My first exposure to Prince was when he gave me a sensual backrub in an enchanted hotel. I had a second, less flagrantly gay encounter when I saw the video to "Raspberry Beret". The video depicts Prince, wearing a blue jumpsuit with little white clouds all over it, jamming in some sort of pseudo-Beatles psychedelic studio. He rocks the house from atop a pedastal, surrounded by dancers and band-members, one of whom is a topless black guitar player wearing only a cape. There is a brief and largely incoherent animated segment, which depicts doves, someone on a motorbike, and what appears to be the inside of a thundercloud as viewed by a retarded person who just inhaled three ounces of cocaine laced with the moist brown residue that accumulates between your fingers when you squeeze sweaty retarded people. Yes, it's totally fucking insane. These images, combined with an awesome fucking song, started me on my irreversible spiral into drugs, alcohol and Prince.
My rudimentary research into the world of Prince only strengthened my resolve to one day make a flavalicious webpage about him. I listened to more of his songs, then, deciding that most of Prince's hilarity came from his videos, decided to watch one of his movies. The perfect starter movie? Purple Fucking Rain.
The only time the network dared show this pox on cinema was at 4 a.m. on New Year's Day. Setting my alarm to wake me up at 4 a.m. in order to tape it was possibly the second dumbest thing I had ever done in my life, the dumbest being the time I executive produced, co-wrote and starred in the softcore erotic thriller Midnight Deceptions 3: Forbidden Passions, in which a sassy but sexy female cop is lured into an intricate web of lies, a stolen artefact and erotic encounters. I played "Man on Plane", whom the female cop relays important erotic information to whilst on a flight to the "secret mountains of Tibet". Despite my best efforts, the film failed dismally on the home-video market. As dumb as that whole business venture sounds, me taping Purple Rain rivals it.
Prince plays, badly, "The Kid" - a musical genius by night, a tortured teen by day. After one radical gig, Prince returns to his home, to find his father (that black guy from the Mod Squad) slappin' his hoe mother to the floor. Prince foolishly intervenes, and, too, is slapped to the floor like a bitch. These opening scenes perfectly establish Prince's musical genius and his inability to overpower men double his age and half his purpleness.
Prince is drawn to a sensual newcomer to the club circuit, played by someone called Apollonia. Amazingly, the character is called Apollonia, indicating an inability by the filmmakers to come up with names for their characters. Continuining this trend, Prince rival Morris, played by one Morris Day, emerges as a rival for Appolonia's affections. Morris is one smooth customer, smoother than the smooth musical stylings of Dr. Hook, so Prince decides to win Apollonia the only way he can: by tricking her into getting naked.
Prince takes Apollonia to a secluded lake on his extraordinarily gay purple motorcycle. He offers her a chance to break into the music business, on one condition - she removes her clothes and jumps Lake Minatonka. She does so, in a brief but entirely neccessary topless scene. After she staggers out of the lake, now a lot wetter and probably with a bad case of Hepatitis B, Prince laughingly divulges that "that ain't Lake Minatonka." He then races away on said purple Gaymocycle. Yes, Prince certainly has a way with the ladies.
Luckily for Prince, Morris is no better with the ladies. One early scene depicts Morris and his black manservant, Jerome (played by one Jerome Benton) strutting down the street. They are discussing something involving the sentence "the bitches are okay" - it's tough to make out becase the sound quality of this abortion was so fucking bad. Although this sentecne is revealing - ot tells us that Morris refers to women as "bitches", and that said bitches are "okay". With this important plot information made available to us, Morris and Jerome are interrupted by a "bitch", who emerges from a building and accuses Morris of standing her up. Morris nods to Jerome, who abducts the bitch and hurls her violently into a metal rubbish skip. This behaviour is apparently unacceptable, because it is perpetrated by the villainous Morris Day. However, duping women into leaping into lakes is perfectly fine. Why? Because Prince is so fucking hilariously awesome.
After a number of unrelated song performances - one of which is called "Sex Shooter" - Prince and Apollonia's relationship gets into trouble. He slaps her to the ground like the bitch she is. At one stage he plays with a little hand-puppet thing. At one stage he yells "Fuck off!" to prove what a manly, manly swearer he is. He rides around on his motorbike to the fucking awesome beats of "When Doves Cry". He attack Morris on his motorbike, and is called a "long-haired faggot" by Morris. He then returns to the stage for the final "Battle of the Bands" - Prince inexplicably wins the battle with three of his crappiest songs, and then presumably makes long hard love to Apollonia in a barn. I'm pretty sure Morris ends up fucking Jerome in a barn as well. All around, it's a happy ending.
Yes, this movie was totally fucking insane. A sexist piece of conetemptible shit with no redeeming social value. Naturally, I had to watch it at least nine times. I then wrote a long brochure about the film, titled "The Purple Rain Factfile Action Playbook" and distributed it at the local "I'm an Idiot" Trade Fair.
Prince's videos also provided me with plenty of laffs during the "dark times" in my life - namely, my banning from the local shopping mall for distributing pro-Communism leaflets. In The "Kiss" video, Prince performs topless on another low-rent soundstage, cavorting in high-heels with a woman draped in a sheet. In the "Cream" video, Prince strides with confidence and an entourage of hot babes through a train station, whilst being pestered by reporters who ask questions such as, "Are you in love?" and "Do you consider yourself a modern-day Mozart?" Prince, with the best look of annoyance he can muster, refuses to answer. For the reporters' benefit, I offer them answers "online": how the hell should I know if he's in love, and no, he's BETTER than Mozart. Have you ever heard Mozart rap the lyrics, "Keep bustin'"? No, no you fucking didn't.
Thne there's the "Batdance" video, surely the only music video in existence to contain:
a) Prince, dressed half as Batman and half as the Joker, cavorting on a cheaply constructed Batcave soundstage.
b) Prince, in plainclothes (read: by Prince's standards, sexy lingerie), operating an elaborate Batcomputer in said cheaply constructed Batcave soundstage.
c) various Batmen and various Jokers engaging in a breakdancing duel, the winner of which gets to reign as the dark protector of Gotham.
d) Prince yelling "Don't stop dancing, don't turn off the music, son of a bitch!" whilst firing a shotgun in the air. Yes. Yes, I have been scarred for life too.
Fittingly, Prince's musical output degenerated from rad 80s pop to lame 90s rap, and, accordingly, his career spiralled into a depressing mess of high heels and appearing on a celebrity edition of a gameshow called "Monkey Business", in which contestants must wrestle greasy, greasy monkeys to claim a cash prize. Admittedly, that show doesn't exist, but in the name of Christ, it SHOULD. And the host should abseil onto the set each episode, just like the host of "Legends of the Hidden Temple", Kirk Fogg.
Prince, if you're reading this: well done, you've accomplished more in your cool songs and lame movies than George Lazenby managed to accomplish in one James Bond movie, seventy softcore porn movies and one episode of "The Pretender". And to the cast of NBC's "Hang Time", if you're reading this, you SUCK at simulated sitcom basketball!
Tune back in next week for a detailed analysis of my hand smackin' your bitchass face, bitch.
