1st news live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying a key witness in the house's impeachment inquiry is a no show on Capitol Hill despite a congressional subpoena Charles Copperman was a deputy to national security adviser John Bolton who was ousted N.P.R.'s most parks reports Democrats say his decision not to appear could lead to contempt for seedings government as the 1st witness named Pietschmann Korea to try and get the courts involved he filed a lawsuit Friday described himself as caught between 2 competing orders one from Congress telling him to appear and one from the White House to stay away he wants a court ruling on which branch of government he should obey Adam Schiff the chair of the House Intelligence Committee called it a ploy by Cupper meant to delay the process I think we can infer from the White House opposition to Dr Cupper means testimony that they believe that his testimony would be incriminating of the president Schiff says he expects the court to rule quickly in favor of House Democrats miles parks n.p.r. News the Capitol the Democratic led House launched an impeachment inquiry into allegations of president trying to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden head of the 2020 election and the house reportedly will now vote on Thursday on a resolution formalizing the inquiry California remains under a state of emergency as firefighters race to get a handle on blazes that have caused tens of thousands of people to evacuate Jacob Margolis of member station k.p.c. She is monitoring a fast moving fire in the Los Angeles area there are giant plumes of smoke coming from near the 4 o 5 in the mountain and that is kind of a major thoroughfare through Los Angeles 618 acres have burned so far in the fire has been fast moving though firefighters seem to be any get some control over it homes have burned down at least 8 homes have been lost 5 have been damaged and we heard from firefighters that it all happened very fast in northern California the Kinkaid fire so far burned more than $66000.00 acres and is just 5 percent contained nearly $200.00. That 1000 people remain evacuated N.P.R.'s Eric Westervelt is getting a close up look at one area directly affected walking through foothills Regional Park it's right next to a suburban subdivision there are still sort of hotspots embers smoldering some trees smoldering But incredibly the the houses all around right next to this park are safe their backyards are burned down and is burned to far but it's really the moving here quickly in part because people evacuated a week long hearing is under way in St Louis to decide the fate of abortion services in Missouri N.P.R.'s Arun McCammon reports Missouri could become the only state in the u.s. Without any clinic offering abortions the hearing is meant to resolve a dispute between Republican Gov Mike person's administration and Planned Parenthood over the clinics license person says the clinic is violating health and safety rules Planned Parenthood says the rules are being excessively and arbitrarily and forced and the real goal is to end abortion access in Missouri a decision is expected from a state commissioner in the coming weeks this is n.p.r. . New research finds that most people with Down syndrome will develop some form of dementia by the time they're in their fifty's and sixty's N.P.R.'s Jon Hamilton has more on a study in the journal Jama neurology Down Syndrome is a genetic disorder that causes intellectual disability as well as health problems in the 1980 s. People with Down often died before 30 today the average lifespan is about 60 and has people with Down's Syndrome live longer doctors noticed that many of them developed Alzheimer's disease or some other form of dementia a study of Medicaid records for nearly 3000 people with Down Syndrome puts numbers behind that observation it found that among those between 40 and 55 about 40 percent had dementia after 55 the figure rose to about 60 percent researchers hope that by studying people with Down's syndrome they can learn why certain brains are so vulnerable to Alzheimer's Jon Hamilton n.p.r. News the u.s. Is extending a year temporary by a year temporary protected status for more than $200000.00 Salvadorans living in the United States both countries signed an agreement that enables eligible Salvadorans to continue working legally in this country in September as Salvador had agreed to help the u.s. To limit the number of people crossing the u.s. Border t.p.s. Was granted to many Salvador nationals following the 2001 earthquakes at the close the Dow was down $132.00 points nearly or up $132.00 points up nearly half a percent to end the day at $27090.00 I'm Lakshmi saying n.p.r. News in Washington support for n.p.r. Comes from Dana Farber Cancer Institute developing ways to use that p.d.