The other night the question arose whether Prince is indeed the author of Martika's "Toy Soldiers," the 1991 tune recently re-made by Eminem. I remember the song well, because in the summer of 1991, I was working for my dad manufacturing octagon windows in Mineola, New York. In the shop, they played one of the main New York pop stations which played that song at least twice a day. I believe it was WPLJ "Power 95"; click here to download a sound file of Power 95 from that era (requires Real Player). I was one of the only non-Portuguese people in the whole shop, and I still have a bulging vein between my thumb and index finger where I over-developed the muscle used to pill the trigger on the pressurized air guns that nailed the octagon window frames together.

Anyway, about Martika. I still don't know if Prince composed "Toy Soldiers," but in the course of my investigation I discovered the following fun factoids:

1. Debbie Gibson appears in the March 2005 issue of Playboy. (Here are the pics, if you're into that whole naked chicks thing.)

2. Martika was an extra in Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.