C.J.: Prince's "3rdEYEGLASS" shades were designed by Minnesotans Coco and Breezy

The "3rdEYEGLASS" shades Prince debuted on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" were created by designers Coco and Breezy, Minnesota natives now based in New York.

"Just wanted to share the good news that we designed the sunglasses for Prince that he wore on SNL last night. These are the sunglasses that were digitally created on his album cover but he asked us to create the material version," read a Sunday e-mail from Breezy. "We would like U to have it exclusively in Minnesota."

When Coco and Breezy were here in July overseeing a photo shoot, visiting with mom Diana Aponte and interviewing with me, they mentioned meeting with Prince.

"This was the project we were speaking about with him during our trip," Breezy now tells me. "We received the glasses from our factory just a few days before SNL and dropped them off to someone on his team. No one told us if he liked them or not, so our anticipation was extremely high because we had no idea if he was going to wear them. We then get a call saying that he invited us to come sit in the live audience to see the show. When he came on stage it was dark and we couldn't tell if he was wearing them or not. Then of course we saw him rocking out with our '3rd Eye' sunglasses. We were sooo excited!!!"

They apparently expect these shades — designed for people with a third eye on their forehead? — to catch on because Breezy told me, "We are announcing a pre-order date soon." The price hasn't been determined.

Prince and his current protégés, 3rdEyeGirl, performed an eight-minute medley of songs from two new albums, "Art Official Age" and "Plectrum Electrum." Prince was the musical guest of the guest host, comedian Chris Rock. The suspicion I conveyed on Twitter, that Rock was entering dangerous territory in mining terrorism at the World Trade Center and Boston Marathon for laughs, was confirmed Monday when "CBS This Morning" anchor Gayle King said the audience didn't seem to know if laughter was appropriate. Rock's monologue also included a joke about Target that gave me pause — which is, of course, what good comedians do.

The sight of activist and satirist Dick Gregory excited Metro Transit Police Chief John Harrington.

Gregory was in the throes of a passionate explanation of the title of his autobiography — a racial epithet we won't say here — when Harrington made his move. "I'm doing an interview now," said Gregory, waving a finger at Harrington. The chief must not have broken stride because Gregory then delivered a slightly more forceful, "I'm doing an interview," pointing at the camera.

"OK," said Harrington.

Clyde Bellecourt, American Indian Movement leader and co-founder, had worried that this might be a bad place for an interview, and he was right. Bellecourt established a human security barrier with the help of David Glass, president of the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media, and others. Nobody imagined the man in the police uniform would be a disruption.

"Chief Harrington's parents thought of Mr. Gregory as a hero, so Chief Harrington was simply hoping to say hello. This simply seems to be a case of Chief Harrington not noticing that you were filming an interview," said Howie Padilla, Metro Transit spokesman and my former Strib colleague.

Before André Cymone flew home to Minnesota for Sunday's "First Avenue Get Out the Vote Concert," the doting dad worked on an assignment from his 7-year-old twin sons.

When I visited Sunday at Chambers with Cymone and his photographer wife, Katherine Anderson, he was wearing jeans with subtle paint stains. I don't know if Cymone changed to perform at First Avenue.

C.J. can be reached at cj@startribune.com and seen on FOX 9's "Buzz." E-mailers, please state a subject; "Hello" does not count. Attachments are not opened.