Obama Ain't Done Sheeeeeeeet ... But What Have We Done?

As The Big Brutha prepares to make his first State of the Union address tonight, there sure is a lotta folks wailing at walls and gnashing at teeth around this great land of ours. For the past couple months, the left wing of Air Blogosphere has exploded with vitriol over Obama's seeming lack of accomplishment (especially when it comes to their own particular agenda--whatever it be). And since Republican Scott Brown was elected to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, it's gone nuclear with more fervor and rage than one can really explain.

While the Right wing has been complaining that Obama's been doing too much, those on the Left have been utterly apoplectic, spluttering, "Obama ain't done this. Obama ain't done that. Obama ain't done it with a wiffle ball bat." Because the Live Prez has somehow failed them in one arena or another in his first 12 months, they are starting to view him as an utter failure and are wondering how his Presidency can be "salvaged."

The odd thing about this madness is that all this sound and fury really is being told by idiots (yours truly included) and doesn't only signify nothing--but is pure delusion. Obama has already had five pieces of major legislation passed:

--Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

--Matthew Sheppard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act

--Repealed the stem cell research ban

--An expanded version of the State Children's Health Insurance Program

--The dreaded Stimulus Package

In fact, Obama's accomplished more than H.W., Carter, and Reagan did in their first year. Bush Babee got five, but two were 9/11-related. Clinton also got five pieces through. If you also throw in all the policy initiatives that he reportedly threw into the stimulus, as one reporter put it, he's had the most successful first year of any president since LBJ.

Oh yeah, and remember how we had eight years of deregulation regulators all throughout the government? Remember our poisoned spinach? Poisoned dog food? Poisoned dry wall, for godsakes?

Remember how SEC officials were handing Bernie Madoff their resumes? And how Interior Department officials, who sold mineral rights, were literally caught in bed with oil company employees?

Oh yeah, and what about motherfuckin' Hurricane Katrina?!!!

FEMA, FDA, SEC, ACC, the Big East, and the Big Ten! The past eight years have been an alphabet clusterfuck soup of governmental incompetence with the "You're doing a good job, Brownie" W. stamp of approval. A mess that, if scuttlebutt around town is to be believed, Obama's steadily cleaning up all the while trying his best to shut the "revolving door" between government officials and lobbyists, while Republicans fight damn near his every nomination.

And has anybody heard about how Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's kicking oil and mining interests out of our public lands and putting up windmills?

But none of this matters, of course. None of it is enough. "He needs to focus on jobs." As soon as he stepped into office, he got that $787 billion stimulus package (he'd wanted $1.2 trillion) through to save hundreds of thousand state employees from getting laid off and start or continue public works projects. But that's not focusing on jobs. He saved Detroit (which I was against) and tons of suppliers and dealerships. But that's not focusing on jobs either.

He stepped into office looking another Great Depression in the face while being engaged in two wars. The financial mess was 30 years in the making, but somehow he's supposed to fix it in 12 months. Bush, Paulson, and Congress gave Wall Street a $700 billion check and said, "Do what you want?" And while Geithner's got to go, Obama gets slammed for Wall Street's excesses.

Every time he tries to address these problems, the Right says he's doing too much; the Left, too little. And if he actually accomplishes something, we still say, "Obama ain't done shit."

Sure, it comes with the territory. This is politics, after all. But this all reminds me of that scene from Blazing Saddles, when Cleavon Little dispatches the town terror, Mongo, with an explosive candygram. Gene Wilder says, "Nice idea you had there with the candygram." Whereby, Cleavon Little resignedly sighs, "Yeah. But they probably won't give me credit for it, anyway."

Now, many Lefties will counter that he doesn't really deserve credit for any of it because he didn't get health care passed. So they conclude that, you guessed it, "Obama ain't done shit."

Now, this disappointment is to be expected. As I said before, Obama had been adopted as a sort of Messianic figure (just as Reagan and Clinton before him). We won't admit it, but we really wanted him to deliver us out of the wilderness. And while we didn't expect it to be instant--we kinda did. We set ourselves up for disappointment (as I'd promised), and now we've got it.

The thing is, in all that magnificent oratory Obama delivered during the campaign, filling us with "hope" for "change," there was one message of his we've all conveniently forgotten: we were supposed to be the agents for change.

