I've included a new online interview with Alex Hahn and links to several excerpts from the "Possessed: The Rise And Fall Of Prince" on my page with all the info: http://pr1nc3.com/news/bo...sessed.asp

Damn Bart. This book must really paint Prince in a negative light for you to be pimpin' it so.

Obsessed : The Links and "Facts" of BVH, Purple Pain Slayer?

We've heard of Possessed aplenty. You're obviously using it like a propagandist.

Who gives a shit about what Alex Hahn has to say about Prince? Why would anyone waste their time on trashy gossip such as this book? I have not and will not read books about celebrities unless they are written by the person themselves.

Aerogram said:

Bingo.

Why slag on Bart?
If this was a post from someone else there would be none of this trashing - but if Bart posts something then it is open warfare.

This is a Prince site.
Possessed is the newest book on Prince.
What would you rather talk about - all the new music from NPGMC?
Theres no news on any new cd release.
No news on a DVD release.
No news on anything that ignites any Prince fans appetites.
The biggest news lately is Prince has an afro.

What else is there to talk about except Possessed?

thedoorkeeper said:

you must be new

rdhull said:

kisscamille said:

The only reason I give a shit about whats said about the book is because many of the topics are speculative and so may not be nessacerily true or accurate and certain ppl ei. journalists may print something taken from the book and tho its untrue ppl will believe it.

its happened before.

SexLovely said:

Thats very true. Only biographical book Im interested in is factual

Aerogram said:

rdhull said:

No I'm not new.
I know what a gigantic pompous know it all ass Bart is/can be.
I just don't see the point in poking the grouchy bear with a stick - all it does is make him grouchier.

I will break my "No More Posts" rule this once...

I have a review of Possessed coming out in the Metro Times (in Detroit). It's not that Hahn paints Prince in a negative light (which he does), but rather that the guy misspells names, gets facts wrong, and generally shows no indication of working for a major newspaper.

Ok, now I'm crawling back into my shell...

I have two words only to offer and they are:

Toilet Paper.

SexLovely said:

That's a pretty long sentence there.

thedoorkeeper said:

SonnySixkiller said:

So you're saying U2's defining sound was NOT the guitar playing by Bono???

yeah, there are some silly things in this book (that comment about bono's guitar playing among them, no doubt!) but i'm enjoying this book quite a lot. it's interesting. i know that it's not necessarily all accurate...

but still very interesting. i do wish it concentrated slightly more on the music and slightly less on the girls.

Aerogram said:

You mean "propaghahndist"

You know, I have books in my collection that I really love and some I don't love, but I like to have and then there's some that I read and nothing really retains. That's the feeling I got when I read Possessed. I dig Prince. I'm not a die hard fan and I know he could probably be a pain in the ass to deal with. I don't know. But the author claims he was objective and why he was doing it and I think it is pretty much obvious to everyone that dude had his own agenda and I'm sure it's pretty much money and I helped ol' boy line his pockets. My conclusion is: this is definitely a book you'd buy off ebay or borrow. He starts off pretty objective, but by the end of the book, he's definitely chopping Prince up into little pieces. But, there's nothing really in there that we don't really know. Much of what I read, I've seen on the Internet, read in interviews, etc.

Okay so he makes a buck, that's about it. I doubt Prince is going to lose any fans over this book and I doubt many if any of Prince's x-fans are going to shell out $24 for the book anyway, so ... my feeling after reading it was "whatever." If Prince was such a dick, those people were free to walk and tell him to kiss their ass at any time. Some of them who moaned and groaned about not being paid came back to work with him some more and not get paid, so hey. Prince isn't the only star out there who paid crappy or didn't pay people, or treat people like crap.

At least I won back the money I spent on the book playing lotto scratchers. Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, Mr. Hahn.

LQ

Let me be clear that I am not one of those who simply oppose Hahn's book because they think it's all a big lie and that Prince is above reproach and should not be "disrespected". Like it or not, Prince has been in the public's eye for more than a quarter of a century, and like many of us he has made bad decisions and a couple of enemies along the way.

But unlike us, he cannot hide behind a facade of anonymity. That's the price you pay when you have been in the limelight... someone's going to put you on trial, and pretty much everything will get aired, from the undeniable to the oh-hum "story confirmed by at least two sources." Have you ever stopped to think what it would be like if a stranger would write a book on you that includes stories told by at least two of your former friends?

That's not what I'm looking for. I want a book written by a real american music expert who focuses on what we know Prince for - his music. I've read many such books about other musicians, and they were full of stories too. But they did not have this "gotcha" feeling you get when you read Possessed. And I'm not interested in gotchas when it comes to a talent of Prince's size... especially when the unauthorized biographer compares him to Duke Ellington yet buries his career with a shoddy title that spells out its lack of scope.

thedoorkeeper said:

My point was that you kust be new if you think that hey, thers no news, no new cd, no blah blah blah as a reason Bart is focusing on this book etc etc. Now if it was a cushy written tome' with the same "hearsay sources" as fact etc etc..you know damn well that Bart would be decrying the book and ripping it to shreads and not promoting it. Dont ..get..it..TWISTED

Aerogram said:

My sentiments exactly...no really, they are


mm edit
[This message was edited Thu May 15 20:37:15 PDT 2003 by rdhull]

rdhull said:

What idiocy. Read what he said again and don't make up your own stuff. (Then again, you are rdhull.)

