Yeah, yeah, I look like Prince. ¡Get over it!

Today is Prince Rogers Nelson's Birthday. In honor of his 54th here's another entry from my MySpace archives. It was originally published on March 23, 2006...

So, I couldn't be bothered to put clothes on today—at least not until my son was due home from lacrosse practice. That would be just too weird. Anyway, I never made it to the record store to pick up a copy of Prince's newest joint, 3121. Ergo folx, no review. Yet. So, just to tide you over, I'll tell you about my life with The Artist.

If you're keeping up, and you're probably not, I shut down my store last Friday. I decided I'd take the young ladies who work with me out for a few drinks to celebrate. Now, it's also St. Patrick's Day, so my biggest fear was rowdy celebrants splashing green beer all over. Little did I know what I should have been worried about was some ghetto leprechaun bartender giving me a hard time.

I don't even get to my stool before I hear him shouting, "Look everybody, Prince is here!"

I didn't really hear him at first, so I'm like, "Huh?"

"The long curly black hair! You look like Prince." As if he had just shared a joke I wasn't in on.

Me

Prince

see the difference?

Before I go on, let me just say that, yes, I do realize that some people see all 5' 4.2" of me—the dark hair, the olive complexion, the chiseled jawline—and think, What kind of deal can I get for a Slurpee & a Big Bite. And yes, some even say I look like Prince.

It started way back in 9th grade when my buddy, Dave Purdue, asked me if I had heard of Prince. I didn't have a clue, so he took me up to his apartment, went into his mom's record collection, and showed me the album cover for Dirty Mind. "You sorta look like him," he pointed out, to which I shrugged my shoulders. It got a bit creepy with his mother staring at me the whole time and licking her lips at me as we left.

Then "Little Red Corvette" hit that summer. I didn't even realize it was the same guy, but everything changed after that. I would get it everywhere, in school, on the street, on public transportation. This is not to say it bothered me. Most often, it was a girl, and it would offer me the opportunity to flirt, so it wasn't all bad.

I'll even admit that my ex, a HUGE Prince fan, thought I looked like Prince when she first saw me. Granted, regardless of what attracted her to me in the first place, it was ME that won her over in the end, I think. She preferred me! I think...

The same goes for my current relationship. Now that I think about it, maybe every relationship I had was to fulfill some deep seated Prince fantasy...

I'm a bit of a fan myself. I've heard most of his music, know of his sexual conquests, in his prime, and have seen him live three times. I can't tell you how cool it was to get a free copy of Musicology during that tour. Hell, the man is sexy and can put on a good show. He's a talented writer, in his own right, so I liked to imagine that Prince and I were related in ways, as artists. Only difference was, I get fined for singing in public, and I escaped the Jehovah's Witnesses. He's apparently a recent convert.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only Prince look-alike in Baltimore. One kid that would occasionally hang out and drink on the playground with us even dressed the roll. He did the jackets, the tight pants, the high-heeled boots. Everything. It was a little gay, actually. And that was where it bothered me. I think only Prince can pull off Prince without coming across as gay. If I dressed like that and tried to pick up a girl, she would try to hook me up with her fey cousin, Rupert. There's nothing wrong with that, except that I wasn't, so I worried that I was registering on folx' gaydar.

Fortunately for me, Prince went through some eccentric times with name changes, contract issues, and occasionally crappy music. As his popularity waned, so did the comparisons. ...until this bartender, not too much taller than I am (who isn't?), dressed all in green, including his little Celtics cap, starts teasing me about it. It's like I'm back in high school, again. I ask him what's on tap, and he spouts off name brands like ice cream flavors at a Baskin Robbins, finishing the list with "Oh, & Purple Rain".

"I'll bypass the Purple Rain and shoot for the Blue Moon," I retort, trying to out-wit him. I thought of calling him a ghetto leprechaun later, but by then, the time had passed. You know how it is. Timing is everything.

Now I'm left wondering, considering Prince's recent resurgence, am I going to have to put up with all that again? Will a whole new generation of teenyboppers who love the way he wiggles start fawning over me because I look like somebody else? While it wouldn't be all bad, I'm secretly hoping that the album sucks so I won't have to deal with it anymore. Sadly, I hear it's his best work since Sign of the Times. Guess I'm screwed.