-l one pathway and immunotherapy to treat cancer committed so making contributions and cancer treatments for 72 years Dana Farber dot org slash everywhere. Coming up on the next On Point 2 wildfires prompt a state of emergency in California a 1000000 residents plunged into darkness from power shutoffs are blackouts the best way to prevent wildfires in 2019 plus Kurds in the u.s. Tell us what they think of the president's decision to withdraw troops from Syria and the impact it's had on their families that's coming up on the next on point from n.p.r. Tuesday between 9 and 11 am on. This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross before Prince died he'd started writing a memoir he wanted a writing partner he could open up to after rejecting several high profile names he settled on my guest Dan pipe and bring who was definitely not famous pipe and bring was a 29 year old editor of the literary magazine Paris Review just a few months after their 1st meeting Prince died of an opioid overdose on April 21st 2016 Prince had left behind the pages he'd already written about his childhood in adolescence in Minneapolis unable to complete the memoir pipe and bring plan to write with Prince pipe and bring fashion the book into something else it includes the chapters Prince had already written as well as an essay by pipe and bring about working with Prince princes handwritten lyrics to some of his songs some photos of Prince and images of things pipe and bring found in the vaults at Paisley Park Prince's compound the book which is edited by pipe and bring has the title Prince had planned to give his memoir The Beautiful Ones it's named after the song pipe and bring describes as one of the most naked aching songs in Prince's catalog let's Bringing to. You. Dan pipe and bring welcome to Fresh Air thank you Terry that this book is great I'm real the guy that you were able to put out what you were able to put out past you Miss Lee Prince was always so elliptical about his life why did he want to write a memoir. That is of course the question on everyone's minds and something that I was so curious about myself when I 1st went out there to meet him and I think there were a few things kind of on his mind I do think he was maybe aware of the fact that he was growing older of his mortality of his legacy and I think he was. Bringing renewed attention to the role that his parents and his past had played and in shaping his psychology and in forming his creative identity and I think that he saw a book as a chance to explore those ideas with some depth that maybe would not be available to him in music. And you know that toward the end of his life he was also sort of experiencing a 2nd act as an activist and he was very politically aware where maybe once he had not been he was a huge supporter of the black lives matter movement when Freddie Gray was murdered by police in Baltimore prince went and played a show there and he even wrote a song called Baltimore that was really kind of most straight ahead protest song and his catalog and I think he saw Having lived through so many political crises and having developed such sharp ideas about how to thrive as an African-American creative in America that he saw the memoir as a way to to really address that with more candor than would be possible and his music. In your list of reasons why he wanted to write a memoir One of them was growing awareness of his mortality friends of his were falling ill do you think that was one of the reasons why he was more aware of his mortality. Absolutely and I think he was someone who was always very aware of what his musical peer group was doing and I think Michael Jackson's death had really affected him greatly he and I talked a lot about Michael as he would call him who was only Michael never Michael Jackson and I think the loss of someone who had always been framed as his kind of chief rival and someone with whom Prince certainly kind of sparred on the charts and musically and with whom he had a kind of contentious but very fruitful relationship I think the death of someone like that could only weigh on him in ways conscious and subconscious so I think there was certainly. More thought that he was giving too to what it meant to be leaving this earth what he would leave behind How did you get to even audition for being a princess collaborator on his memoir. Yeah it's a wonderful and exceptionally unlikely story that begins in New York in November of 2015 when I went out for a drink with my literary agent Dan Kirsan of i.c.m. And he let it slip almost haphazardly that he was working on putting together a book by prints and as soon as he saw my face I think he knew he had made a grave mistake because it lit up like a Christmas tree and I practically grabbed him across the table and said You know I need to be a part of this I had been a Prince fan for so many years by then and he made it clear Dan did were to dance. That I was never going to get this job I was 29 years old I was an editor at the Paris Review at the time not something the prince was likely to be familiar with and most glaringly I had never written a book which I think is usually fairly disqualifying in these things looking Yes for a level of expertise so Dan did not mince words he said that I was never going to get this job but that he would as a favor put me on a list of potential collaborators for prints you wrote an essay explaining why you wanted to be that person prince chose to collaborate with him. And to write he read the essay and asked to meet with you so before we get to his critique of your essay set the scene you set the scene for us for your 1st meeting with Prince. Yes it was I believe January 29th 2016 so winter in Minneapolis and it was after dark when I when I finally arrived at Paisley Park I had had only about a day's notice that I would be going there at all so I had submitted this statement I think on a Wednesday night and by Friday morning I knew that I was going to be out there and then sure enough there I was the prince's chauffeur Kevin Pratt was driving me up to Paisley Park which is Chanhassen and about 40 minutes maybe out of out of Minneapolis fairly unremarkable suburb and to see Paisley Park from the outside I think you could drive right past it without ever knowing about the wonders that take place within its walls it