Purple Rain Kind of Day

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life.”

When I found out that Prince had passed away, it was the first time that I remember almost being moved to tears by the death of a celebrity, other than Robin Williams. As I checked in with social media (Twitter and Facebook) I noticed so many tributes to this great artist and how it seemed like people around the world were mourning this man who so few actually knew. I began to think, like the minority it seemed, that maybe I was over thinking the kind of loss I should be feeling.

I never went to a Prince concert, although I really always wanted to attend one. I had never been one of the many, many lucky people to see him just hanging around his hometown of Minneapolis either, despite spending quite a bit of time around the Chanhassen area while my brother and sister both taught at neighboring Mound, MN.

So what was my claim to sorrow? Why did I feel like I lost a friend, or at least an idol?

Music does a funny thing to people. A song can capture an exact feeling or moment that you seem to be experiencing. It can also release you from sorrow or pain and allow you to ease tension and just let loose. Prince, above any other artist out there, wrote music that just made you feel good. His Funk/Pop mix made it impossible to not get hooked into the groove and want to get up and dance.

The not so subliminal messages behind the music made him a constant enemy of Tipper Gore and are one of the main reasons why we now have the “Explicit Lyrics” label adorning many albums that come out, but there was certainly a form of poetry even in the most lude of Prince’s lyrics. Often he would not just come out and say he was talking about sex, he would use metaphor and innuendo to let your mind wander to those places on their own, and in doing so helped to unleash your most unclean desires and yearnings. It sounds crazy right? Well go listen to some of his music right now! The satire publication, The Onion, posted an article right after Prince’s death was announced that basically said that mourners are too sad to go home and have sex, despite the fact that it was the one thing Prince would want us all to be doing in his memory. The man oozed sex, despite looking like the first openly transgender person the US had ever been introduced to.

About that look…

Prince was completely unapologetically himself. Whatever the hell that might have been. He didn’t care what the world thought of how he looked or even what they thought about his music. He would go on stage wearing a scarf around his neck, a trench coat, a speedo, and of course his patented high heel boots. No one knew what the hell they were seeing, but that sound was something that people could get behind, even if it took him a few albums to really break through. On a side note, I read somewhere that high heels were originally designed for men and they wore them for centuries before it became more common for women to wear them. Whatever the case, to our generation the high heeled boot on a man was distinctly a Prince thing.

About that sound…

More and more people are finding out, albeit too late, that Prince was probably in the top 3 best musicians of all time. The man played every single instrument on his first few studio cut albums before finally allowing Dez Dickerson of The Revolution play a little guitar on an album. I’m not positive how long that continued to be the case on his albums but it’s kind of crazy that The Revolution, the big band he threw together to be his backup on stage, was essentially put together to emulate the same type of high energy, party atmosphere that Prince created by himself in studio.

A member of The Revolution talking about how good of a musician Prince was shared that Prince had been on the cover of Guitar magazine…then Drum magazine…then Keyboard magazine…and even Bass magazine! The man could do it all. Howard Stern asked Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters (and easily one of my all-time favorite musicians) if he thought Prince was a better musician than him. His response, “He’s a better drummer than me!”

For those of you who don’t know, Dave Grohl is one of the greatest drummers of all time. He was the drummer for several bands before really breaking out with a little band named, Nirvana. He also pulled a Prince and did every instrument for his first album post Nirvana for his now band, Foo Fighters. If you’re a Queens of the Stone Age fan, Grohl was also the drummer for this bands first studio album!

The point is that if we look at the top five musicians of all time, Dave Grohl would definitely have to be in the conversation, but Prince would be the reason for the conversation in the first place. When it comes to sheer talent, there may never be another giant in the industry like Prince…which is funny when you consider this “giant” stood all of 5’2” tall.

My Prince obsession

Back to when I found out that this icon had passed away. I was struggling to wrap my head around why I felt so sad about losing just another musician. But then I got like ten text messages from people who knew how much I liked him telling me he had passed away. How many people received that many people breaking the news to them personally? I guess somewhere along the line I divulged my personal feelings about how great I thought this guy was…

In high school I remember my friend Brad and I having a weird obsession with Luke Uncle Luke, 2 Live Crew, and a bunch of other kind of funky rap/rock bands. No idea what drove us in this direction, but when you think of those bands it’s not really a leap to get to Prince…especially when you consider the first song that I really remember loving of Prince’s being Pussy Control. So yeah, surprise surprise, the first song that a high school boy likes of Prince’s is about pussy. What a vulgar…awesome song.

