prince doesn’t identify as a cat

he couldn’t be more different than his twin sister. 

he’ll poop in a dirty litter box. he’ll eat anything you put in front of you. he comes when you call. he speaks seven languages. 

he also has a nervous habit of scratching on the back of his neck with his back feet. he wears a cone of shame so it can heal.

the wound was progressing. it was healing. it was growing hair. he probably only had a few more weeks until he could be free. but today he got out of the cone and scratched at it wildly and the bloody gash reappeared and now he’s in pain. from his own doing. 

i have this magical aloe salve that i put on it, despite his objections. he knows he is to blame. 

but sometimes you just gotta itch that scratch. 

like the dirty dog you are. 

i think about my cat Prince a lot

he does things and he cant help it.

im the same way.

if you throw his favorite little bell-ball he will run after it like a dog. eventually you will find it near my bed. a weird, slow, game of fetch, even though he’s a cat.

me, i drive uber and lyft as often as i can, even though i have a perfectly good normal job.

even though the roads are dangerous, the traffic is heinous and letting strangers in my Benz isn’t the wisest move deep down.

but i am addicted to learning about and helping people. ive got a friend Ben who works at a Catholic soup kitchen. they lure Catholics to skid row, murder them, and make soup out of them. the poor are nourished and Ben feels good about himself, which is crazy because Ben is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.

got another friend, Steve, who writes novels and interviews other authors about their process. i almost wanna write another book just so Steve will interview me about it.

some nights i will drive and drive and drive for eight hours straight. peeing just once or twice. usually mcdonalds but today i peed in a bowling alley bathroom. what a great place.

my problem is i love people for about 25 minutes. i wanna know everything about them. and then they’re gone. no fuss no muss. am i a commitment-phobe? probably. who cares. we live such short lives why are we trying to box ourselves in? why can’t we just enjoy a bite-sized conversation, especially if it goes into a deeper truth.

the problem though with driving for 8 hours is somewhere along the way you get tired so you eat something and drink a giant Coke. then you get home totally frazzled and you can’t get to sleep.

luckily for me, theres a long legged blonde girl who dresses sexy and helps me get my Zzzs. and she has a key to my castle.

do i wanna write novels? yes. do i wanna have a great podcast? yes. would i love to build a house one day and shove a Conversation Pit in there? of course.

but i am currently addicted to lifestyle choices that keep me a mild mannered apartment dweller with no hope for advancement.

except in my heart.

where all my little conversations with the good people of this city live forever.

occasionally i will let you in for a peek.

which is how Prince would do it too.

(my Prince, not yrs.)

eight years ago today i saw prince at coachella

coachellai went with the wild and lovely suzie from canada. we had met once before in toronto and she said omg its tony pierce and promptly twisted both of my nipples through my cubs shirt.

i was press so i got vip and somehow we got another one for her. those were the days when wearing an indian headdress wasnt that big of a deal and before people could find Coachella sections at their local department store. you just wore fun things.

that year their two biggest headliners were Prince and Roger Waters. Waters did Dark Side all the way through and had an inflatable pig that accidentally flew away into the night and landed in some guy’s pool.

we partied with all these dudes from twitter and google and blogger and slept on the floor and drank and had a great time.

i even wrote a review about the sports car that Nissan lent us. and included pics of Suzie for scale.

suzie reminded me a lot of Linda from college: full of energy, definitely hippy sensibilities, and spent most of the time in her bikini.

she called me a carebear, but i later found out she didnt mean it as a compliment.

maybe the best moment was right after i took this picture we swung around behind us and noticed the singer of Aerosmith, Steven Tyler was sitting at a similar picnic table.

suzie let out a scream and ran over to him. his posse didnt know what to do, but bikini girls can pretty much do whatever they want. so he smiled as suzie told him how much she loved him and how her mom got her into them and la la la.

back then you didnt really take a lot of selfies with your phone. it wasnt a thing. you brought little “cameras” with you, or if you were fancy, big cameras.

i was not fancy so mine was little.

Joey Maloney was and still is very fancy so his was big, and not only that, but he had a photo pass so he took these pictures of many of the performers. i think he was doing it for LAist.

i remember saying to myself, this will probably be my last Coachella because seriously how could it get any better than this?

pretty sure i went about 4 more times since then.

prince doesnt have a star on the walk of fame

princebecause life isnt fair and sometimes people make you pay for things that you really shouldnt have to pay for

and the hollywood walk of fame is one of those places where you have to pay

which is why people like donald trump have stars but perhaps the greatest guitarist of all doesnt

hung out with AJ yesterday hung out with Todd today watched hella tv

but still i tried to figure out Prince all weekend. was he insane? was he perfect? was he of this earth? could we actually do anything that he did?