really looks very anonymous like an office park or a place where they make some sort of plastic products or something and there were purple sconces lighting it up I remember as we pulled up and because we had been working Dan and I with with Prince a. His aides throughout this process I was under the impression that one of them would be attending the meeting with me and that turned out not to be the case when I got out of the car and approached the front door of Paisley Park Prince was there alone ready to shake my hand and introduce him to self to say Hi Dan I'm Prince so you had written an essay explaining why you wanted to collaborate with Prince and he. Critiqued your essay and it's a really interesting critique like you wrote that when you listened to Prince for the 1st time you felt like you were breaking the law and yet the song you were listening to was if I was your girlfriend so that's right let's hear just a little bit of that and then we'll talk about why you felt like you were breaking . If. You forgot. This may. Want to. Take you. Live this way. That was Prince singing of his song if I was your girlfriend I guess standpipe and bring is the editor of. The new prince memoir So Dan why did that song when you 1st heard it the 1st time you heard Prince Why did it make you feel like you were breaking the law. Yeah I remember this vividly I was think 16 years old I had just gotten my driver's license and this was in rural Baltimore County where I grew up I was driving around alone for one of the 1st times ever and that in itself is kind of an illicit feeling and at the time I was really listening to a lot of classic rock and jazz and things like that and I was a drummer so I really poor drum machines I thought that they were that they had no place in music but then this song came on the radio I think it was on Telson university radio if I was your girlfriend and in the song Prince is singing under the persona that he called Camille so he was speeding his voice up in addition to singing in a falsetto he can spread the tape up so his voice sounded even more feminine and high pitched and then there's all these various theories synthesizers on there and of course the drum machine playing this very eerie spare backbeat and Prince on that song is singing really from the perspective of a woman but as a man who wants to be a woman so that he can be closer to his partner and get the access psychologically to her that he feels he's denied by by virtue of his masculinity I had just never heard anything so psycho sexually frank I don't think it was really a hunting but beautiful song it made me feel just sort of strange I think combined with the fact that I was out there on the road by myself it just seemed like something that was almost too intimate to be hearing when you wrote that you felt like you were breaking the law Prince objected to that he told you he objected to that your 1st meeting what was his objection. He thought that his music was not at all lawbreaking but it was completely harmonious and when he told me this we were sitting across from each other in his conference room and kind of perfect silence and we were surrounded by candles and there was kind of a sense of harmony in the place Paisley Park really felt like a sanctuary or a cocoon I could see that I had offended him or misread him and I worried he'd flown me all the way out there just to say that but to his mind lawbreaking music would be something more like Led Zeppelin or something I guess it's bluesy or more dissonant and he felt that he was always trying to make music that was in accordance with the law that was that was that had a harmony that elevated it to to suit his more religious side you know so he really resisted the idea that he was in any way a law breaker yet he told you he writes in harmony and he always lives in harmony Let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more if you're just joining us my guest is Dan pipe and bring and the new book that he edited and wrote the opening essay is called Prince the beautiful ones We'll be right back this is Fresh Air. Next time on The New Yorker radio hour I'll talk with Jason Blood the producer of get out and a new crop of horror films that reflect the scariest parts of real life we already get out we gave to our Monday meeting we said this is I think we like this I think it's good but it's definitely definitely no one has seen it before that's next time on the New York Radio Hour Monday night between 9 and 10 on k.c.a.l. You. This is Fresh Air Let's get back to my interview with Dan pipe and bring and he was supposed to be collaborating with Prince Prince had actually chosen him to collaborate Prince's memoir prince died shortly after they agreed to do the book so Dan edited a new book called Prince the beautiful ones and it stands personal essay about Prince it's the pages Prince had written before he died that he meant to be included in the memoir and there's also a lot of x. Song lyrics and photos and other things collected from Paisley Park. An objection he raised about a lot of people who had written about him was their use of the word magical or alchemy to describe his music did you use either of those words in your essay Yes I definitely use some variant of magical and maybe alchemy too and also transfigure which was a further word that he resisted because very very particular Festus ideas about which words belong to his orbit and particularly a word like transfigure which of course has a very strong literal religious connotation and he felt that he could not apply that to his