One of the most ironic sentences we can give you from Neal Karlen’s new book This Thing Called Life: Prince’s Odyssey On and Off The Record is when he writes “If Prince reappeared again, I was sure, he would die a second time the moment he saw what was being done in his name, memory, and supposed honor” (Karlen, Prelude). Neal took this jab at other associates in the book’s prelude yet went on to dishonor the man he says he loved too. These folks are starting to sound like a broken record now. Quite a few people claim to have loved Prince Rogers Nelson but won’t miss an opportunity to breakdance on his grave for pay. Or to get out whatever grievance they have over some perceived slight from decades ago. Or both.
Neal Karlen is a journalist who became friendly with Prince in 1985 when he interviewed him for his Rolling Stone cover story. Neal and Prince maintained a relationship for 31 years that consisted of late-night phone calls about life, love, music, sports, and all the things friends talk about. Neal says he last spoke with Prince three and a half weeks before he died. The odd timing of the conversation left Neal feeling shaken and Prince didn’t sound like himself either. Neal was so worried that he reached out to C.J. (yes, the probable Billy Jack Bitch inspiration) to interview him for Minneapolis’ Star Tribune just days before Prince’s plane made the emergency landing in Moline, IL. This was a supposed plot to anger Prince enough to get him to call Neal again. Really Neal? Despite 31 years of contact with Prince there was no other way to initiate a conversation with the man besides providing an interview to C.J. and saying you’re waiting for Prince to die and other ridiculous tidbits? We’ll take backtracking and flip flopping for a $500 because Neal knows these quotes are a bad look.
In 2019 Neal was asked by a friend of a friend if we really needed another Prince book? He admits that he had no answer until he was reminded of the thank-you note Prince had written to him after that first Rolling Stone interview. The note said “Thanx 4 telling the truth!” and Neal believes this gave him the reason he needed to write the book. To tell the truth about Prince. Whether or not this is Prince’s truth is up to you. Just like it’s up to you to decide if the things written in This Thing Called Life needed to be told at all even if they are true. Either way, we wish Neal had just come out and admitted that he’s here for a check and attention just like the other associates he has disdain for because they’re behaving badly. We’ve learned that lots of people who knew Prince seem to have their version of the truth about Prince and somehow their truth becomes more true than anything Prince ever said about himself.
One of the most alarming things that Neal recounts is Prince’s alleged discussions of suicide that began in 1985 when the Purple Rain tour abruptly ended. Neal says that Prince admitted to hurting himself on several occasions throughout the tour and feeling like no one would notice. In a nutshell, Neal Karlen doesn’t believe that Prince’s accidental overdose was quite so accidental. He sees Prince’s untimely death as a passive suicide because Prince never recovered from the loss of two children and blamed himself for not having the life he planned to aside from the music.
Passive suicidal ideation — thinking about, but not planning, one’s own death.
Wow. That’s a hell of a psychological assessment from a man whose lane is journalism. Then again Neal is inclined to think that Prince might have been cognitively impaired and had savant syndrome while condescendingly referring to him as “ignorant”, an “extraordinary nitwit” at times, and an autodidact who had read books that looked interesting, but was still full of “ignorance and misinformation”. Are we talking about Prince or Rain Man here? We’re not sure if Neal even liked Prince very much aside from his musical genius because he takes perverse pleasure in taking Prince’s persona down a notch whenever he can. In Chapter 15 Neal describes a 1998 visit from Prince that is beyond disturbing. Neal says he had broken a leg and Prince called to check on his recovery. During the conversation the topic switched to the unlimited Percocet Neal had received for pain management after his surgery. Neal found it strange that Prince offered to come by, and what was supposed to be a well-meaning gesture ended with Prince allegedly downing a third of Neal’s Percocet like candy while looking like “Uptown’s skankiest panhandler” (Karlen, Chapter 15). “Uptown’s...skankiest...panhandler.” Let that sink in. The audacity of THIS guy to call John Bream an ass clown.
Another questionable portion of the book has Neal discussing the tragic birth and brief life of Amiir Nelson. Neal says that Prince “faux-consulted” Mayte after Prince had already made his decision to turn off Amiir’s ventilator. He recounts a conversation with Prince six month’s after Amiir’s death and grossly describes a man who had just made a decision that most of us hope to never be faced with as speaking in a tone that “was flat and carried with it all the ain’t-that-a-shame emotion of someone killing time by recalling, shot by shot, a very, very bad movie that he’d wanted to walk out of but couldn’t” (Karlen, Chapter 13). It’s funny that Neal gives a nod to Mayte Garcia’s 2017 book, The Most Beautiful, which directly contradicts whatever Neal is working hard to imply here. In Chapter 9 of The Most Beautiful, Mayte says she was the one to suggest that they let Amiir go while Prince tried to persuade her to let the doctors perform additional procedures. She knew their baby was suffering and eventually Prince AND Mayte agreed together to take Amir off the ventilator. Now we’ve given Mayte a hard time around here over some things since 2016, but why would anyone take Neal Karlen’s version of events over Mayte’s?
It isn’t lost on us that Neal Karlen takes a direct hit at Prince’s portrayal of his parents and childhood in his own autobiography, The Beautiful Ones. Although Neal calls the book “artfully-written”, it’s easy to see that he had issues, big issues, with Prince being less than truthful about his life. It’s a running theme throughout This Thing Called Life. If Prince had made peace with Mattie and John and forgiven them for any sins and/or chose not to rip that bandage off again, did Neal really need to go there? It’s obvious that Prince had troubles at home that caused him to land at Andre Cymone’s house, but why is Neal so offended that Prince wasn’t always truthful with people? Prince didn’t owe Neal, any other associate, or fans 100% of himself. Neal says he can’t let Prince escape history, but it seems more like he’s looking to put as many dents in Prince’s armor as possible. Neal saw Prince as a man who didn’t learn true empathy and how to stop using people until he was roughly 40 years-old, yet Neal gives fans a book that lacks empathy for the situations Prince probably wanted to bury and he is certainly using Prince for his own needs. Neal calls Prince’s father, John L. Nelson a “slimy, reptilian motherfucker”? Well slimy, reptilian pot meet slimy, reptilian kettle. Neal believes that Prince wanted him to write This Thing Called Life because Prince allowed him 31 years of conversation? We’re doubtful about that because like most fans, we believe that Prince wanted to tell his own story in The Beautiful Ones. We’re also doubtful that Prince agreed to be recorded outside of the 1985 Rolling Stone interview where Prince seems to be aware that the tape recorder is present.
It should come as no surprise that those taped recordings of Prince that Neal included in the audio version of the book don’t back up any of the outrageous claims he’s making. There’s nothing scathing in the recordings at all to be honest. You want to know what’s included in the audio version? Brief recordings of interviews and stories that most Prince fans already know. There’s no recording of the allegedly vile comments Prince made about his own mother. There’s no recording of Prince unleashing vitriol about his father. There’s no recording to prove Prince’s decades long suicide talk. Nothing. Nada. If Neal is holding back recordings to prove the worst details in the book what would be the reason at this point when he’s already shown us exactly who he is?
Old, old friends for sale
Get 'em while the gettin' is hot
But you better watch out, they'll kiss you
Until they get what you got
And they'll show you the friends that they're not
Old friends for sale
Prince, Old Friends 4 Sale
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
andulkaphoto
dededos
jacobvanloon
prguitarman