I really don't blame him for not showing, I mean would you want to be on a stage with Jill, whose part you cut dramaticly in favor of ingrid and kept to the side for about 9 years, or Susannah, who you told you loved; proposed to; then cheated on; or Carmen, who you cheated on with Mayte, or Paul; who you called a punk, or Apollonia; who you basicly told off when she wanted to leave your camp, or...well you get the picture.


Seriously though, the man did contribute financially to this event.
Besides, by doing this he's probably lost some respect from some fans and has proven that the Revolution can hold their own without him, it all goes back to him, let the chips fall where they may.
Let him do what he wants, every negative, not-so-great, and disapointing thing he does ultimately goes back to him, y'all should know that by now.
And, the show was great, whether he was there or not.
Some of y'all take things too personally. Him not showing doesn't make him some horrible person

Hey

you've got a point there, never thought about it that way.

But yeah, Prince is still a PERSON, just like everyone else, and probably doesn't want to hang out with a bunch of ex lovers and people he had fights with. Think about it. Would you?

yall have no idea..love to Prince and wendy and lisa and all the rest of the purple prince family

it would have been so un-prince like for him to show up, for the reasons already mentioned. prince likes to create his own reality. he deals with the past by pretending it didn't happen.
just an observation. it doesn't make him a bad person.

I didn't think he would go. For whatever reasons he has, one thing we can rely on with Prince is that he almost never does what people expect or hope for. He just does his thing. If that's part of the personality of this great musician then so be it.

gemini13 said:

And especially not with those people and ex-lovers who I repeatedly treated like crap or where the relationship ended on a very sour note due mostly to my own actions (actions of which I refuse to acknowledge or take responsibility for despite how many years have gone by) no matter how important or elemental those people or relationships once were.

Yes, it's definitely easier to stay away from people from your past who dredge up painful, or even embarrassing, memories of your own questionable behavior, and to avoid going where there are possibly unresolved issues or emotions that might force a person to honestly examine themselves or their past actions.

It's much easier to ignore or just stay away from those kinds of situations altogether. Emotional growth is often too messy and uncomfortable for some folks to handle.

It would have been fun if he would have sent a video:

"Hi. Much luv 2 the family" And showed a live concert version of his current band playing "Papa" with the new jazzy sound.

Or, it would have been a kewl Jerry Lewis Telethon type moment if he would have showed up and came onstage with The Revolution and broke it down and inserted "In This Bed I Scream" into one of the jams. And afterwards played a 30 minute version of Purple Rain.

Hey, it could have been surreal too.

Shelia could have tied him to a chair during "Bedtime Story" and all the ex's could've surrounded him and the audience could have shouted "Jerry Jerry Jerry."

Or, He and Larry could have stormed the stage "Make another member tonight. Witness everyone in sight."

As it is, they raised money for a great cause and it showed all of this great music and great people from the hard work and great musicianship of Prince.

Hey, there could have been a Lou Pearlman Family Jamm. Or Jackson Family Honors 2.

PrimordialOoze said:

Thankyou Mr/Ms Perfect.

ConsciousContact said:

Guess what? A person doesn't have to be "perfect" themselves to 1) understand a few things about human nature or 2) type a comment on a message board.

But thanks for the sarcastic comment anyway. It really put me in my place!
[This message was edited Wed Dec 17 13:21:12 PST 2003 by PrimordialOoze]
[This message was edited Wed Dec 17 13:21:32 PST 2003 by PrimordialOoze]

Good points, I didn't look at it this way either.
I hate being around any of my ex-girlfriends
and couldn't imagine being on stage with 5 chics I used to do back in the day.

PrimordialOoze said:

yes, and Prince is one of those folks. For whatever reason that's how he deals with things.
I didn't want to go into to this, but had you been in his situation I highly doubt you would've chose to be around Susannah.
How he chooses to get over things is his choice, doesn't mean it's the 'wrong' thing to do.
And I'm sure there's a very good (complex) reason why he chooses to deal with things the way he does, this isn't a 'black and white' issue here.
And I don't mean to get all "deep" and stuff, but if what prince does/did is so horribly wrong I'm sure the powers that be will take care of it.

I'm not saying what he's done to those people who participated in the family jamm is fine, but I tend to look at things from a more objective point, they're at least two sides to everything, and, more often the not, both sides are right (of course one side may be more right than the other).

...getting off my soapbox now.

lovebizzare said:

You make some good points. I totally agree with you that there must be very complex reasons, known only to him, for why Prince chooses to deal with things & people from his past the way he does, and that karma or God or whatever else will even the scales out in the end.

All I can say is I just think it's too bad that after all this time, 20+ or more years, Prince couldn't seem to manage to just show up for just that one night. 20+ years is a long, long time, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge for everybody concerned. Those people at the Family Jamm he may still have unresolved issues with have all moved on to new careers and/or spouses (including him), he's moved on, everything that happened between all of them is long in the past now...hopefully everyone has matured over the years and it would've been cool if they could all have been in a room together for a few hours for a one-time thing as worthy as Sheila's benefit. Nobody's saying they all gotta start hanging out together on a regular basis.

The other thing I think is this: *if* nowadays Prince has still got strong enough emotions or feelings about any of those folks at the Family Jamm (or what went on between he and them in the past) emotions that *even now after 20+ years, new spouses, new lives, etc* are persuasive enough to have kept him away from the Jamm, maybe it would be to his benefit to figure out why those emotions are still even THERE after all this time has gone by...and then maybe do something about it. That "something" could've been just showing up for at least 10 minutes for Sheila's benefit. It seems like the other Family Jamm artists were/are receptive to putting past problems w/him behind them, or they wouldn't have been there in the first place. Prince's showing up might've healed some old hurts for a few people, and not just for him. It at least would've been a start, and P might've felt better about a lot of stuff as a result. Which would have been nice for everybody.

But like you said, how he chooses to deal with stuff is his choice and his business, and I certainly don't know all the details of all his interactions with those people at the Family Jamm. I'm just giving my thoughts on why I wish he would've showed up.

PrimordialOoze said:

Good point. You get what I'm saying. Everyone has had times where they just fucked up. Egos are fragile.