April 20, 2018

"Images showed cash laying out in the open, on desks, drawers, as well as wads of money stuffed in envelopes and brown bags..."

From "Newly released images show glimpse of life inside Prince's Paisley Park" at CNN Entertainment, which is too shoddy an operation to bother with the laying/lying distinction:



The investigation into Prince's death has ended — there will be no criminal charges — and the file became public, including 100s of photographs of the strange enclave where he lived, worked, and died. The photographs, not lit for publicity purposes, make the place look very sad.

ADDED: Under the "wads of money," there's a CD, "The Best of Missing Persons." This is a band I don't remember, but Wikipedia says it was an L.A. band that combined new wave and hard rock. The singer (Dale Bozzio) was married to the drummer (Terry Bozzio) and they met while working with Frank Zappa in the 1970s.
Dale's quirky voice and heavy makeup made the band a favorite on MTV in the early 1980s. Her revealing outfits played a pivotal role in moving the culture of music videos towards that of overt sexual exhibitionism.
Let's listen (and look):



AND: The other CD — harder to read, because it's upside down — is The Chambers Brothers, "The Time Has Come." And the time had come for Prince. Lyrics:
Now the time has come (Time)
There's no place to run (Time)
I might get burned up by the sun (Time)
But I had my fun (Time)
I've been loved and put aside (Time)
I've been crushed by tumbling tide (Time)
And my soul has been psychedelicized (Time)
I've heard "The Time Has Come" many times. I even saw The Chambers Brothers in concert (in 1969), but never before googling the phrase just now had I associated it with Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter":
'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.'

32 comments:

rcocean said...

Musicians in general seem to rather unstable.

Lots of Depression, mental illness, crazy behavior.

From what I read, Prince didn't OD, he was poisoned.

rhhardin said...

Laying avoids the spelling problem. Lieing? Liing? Lieng?

rcocean said...

Lying out seems too judgmental

Mary Martha said...

It seems like on some level that kind of creativity can only come out of a 'sad' environment.

Ann Althouse said...

"Lying" seems especially bad if it's ones, with Geo Washington, who never lied.

Fernandinande said...

I never thought much of that guy...google tells me the [best prince song] is I Wanna Be Your Lover.

I laughed. Sounds like something from Sesame Street.

Nonapod said...

Some of it's kinda neat, some of it's silly, some of it's a little sad. There certainly seems to be a lot of relics in there. There's what appears to be a couple iMacs from the early 2000s? The studio has what appears to be an old analogue Neve recording console. I bet Prince anything digital when it came to recording (like Pro Tools).

traditionalguy said...

Prince stayed one step ahead of them. He made his own at home Kervorkian Kit. Now he leads the Heavenly Choirs in new songs.

tcrosse said...

Wads of cash out in the open ? We are shocked that large amounts of filthy lucre are to be found in a place of Artistic Creation.

Wince said...

And tacky. Interior decoration done right, especially in a space that cavernous, is art. Evidently there a reason Prince was not know as the Interior Decorator Known As Prince.

Revealingly, Prince was listening to Missing Persons at the end?

Words

I might as well go up and talk to a wall
'cause all the words are having no effect at all
It's a sorry state I say to myself

Something has to happen to change the direction
What little filters through is giving you the wrong impression
It's a funny thing am I all alone?

What are words for when no one listens anymore
What are words for when no one listens
What are words for when no one listens it's no use talkin at all

Do you hear me
Do you care

Let me get by
Over your dead body
Hope to see you soon
When will I know
Doors three feet wide with no locks open
Walking always backwards in the faces of strangers
Time could be my friend
But it's less than nowhere now
Less than nowhere now
Less than nowhere now
Now

Pursue it further and another thing you'll find
Not only are they deaf and dumb they could be going blind and no one notices
I think I'll dye my hair blue

Media overload bombarding you with action
It's getting near impossible to cause distraction
Someone answer me before I pull out the plug

Wince said...

Althouse Updated while I was posting my my last comment about Missing Persons.

Notice: Dale Bozzio's bikini top in the 1983 US Festival video I link.

True "classic fits-into-a-champagne-glass breasts" ... in literal champagne glasses?

From Althouse's "Nipple Post" 3 days ago...