kind of secular music it would be wrong it would be a violation of the proper order of things and magic he had the most memorable objection to he said that funk is the opposite of magic funk is about rules and he pointed to all the work that went into his music that there was really no magic in it it was it was a labor a labor of love for the labor nonetheless and that he had to learn to play all of these $27.00 instruments that he played on his 1st album that he had to learn how to mix them how to master them how to program the drum machine and that funk was about rules and I would come to see once I learned about his parents that that kind of discipline side really came a lot from his father he also thought that you know magic or me. Magical those were Michael words not Prince words that's right he said when he was driving me back to the hotel in his car he looked over and said you know really think carefully about which words you would use because magical is not one that I would use to describe me that is Michael's word he thought that Michael Jackson's music had this kind of magic and I think he's right about that if you listen to something on Thriller there is a kind of storybook quality to it a more fairy tale vibe something magical that doesn't quite show up that much in Prince's own catalogue Why do you think prince chose you to be his collaborator for his memoir that's of course something that I'll always wonder about in true prince fashion he he never kind of leveled his gaze at me and said Dan this is why it's you he left me only sort of fragments and clues one I think really goes back to that idea of diction of words he said to me at one point you know you know a lot more words than I do and that's of course very flattering but I don't really think it was true he was very well spoken and he had a talent for Nilo just him he would invent words like normality at n o r m a l a v y that's one that shows up in his book but I think he wanted someone who shared his kind of playful sense of language and his of his desire to experiment with a book he didn't want someone who was going to be all judging him for wanting to break the mold of the memoir or trying to fit him in a template you know I think if there was any advantage to the kind of guilelessness that I brought to our conversations it was that it let me listen to him very openly and without judgment and he writes at one point it's much easier to open up with your pen if someone isn't judging you for what you're doing where was Prince musically when you started working with him on his memoir. He had just launched its solo tour I believe the 1st one. His career called piano and a microphone where he was going to perform at various kind of smaller venues around the world and it was just going to be him and his piano on the stage and he would really sort of reinvent songs from his whole catalogue his whole career on the fly and he was mixing these Also I think for the 1st time ever with stories and anecdotes from his past especially from his childhood and it was always great to see those shows I got to see 2 of them when I was with him in Melbourne in Australia and it was so fascinating because I would hear him say something that I had just talked about with him or had just read in his pages especially his memories of his father and his father's own piano playing and how he would sit down at the piano with his dad and and really figure out how it worked the kind of 1st blush of musicality in his life so it was fascinating to see how the intimacy that he was bringing to those shows really sinked up so perfectly with what he was hoping to accomplish in his memoir My guest is Dan pipe and bring who was collaborating with Prince on his memoir When Prince died pipe and bring his edited the new book The beautiful ones we'll talk about how Prince saw himself as a synthesis of his parents different personalities after we take a short break let's hear a song from Prince's posthumously released album piano and a microphone recorded in Prince's home studio in 1903 I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. 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Programming is made possible by contributing members and in part by California American Water offering customers waterways house calls where conservation specialists to check for leaks inside and outside the home and make recommendations on ways to save water learn how to read the water meter and prepare a customized irrigation schedule to save water in the garden information California and water dot com. This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross let's get back to my interview with Dan pipe and bring who was collaborating with Prince on his memoir before Prince died now pipe and bring his edited a new book called The Beautiful Ones that includes the pages Prince had written before he died as well as an essay by pipe and bring about working with Prince and photos and lyric sheets that were found in Paisley Park after Prince's death. One of the reasons why Prince wanted to write a memoir is that he wanted to explain how he emerged as a synthesis of his parents what are some of the ways his parents were different from each other. In the memoir pages that he sat me down and showed me in Australia from the very 1st paragraph he's thinking about his mother and father and how they really form the kind of 2 poles of his being and he said in my last conversation with him 4 days before he died that that was really one of the central dilemmas of his life he said that he liked order finality and truth those