i have no answers. im leaning towards he was a space alien. in the video of him jamming with tribe called quest he looks soooooo short. but his guitars never seem to be bigger than him like how they do with Angus. someone today said he may have had HIV for years and then stopped taking meds. but i dont know about that. he didnt do drugs and

then someone said he he may have killed himself. but i dont know about that neither because if he was gonna kill himself it would be the most beautiful and amazing suicide of all. it wouldnta happened in an elevator in the middle of the night, alone with no note.

same with the AIDS, wheres the note? wheres the doctors? wheres his church? yeah: WHERE IS HIS CHURCH? why havent we heard from them to talk about his life as a spiritual person?

whatever im sad. prince was amazing and now we dont have anyone even close like him around.

who can i complain to?

all i wanna talk about is prince all i think about is prince

city hall

yesterday at work i was a mess before i even got to work.

i was on the phone with my mom driving in to work when she learned about it and as i was driving i googled it and saw it was true,

i nearly stopped the car and turned around and went home but as prince embodied in his final performance at his home, the show must go on.

so i went in to work. it was super quiet. it’s been quiet but it was super quiet.

people would be nice and say hi how are you and i wanted to say Prince is dead how the f am i supposed to be?

but i smiled tried to tell jokes and i went on with my day which was pretty impossible

the only actual good i did there was we usually try to at least put a picture up if an Oscar winner or member dies and we try to say something nice but often it’s not as inspired as that one time.

so we all had a quickie little meeting and my boss decided to use prince’s Oscar win video as what we would put up and we did and near the end of the day i saw it had made it to Twitter Moments which is actually an accomplishment because EVERYTHING on twitter yesterday was about Prince

rightfully

so to make it through all of that was actually a little bit of a bright spot in an otherwise dark day

rosario dawsonubered a little. got home. couldnt sleep. tweeted. one of my tweets did super good. weird.

rosario dawson(!) retweeted it.

passed out.

today is friday and if i was a quitter or a call in sicker i would call in sick but im not sick im sad and gloomy and not at all sure why Prince died of the flu. and i hope he didnt have a drug issue no one knew about. because one reason out of millions that we loved Prince was because he was above all of those mortal things.

in many many ways he was holy.

still is.

still was.

now i really dont wanna go to work.

i nearly crashed the car when i was texted the news today

prince at the troubadour

then through most of the day i asked myself, what purpose is life>?

a guy cranks out so much music over the years. always on tour. always doing new things.

always wearing new clothes, new bands, new hairstyles, new passions

and then what: TMZ gets the scoop that youre dead?

thats why we do this? thats what happens to the best there was?

dude played like Hendrix, danced like James Brown, sang like… no one else

looked like no one else, acted like no one else, probably smelled like a freshly laundered unicorn

only guy in the world who could wear exactly the same clothes your girl was wearing

down to the shoes and the purse

and steal yr girl.

i saw him in san jose, staples, coachella, the forum and the troubadour

was better than even bruce because he never let ANYTHING tie him down to a structure.

only thing he HAD to do was play purple rain and guess what, at the Troub he didn’t play Purple Rain and people didnt give one f. except me because as ashley* said way back when im never satisfied and shes right.

for the exception of at the forum. he played for 55 hours. half of the audience left after the 18th encore. he had leased the building out for the entire month. he was on Prince Time, not our time. so he would play, make an exit and come back in 10 minutes and play more hits. it was a marvel. he was a marvel. he was the exception of all rules.

he was the maestro, the genius, the master and unlike many who are like that: he had soul for days.

soul is the reason for life.

how do we take care of our soul.

how do we tickle the souls of others.

and how do we stay sexy until our very last breath.

prince did it and i hope we never learn how he died because i wanna believe he just turned into a dove and flew away.

i once had a boss who hated me

prince passportduring one of our many private meetings where he tried to ridicule me

he accused me of being cool.

it was a while ago but i think he said something like “and you walk around trying to be sooooo coooool…”

i was all, boss, i wear rock tshirts, jeans and a cubs hat, you think that’s me trying to be cool?

keep in mind, i didnt even have a car at the time. i rode the bus everywhere.

anyways, today, just like then, i felt that there was a level of coolness that i have never and will never reach, and that is Prince.

Prince is old enough to be a grandfather. Lord knows Tyga’s doorman would have let him into that club the other night.

And best of all today he released his new passport photo, because I think even Prince knew he looked like a sexy MF.

but when you look at this picture and try to figure out what makes it cool it isnt the amazing jacket or trippy Carlos Santana shirt

it’s not the Lenny Kravitz afro or Liza Minelli eyelashes

it’s that thin, barely there, Latin-influenced moustache

and pucker.

which all comes from heavy doses of attitude.

something i definitely had way back in the day, so maybe i was emitting some essence of cool.

but it sure as hell wasn’t Prince level.