But then I found out more and more about Prince. He was not only an amazing singer/song writer/composer/instrumentalist, he was also from Minnesota and as I was raised in Minnesota I was ingrained with that unhealthy obsession of our state being the greatest state ever, so instantly I was connected to Prince, much like Bob Dylan…but Prince stayed in Minnesota which makes him the greatest Minnesotan artist of all time, sorry Bobby.

From Pussy Control, my strange obsession continued to flourish as I discovered more and more of his music. Like most artists some of his music just wasn’t for me…I’d even say it sucked. But his hits were amazing and the sounds of even my least favorite songs stuck in my head and were tough to listen to without a little head bobbing or swaying at least.

As I got to college, my love for Prince just grew even more. I was introduced to other Minnesota bands such as Motion City Soundtrack who tried to emulate a bit of the Prince sound and were right up my alley as well. But there was always just one Prince. My friends were forced to listen to his music quite often and as I began to corrupt my younger friend Pat, he and I even decided to throw a Prince theme party with our roommates Nick and Josh.

We decorated our entire house in purple, had Purple Rain playing on loop on the basement television and went to the thrift store and purchased puffy pirate shirts and the tightest leather (or pleather) pants we could find, along with some really terrible Prince wigs. The party that ensued was certainly not one of our largest but had to go down as one of the most fun ones that we ever had. I remember we made a video of us doing random Prince entrance moves, just walking like our shit didn’t stink and then just doing a dead stop and facing the camera. Nick, Pat, and I did that for about 45 minutes before we finally decided that we better rejoin the party. That tape, unfortunately, was taped over and we lost our sweet moves to the ages.

Pat, Jason, & Nick's Prince Party - Circa 2007

Going through old photos on Facebook I found several where I could distinctly remember being motivated due to us listening to Prince music, including about three albums entitled, “While I watch Purple Rain.”

For my friend’s bachelor party we even spent some time at the iconic First Ave. which Prince himself made famous through his movie Purple Rain. We were there for about an hour or so, dancing with girls having some drinks and just partying our asses off to some Prince tunes when another friend showed up and informed us that it was an 18+ club…I thought those girls looked awfully young! Oh well, we had a blast and one of my friends even competed in a dance off, which Prince would have been ashamed of…simply terrible TJ.

If you spend enough time with me, chances are you’re going to have to listen to Prince at some point or another. With our friend Jesse we host a sand volleyball league at our campground in the summer. I purchased a couple of faux rock radios (to shut up our assistant to the bus line security manager) that we use for music during the games and unfortunately for the other teams, I occasionally get put in charge of the music…which is always Prince, the greatest hits. Needless to say, we’ve lost a lot of good volleyball players the past couple of years!

I guess when it comes down to it; I just really dug his music. Some may have called it crass and too sexual…but if you read any Shakespeare you’ll find many of the same elements that you find in some of the most sexual Prince songs. It’s written in what we call flowery language but so are some of the best Prince songs! No matter your feeling about the themes of the songs, there is undoubtedly a poetic composition to everything Prince did, from his music right down to his look. He gave the world a message that will last longer than any of us, just look at his song 1999. It was written in 1982 and was a hit. It was played pretty much around the world 17 years later as we turned our calendars to the year 2000 and 16 years later we’re still rocking it out. The meaning has changed from future, to present, to now us trying to party like we did in the past…but the song remains as good as it originally was intended to be.

I always post a life lesson on my bus each morning for the kids to see and after hearing of the passing of Prince I immediately thought of posting the opening line of this post from Prince’s song, “Let’s Go Crazy,” but after a quick search on the old internet (which Prince thought was going to die off by the way) I found this life lesson which summed up how he lived and is a great lesson for the kids on my bus and all of us: “Despite everything, no one can dictated who you are to other people.”

We can try to be whatever we want. We can bend over backwards to make people like us, but in the end they’re going to make up their own minds so why waste your time pleasing others. Be uniquely you. You can’t make people like you or hate you; they get to make up their own decisions so stop wasting your time worrying about what others think of you. Just be.

In the end, Prince’s lyrics themselves serve as his best eulogy:

"I don’t really care so much what people say about me because it usually is a reflection of who they are.”

“Life is just a party and parties weren’t meant to last.”

In the essence of Humphrey Bogart, “We’ll always have Minneapolis and First Ave.”

Here’s looking at you kid.