In speech after speech, interview after interview, Obama said that the only thing that could combat the lobbyists and special interests and get Congress off their payola-plump posteriors was if we got out there and pulled them off their seats--you know, "people power." Yet, during this entire health care "debate," where were we?

When I went to a health care town hall meeting, I saw protesters all right. These people:





Oops. Sorry. I meant these people:





Damn. I meant these people:






Well, you get the idea.


Oh yeah, the Right heard Obama's message and acted. Dick Armey, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, and the Tea Baggers mobilized the troops. And while they represented less than 20 percent of public sentiment on the issue, they not only paralyzed the debate, they took that sumbitch over.

Yet, where were the 70 percent of folks who said they actually wanted health care reform? Better yet, where were all the people who claim to be liberal, Left, Progressive? Here we had a Democratic White House and Congress being besieged by Republicans, Fox News, lobbyists, and Tea Baggers, and we, the people who'd supposedly "fought" for health care for some 20 years now, were nowhere to be found.

At the town hall meeting I'd attended, there were liberals in the crowd. But we were few and far between, and, when the Tea Baggers started chanting for the cameras, few, if any rose their own voices in counter-protest and, when they did, they were timid and mousy and frankly seemed scared.

The Republicans brought the ruckus. This debate was a street fight, and they came with sticks and knives and brass knuckles and bazookas. We didn't even bring a motherfucking guitar to sing "Kumbayah." Hell, we didn't even bother to show up.

Those who used to call themselves Progressives, etc., back in the day would be ashamed. Unions during the Progressive Era faced cops with their billy clubs and guns, Pinkerton boys and their private armies. They faced Gatling guns, people! Civil Rights activists faced the Klan, FBI, cops, assassins' bullets, firebombs, and lynchings. We today couldn't even bother to get in our cars and go shout down a bunch of rednecks.

No, we'd rather sip on our lattes, watch Stewart and Colbert, get snarky on our blogs, and feel morally superior. Instead of joining the street fight, we tsk-tsked the Tea Baggers, clicked a Cause button on our Facebook, and acted like we did some shit.

So, right after you slam The Big Brutha for not doing anything about health care, ask yourself what you did. Most of you didn't protest against the Tea Baggers. You certainly didn't pull off a March on Washington. But the Tea Baggers did.

Oh wait. I know. You signed that MoveOn petition, didn't you?

Well, it looks like it just wasn't enough, was it?

When it comes to politics in this country, like it or not, we get what we deserve. During that whole debacle last year, we saw the fight. We saw the Republicans and Tea Baggers go at our President with guns blazing. We saw the Dems cringe and go lick their wounds on Corporate America's teat. We saw it all.

I'm not saying that things would've been different. Who knows? But we made it all too easy for everyone involved. None of these politicians had angry citizens banging at their doors demanding health care reform. The lobbyists were at the door. The Tea Baggers were at the door. But not the 70 percent of folks who said they wanted health care reform. We weren't there. We didn't make it uncomfortable for them.

To put it bluntly, people, we didn't do shit.

And who's to blame for that, liberals? Obama? The Corporcrats? The Tea Baggers? Or us?










PS. I know this is what we all were expecting when Obama took office ...





But that shit only happens in movies.

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Purple Rain--Deconstructed (Happy 25th!)

As I've stated before, Purple Rain isn't my favorite Prince album. In fact, off the top of my head, I think I'd rank it, perhaps, fourth behind 1999, Parade, and Sign o the Times. However, last month, this landmark album turned 25, and I haven't heard that much about it. So, I figured I'd jot down some thoughts about the album that made Prince the legend he is today.

Upon reflection, Purple Rain has got to be one of the weirdest, most idiosyncratic albums to ever reach Billboard's No. 1 slot. The fact that it spent 24 weeks there still baffles me. I realize now that he made some serious concessions to popdome in order to make it so (I'll be getting to that), but it doesn't take away from the weirdness and utter Prince-ness of the album.

Purple Rain was Prince's sixth album (could you imagine today's major labels sticking with an artist for six albums before they become a star?), and I think it signifies the third phase of his early career.