were all things that he ascribed to his father but if a d.j. Put on something funky he was going to want to dance and that would be his mother's influence his mother in these pages emerges as a very free spirited almost headstrong woman someone who was Europe's irrepressibly free I think and who would not allow herself to be told what to do or how to do it and of course we see that time and again in Princes career but his father was a much more disciplined religious man someone who worked 2 jobs one as a musician at nightclubs and the other at the Honeywell factory in Minneapolis and he really was he was concerned with just getting food on the table and keeping the trains running on time and you see that in Prince too I mean that that that vast work ethic that that commitment to making things happen so I think to his mind he was always. Trying to reconcile the way that those 2 came together in him and I think he felt the tension there a lot and that's something that he would explore throughout his career and it's something he kind of explores and his song When Doves Cry and he was hoping that he could break down the lyrics in the book he didn't live long enough to do that but what did he tell you about the lyric to end of crack. Well there's a great passage in the memoir pages where he's written down the margin vertically when cry and that is the section of the book pertaining to his parents' divorce which was a word that they were reluctant even to use with him they would say you know what I'm going to go away for a while you might not see so much of me so I think the true scope of their strife or of their struggle to kind of make their relationship work was something that he felt was kind of hidden from him and that was what he was trying to get out and When Doves Cry Like why did this thing fall apart why was there physical violence between his mother and his father at one point his mother even used him sort of as a human shield she said Go tell your father that he has to be nice to me and I think all of those memories came flooding back really unbidden at so many times in his life that when he sat down to write When Doves Cry he was really trying to figure out how he embodied them and how he could unify himself in the way that they were not able to to unify their their love to undergo the lines that specifically referred to a mother and a father and. That's for how can he just me leave me standing alone in the world so cold maybe I'm just too demanding Maybe I'm just like my father too bold maybe I'm just like my mother she's never satisfied and it's interesting because I would have thought that his mother was just as bold as his father given the way she's depicted in his memoir pages but I can see what he means about her never being satisfied she always wanted more and he writes that she always wanted a sort of whirlwind love affair involving a lot of travel and gifts and kind of active romance and his father and his boldness I think was just lashing out at that you know he was he was too much concerned with the more quotidian day to day stuff to to indulge that that romantic side. Well let's hear When Doves Cry. Playing. It. Was. Going to be. A. Good little. Bit. Like. That of course is Prince when. I guess standpipe and brain was supposed to be princes collaborator and the book that the memoir The Prince had decided to write shortly before he died. But he died big. For much could be done on the memoir Dan has edited a new book called Prince the beautiful ones that's Dan's essay about working with Prince it has the pages that Prince had written before he died and a lot of like photographs and song lyrics and more. You know it's so interesting that he loved to watch his parents dress up and that he'd you know dress up after after they'd leave. He had such amazing outfits when he performed what did you learn about Prince and clothing. I mean when I saw him he tended to be fairly dressed down for him but there was still such care put into his appearance even if it were just in his hotel room that we were meeting and there was no chance of anyone being around he would have a full outfit and his Afro would be picked out and he would certainly exude a fragrance he was always a very perfumed man and I struggle to describe his scent but after he died when I saw his wardrobe again it still exuded that scent but of course without the kind of extra dimension that comes from of being on the skin as well and I remember being just bowled over with sadness to smell him on his clothing still. And he would wear things like a kind of draping rainbow top with his own face on it his own and illustration of his own head or he would wear a kind of matching sweat suit almost in this very lovely kind of Sienna color with beaded necklaces or and a beanie and then when he wanted to go out he would add a pair of leather gloves that had his symbol on it and of course the skein that he was carrying toward the end of his life that also had a symbol on it and had this intricate pattern kind of etched into the steel or the metal My guest is Dan pipe and bring who was to be princes collaborator and princes memoir prince died shortly after he started the memoir Dan is edited a new book called Prince the beautiful ones which is Dan's essay about Prince the writing Prince had done before his death and a lot of other things like photos lyrics things that were discovered in Prince's vaults were going to take a short break here and then we'll talk some more this is Fresh Air. If you knew a house was built in a high risk flood area would you buy it and I've seen the water come right on up to almost. All the top of that wall most states do not require sellers to release that information so we shouldn't be surprised that people make really bad decisions could new disclosure laws change America's real estate game on the next Morning Edition from n.p.r. News Tuesday from when you wake up and throw out your commute on k.c.a.l. You. