A Part of My Youth Has Died - Prince Rogers Nelson (1958-2016)

I was at my grandparents' house just outside Dallas watching an old Abbott and Costello movie when the news cut in that the king of rock n' roll has passed. At the time, I had no idea of the impact Elvis had on American culture and didn't really understand the sense of loss many felt. My father once told me that Elvis dying felt like a part of his youth had died.

This week, a part of my own youth died as Prince Rogers Nelson left his Earthly bonds at the age of 57. I was sitting at my desk at work when the news popped up on my phone and I felt shock. I didn't want to believe he was gone. There will always only be one Elvis, but for my generation Prince was pretty damn close.

I first heard his music in high school and remember seeing the cover of "Dirty Mind" and cringing. "Who is this weirdo in the Speedo?" I thought. Then I heard the music and it changed my entire opinion of him. I became a fan. He wasn't a big star yet though. That happened once MTV hit and his videos for "1999" and "Little Red Corvette" went into a regular rotation.

His music brings back so many memories for me.

Walking through the carnival grounds on Pawtucket Boulevard in Lowell, MA with a girlfriend and hearing "Little Red Corvette" blaring from one of the rides (and only learning what the song was really about years later).  

Partying to the "Purple Rain" soundtrack turned up to ten and playing air guitar with dozens of other people to "Let's Go Crazy."

Seeing that film at a midnight show with two hundred other college age drunks and a couple of guys exposing themselves to the entire crowd as the film started (...and no I wasn't one of them) and watching the cops chase them through the auditorium.

Alone with a girlfriend parked at the top of Fort Hill listening to "Sign O' The Times." The song "Adore" was particularly romantic.

DJing on a Thursday night and playing "Erotic City" and a woman telling me I was disgusting. My response? "You're uptight."

So many more...

An amazing musician with few peers, Prince's songs transcended race, creed or color. He wasn't a "black" artist that only appealed to one race. His fans were black, white, Asian, Hispanic and he brought us all together in his music. That party where we cranked "Lets Go Crazy," and played air guitar, there were both black and white students sharing a moment of electricity and togetherness that kids today could learn something from. It's something a lot of today's "artists" could also learn from instead of the racial divisiveness many peddle.

My twenty-three year old son sent me a text and asked if I'd heard the news of Prince's passing. He recognized there will never be another artist like Prince and even went so far as to say the musicians of his generation were not even close to being as good.  Bruno Mars is a talented kid, but in all reality, he's a pale comparison to Prince. I can't even think of another mainstream act that even approaches his talent.

I only got to see him once on tour. I tried hard to get tickets for the "Purple Rain" tour, but they were probably the hardest ticket to get in 1984 and I was shut out. Luckily for me, I was able to see his next big tour when he came through. It was an amazing show and something I wish I could experience again. The energy and the music just made you feel alive. Watch at his amazing Super Bowl performance, arguably one of the top three of all time, and you'll get an idea of what he put into his shows. 

He apparently paid the price for it too as his body was wracked with pain, especially his hips and ankles from the high heels he wore on stage (he was only 5' 2"). 

Beyond the music, he was apparently a great humanitarian. I read today about all the great charity work he did that was never revealed to the public. His friend said because of his religion, he was not allowed to speak about the works he did and forbid his friends from doing so. The report was that he never refused to help someone and provided funds to inner city kids all over America and the world. What a contrast to jerks like Kanye West who can't get enough of themselves and contributes nothing substantial to society.

We've lost a lot of musical greats this year, but none so young and vibrant as his Royal Purpleness. I'm sure at the age of 57 he still had a lot of great music in him. It's sad to think we'll never get to hear what he had planned for the future but I'm thankful for the rich legacy he left behind.

Now if only we can get the current generation of "stars" to follow his positive example!

Sex is Dirty...or Why Lloyd Had No Game (Pt V - Bound for Glory(hole)?)

Well, this is it; the final chapter of this series of blog posts. I hope you found it amusing, heartfelt and perhaps even reflective of some of your own experiences growing up. 

How will I follow this up? I'm not sure but if you have any suggestions, feel free to chime in. 

Part V

So where would a young lad go to learn the actual mechanics of sex? How would I ever demystify the act? Was it as scary as I thought? I certainly felt that way in the confusion of teen hormones and social pressure.

When I turned eighteen senior year of high school, I decided it time to do some serious research. In a few short months, I was about to become a college boy and girls would surely expect more than what I’d been able to provide to date.

 In nearby Lowell there was an infamous adult bookstore called Tower News. It sat on the outskirts of the downtown and ironically was nearly right across the street from the comic book store where I shopped (and dared never speak of at school). I’d heard the stories about the rows and rows of porn mags and the infamous backroom, but I was a little afraid to go in there. I was of legal age to view porn, but my Catholic guilt, the fear of someone I knew seeing me go in there and the fact that even though I was eighteen, I looked fifteen, all led to my fears.