For Prince's first three albums, For You, Prince, and Dirty Mind, he was basically a curious disco act. He scored a minor hit with "Wanna Be Your Lover," but if he would've stayed on the same tract, he probably just would've ended up being a minor, musical footnote or someone hipster DJs would play at the end of their sets. Fortunately, with Dirty Mind he got his first hint of crossover appeal for, basically, being a pervert in high heels and bikini briefs. But enough white folks took notice that, while still relegated to only black radio and getting booed off the stage when he opened for the Stones in LA, his music started branching out.

You can hear the experimentation in Controversy (and remember Dana Plato aerobicizing to the title track on Diff'rent Strokes?). He gets more than a little weird with "Annie Christian" and goes New Wave with "Ronnie Talk to Russia." He gets utterly sick with it with 1999. A rare double album, you can see Prince going in all kinds of different directions, and he was rewarded with a few crossover hits ("DMSR" even appears in Risky Business).

All of this leads to the beginning of his third stage, Grade A Certified Pop Star! and the album and movie, Purple Rain.

Before then, Prince pretty much just funked up the ghetto. Now, he was to rock the world. Aside from the called shot, "Baby I'm a Star," you can tell he produced the album with mega-stardom in mind. First, with black radio, Prince was known to produce some serious funk jams ("Soft and Wet," "Head," "Let's Work," "DMSR"). There are absolutely none on this album. He still gives us the ballad that would have all the black girls crying, "The Beautiful Ones," but no jam. The other thing you'll notice is that Purple Rain is absolutely guitar-laden, which his previous efforts were most definitely not. He wasn't turning his back on his people, but he was definitely trying to appeal to a broader, whiter audience. After all, back in the '80s, if a track didn't have a guitar solo, what did it have? (Oh yeah, a cheesy sax solo--I almost forgot). But hey, I ain't hatin'. This is Prince, after all. I will love him till my last breath.



Let's Go Crazy

From the very beginning, Prince let's you know this is not going to be your average, everyday pop album. Church organ, wedding ceremony. Except we are not wedding each other, we are vowing to join in Prince's peculiar pop madness. I mean, outside of this weird cartoon porn I once saw with Magilla Gorilla and Grape Ape, I've never seen a purple banana. What the hell was that all about?

I actually like the 12-inch, movie version of this song better (oh, remember those Prince 12 inches?) with his insanely banging away at the piano, but it definitely makes you dance and scream, "Oh no! Let's Go!" And the Hendrix-y solo at the end. Who knew Prince could play like that?



"Take Me with You"

Union Paul can tell you the hold Appolonia had on me. The first time he drove me around Minneapolis, any time I'd see a body of water--lake, stream, glass of water--I'd slyly go, "That's not Lake Minnetonka," until he said, "Actually, Bill, that is Lake Minnetonka." "Oh."

Appolonia definitely had a pretty weak voice, and this song was too cheesy for me back in the day. But I'm getting older and I'm weeding myself from listening to rap in Poohbutt's presence (I really don't want her going to day care screaming, "Fuck you, niggaz"); the song's definitely growing on me. Besides, the wife and I need a vacation. I wanna play this song before we embark. Wouldn't that be cute?



"The Beautiful Ones"

Good Memory: One night in college, we of Beta Lambda (the lounge my friends and I used to hang out in) suddenly started singing this song for no apparent reason. I still love those fools!

Anyway, I think that when hip-hop, with its monotonous beat and lack of tempo changes, took over R&B, a lot of "soul" vocalists lost the ability to tell a story through their music. They forgot that the music and the way they sing can tell a story probably even better than the lyrics themselves (just think of the resigned melancholia of Otis Redding's "(Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay" and how Michael Bolton utterly fucked! that song up).

"The Beautiful Ones," to me, perfectly embodies the frustration and hurt of unrequited love (something pubescent Bill could totally sympathize with). He starts off with that fragile falsetto--like he's just sort of trying to mention to his woman that it, well, you know, irks him that she's not totally his. She ain't feelin' His Royal Badness. He gets more and more frustrated. He ends up SCREAMING why she should be with him, saying he may be a loser but she can make him a winner, that no one can love her like he could--but somewhere in mid-scream, he realizes that it's utterly useless, and the song just peters out. Now, that's just some good drama right there. You can even see the film credits rolling at the end of the song.