Good-night sweet Prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. - William Shakespeare

Grandpa Al

Now those of you who know me on a personal level may be a bit confused by this title for a couple of reasons;

1.  I had an actual blood related Grandpa Al
2. Al Buse was not related to me in the slightest

To touch on the first bullet point; my grandpa Al Braun was one of the greatest men I have ever known. He taught me so many lessons and definitely made me into a much better person because I had him in my life for the first 20 years. He was kind, funny, and absolutely full of shit. He was also the only actual grandparent I have any memory of, so consequently I’ve searched out other such relationships in my life.

Luckily my grandfather had a brother and sister-in-law which helped to serve as another set of makeshift grandparents. Art and Marie were so much like my Grandpa Al that anytime I got to spend with those three taught me so much about honest to god love that it has made me a giant sap who always looks for the best in people and tends to see it even when they don’t show it or even think it’s there. I hope you all get relationships like I had with these individuals. But by the time I was 21, all of these grandparents were gone, and shortly after my 23^rd birthday, I lost my mother as well.

Thankfully I still had my dad. He and I tend to butt heads from time to time, but I have nothing but the utmost respect for this man, and even though somedays I’d much rather spend on my couch watching movies, he always wanted us to be involved in our community and led by example. He got us off our butts and got us active in our community.

Because of this we began to spend more and more time with other individuals who were also active members of our community, a few of which have helped to fill the void of my missing grandparents and are people I am glad that I can say were my friends.

Ann Healy was our town historian, and also the first person my mom lived with when she moved to Red Lake Falls. I always knew Ann, but didn’t really get a chance to spend any time with her until after my mother passed away. My dad decided he wanted to make a memorial park in our city and dedicate it to my mom. He wanted it to be a place people could put living memorials for the people that they had lost so that in a way they could always be remembered. He, Stuart Altendorf, and a young man (I think he was only about 92 when they started) named Al Buse did almost all of the major cleanup work at the park with my brother Ryan and I helping out when we could as well. Every single day we worked on that park, Ann would be down there multiple times to go for her walk and check out the progress.

My brother and I got to spend a lot of time walking with her and hearing the stories of what used to be there and so much more Red Lake Falls history that we were never aware of.  Generally right in the middle of a really fascinating story this little yellow Easy-Go golf cart would pull up and Al would wave us in or jump out and just look at us, then look at the box on the back of his machine…then back at us. Right away we knew it was time to get back to work! Generally he had a stump he couldn’t remove on his own or he had some tool or god knows what in that rear compartment of the Easy-Go that needed to be fixed, and Ryan and I weren’t much but he figured we had to be good for something!

Those were some of my favorite times with my dad and Al and Ann. We lost Ann shortly after we completed our memorial gazebo and I still think about her every time I drive past there. The walking path will one day feature items from Red Lake Falls past with the hope of dedicating the trail that goes through there to Ann.

But Al kept on trekking.

Before the memorial park, we always had a good rapport with Al. He was always a man who believed in Red Lake Falls and in giving back to the community that he loved. He literally turned the city dumping grounds into one of the most beautiful parks in our entire area (which was named after him a few years ago) and could be found weed whacking random areas around town on any given day. If you were ever to stop and chat with him, you would have found that his car, or later is golf cart, always contained some tools, and generally some hedge clippers. You would more than likely be put to work on something as well, but that was the best part. Most people may have seen it as helping Al out with something, but I think he hoped people saw it as them helping out their community. He was never in it for himself.

My blood related Grandpa used to spend every Sunday with us, a lot of those days at the tubing and camping business we run, Voyageur’s View. You could almost guarantee to find him sitting in our store chatting with my mom or some of our employees…but more times than not, with some pretty girl. When asked about it, he would always just smile and tell us; “I’m not dead yet!”

That’s what they call a precursor in this writing game…

Flash forward a few years, The Buse grandchildren (son and daughters of Todd and Julie) have all worked with us and it is now Abby’s turn to have to spend time with the Brumwell clan. Al had always spent a lot of time coming down to check out how the business was going and to just people watch as well, but while Abby was working for us we hated seeing Al just hang out in his car so we set up a chair in our tube rental building so we would have him right there in the action and we could chat with him and he could make sure Abby wasn’t slacking off. Pretty much every weekend you could count on Al being right in the thick of things and every chance we got, we were there hanging out, yelling at him so he could hear us, and listening to some of the greatest history tails of our little city.

One day Al came pulling up on his golf cart, (this was a few years after Abby moved on to bigger and better things-still one of our all-time favorites) I saw him sitting over there watching the buses go by and anytime I saw him pull up I tried to spend a little time chatting with him, so I went over and we talked for a bit, me shouting because of his hearing impairment caused my millions of rounds of ammo shot, and him talking a little louder than most people do, once again because of the hearing impairment. So we yell back and forth at each other for a while and then this very pretty girl walks by on her way to her campsite. Al gets quiet for a second, and when the girl is about ten feet in front of us he looks over at me and yells, “That one’s got a nice shape on her!” I laugh, the girl laughed and Al and I both went home without her number.