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Capital One committed to reimagining banking offering savings and checking accounts that can be opened from anywhere Capital One what's in your wallet Capital One and a. And from the estate of Joan b. Kroc whose book quest serves as an enduring investment in the future of public radio and seeks to help n.p.r. Produce programming that meets the highest standards of public service in journalism and cultural expression. This is Fresh Air and if you're just joining us my guest is Dan pipe and bring he was going to be princess collaborator in Prince's memoir prince died very early in the process Dan edited the new book Prince the beautiful ones which is Dan's essay about Prince Prince's writings that he'd finished before his death and then a lot of other things from Prince's vaults. How did he start playing music. It was through his father they would they would sit together at the piano and I remember Prince learning the Batman theme song he was very you know to Adam West Batman and so he'd sit there playing you know did it. And the rest is history you know so a short leap from there to Perth for rain but I think it was really his father's influence and then also just the kind of musicality of Minneapolis and North Minneapolis as a city at that time the D.J.'s and the music stores the local bands the kind of competitive one upmanship that you saw on the music scene all of that really made him want to hone his craft and want to understand what was going on in a song to take it apart and put it back together again you know it's interesting like his name is Prince there but was his given name it's not like a name he took on for himself but in school and elementary school teachers wouldn't call him Prince or at least one of his teachers wouldn't call him Prince like a fine why not. I think that they felt that there was just something wrong about it and he compared it to a boy having the name King and how a teacher would never want to call anyone King I think to conjure royalty in the classroom would make a teacher an authority figure a kind of unsettled you know here's here's this child who was clearly not supposed to be in control not supposed to be the authority but to use a word like Prince. Summons that very level of authority so they would call him skipper instead and I think. Prince of course has various challenges to authority that he raises in his music throughout his career and I think it all goes back to those experiences in the classroom where he felt that he had this name it was his name it was his father's name it was something that he held very closely and yet it had no place in school for some reason I can imagine how that must've frustrated him and yet during part of his career he abandoned his name and became the artist formerly known as Prince. That's right I think that only indicates again how almost sacred the name was to him especially because of the bond that it forged between him and his father you know being one of 2 princes in that household and in the ninety's when he was quarrelling with Warner Brothers as record label I think he felt that if if he was not able to control his creative output and to live the way he wanted to live then he couldn't in good faith live under his given name he had to kind of forsake it so quickly from wrong but Prince I think grew up in a neighborhood of Minneapolis that was primarily African-American but he was bused to a white elementary school yes that's right for at least a brief period I think in 4th or 5th grade that that is correct and the people in the white school had a lot more money than the people in his neighborhood. That's right and I think he really was not fun to experience the son he sung very scathingly about it on the song the sacrifice of Victor and when he was recounting it to me he had nothing but bad things to say he he really about that it's about being and yeah about the busing experience I mean he found it no more enlightened than segregationist Alabama. And I think it was not a place that he had any desire to return to but certainly it informed I think his kind of racial openness was it like to meet with Prince he had such an air of mystery around him and he was there's something so elusive about him so meeting him in person talking with him about something really practical like what this book was going to be what was that like. It was extraordinary and what I remember especially from the 1st meeting with him is is the silence surrounding him and really as I thought about it I realized that I had never kind of heard him simply speaking he was always framed by the pageantry of his music or his performances so to hear his voice and his voice only in a very quiet room was in itself a pretty remarkable thing and he was just a very smooth conversationalist someone who really was not afraid to get carried away in various strains of thought I loved how digressive he could be in conversation how discursive and I think that that really let him feel like he could experiment with the shape of the book and to just kind of riff with me about what it might be was it going to be an autobiography was it going to have a kind of Handbook component