"Computer Blue"

Yes, the androgynous, lesbian sex slave fantasy droned by Wendy (replacing "1999"'s Jill Jones) and Lisa kick the song off. I often prefer to imagine Sheila E. and Vanity singing this part. Other than that, who the hell knows what this song is about. But what a cool jam! Oh yeah, and the guitar playing. Prince proved that he could rock--with just a touch of jazz.



"Darling Nikki"

The song that brought about the end of Western civilization. Yep, Nikki and her magazine-masturbating, stank ass sicced Tipper Gore and her PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) hounds down on the music industry. That gave us that stupid "Parental Advisory" sticker and freed up artists to now curse to high heaven and be as nasty as they wanted to be on their albums. Ironic, ain't it?

Of course, at 14, I loved this song because it was sooooo nasty. Now, I love it because it's such a great jam. I mean, you don't get to hear musicians cut loose on an album that often anymore. And here, they just ... went ... off!

It also reminds me of that horrible menace that was going to turn all us kids into Satan-worshiping mass murderers ... backward masking!

Run for the hills, people!



Side Two
Yes, Albums Used to Have Sides





"When Doves Cry"

Yes, Modik, this is still my favorite Prince song. I still remember where I was when I first heard this song. I was taking a shower getting ready for my high school picnic at the local amusement park, Kennywood. I used to bring my (nowhere near a) boom box into the bathroom with me and listen to the radio. I was washing my hair when "Doves" came on, and I screamed, "Oh my God! That's Prince!" so loud and in such a high pitch, my shower's sliding glass doors cracked.

Now, when I say Purple Rain has got to be the weirdest pop album ever, this is by far the weirdest No. 1 song ever. I mean, how the hell did this song ever chart?

OK, you're immediately drawn in my the opening guitar lick. There's probably not a person under 35 who doesn't recognize it. It's so great, it tempts one to ask, "Eddie Van Wholen?" And then the synth hook latches onto your brain.

But then, it's just bizarre.

First, there's no bass line. That's not so strange today because of hip-hop. But American music was always supposed to have a bass. That must've been a first (I'm sure someone out there will correct me).

For much of the song, all you've got is that drum, with an utterly undanceable 7/4 time signature (had to look that one up) that made it look as though an epileptic epidemic had hit America's dance floors.

The synths are utterly haunting and Prince sounds like an exsanguinating David Bowie through most of the song. And what's with all the Oedipal overtones? Maybe you're just like my mother? "Hey, Art, wasn't this the sick fuck who had that song about screwin' his sister?!"

None of this screams, "Hit song." But what makes the song's popularity utterly mind-boggling is that the last two minutes of this five-minute song are filled with Prince's panting, moaning, and screaming incomprehensibly in his trademark three-part harmony (oh yeah, and another guitar solo). You can just imagine radio programmers holding that little purple 45, going, "What the fuck is this?"

I think all of these reasons are why this is my favorite Prince song. This simply is not a pop song, yet it was his most popular song, which launched his career and the movie into the stratosphere. What are either without this song?

Pure, fucking genius.



"I Would Die 4 U"

I think the movie and that weird hand gesture made this song. It gave us teeny-boppers something to latch onto. And wasn't this the part where he's scuttling across the stage licking and feeling himself up? Always good for a nostalgic chuckle at a party.



"Baby, I'm a Star"

I love this song because of the utter hubris of it. "You might not know it now, but, baby, I'm a star." I wish I had the temerity to declare something like that--and the great fortune to be right! It's also the funkiest cut on the album. And, lo and behold, no guitar solo.



"Purple Rain"

Of course I love the song and the fabulous guitar work. Just, in the context of the movie, what a weird song.

"Yeah, look, Appalonia, sorry I beat the shit out of you. My Dad's a wife beater, and, well, you know ... the apple, the tree, and all that. But, look, 'it's such a shame our friendship had to end. I only wanna see you in the purple rain (no, I have no clue what that is either, but stick with me here).' So, hey, why don't we get back together? Obviously, I got enough talent to get you an album deal, and don't I play like Hendrix?"

But hell, who didn't tear up when he sang this song? Who didn't cheer when the Kid was vindicated? Who didn't say, "Yeah, suck it," when even Morris Day and the Time had to admit that he was superior? And whose heart didn't melt when Appalonia planted a big wet one on our boy?

Two better questions:

Who didn't buy this album?

and ...

Isn't it amazing that it still holds up after all this time?