The sly dog had us all convinced that he was there just to support our business and watch his grandkids work…turns out he was just another dirty old man in the same fashion as my other grandpa Al!

There are quite literally thousands upon thousands of stories about this great man, and I know that I’m not the only person in this community, or persons who have known him at any point who truly loved the man. The stories that people have posted on Facebook and other areas are just the tip of the iceberg. He was a man I was truly convinced would outlive me, and not just because of how incredibly out of shape I am. This was a guy who was out snow plowing his driveway and walkways a month ago at 101 years of age. He was an oddity in the fact that not only was he extremely active, he still had a sharp mind and a keen sense of humor.

A few other quick stories of Al:

His daughter Julie (who spent an unbelievable amount of time with Al) told me that she had brought him over to Grand Forks to trade in a gun not too long ago and was a little upset with the price they gave him. She asked him why and he stated that he figured if he could hang onto it for another ten years or so that it would be worth a lot more money, to which Julie asked; “But how old would YOU be Al?!” He replied with a smile, “Oh, pretty old.”

Finally, my dad loved Al. We all did, but I think that Al didn’t only fill a void for me as a grandparent, but also for my dad as a father figure and outright friend. As I stated, I only knew one of my blood grandparents, which was my mom’s dad. My dad’s dad passed away before his time and left a hole in the lives of my parents. Al was a guy who not only resembled my mom’s dad but also my dad’s. He was a hard worker who my mom would tell me stories of with tears in her eyes because of how much he meant to her, and my dad…being a man’s man would talk about all the projects they did together, even driving us around to look at the buildings they had built that were still standing.

In Al, my dad found a person I believe reminded him of his own father. A man he could work with in all the crazy volunteer endeavors that the two of them seemed to always be taking on. Be it the Community Enhancement Club, the memorial park, building a picnic shelter at the swimming pool (which they brought to Red Lake Falls with a group of dedicated individuals), they were always doing something together. They both loved our community and were and are the type of people who if they want something done…they did it. There wasn’t a day that my dad stopped to talk to Al that he didn’t leave with a project. In fact, the day before Al fell, he was busy working on finding a new hasp for one of his gun cases, and loved every second that he got to help the man.

The day I got the news that Al had passed, I called my dad right away. He was down at Sportsman’s Park, Al’s Park. He thought that it was messy and knew Al wouldn’t be happy with the condition, so he was picking it up…he was spending a little more time with Al.

Later I spoke with him again and he said that his one regret was that he had really wanted to get Al on the Today Show’s Smucker’s segment where they honor people who have lived 100+ years. Something that Al, I’m sure, could have cared less about but my dad just wanted to honor his friend. But last summer we got to do something even better, we got him featured in the Washington Post thanks to future Red Lake County resident Christopher Ingraham. As Chris was busy trying to interview Al, he kind of showed exactly how important he felt recognition was…when asked what the secret to living to 100 was, Al just stated that that’s the wrong question, you don’t want to live to be past 80 or so…then he helped himself to Chris’ dinner.

When Chris and his wife Brianna decided to move to Red Lake Falls, one of the biggest reasons was that my dad took them on a tour of our city which included about a half hour stop to chat with Al. I think Brianna saw in that short visit why Chris felt so strongly about moving to our little community. The man was everything you hope to find in a small town, and he tried to be that shining example to our whole community.

Al’s family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donation be made to Meals on Wheels, a program that delivers meals to the elderly and a service that Al used and one that helped to expose scores of kids to this great man. I would go one step further, I would think the thing that would make Grandpa Al the happiest is that if the people that cared so much for him, continued his legacy. This community was important to him, and I can’t think of a better tribute than to keep up with his work. I would go as far as to suggest a community event where we celebrate Al by having a spring cleaning of the community. We gather together and fix the things that need fixing, paint the things that need painting, and weed whack those darn weeds! There are few people who cared for this community as much as Al, but it sure would mean a lot to him if he knew he passed that on to the generations that follow him.

If you no longer live in Red Lake Falls, be a bigger part of your community in his honor. Al was a serviceman, not just to our community, but to our country. Help keep Al’s spirit going by doing as he would do.

That Man is a Success

Who has lived well, laughed often and loved much;

Who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children;

Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;

Who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul;

Who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it;

Who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.

We’re going to miss you Grandpa Al.