Why doesn’t video on Yahoo work at all? I’ve been trying on and off in every iteration of their offering to get it to work–with lots of browsers and at least three platforms–to no avail. Having said that I cannot see how it gets used very often and in turn how it could possibly be a significant stream of revenue for them. Why not open it up a little, or make it work at least as well as their competitors? Of course I’m ignoring all the obvious Draconian add-ons that are required by copyright holders these days. I’m certain is takes time to disable and hobble all that video, before watering it down content-wise so as not to make it truly compelling. But even so. There’s got to be some easy way to let me see my 42 second clip of last night’s American Idol winners without eight browser crashes, five errors and eleven stalled progress indicators, right? ~

Prince is a bad ass

Recently I was in line at some coffee place waiting for a latte. I pricked my ears up at the background music only to realize it was “I Would Die 4 U”, the Prince classic, playing into the staid and indifferent ears of the customers in this indifferent and unremarkable place. And it got me to thinking.
Prince is a bad ass.
I remember seeing the video for “1999″ on a then neonate MTV. At the ripe old age of five or so I obviously had no idea what I was looking at: A keyboard player dressed as an ER doc? Two gorgeous women playing yet another keyboard (and sort of playing each other, if you get me)? A backup guitar player trying really hard to look like Jimi Hendrix? We’re hitting all the high points of rock history in one three minute clip here, people. On top of all that everyone is moving in unison, like a sort of sparkly, purple version of the Four Tops with prominently featured and musically gifted lesbians. I mean, the guy’s band was called The Revolution. Are you kidding me?
At the height of his powers Prince could not be stopped. He could breath hard and put the first three rows on its knees, and he brought rock and roll back to the black kids and brought funk back to the white kids. He got Grammy nods and scored Hollywood blockbusters. Then all that nastiness with Warner Brothers happened and Prince changed his name to something we couldn’t readily pronounce. Which was a real shame. I think Prince had another “Purple Rain” in him somewhere (or at least another “Darling Nikki”), even though he’s done reasonably well since the (now undone) name change.
So Prince, even though your former glory is sort of a memory, I can always watch that video for “1999″ and remember what could have been. We’ll always have Minneapolis.