A Classic

Lest you think my father was perfect, he was not.

For one, he worked in management, so whenever I bitched about my job, he took the side of  "the man" which was supremely annoying.  That's a topic I'll come back to in another post, another day.

He also devalued any cultural phenomenon he didn't discover himself - and specifically, here I'm thinking music.  When my sister started listening to Boy George and Culture Club - Colour by Numbers, my father was giving her shit for it, and she told Dad it was going to be "A Classic".  Ehhhh.  Maybe?

Do you really want to hurt me?



Around that time, Prince was also in full effect, and Laura had the Purple Rain cassette, too.  From that point on, anytime Dad heard some modern music he didn't care for, he'd ask, "Is that Prince?"

I remember being in the car with Mom and listening to Darling Nikki, and the "masturbating with a magazine" lyric came up.  She asked me if I understood what that meant.  I'd read Judy Blume's Deanie by that point, I think.  So I knew what masturbation was, at least quasi-academically.  But in my young mind, I assumed that she was literally using the magazine applied directly to her genitalia.  What did I know?

So when I heard Prince died, I felt sad, but I had to laugh because my two memories involving him weren't so misty-watercolored.

But, unlike Boy George... I think we can safely say - Prince was a classic.

ae

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