where he could really instruct people on his musical philosophy and how would our voices mix in it you know these were all things that we entertained and when he locked eyes with you he could make you feel like you could do things that even 5 minutes before would have seemed impossible he was a very generous conversationalist in that way a very charitable interlocutor did he show up or leave without explanation. He did hear he would always know when to cut the conversation and he was also good about telling me even where to sit it was clear that he would enter a room and know immediately how he wanted to run it even when it was just the 2 of us so he always knew when it was time to draw things to a close and I would just go along with that let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more if you're just joining us my guest is Dan pipe and bring and the new book that he edited and wrote the opening essay is called Prince the beautiful ones We'll be right back this is Fresh Air. I'm Marco Werman each day we give you the world we go. Into the center of the world is curious it's a total chaos in the world a surprising this really don't let us completely clueless the world is unexpected the Japanese really have played history today. The world is right here joining us between 2 and 3 Monday afternoon Also at 7 in the evening on k c r u. I make the chopper Bertie coming up on the next On Point 2 wildfires prompt a state of emergency in California a 1000000 residents plunged into darkness from power shut offs are blackouts the best way to prevent wildfires in 2019 plus Kurds in the u.s. Tell us what they think of the president's decision to withdraw troops from Syria and the impact it's had on their families that's coming up on the next on point from n.p.r. Tuesday between 9 and 11 am on a.c.l.u. . This is Fresh Air and if you're just joining us my guest is Dan pipe and bring he was going to be princes collaborator and Prince's memoir prince died very early in the process so Dan edited a new book called Prince the beautiful ones and it stands personal essay about Prince it's the pages Prince had written before he died that he meant to be included in the memoir and there's also a lot of x. Song lyrics and photos and other things collected from Paisley Park. Your last conversation with Prince was a phone call 4 days before he died this was unable to 17th 2016 Tell us about the phone call. It was the only time he had called my cell phone and my cell phone was charging at the time and I had a very short cord so I had to kind of stoop on the floor and talk to him and I remember scrawling everything he said on a straight piece of paper I had and he he just wanted to call the tell me that he was Ok this was toward the end when his plane had to make an emergency landing he had just made what would turn out to be his last public appearance and I think there was a lot of speculation in the press that something might be wrong and he told me No I just wanted to say that I'm all right and then immediately he returned to the theme of his parents and address that central dilemma as he called it he also wanted to talk about the idea of cellular memory this idea that maybe in his cells as literal body in his genes he had inherited the memories and traumas of his parents and I think he found that something that really aligned with his religious views and with the feelings he'd been kind of carrying around for his whole life about the way as mom and his dad lived inside him. You had heard in the press that Prince's plane was made an emergency landing because Prince had a bad case of the flu and you told him that you were sorry he had the flu and hoping you felt better and he said no no flu like symptoms so what do you think the distinction was he was what was he trying to tell you Do you think when he said flu like symptoms Yeah I've poured over those words so many times since then and I do have to wonder was he didn't want to lie to me clearly but I think he just wanted to signal that while he felt that he was fine and on the mend that there was you know something wrong and I think it was really just a desire not to not to tell a lie and to say that yes he was feeling bad but that he couldn't really put his finger on what it was maybe. So he died 4 days after that call of an overdose. Of fentanyl when you were working with him what did you know about his use of opioids. Absolutely nothing I saw no evidence of it ever and I was just gobsmacked when when that news came out because it did not square at all with the man I had met who was so sunny and who would sometimes be literally bouncing on the balls of his feet I remember once we were in that elevator at Paisley had the same one where he would later be found and he was just he said you know you've got me all hopped up on this industry talk I can't wait to write about the the music industry and my mother and to think that in that same space he would he would later be found dead it's just something that I could not imagine so I never had any idea he was so of a shifts and put so much care into everything he said and did that I really I had no inkling of what he was up against so he overdosed on like a tin of fake faggot in with fentanyl right like super powerful. Do you know I guess you probably don't know but was he in chronic pain. I have to assume he was and I think that's only a sort of further tribute to his work ethic Prince was so famously anti drug and I think if there was one thing that would lead him to begin taking drugs like that it would be to help him work and to contend