concert and sports venue.

home of the lakers, the grammys, the kings, and last night, of prince.

he owned it. he rocked it. he was it.

as a witness of hundreds of concerts, ive seen the best: the stones, springsteen, u2, miles davis, the jackson 5, eric clapton, van halen, tom waits, elvis costello, tsar, jane’s addiction, and the beastie boys.

but never have i seen one man seemingly never make a mistake, a wasted motion, or spin and twirl and pirrorette and be equal parts show-off and showman like that freaky little dude from minnesota.

and the fucker did it in heels.

he played his guitar like a kid would play a broomstick. it was an air guitar to him.

a total maestro he would throw his hand down and the drummer would accent the beat and stop.

a master controller he would tell the lighting man to bring up the lights and bring them down and the lights went up or down immediately.

when he grew tired of his guitar a well-dressed man would come out and take it from him and he pranced over to a couch on the stage and his keyboard player gave him a pillow for his feet and a blanket.

then he played bass. then he played bass with the bass player.

then he danced.

fuck did he dance.

all while throwing out classic r&b numbers like chinese stars, all written, produced, and performed by himself throughout the years.

upon entering the show the ushers handed out free copies of his new cd, musicology and one guy said to his buddy, “mick jagger never gave me anything for free.”

and as much as i love mick, mick never played the guitar or wrote these sorts of songs, alone, or this sexy, or with this much funk.

what we got to be a part of last night kept us on our feet dancing for over two hours, and when he concluded with an extended encore of the title track of his best known album, purple rain no one wanted to leave.

except for the yuppies who wanted to somehow “beat” traffic. which, sadly was half the arena.

but whatever, prince had pummelled them. he had pummelled all of us.

if elvis had actually known a thing about showmanship and songwriting and guitar playing and dancing, the king would have been prince.

in my 110 years, this was the best arena concert ive ever seen.

i smiled the entire time.

anti + simpleton + xero 79

had some people over yesterday.

didnt plan it that way but there were these australian hitchhikers that i met at the vons. three of them got their paths crossed with some dirty acid.

i have a soft spot for travelers since ive travelled here and there on occasion and i know how vulnerable you can be.

took them to the castle, sat em on the couch, turned on the slow jams, talked about elvis.

doesnt matter what country youre from, your age, your political disposition, race, height, youre going to have an opinion about the king of rock and roll, especially if im leading the proceedings.

the girls thought that elvis was just ok but me and the fella were on the side of theres only one king, and there will only be one.

then we flipped on the tv looking for elvis movies but instead we stopped at the womens college softball world series.

now, i have a big tv.

thirty five inch (diagonal) picture tube made in japan by the mitsubishi company. sold to me by two gay guys who complained that it was too big.

and i had successfully mellowed out these four attractive australian girls by talking about elvis presley and allowing them the freedom to smoke their marijuana. yes i know it is illegal, but i thought i would turn a blind eye since they are foreigners and in very bad shape.

and then we saw berkeley bear first baseman veronica nelson on my glorious television.

and then we saw veronica nelson smack a home run

in the college world series

live from oklahoma city, where i am sure mad pony kristin was in attendance cuz she is perfect in nearly every other way.

and i turned to my guests and they were in tears.

it was a beautiful site. these people didnt really even know the rules of baseball, but they understood the triumph of the moment.

or they were laughing at her.

it was hard to tell.

it appeared that i had gotten a contact high.

so with my mind racing i made a big ass photo essay, for your asses.

city rag + leah +

i was on the phone with a fashion model last night

while she was driving and at that moment she was hit by another car.

oh my god i was just hit! she said.

i was all, are you alright?

she was all it hurts.

i was all, where are you?

she had just left a film at the arclight.

she said sunset.

i was all, where on sunset?

and she was all, i have to go.

now i love this girl. and i realize that she was in shock, but i havent been fired by the xbi. im still the superhero you love. nothing on here is true baby.

instead she hung up.

sadly the truth is i have no car. so i got my clothes on for the first time all day. it was 10:38pm. i got my cell phone and i got out of my house and started to run down sunset.

i figured id run for a while and if a bus came by id jump on.

but as i started running all the worst images ran through my head. was she cut with glass all over? is her career history? are her arms and legs broken?

was it intentional and they stole her car?

was it intentional and they were going to steal her car till they saw how hot she is and now theyre stealing her too.

so i ran to an atm and got $40 to try to catch a cab.

i ran and saw a cop car and thought about flagging him but then i was all, what if this is xbi related and its someone trying to kidnap an xbi girlfriend. cops cant be involved in that.

