Prince's Greatest Moment

Back in the spring of 2016, the untimely death of Prince at 58 preoccupied the media which were mainly concerned with the cause of his demise and what I called at the time "unsettling revelations." For me the latter chipped away at the pedestal I always imagine Prince standing on. In the 80's when the movie, Purple Rain, came out, starring Prince as "the Kid," you couldn't help but think he was way cool. He played a crazy guitar. He was a genius musician like a modern day Mozart. He rode a motorcycle. He got the girl in the end, and he was a showman with a troubled past like James Dean with a dash of Liberace.


I, for one, was blissfully unaware of how short Prince was. Back then I read he weighed 112 pounds. I really wanted the news media to stop ruining my larger than life image of Prince, but they kept reporting things like he stood 5' 3" and kept two doves as pets. One news source reported that the birds grieved following Prince's death as recalled by his sister, Tyka Nelson. I didn't want to know every detail about Prince's private life, but the news kept flowing in. At the rate they were going I expected the autopsy to reveal that Prince had a boil on his ass.

Prince often wore clothes that were a bit effeminate. He wore purple tuxedoes and frilly shirts. Now I was wondering where did he get these articles of clothing? You certainly can't get such flamboyant threads in the Boy’s Department of Kohl's. Prince was a showman even if he never wore capes or furs or expensive jewelry. It was a testament to how cool he really was. Anyone who can pull off a frilly shirt as a fashion statement has so much excess swag that they could drop some on the side walk and still be awesome.

Prince grew up a Seventh-day Adventist and as an adult he became a Jehovah’s Witness, hawking religious pamphlets door to door. I read an article in which a Jewish couple recalled Prince coming to their door with other witnesses. I image he was mistaken for the little well-dressed, well-behaved child that always accompanies them. One time some Jehovah’s came to my door and tried to drop off a copy of the Watchtower, their seminal monthly magazine. A teenage boy accompanied them. To this day, I swear the kid was trying to speak to me through Morse code via eye blinks. He relayed,

“Please rescue me from these nut jobs.” I often wonder what happened to him.

The constant dancing around the stage in high boots apparently wreaked havoc on Prince’s hip. His religious beliefs prevented him from getting a blood transfusion, necessary for hip replacement surgery. Jehovah’s Witnesses eschew blood transfusion because they believe the Bible prohibits ingesting blood. They even get down to the nitty gritty stating that red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma are a no go while the use of parts of blood such as albumin, immunoglobulin and hemophiliac are okay. I didn’t realize the Bible was so specific. It makes sense because Jesus never got a blood transfusion.

Prince’s music was cool in the 80's, but it never really evolved. Same ole extended droning guitar tracks. John Parelese, who writes about music for the New York Times, described Prince as, “a master architect of funk, R&B, rock and pop.” Funk maybe, but in an olfactory sense. Prince would often get into long drawn out tracks and make all sorts of unscripted rambling statements like

“That's what the people say! Right Sheldon?”

He’d often bring it all home in overdrive by scream something unintelligible like,

"Take me away!"

His shining moment was during one of these extended riffs when he invited Kim Kardashian on the stage. This concerned me as Stephen Hawking warned to never put matter and antimatter together because they'll annihilate each other along with the release of “a large amount of energy." The hugely talented, multifaceted, artist should have never stood so close to Kim Kardashian. I expected at any moment they would cancel each other out. Not to mention there was more antimatter than matter. Stephen never told us what would happen in that case. Best I can tell, there would be a big flash. Prince would be largely consumed, leaving a small amount of Kim along with her butt implants on the stage.

Surgical butt implants are certainly a trend my generation could never have predicted. Call me ole fashioned, but I just don’t get deliberately making your ass larger. I grew up on the Sir Mix-a-Lot trend setting song, Baby Got Back, and I might be out of my element here, but I think it was more a cautionary tale than large ass advocacy. I don’t think having a huge gut will ever be fashionable nor will people in the future get belly implants even though Sarah Robles won a bronze medal in powerlifting in Rio in 2016 and again in Japan in 2020. Now, if she had won the gold, things might have been different.

Whatever Kim did to get up onto that stage, she certainly didn't think it through. Apparently Scott Dipstick, the dude the Kardashians collectively ignore, gets paid to exist at parties. They call it a “club appearance.” The Kardashians ignored Bruce Jenner too until he won Glamour’s Woman of Year, prompting women all over the country to acknowledge that white men have to take that away from them too. It’s not enough that Caucasian males have dominated the workforce for decades, taking all the leadership roles, Glamour has made it clear that white men make better women as well.

Maybe Kim thought she would just exist on the stage like a club appearance. Prince didn't think it through either. It wasn't like he was coaxing Lady Gaga up there. She could have sang or danced or played the piano. Prince clearly wanted Kim to dance, but this is a closely guarded Kardashian secret, - none of them can dance. If you saw her sister, Kendall, in the futuristic video, Balmain x H&M, battle strutting from scene to scene as she calls in her minions, you know she can't groove either. For the big finish when Kendall finally gets warmed up, she kills it with some tight hand dancing.

Kim is famous for an odd array of things. Growing up in a room in which OJ almost offed himself, a sex tape, marrying a dude for 72 days, balancing things on her ass. Something tells me Prince was hoping for one of these, and I'm not talking about the balancing act.

Kim later explained that she was so star struck standing that close to Prince that she forgot to take a selfie. That’s like the Pope forgetting to genuflect. I kept waiting for Kim to whip out a Rubik’s cube, do a handstand. Anything. When Prince wants you to dance, you dance, and if you can’t dance, then you fake it fast. I’m sure, beyond any doubt, Kim Kardashian must be able to twerk. I would just stand back because I'll bet Kim could crack a walnut between her butt cheeks. After a rather uncomfortable twenty or so seconds in which Prince tried to get Kim to dance, bum hip and all, he realized she wasn’t going to play along then turned to her and screeched, 

"Get off the stage!"

Followed by,

"Welcome to America."

Kim made a quick exit much to our collective relief. It was a terribly uncomfortable moment. Kim is famous for having a large seat cushion which anyone can see is too big to fit into Prince’s wheelhouse. Kim did her best. If you watch closely about a minute in, Kim extends her arm and says,

“Pick a card. Any card.”

That was Princes greatest moment, kicking Kim and her huge fake butt off the stage. Thank you, Prince for that timeless moment raining purple on the Kardashian's phony world.

Editor's Note: Originally published on August 25, 2016.