It’s been a long time!
Yikes!
A REALLY long time!
I can’t even say much has happened that’s worth updating…things have been pretty uneventful…until this week.
My labor of love grew a bit too much and was noticed by The Professor’s estate. They sent a scary latter about trademark infringement and threatened to take action on me so…had to shut it down.
I get it, but also like…really? Because it was just information…and I was careful to be EXTREMELY explicit about not associating with the sale of bootlegs or even telling people where to find them. Those types of sites have existed for years, even when he was here…so…what’s the deal? Especially since they complained about the bootlegs listings with derivative fair use images and not the official listings with actual trademarked images…
It seems like everything BUT the music is being promoted officially…and I understand that it has to be this way because that is all tied up in litigation, but it really irritates me when everyone is so much about Prince…but not really about his actual work…the music…the main reason why we’re all here.
I like the books and The Celebration event (already got my ticket! VIP this year too), and am the main one spending money for official merch and music releases (and tasteful bootleg merch)…but my support of those things is to basically be a billboard for The Professor and to do my part to contribute to the funds necessary to support his legacy once I’ve ducked out too.
All the auxiliary stuff is fine and necessary for sure, but it’s “NOISE”…
I feel like there’s way more conversation around drama, and estate business, and circumstances around his duck out, or his personal life, or how sad everyone is, or who he dated/married, or who the best band is, …and not…just….Prince…not his actual work…
Fam is fam for whatever reason they are fam…which is often for personal reasons, and it doesn’t really matter as long as the army is grown, but I just…don’t want The Professor to be Elvised as a caricature. It seems like he will not be known because of his amazing musicianship based on THE MUSIC…instead it’s all about the lore of him being a “magical sexy conundrum.”
I don’t buy into that notion personally…
- He’s a dude work worked extremely hard at his craft…he spoke about practicing until his fingers bled when he was younger or about the musical tradition of Minneapolis…EVERYONE had high standards like he did….and if you listen to the people who truly worked side by side with him, they all note that he was the hardest worker out of all of them. While they were having breaks and on rehearsal days for example, he was still in the room by himself working things out…or he was constantly tweaking or having retrospectives after concerts to look for areas of improvement…
- He’s a dude who is very observant of others…rare in a world where everyone is too self absorbed to take the time to listen and pay attention to the people around them. Lots of stories of him sitting in clubs he owned and just watching people by himself…stories of him even doing that in later years as well. He’s also known to ask a ton of questions and read and have
monologuesdiscussions with people about all kinds of topics… - And again to me his eroticism isn’t sex so much as it is just raw honesty and being fully present in my eyes…something just as intense though…
I digress…
I…just…don’t have a lot of faith in how his legacy is officially handled…
Seeing how Grace.land has their E.lvis weeks…it’s sooooo impersonal and commodified…and cold…
P is just not that…he’s very warm and…I don’t know.
I super want to support them because they have a job to do…but I just wish they did it with more…engagement….like he did…because that is a huge part of his legacy as well. As much as he was known for going his own way, he was someone who snooped and listened and cared about his fams…and adjusted to provide the best experience for us (or tried to).
Then, fams are trying to carry on his legacy as best we can…and ha maybe getting taken down the way we were is indicative of that legacy as well, but…even his version of that was more personal.
Just a lot of…missing him lately I guess….
Gross haha I’m being sappy on the 21st…let me get out of here…
Also new canon entry : offering to re-design 4thefunk while P was still here… it getting noticed by his people…them finding out it was me…I get a phone call that starts as a threat and ends up in a 2 year rotation as a muse lol…ah bless
P.S. For older me’s reference. Governm.ent shutdown happened again. Not furloughed…company is paying for us this week to start. They paid us the whole time last time this happened…hopefully they will resolve this soon though. I plan to use the down time to do some massive Agile training for the staff and write up a proposal for me to be the Agile Transformation coach for my client’s entire division. It’s been hinted at already as an ask from them, but I need to write down my actual implementation plan to help them along. Ideas swirling in my head for weeks now and it’s the perfect time to get it down.
What a week…