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6/7/58 -- The Greatest Day in Music History

That's right, Prince Rogers Nelson turns 51 today. Crank up your iPod and celebrate this, the greatest day in music history!





For those who haven't read this, yet, please enjoy my old tribute to His Royal Oldness, Prince & Eye: What's This Strange Relationship?






Also, you've got to give it up for the Summer of '58. Prince (June 7), Madonna (August 16), Michael Jackson (August 29), and, for you Brits, Kate Bush (July 30) were all born that season. I don't know what the hell was in the water in Fall '57 (aside from maybe DDT), but whatever it was, bring that crap back!







Now please, sit back, relax, and enjoy my favorite Prince joint, "When Doves Cry."







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Q-Tip, Prince, & DJ Scratch

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Prince & Eye: What's This Strange Relationship?

Author's Note: I wrote this essay back in 2002 when I was a music critic for Ink 19. People--including yours truly--enjoyed it in the past, and I wanted it to become an official part of The Tome. I hope you find it to your liking.

Mir,

Bill





It would, perhaps, take the professional insight of a psychologist or a sociologist to divine what it is about our society that makes us love our musical stars so devoutly -- that makes our adoration cling so desperately to them -- from their nova heights to their ignominious falls and all the scandals in between. If everyone else's obsession is somewhat like mine, perhaps it all starts in pre-adolescence -- that quixotic time when we become aware of our own being and struggle desperately between individuality and conformity with those earnest eyes that glaze over with age. Those confusing times when we first hear "Fly Me to the Moon" or "Hound Dog" or "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and glean from those tunes the profundity that only a 12-year-old can find. And we find ourselves in an adulating fervor and an attachment to those singers even when they become an Alzheimer's mumble on stage or die in an overdosed heap on the toilet or sell their souls, schlocking their own peculiar brand of Liverpudlian U.S. nationalism. No sin, no shame, or embarrassment can be great enough, the deterioration of talent can't be disgraceful enough for us to realize, to abandon those stars, to excise that special place they hold in our hearts. If it sounds like there is any amount of arrogance in this pen, it is not intended -- for I have a ventricle or two dedicated to a star of my own: Prince.

No, there's no shame in my game. I am a Prince fan. I have been for most of my life. I had the posters, the pins, the albums, even the purple vinyl 45 of "When Doves Cry." I collected the 12-inches for the B-sides. 1999 was my first concert. And I'll probably be there for his last. I know the lyrics, The Revolution's membership by name, and all sorts of trivia that a grown man really shouldn't know about another adult he's not sleeping with. Yes, I am a fanatic.

Now, I know I'm not alone in this. The Prince fan club is enormous. In fact, I bet if you are an African-American male aged 28-38 (like me), you're a fan. But his club is much larger than that demographic, and at times you can see that legion of freaks in purple trench coats, high-heeled boots, and mascara, screeching, "Come back, Nikki! Come back!"

I don't know all their stories (perhaps they simply love genius), but I'm writing this (obviously) to tell mine. It's been something I've been trying to figure out for years: why do we attach ourselves so readily and steadfastly to other peoples' stories? Why do we take something that can't be more impersonal (mass-produced entertainment) and make it our own to the point that we -- and millions of others -- can personally identify with it and its creators?

For me, it starts with being an Integration Baby. Though the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregating schools had been handed down over 20 years before I entered school, it was still a challenge for a black child entering a majority white school. There was a lot of shit to get over. The Civil Rights backlash was in full swing. The North had been sympathetic to those "poor Negroes" being beaten up trying to get a cup of coffee down in Selma, but, when those same blacks with their "militant" afros started shipping their kids to white schools in places like Sewickley, PA -- well, that was a different story. Bussing, affirmative action, and equal opportunity, white privilege, the riots of the late '60s and early '70s gave rise to Spiro Agnew's "Silent Majority," Dirty Harry and Death Wish safari fantasies in the "untamed" inner city, and a schizophrenic tug-of-war between liberalism and racism -- often being waged within individuals themselves. There were also the recalcitrant, deeply-rooted Stepin Fetchit images of blacks as slaves and coons, phrenologically and genetically inferior beings who were too stupid to handle anything as hard to spell as "Education" and were simply not deserving of the "better things in life" -- just like our neighborhoods, we'd only destroy them, soil them with chicken grease or watermelon seeds. As I said, a lot of shit for an eight-year-old.

