Prince the ;

In the 80-story building where I work, the elevators have these little TV screens that have pop-up news blurbs. Since my office is only on the 22nd story, I get to see two, maybe three, of these little news blurbs during my ride.

Here was today’s blurb: Apparently, Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson all turn 50 years old this summer.

However, according to one of Madonna’s spiritual consultants, she’s only 36 years old in spirit-years. You know how to multiply a dog’s age by seven to figure dog years. Well, in order to figure your spiritual age, and if you’re a multi-million dollar pop star, you get to subtract 28% off your chronological age to figure your spiritual age.

That would make me 35.64 years old. I’m a little younger than Madonna.

So, these three folks are turning 50 this month. My first thought was, “Prince is still alive?”

I also thought, “Didn’t he change his name to the symbol indicating Pi or something like that?”

Then, “Didn’t he change his name again to ‘The Artist Formerly Known as the Symbol Indicating Pi?’”

Apparently, he’s still kicking around, probably thinking of changing his name to a semi-colon.