Graffiti Bridge, Uncrossed

Claire Hoffman recently wrote about visiting Prince in Los Angeles, for Talk of the Town, and Thessaly La Force expanded on the experience for the Goings On blog. It seemed like the right time to share a minor story about almost meeting Prince.

I saw Prince play in Las Vegas in March of 2007, and wrote a column about it. A few weeks after the piece ran, I got a call from someone in Prince’s camp. Prince apparently enjoyed the column and wanted to reprint it on his Web site. My guess was that Prince liked the column because it contains many positive statements about him. Reprints are not my department, so I handed the matter over to the appropriate party. I assumed that this phone call from Prince’s amanuensis would be as close as I got to the hem of his garment.

I was wrong. A week later, another purple helper called to ask if I would write something else about Prince. It was not clear what type of writing Prince wanted, or where it might appear. I am contractually prevented from moonlighting and, in any event, I didn’t want to repeat myself. The prospect of meeting Prince, though, was as enticing as the phone calls were vague. There was no apparent synchronization between the assistants. No one I spoke to seemed to know what the others had said.

After some volleys, I found out that Prince wanted someone to write on the walls of “his museum.” I couldn’t find any evidence of a Prince museum, though there is a Prince section in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Writing graffiti doesn’t break any house rules, so I figured I would say yes and come up with a word rate for the assignment. Ha. After two minutes, I abandoned such dull, landlocked rationality. What if Prince wanted me to write “[symbol] is the most gr8est thing 2 happen in 4ever”? Would I charge him $400 a word? No. I would just do it. What if I showed up and sipped mint tea while he practiced piano down the hall? Also fine.

I told one of Prince’s people that I was willing, and we agreed that the next step was to meet. I said I could fly to either Los Angeles or Minneapolis, but this turned out to be unnecessary. Prince was coming to New York and would be staying in midtown. Fantastic. We agreed to meet at 9 P.M. on a Monday evening. I was told that his driver, Raul, would be calling me.

Expecting some fluidity in this plan, I stationed myself at a bar between my home and the nearest west-side subway. Around nine, Raul called to say that we would meet closer to ten. At ten-fifteen, Raul said Prince was having another dinner, and was running late: we would meet closer to eleven, perhaps downtown. At eleven-thirty, Raul said Prince was wrapping up his meal and asked if I would like to come uptown. (He didn’t say where, just that is was “near Central Park.”) At midnight, Raul invited me to come to Prince’s hotel, on Fifty-seventh Street, around 1 A.M.

At this point, I returned to dull, landlocked rationality. I suspected 1 A.M. might become 3 A.M., and that my kids would not be interested in my legendary evening when we next met at 7 A.M. I told Raul that we should probably reschedule and meet when Prince was less busy, in the city of his choice. I never heard from anyone in the Prince cabinet again.

Posted by Sasha Frere-Jones

"museum"!?!?!?!?

say what?

what a tool.

I don't believe a word of it. Everybody knows his driver's name is Pookie.

I've got that writing on wallz feeling inside of me..Just so ya know.

somebody send her some Purple Kool-Aid on the house

For a publication that is standing by what they printed they sure are giving this a lot of play. What exactly is the point of the this little story? Everyone knows P is has a habit of changing his mind at the last minute. A lot a celebs do. Hell Stevie Wonder has left people sitting a studio all night waiting on his ass after he call them to come record. Grace Jones is notorious for showing up late or not a all for events.

Yeah, why is that? It is just rude. He was over 2 hours late for the concert in Minn. I was told by some P fanatics that he is always late. It was HOT too and we all had to sit outside and wait. He started by being 2 hours late for the perfume gig at Macy's and continued from there. Show still rocked tho. He blamed it all on waiting for Wendy to fly in. He made it on time to all of the shows in London tho. (except for when Chelsey flew in to meet with him).....