That year -- 1978 -- was the year I moved from Cannonsburg, PA (the home of Perry Como and Bobby Vinton) to Carnegie, PA (it was also the year Prince's debut, For You, came out, but his Royal Badness doesn't enter the story quite yet). By that time, for me, there had already been several "nigger"-inspired fights inside and outside of school. My mother's was the biggest conflict, though: to get me a proper education. Our beloved principal at First Street Elementary firmly believed that blacks were intellectually inferior and should be tracked as such (therefore proving himself right). Even when test scores from the University of Pittsburgh showed his brilliant thesis to be more than erroneous in the case of this student, he refused to relent, and I was stuck in the "dumb" track until Mom broke camp and sent me to Catholic school.

Despite what Hollywood tries to tell us about good and evil, even with the issue of black and white, there is no black and white. No total barbed-wired walls of hatred and no all-encompassing embraces of love. Especially in those rapidly changing times when some blacks were earning enough to actually move into white neighborhoods. There was an odd mixture of love and hate. There were neighbors who did accept us and neighbors who didn't. Neighbors who acted as though they did who really didn't. And neighbors you'd expect to hate us who really did love us. That was Carnegie. That was St. Luke School.

There were only two other black families in our neighborhood. One was an offensive lineman for the Steelers, who'd gained the acceptance four Super Bowl rings will get you. The other family had a boy who wasn't too bright and all too willing to play the clown. My arrival was too much, the straw that broke the camel's back. I was greeted by one girl who told me that I didn't deserve to live there and a group of boys who tried running me out with stones and a BB gun. However, since the concept of race and all that that means wasn't firmly implanted at eight, I was befriended by a very popular, portly kid, T.G., and was soon incorporated into certain areas of the neighborhood.

Catholic school was definitely an opportunity. There were fights -- but they were mainly personal, not racial. And the only form of discrimination I received at first was a C in Religion among straight As because I wasn't Catholic (that practice soon ended and I became a straight A student). I even became class president in fourth grade.

But things change. These were the 1980s, and this was western Pennsylvania. The Silent Majority had spoken with razor tongues. Reagan had ridden their chorus into the White House with his revisionist, alabaster Leave it to Beaver 1950s platform. He was making people proud to be "American" again. Harken back to a Donna Reed, Ward and June Cleaver '50s that had no black faces (being lynched because they were impertinent enough to want to vote) and where women stayed in the kitchen (though not all the Rosies had given up the rivet) and the white man ruled his pot-roast-and-potatoes domain with a sagacious fist. One could completely forget Jimmy Carter's "malaise" -- forget those damned terrorist A-rabs and their oil embargoes, forget that ass-whipping the gooks gave us in Viet Nam, those bull dyke bra-burning bitches and their ERA, the pinko commie fag hippies with their free love and costly drugs, the Stonewall homos, and the inner city jungle bunnies who were ready to mug, rape, kill any "honky" who dared to stumble into their concrete forest.

The white-washed Reagan '80s was a time of convenient amnesia, where the troubling questions of the previous 20 years were swept away in a fantasyland America that never truly existed. In a time where white, male privilege was being challenged on all fronts, Ronnie eschewed soul-searching for a new vision of America fashioned out of his Hollywood past, where minority, feminist, and Third World claims for self-determination could be derided as "anti-American." These peoples' claims were to be relegated to a very familiar space -- out back -- and the white man, the "American," was to reassert his primacy.

The entertainment industry took the hint. Gone were those movies that questioned the American ("white"?) experience. Joe, Easy Rider, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now no more. This was a different America. Sylvester Stallone takes a down-and-out shakedown thug for the mob in Rocky, slicks him down and sleeks him up and has him do battle with the inner-city beast (Mr. T) and then the Communist menace (Dolph Lundgren). The same actor gives the ostracized Viet Nam vet, Rambo, a shave and has him win the southeast Asian war our own military could not. Chuck Norris, Gene Hackman, Patrick Swayze, and a whole slew of B actors return to Viet Nam with him, creating the myth that we had actually won the war. Fred Dryer goes to Lebanon to erase the humiliation our Marines suffered there. Clint and Charles Bronson were still painting the dark streets of the inner city red with the blood of blacks and browns, making it safe for whites again. Outside the '70s hold-over, The Jeffersons, and Eddie Murphy, you had two ghetto urchins living high off the hubris of a rich white man (Diff'rent Strokes), Nell Carter's Mammy (Gimme a Break), the token Tootie (Facts of Life), or the stereotypical dark beasts on cop shows like Hill Street Blues.