Oh, and I'm not focussing on the book because there is no other news. I was posting plenty of info on Per's book back in the day, while there was plenty of other stuff to talk about, because a) I seem to be one of the few actually lookign for information and b) if there is information, people should know.

rdhull said:

Hilarious. I'm promoting it by including ALL reviews, including the negative ones. I do not censor on that page, EVERYTHING is there, good or bad. Stop assuming that what YOU would do is what I would do. I feel pretty comfortable in just posting ALL the information available and letting people make up their own minds. Apparently, you and plenty others always suspect hidden agendas even if the evidence point to there being none.

But it was good in seeing Aerogram showing himself up again as the pretend intellectual he is.

Aerogram said:

snore... You know damn well that the book is based on numerous sources, and that plenty of times the sources get named (if you've read it -- just recently you claimed you wouldn't buy it, and now you claim to have read it, I'm guessing the eyesight has improved lately?).

The book shows that what we thought was a fairly recent evolution, brought on by a religious conversion, is in fact something that has always bothered Prince. It also shows that Prince's dislike of WB has been around for much longer and has been much stronger than previously suspected (or rather: suggested by Uptown's/Per's books). I'm 100% confident that any later books -- I'm talking about books independent of Uptown -- will confirm this if they do even more research

Aerogram said:

That won't happen until Prince sells enough again to warrant such an in-depth study. Such a book would be 1,000+ pages easily if it wants to be all-encompassing, like some Beatles books, and no sane publisher would want to publish this unless there would be a decent market for it, because the price would be ridiculous, not just because of the size but also because of the costs involved in research.

Until that happens -- IF it ever happens -- we'll have to do with books like these: imperfect, with a suspected hidden agenda (which I dispute, BTW). Worse is that the reader base of them largely consists of fans who can't seme to take even the slightest hint of criticism and latch on to the most inane of reasons to dismiss a book that they don't like, much like people who disagree with posts here or on usenet but can't dispute these posts with hard arguments (because they know damn well that the post is on point) and thus attack it on such flimsy things as bad spelling or the "tone" of the post. If that rocks your world, fine -- but don't expect to be taken seriously. Especially not when you reverse your position months or years later and basically say the same things as the poster back then.

I've still yet to see a decent rebuke of Hahn's book -- and if anyone refers to Jon Bream's "review": think again.

BartVanHemelen said:

Really low life shit right there.
If you have any type of conscience whatsoever
you'll apologize. It's truly The Wimp's Way
when you lower yourself to make snide comments
about someone's handicap. You deserve all the grief
you get by people. And then some.

BartVanHemelen said:

Ooooh... I've made you mad, didn't I.

Of course you haven't seen a decent rebuke. In your world, everything is FACT, and a few reviewers were stupid enough to shower this fallen superstar with rave reviews these last two years. Let's even discount Alan Leeds' kudos at the beginning of the ONA tour, but by all means not his criticism of Prince because it fits your obvious multi-year agenda.

You don't like Prince much... got that... thousands of times. Prince is fallen, spoiled, egomaniacal, totally disgraceful, couldn't write a good song these last seven years if his life depended on it, etc., etc... Thank goodness, you are still here, making sure Prince fans know they are dumb to even have a shred of appreciation. Will you still be here in two, five, ten years? No doubt... Prince may be fallen, but he still must be watched, right? For the good of all decent men and women, I suppose.

I've read hundreds of bios about extremely imperfect artists. Stories like the time JB asked Solomon Burke to share a stage with him, only so Burke could surrender his pseudo royal cape. Boy was Brown an ass! What about the time Beethoven antagonized his entire entourage, mistreated his maid and generally made a fool of himself with his mismanaged anger -- what a pompous prick he was! We can only wonder about the juicy stories we would have if there had been tabloidish books at the time. Poor Ludwig had a longuish period where he was said to be finished by a sizable part of the cultural elite. Even then, he had the audacity to refuse to play for his generous patrons, storming out of chateaux like a spoiled prima donna but taking the money anyhoo... It's fun to think what kind of book the Alex Hahn's of the times would have written during those turbulent yeats... Deafened : The Rise and Fall of Ludwig Van Beethoven?

After more than five years of unbridled criticism of Prince and a book you treat as your supreme vindication, your bias and lack of perspective is showing like Carmen's pussy in the centerfold pages of Playboy. By your logic, it's safe to say anyone who still don't see things your way is a lost cause, so why go on? Why is it so important to keep bustin? I have my theory, but you wouldn't like it. I mean, you consider the man to be fallen, his music of the last few years worthless... Did the fans hurt you, Bart? Is that what this is about... you were attacked for years and must spend the rest of your life proving your hurtful attackers wrong, to defend your honor? You would do well to have one final post saying you consider you have won the long argument... and move on. Think about it... What better way to prove Prince is definitely finished than to have his most persistent detractor say "Ok... that's it folks. He's not even worth the time to post a link anymore!" I hear Ken Starr's happier since he stopped his investigation.

P.S. : if this isn't a "point by point" answer, it's because you don't get my basic point. Plus you should leave my eyesight alone.
[This message was edited Fri May 16 4:43:45 PDT 2003 by Aerogram]

Bart,

Since you love this book so much, how about commenting on the numerous mistakes? The numerous omissions? The author lost his credibility with some very lazy mistakes.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK...



"After more than five years of unbridled criticism of Prince and a book you treat as your supreme vindication,your bias and lack of perspective is showing like Carmen's pussy in the centerfold pages of Playboy"




OH SHIT! You guys keep me laughing!


...
[This message was edited Fri May 16 5:22:46 PDT 2003 by DavidEye]

I just bought and am reading this book now. It seems to be very well researched and written, although I suspect there is more than a pang of resentment in the author's portayal so far (I am only in the first couple chapters)... I'd even go out on a limb and say that Hahn is doing the polar opposite of kissing ass.