so i kept running.

id call her but it went straight to voicemail. that made me even more worried. how does your phone go straight to voicemail after you called me 5 minutes ago? it has to be turned off.

why would she turn off her phone?

im not a long distance runner. i can sprint. i can run fast for a good mile, maybe two miles. karisa can run. i can sprint. big difference. theres a reason i fly chopper one. its to overcompensate.

right before i made it to sunset and western she called me.

she said she was ok.

that the guy who hit her car had just left.

i said did he run away?

she said he drove away.

communication is never what you want it to be in dire situations. i tried to keep the questions as laser sharp as possible.

i am at sunset and western, where are you on sunset.

even that was a complicated conversation.

eventually i made it to her. she was exchanging information and i thought you people have had a half hour to exchange information what sort of madness is happening here.

i got into the drivers seat and sped her to the hospital.

she had no bruises or cuts. nothing was broken. a car she told me hit her from behind as she was stopped at a red light. the car hit her so hard that she hit the car in front of her.

because she is such a sweet sweet girl she was worried about what her father and brother would say about it. her neck and head were sore, she had a headache but she worried about what people would say. i was all baby, you were stopped at a red light, what on earth could youhave done better.

she said nothing.

i said, yes you could have told me the first time where you were on sunset.

and she shot me a look like how could you criticize me at this moment

and she was right. im an ass. but i was relieved that she was ok.

and when we got into a room inside the ER i got to help her change into one of those gowns.

all i gotta say is ooh lala.

zulieka + nothing i ever did at work was as bad as this + great picture of raymi

interesting day yesterday.

all these days are interesting.

today though, sheesh.

currently im in the jungles of hmo phone chain hell.

i told a woman that i was going to cry if she didnt send me to the correct person.

wanna know why i dont like doctors?

last time i went to a doctor about something curious he greased up a gloved finger and shoved it in a place where not even God has explored and told me to pee on the floor.

i tried and i couldnt but it was a bizarre situation especially considering that the view was amazing since we were on the top floor of the historic hollywood general hospital that overlooks los feliz east hollywood and on a clear day downtown la and west hollywood.

the other day i went to the doctor since my insurance was about to run out and he said your tests tell me to send you to a specialist so i went to the specialist and this fucker wants to put a camera up my ass.

even though im 111 years old i have a mother who is still with us, thank God and i was all ma wtf, and she was all its a colonosophy, youre a little young for that but colon cancer is something that you want to keep an eye on, its whats killing chief justice rehnquist.

so now believe it or not, i find myself in the odd situation of fighting to get this camera up my ass.

the specialist advised that i get on the horn today to my insurance company to make sure the proceedure got approved but since i had nothing to do yesterday i made a call yesterday and left a message.

then today i got serious about it. and left a message at noon. then at 2 i called again and was hung up on before being said hello.

i need a vacation.

so i called back and she said oh yeah you are calling the wrong number. i wanted to say, you heard both of my messages and you werent going to call me back? but im nice. she gave me a different number. i called that one. she sent me back to the first one.

i told that lady that i was going to jump off a bridge if she didnt help me.

please dont do that, she said.

all these women are latin. you can tell.

i dont know what that means, im just reporting the facts.

the latin ladies were not giving me any love today. except the one who i told i was gonna cry if she didnt get me to the right place.

i said to the new one are you hollywood general medical group

she said yes

i said i was told that i need the coordinator of the hollywood general medical group to approve my authorization, please do not send me to orange county, please find me the coordinator of the hollywood general medical group

i was put on hold for maybe three minutes, then i heard two beeps and i was hung up on.

i called back and said my name. she said i am so sorry, but i have the person who can help you.

i could go on. but i wont because i cant believe that im doing all of this, even now blogging about it, so that i can get a camera up my ass

some of the prettiest girls on planet earth have wanted to even look at my asshole and i wont let them and yet im fighting to have this man ive never met to invade my most personal privacy.

so the last lady says when was the request faxed in? i said probably tuesday. she asked what number was it faxed in from? i was all what?

she said, i cant believe she said this, but she did. she said, we get soooo many faxes in here but theyre not paper faxes, theyre emailed faxes, but you cant search the names, you can only search the phone number that it was faxed from.

i was all, so please call my doctor and find out his fax number

she was all, you have to call him.

and of course he’d rather be golfing and im sitting here watching the cubs lose.

like a bitch.

an mp3 of the Amazing Race winners telling the untold story + via fook the people + thanks!