The music industry was even worse. With the Nuremberg rally at Comiskey Park in 1980, where the crowd burned every disco record they could find, disco died. The dance form had taken the nation by storm and had sold more records than any preceding genre. And, just as has happened when a black musical form levels the country with its popularity, there was a white backlash that attempted to erase all memory of its previous fervor. The jazz of the '20s was forgotten in the Depression until white acts like Benny Goodman, the Dorseys, Frank Sinatra, and the like could put their own bright faces on the dark form. Early rock 'n roll was banned until Bill Haley and the Comets, Buddy Holly, Elvis, and Pat Boone could put a more palatable, brighter facade before the institution. Black doo wop artists were kicked aside by the British Invasion, many of whose members were simply covering previous doo wop hits from black artists (now, who was it who covered The Isley Brothers' "Twist And Shout"?). So, why would Reagan's Back to the Future '80s be any different?

Top 40 radio stopped playing disco or any other "urban" music. Thanks to Billboard's peculiar tracking system, which did not tally actual sales of records but what record owners said sold, African-American releases rarely made the Top 40. In your larger retail outlets, it was difficult to find releases by blacks. And the Bull Conners at the nascent MTV had a "Whites Only" policy so that, unless your name was Michael Jackson (who was getting whiter with each video), your black ass was not even seen on the video station (take for example Herbie Hancock's "Rockit," where Herbie's rarely seen -- and only through a filmed TV screen -- because the video's producers knew that MTV would not play it if Hancock, an African-American, were prominent). So, even music, once again, was becoming racialized.

St. Luke School, where I was the first and only black child to attend (until eighth grade), was to suffer the same fate. There was the beautiful, sagacious Mrs. DiPaolo, who was kind enough to bring in stories about black "welfare mothers" with 20 children and stories of inner city violence and proceed to tell the class how "fortunate" little Billy was to go to school with "us" so he'll hopefully one day not turn out "like the rest of them." She also thought that Europe was a country and shared the same beliefs as my old principal. She would chronically give me Fs on tests, and, when I'd go back and correct them to find that I'd actually gotten an A, she would fail me for my "bad attitude." Much to the school's credit, they fired her after my Mom and the Filipino kid's mother put pressure on them to do so.

But, Mrs. DiPaolo was not the only culprit. Things had changed. There were titters and looks and jokes. Kids were being taught at home. The very parents who greeted Mom and me at school were telling their kids the funniest anecdotes and most hysterical quips, and I suffered for their lessons. It's not as though I hadn't been warned. I still remember that Sunday afternoon when the elders took me aside and told me not to trust them white folks, that they'll turn on you, and I defended my white friends with the fervor of a pre-adolescent and cried and cried and cried -- because how could T.G., B.G., D.F., P.J.M., C.B., how could all my best friends turn their backs on me?

Well, you can figure out what happened. School had become a war zone. Fights were no longer personal. There weren't many, but they all started with "nigger" (or "niger," when they had to revert to spelling). But, mainly, it was jokes and comments and a collective turn of the back. I was no longer to play in their reindeer games. T.G. and the crew let me know I wasn't welcomed in the neighborhood. If I were invited to anything, it was because the whole class was. The Filipino kid, P.J.M., who'd been a really good friend, now hated me because no one knew what a Filipino was to hate one and he, I guess, feared the proximity of our skin tones would dump some of the hate on him. I remember one of the girls to whom I'd grown close, K.B., withdrawing after being called a "nigger lover" (the sin of all sins). And, despite the grades and intellect, I was no longer "the smart kid," the mantle involuntarily being passed to another kid, R.Z., because there was no way in hell a black kid could be smarter than whites.

At the time, if there were any friendships (and there were with R.Z. and S.H.), I no longer trusted them. I trusted no one because at any moment they could and probably would turn on me. It was so easy -- too easy. And, who needed that shit? Besides, I was now the outsider -- and everybody seemed to hold me at arm's length. What I needed was a friend I could trust, a black friend, someone who couldn't easily stab me in the back for a cheap laugh and easy acceptance. Well, there wasn't one to be found. However...