with the pain that comes from a career of jumping off stage risers and platform heels of course there's speculation behind that but I don't think there was anything recreational about it there's there was not a hedonistic bone in his body when I knew him this was something that he felt he needed to keep performing at the level that he wanted to perform at to keep pushing himself. After Prince died you got access to Paisley Park to look for things that you could use for the book because to continue to work on the book that was supposed to be his memoir What are some. The more wonderful things that you found in Paisley Park. It was such a treat to be able to go there after he had died in to explore it in a centrally exactly the way that he had left it and I went there with my editor and my publisher and my agent and we would just take a deep breath before we entered every room because there was really no saying what you would find and in this one vast bedroom in the back corner of Paisley with a kind of shining almost blindingly white carpet and a 4 post bed and the words everything you think is true painted on the walls we found on a bedside table a collection of lyrics that had been clipped together and they were all hand written by him and they spanned just about his whole career and Little Red Corvette was there and pink cashmere and 1909 and so many of the biggest hits that he had had and they were all alive with these cross elts and revisions in a race sure's and they seemed the perfect testament to his creative process which is something that he had wanted to bring across in the book so I remember putting them down on the carpet and just flipping through them one by one and kind of gasping as we turned each page and that was really special I think that was one moment where we knew that we could carry forth that we could make the book happen even in his absence because here he was in these pages. You know you write that Prince had created a persona as a prophetic act he could become the person he imagine. Can you elaborate on that for us. Yeah it's a bit tricky and I think it comes out of what he told this group of editors when he assembled them a Paisley Park before I was even involved in the book but he was very adamant that this person and this going to mystery that surrounded him was something that he really had engineered it was. Something that he worked on the same way he worked on his technical craft he had a very clear idea of the value that existed in letting the world know that you weren't going to show them everything and I think almost kind of mimicking the way we discover ourselves he until the end as with you and I never really fully understood himself and I think if you can reproduce that sense of mystery that you feel about your own self in performance or in your music there's such a gravity in that and it really attracts people because they want to know more without even knowing why or without knowing what might be hidden so I think he was very astute at knowing kind of. Understanding the the iceberg of the self you know and knowing what should be submerged and what should be above water down pipe and bring It's been really a pleasure to talk with you thank you so much thank you Terry it's been so great to be here and the new prince book edited by Dan pipe and bring us caught Prince the beautiful ones. Was it was it was. Just so it was. Was it. Was. The way you feel. Tomorrow on Fresh Air My guest will be Kevin Wilson author of the new novel nothing to see here about a woman who takes over the care of twin children who spontaneously combust when agitated the novel came out of the terrifying images that have flashed field Wilson's mind since childhood when he was an adult he was diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome. Previous novel The family was made into a film starring Nicole Kidman I hope you'll join us. Executive producer is going there are technical director and engineers are driven our associate producer and digital media is. 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The president and his spy chiefs already had a tense relationship then came the impeachment inquiry honestly I almost wish that there was a board then from somewhere else in the government because this brings the whole relationship between President truck and intelligence crew to the full circle and possibly irretrievable I'm also changed how that relationship went south Monday afternoon All Things Considered from n.p.r. News plus live local news updates during your Monday afternoon commute on k.c.a.l. You it's 2 o'clock. Bringing you the sounds of stories of the California coast this is 88 point pretty k c o u f l n h d 1000 Oaks 102.3 f.m. 1340 am k.c.a.l. You Santa Barbara and 89.7 k.c. L m n k c o m h d Santa Maria for about 32 point one in San Luis Obispo We're live on line a t c o u dot org. The leader of ISIS is dead online in jihadi chat rooms his followers are vowing revenge will weigh. Like calling me calling by. Side to wait and as wildfires raging California Australians battle their own people need to understand the bikini leave on or even . The blues there is an element of risk that comes with that and Congo music from Bally's it's part Funkadelic part Casey in the Sunshine Band. Listen to the music you will dance to the. Song. The Felicien innovation known as Congo I'm Marco Werman Those stories and more today here on the world. B.b.c. News Comrie the British parliament has voted down the prime minister bar is Johnson's plan for a snap election on December the 12th to break the stalemate Mr.