Much nicer than breast implants, I think. I'd love to see the trend change from giant enlarged breasts to classic fits-into-a-champagne-glass breasts with distinct nipples. It's a sporty, healthy, youthful look that I encourage.

David said...

The poor fool. And fie on the people who were supposed to help him.

Wince said...

"...at CNN Entertainment, which is too shoddy an operation to bother with the laying/lying distinction."

What are words for when no one listens anymore
What are words for when no one listens
What are words for when no one listens it's no use talkin at all

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

The photographs, not lit for publicity purposes, make the place look very sad.

Place looks more like an office building than a home. I guess that happens to people who reach Prince's level of stardom; they stop being people and become corporate entities.

walter said...

?
The most applicable:
You ask yourself
When will my time come
Has it all been said and done
I know I'll leave when it's my time to go
'Til then I'll carry on with what I know
Life is so strange
Destination unknown
When you don't know
Your destination
Something could change
It's unknown
And then you won't know
Destination unknown

Earnest Prole said...

The Walrus makes me think of Little Oysters, whose time had also come.

robother said...

"Why the sea is boiling hot..." So, the Walrus was never Paul, it was Al Gore!

walter said...

Destination Unknown

fivewheels said...

Missed out on Missing Persons? Eh, didn't miss that much. But Terry Bozzio is rather legendary, known these days for ridiculously elaborate kits. And he has a stepdaughter, Marina Bozzio, who is the drummer for Aldious, an influential all-female metal band in Japan.


Yancey Ward said...

Missing Persons had two moderate hits in the US that I personally remembered without any prompting other than Althouse mentioning the CD- "Words" and "Destination Unknown". I guess you had to have grown up in the early 80s, though.

I looked at the pictures- they seem to me the evidence of a mind trapped in the past, and probably in great crisis for many years at the thought of him mortality. I am looking around me right now and wondering how people would view my personal environment.

Ann Althouse said...

"I never thought much of that guy...google tells me the [best prince song] is I Wanna Be Your Lover. I laughed. Sounds like something from Sesame Street."

Here, try this.

Browndog said...

"Words" and "Destination Unknown"

I always thought "Walking in L.A." was a bigger hit, but I guess that was just me.

Ann Althouse said...

"And tacky. Interior decoration done right, especially in a space that cavernous, is art. Evidently there a reason Prince was not know as the Interior Decorator Known As Prince."

But how did it look on drugs? You've got to picture the paisley pulsating and swirling.

Ann Althouse said...

"Place looks more like an office building than a home."

It's decorated like a third-rate casino or some kind of bowling alley/roller rink. Really depressing.

Yancey Ward said...

Browndog,

I listened to the song and don't remember ever hearing it anywhere, and believe me- if I had heard it, I probably would remember it, especially since I was very familiar with the other songs- my memory for music and artists is almost savant level for that period of time.

Did you grow in Los Angeles? A song like that might well have been a big regional hit there.

Bonkti said...

Before the Talking Heads "Psycho Killer", there was the Chambers Brothers' "Time has Come".

I had it explained to me in a smokey, blacklit attic in 1970 that "Time has Come" was a first person narrative of Charles Whitman's Texas Clocktower experience. As the song builds to a crescendo, there is a series of shots, sirens begin to wail, a door is broken down, a final flurry of shots and a death gasp.

Kids today don't know about black light posters.

tcrosse said...

Presumably this is the place for triggered racists to flaunt their superior decorating sense, right Howard ?

Bill Peschel said...

Spinal Tap would have had a problem satirizing that drum kit photo.

"The release contained hundreds of photos of Paisley Park that offered a glimpse into the artist's life. "

This is what annoys me about the media: Where's the link? I could spend the evening looking at hundreds of photos of Paisley Park.

I've always said that murder cases are time capsules. A life is stopped, and the police have to record everything that happened up to zero minute. You see actual lives being lived, day by day, minute by minute, in a way that no fiction captures. Only our own lives. I find that fascinating.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I loved Missing Persons when they hit the scene in the 1980's. Loved em!
That song was IT baby.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Other than perhaps that song, which rocks out with the guitar and drums, most 80's music isn't listenable. Missing P included.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Dale Bozzio's solo album "Riot in English" was released in 1988 on Prince's Paisley Park Records, under the mononym "Dale".

And please, don't look it up, for that album is the worst thing ever.