After weeks of planning, I finally got up the nerve, parked at the Zayre’s department store a good distance from the store and made my way to the infamous news stand. I walked in and a disinterested long haired greasy clerk at the counter barely paid me any attention. There were racks and racks of magazines, both porn and mainstream stuff like Sports Illustrated and harder to find magazines like World War II History Monthly. I think there were even some comic books. Not so bad, I thought.  I was also thankful that there wasn’t anyone else in the store.

I walked to the back of the store, waiting for someone to ask what I was doing or for identification, but it never happened. In the backroom, I found a collection of booths made from plywood spray painted black with doors for privacy. I’m guessing if you’d have put a black light on the inside of the booth, it’d have fluoresced like the Disney Electric Light Parade. Thankfully it wasn’t sticky because I may have had to burn my clothes after the experience.

I put a few dollars into a change machine, got eight quarters back, and found an empty booth. Inside was a video screen with a slot to put in a quarter to start the film. My hand trembled a bit as I slipped a quarter into the slot and a projector sprang to life. Suddenly the screen lit up with a grainy film featuring an attractive nude blonde women with big breasts and a hairy seventies era bush getting busy with a guy who I don’t think most women would have found attractive. Hmmm, I thought, so that’s how it’s done correctly. 

I think it took about four minutes before the video stopped and I had to put in another quarter. I dropped another quarter in the slot and continued to watch, when suddenly I heard a male voice whispering to me from the other side of the wall.

“Hey, hey,” the voice said. “Put your dick in the hole and I’ll suck it.”

Fear coursed through my body and to my complete horror, I looked to my right and there was a finger coming through a hole in the plywood.

“Come on, you know you want your dick sucked,” the voice whispered.

I may have, but not like this! I jumped up out of the booth, walked quickly through the shop and exited the store, my head down for fear of making eye contact. I sat in my car for a good twenty minutes, part confused and part disgusted. Was someone playing a trick on me? I was completely baffled. My biggest irrational fear was that my parents would find out that I had been in Tower News and propositioned by a homosexual. I’d have been on lock down until I was thirty!

It was only years later during my time in law enforcement that I learned what a glory hole was. Personally I don’t see the glory in sticking your junk in a hole and having some random person fellate you, but hey, maybe that’s just me. At least I’d had some of my sexual mechanics questions answered, even though let’s face it, porn sets some extremely unrealistic expectations.

Despite getting those pesky sexual mechanics issues answered, as I entered college later that year, I still had no game, but had finally started to gain some measure of confidence. I began to physically mature and the opposite sex definitely noticed. Talking to girls never got easy for me, but I think I figured it out. Don’t get me wrong, you’d have never found me in a bar using cheesy pickup lines, but by sophomore year of college, I was regularly dating. There were a lot of missed opportunities with some quality women that may have prevented a lot of future misery, but I’ve learned that’s not something to dwell on.

Sometime in that second year of college, I ended up in a relationship with my first love, a girl who was going to the same school. After graduation, we got engaged as was routinely expected in those days, but marriage scared the crap out of me. I was still fairly emotionally immature at twenty-two years old and marriage at that point would have been a recipe for failure. Just before I went in the Air Force, we first delayed the wedding and later broke it off and went our separate ways.

I entered active duty as a single officer, which the military at that time didn’t much care for. Even though I had to girlfriend, I felt pressured to be married by my commander and so after about a year and half, I said I do to someone I shouldn’t have.

That may be fodder for future blogs, but the marriage endured over twenty-two years of misery before we finally called it quits (I’m pretty stubborn…it’ll get better tomorrow…it’ll get better tomorrow…it’ll get better tomorrow…).

I suddenly found myself back out in the world single again. I was confident in who I was this time around, but guess what…I still had no game. Thankfully, technology was made for guys like me with dating sites where you can communicate over email, text, etc. before meeting in person. After many first dates, a few second and even third dates, I met a wonderful woman (who ironically I’d gone to high school with!) and we fell in love; real adult mature love…something I’d never experienced before  After nearly three and half years together, we bought a house together and got married.

So yes, this sad little story has a happy ending...and not the kind you get at an Asian massage parlor. 

I still have no game…but I don’t need to anymore. Oh yeah…I also learned along the way that sex is far from dirty. Of course it can be, but those type of puritan attitudes seem to be slowly dying out in America.

Meanwhile, I have a twenty-three year old son who I perceive as having no game…so the legend continues. He definitely seems much smarter than I was about marriage and maybe that’s his generation or the example I set for him.