he was also a hilarious IRL troll/discordian-esque chaos sower/dada-esque prankster. Jimmy Fallon (who tends to annoy me, honestly) and Questlove retold a story last night that was compelling enough that I suffered Fallon’s rambling version. here’s the highlights:
- Fallon often plays games with guests, Prince’s people call ahead of his next appearance to request to play ping-pong
- “uh, that’s not really a game we usually play…”
- “Prince thinks you would be fun to play ping-pong with”
- “well, OK.” End call.
- they call back “forget it, never mind.” End call.
- they call again “ping-pong?”
- “look, we’ll have it set up, if he feels like playing, we’ll play.”
- Prince does the show, completely ignores the ping-pong table
- several days later, Fallon is having dinner, Prince texts him: Let’s you, me, and Questlove play ping-pong now.
- excuses self from family, explains that Prince is summoning him
- arrives at Manhattan ping-pong parlor, not sure what to say
- Host [sotto voce]: “are you here for Prince?”
- leads Fallon to curtained-off area
- parts curtain, Prince is striking a pose with the paddle, wearing a double-breasted, crushed blue velvet jacket
- they warm up, then play, whereupon Prince proceeds to throw shade at him
- Prince winning by wide margin
- Prince locks eyes with him: “Game point”
- serves a furiously spinning ball to the corner, right on the edge; a wild, completely un-return-able shot
- Fallon crawls around on the ground to retrieve the ball
- gets the ball, meanwhile Prince has silently vanished.
- Questlove arrives late, see’s Prince’s limo leaving
- runs over, knocks on glass: “What happened, what happened?”
- [window lowers]
- Prince [thousand-yard-stare]: “He knows what happened.”
- [window raises]
I may have mis-remembered the punchline, but it was something equally badassed.
I mean, this guy’s life was lived as a performance, but for his own entertainment. It was truly his world, we just lived in it for a while.
