{"id":57425,"date":"2020-10-18T12:37:05","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=57425"},"modified":"2020-10-18T12:37:05","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:37:05","slug":"prince-and-the-jews-the-late-rock-stars-best-jewish-friend-tells-all-in-new-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/prince-and-the-jews-the-late-rock-stars-best-jewish-friend-tells-all-in-new-memoir\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince and the Jews: The late rock star\u2019s best Jewish friend tells all in new memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By STEPHEN SILVER<\/p>\n<p>(JTA) \u2014 In the late 1960s, when Neal Karlen was not even 10 years old, he would spend time at the home of his grandparents, one of the few Jewish families that remained on the north side of Minneapolis. Karlen would play basketball and ride bikes with a group of African-American kids who lived in the neighborhood. One of them, he later realized, was a young Prince Rogers Nelson.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_57504\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57504\" class=\"wp-image-57504 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-2048x1363.jpg 2048w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/200;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57504\" class=\"wp-image-57504 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/1-8-20-prince-1-2048x1363.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-57504\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prince performs in Paris in 2009. (Bertrand GuayAFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The two men would reconnect in the early 1980s, when Karlen was a magazine journalist and Prince one of the world\u2019s most famous rock stars. Karlen wrote three Rolling Stone cover stories about the singer, some of them published at times when Prince wasn\u2019t speaking to any other reporters. Karlen went on to collaborate with Prince on the 1994 direct-to-video rock opera \u201c3 Chains o\u2019 Gold\u201d \u2014 which Karlen notes received \u201cthe worst reviews of anything [Prince] ever did\u201d \u2014 and was eventually hired to write the singer\u2019s \u201cfinal testament,\u201d which was said to have been buried in a time capsule on the grounds of Paisley Park, Prince\u2019s legendary home and production facility southwest of Minneapolis.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were very similar, except that he was an international icon and I was some schmuck from St. Louis Park,\u201d Karlen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Long after they stopped working together, Karlen and Prince remained in contact, speaking for the final time just weeks before Prince\u2019s death in 2016 at the age of 57. Now, Karlen has published \u201cThis Thing Called Life: Prince\u2019s Odyssey, On and Off the Record,\u201d a memoir of his relationship with the enigmatic superstar.&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u201cI was taking notes all the time,\u201d Karlen said of the last years of his friendship with Prince. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t know what it was for.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What it was for turned out to be a mournful remembrance that provides new insight into the torments and mysteries of one of the most successful popular musicians of modern times. It also details a surprising number of connections between Prince and Judaism.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Prince had several Jews in his close circle, including several members of his best-known band, The Revolution. He was interested in a long list of Jewish subjects, including golems, dybbuks and the gangster Meyer Lansky. He was a huge fan of the television show \u201cSeinfeld\u201d and \u201cThe Big Lebowski,\u201d the cult film in which John Goodman plays a Jewish Vietnam veteran who famously refuses to bowl on the Jewish sabbath. And Prince tagged along for meetings with rabbis conducted as part of Karlen\u2019s research for his books.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe liked Jews,\u201d said Karlen, 60, who has authored several books with Jewish themes. \u201cHe did. Half the Revolution was Jewish. The guy who discovered him, Owen Husney, was Jewish. Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker, who he really liked, his guys at Warner Brothers, were Jewish. He knew Jews, he liked them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But there was at least one ugly moment in Prince\u2019s history with Jews, which Karlen discusses in the book: In the early 2000s, when a Revolution reunion was being proposed, Prince is said to have asked Wendy Melvoin, a key member of his band in the 1980s, to renounce her Judaism. Prince confirmed to Karlen that this was true.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_57505\" style=\"width: 207px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/10-8-20-prince-bookcover-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57505\" class=\"wp-image-57505 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/10-8-20-prince-bookcover-1-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/10-8-20-prince-bookcover-1-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/10-8-20-prince-bookcover-1.jpg 658w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 197px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 197\/300;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-57505\" class=\"wp-image-57505 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/10-8-20-prince-bookcover-1-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/10-8-20-prince-bookcover-1-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/10-8-20-prince-bookcover-1.jpg 658w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-57505\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The cover of Karlen&#8217;s book. (Macmillan)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cHe may have just been just being an asshole that day,\u201d Karlen says. \u201cHe could hurt people, and not realize it \u2026. he just didn\u2019t get that you shouldn\u2019t turn your back on the people who love you. And I think those are the people who did love him, and why he really was alone at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The author of eight other books, Karlen couldn\u2019t bring himself to listen to the tapes of his conversations with Prince for a long time after the singer\u2019s death. Instead, he spent a year reading what others had written about Prince \u2014 everything except his own notes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In the time between Prince\u2019s death and the publication of the book, Karlen himself went through a great deal of personal trauma. His father died last September, and in April of 2017, nearly a year to the day after Prince\u2019s death, he lost nearly all of his possessions in a fire. Luckily for him, the audio of his old interviews with Prince and other notes had been digitized just weeks earlier.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI lost everything but my Prince stuff,\u201d he said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Karlen notes repeatedly in the book that Prince was very much unknowable, even to those who were close to him. Though he had long been vocal about hating drugs and even looked down on those who used them, Prince privately battled an opioid dependency that would eventually kill him.&nbsp; And like fellow Minnesotan Bob Dylan, he made a habit of saying things to the press about his upbringing that were contradictory or even outright untrue.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was inventing himself,\u201d Karlen said. \u201cThe easiest way to reinvent yourself is to pretend you had no past.\u201d&nbsp;<br \/>\nKarlen\u2019s book also explores how Prince was shaped by the \u201cMinnesota nice\u201d stereotype of mild manners and passive aggression and how the state can often be an inhospitable place to those outside the dominant Scandinavian culture. Much of the music legend\u2019s life was marred by his hostile relationship with his father and the death of his only child in 1996 \u2014 a tragedy, Karlen convincingly argues, Prince never really got over. Prince also had strained relationships with band members and his family, and he ended up dying alone at Paisley Park \u2014 the exact fate he had long feared.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt breaks my heart, because I really did like him as a guy, but he was broken,\u201d Karlen said. \u201cI think his father did it, and I think it broke him as a human being, but it also sort is what propelled him into the next stratosphere\u2026. I just wish he\u2019d been happier more often.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Prince%20and%20the%20Jews%3A%20The%20late%20rock%20star%E2%80%99s%20best%20Jewish%20friend%20tells%20all%20in%20new%20memoir\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7135,7137],"tags":[8790,8795,10951,8788,10952],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57506,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57425\/revisions\/57506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}