...there was Prince.

1999 had just come out. I was 12 and friendless. A fly in the milk who everyone hated and ignored. Much like the artist himself. The tiny black man with straight hair, high heels, and make-up, who talked about the weirdest kind of sex humanly possible -- and, damn, was he funky!

Now, even in retrospect, Prince is a very peculiar mantle on which to place one's racial pride, but my discovery of Nikki Giovanni, Richard Wright, Claude McKay, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton were a couple years away. Damned peculiar when you take into account his lying about his own racial make-up ("Am I black or white?"). Not to mention his androgyny ("Am I straight or gay?"). But, here was a freak. I was considered a freak. He was damned proud of it. Why shouldn't I be? And while Michael Jackson was dating Brooke Shields and Emmanuel Lewis and was being embraced by the white establishment (MJ had even left Motown!), Prince was being played by that same establishment despite itself. He was funky and dirty and kinky (though his hair wasn't), singing about things you just didn't sing about and he was doing it funky, doing it black -- spraying his sex all over the place. None of that sanitized popsicle crap that even the whitest girl on the planet (Brooke again) could find acceptable, but the stuff her mother would've sent her to the convent just for listening to.

And, when those white kids found out I listened to Prince -- well, he wasn't Duran Duran or Def Leppard or Van Halen, Black Sabbath, The Who, The Beatles, or Night Ranger -- you know, real music. He was a dirty little nigger faggot who played jungle music. My love for the man's music thickened my lips and limped my wrist. When I tried dancing like him or singing like him, a bone zipped through my nose and I ate human flesh for lunch.

But, by then, I didn't care (sort of). By seventh and eighth grade I knew I was the outsider, the pariah. I knew everything I did was wrong. And no matter what I did, people weren't going to like me for it (like on The Jeffersons when George gave that Klansman CPR to save his life and, upon finding out, the supremacist wished they would've let him die). I was anti, but now I had an anti-hero. And Prince's music let me be proud of that. Every time I listened to the nasty songs ("Sister," "Head," "DMSR," "Lady Cab Driver"), my 13/14-year-old self knew that it was cool to be an object of derision, to be someone everyone else looked down upon, to be black. Maybe it was because we were nastier, sexier, more talented, or more intelligent than the rest of them; it didn't matter. Let them talk down at us, call us fucked-up names -- they were just scared. And their fear wasn't going to stop me from being what I am: black.

So, I went to the concert. I loved every bass-thumping moment of it (thanks, Uncle Rod!). I became a fanatic. I wore my "Prince 1999" pin like a badge of honor. And to damn near everyone's derision, I bought all the albums, had all the posters (even that Controversy one where he's basically naked in the shower -- I gave that one away), and reveled in the new reason behind my ostracism. Because I didn't need their approval.

Who am I kidding? I was a kid. I did need their approval. I just thought I didn't. But, with high school around the corner and the acquisition of a few black friends from the Art Institute, their approval was not as important as it had been. And it wasn't until I'd been graduated from St. Luke that that approval did come.
It was 1984. We were all leaving eighth grade and going off to our separate high schools where we'd get a fresh start with a new, "more mature" crowd. "When Doves Cry" was rocketing up the charts, and Purple Rain had just come out. Even though I was only 14, there was no stopping my going -- several times -- to see the movie. Of course, I was not alone. Purple Rain was the surprise runaway hit of the summer, and Prince had gone from the "nigger faggot" to the superstar. Even MTV played his videos!

That July at a "graduation" party all the kids were talking, with enthusiasm, about their upcoming high school careers and my anti-hero, Prince. Suddenly, everybody loved him -- and were actually a bit cooler with me. It's funny, because it was an approval that I'd thought I hadn't needed and an approval I haven't even bothered looking for since (in fact, two years later, when I let hip-hop into my life, I loved the fact that white kids hated it -- parts of me wish they still did); but it's hard to express how proud I felt when these kids who'd made my life hell the past three years were lauding the same musician that they'd derided even a few months before. And I can't tell you what joy I felt when B.G., the coolest kid in our class who, of course, really didn't like me all that much, said, "Campbell, I don't know, I used to hate him. But I saw Purple Rain, and Prince is pretty cool."

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