MJ, The Purple One & Ping Pong

Like the rest of the world, I am shocked and saddened by Michael Jackson's sudden death yesterday. I met a friend at W.A. Frost for happy hour last night and as soon as I got there she asked if I had heard anything about MJ's cardiac arrest and possible death. Everyone on the patio of Frost was wondering and nobody could get internet service on our phones in that area for some reason..thanks iPhone/AT&T, just when I need data most, you fail me. I called a trusty friend who is always 1 click away from the information superhighway and he confirmed it..Jacko was gone. My mom was texting to tell me people were already swarming UCLA Medical Center. There are some really obsessed MJ fans out there and I'm sure they are not taking this well.

In all the coverage I've seen, this little story in today's Star Tribune about MJ hanging out with Prince, attempting to play ping pong is the strangest... I wish Dave Chapelle was still making his show so he could recreate this kind of hilarious scene:

"For Prince, born the same year as Jackson, Jacko was a friendly rival. Bobby Z, drummer for Prince and the Revolution, remembers watching the 1984 Grammys with his boss when Jackson swept the awards for his album "Thriller."

"We were watching rough cuts of [the movie] 'Purple Rain,' and we knew that's where Prince wanted to be the next year," Z said Thursday.

Jackson showed up backstage at a couple Prince shows in 1984. The two icons, whose "Thriller" and "Purple Rain" defined the 1980s, never did work together. Later that decade, when both were recording at the same Los Angeles studio, Prince invited Jackson to play ping-pong. Michael, a star since age 8 who had lived a sheltered life, didn't know how.

"You want me to slam it?" Prince asked, according to engineer David Z, who was there. "Michael drops his paddle and holds his hands up in front of his face so the ball won't hit him. Michael walks out with his bodyguard, and Prince starts strutting around like a rooster. 'Did you see that? He played like Helen Keller.'"

But Bland insists the two icons got along fine: "They'd shoot hoops at Paisley Park," Prince's studio/home in Chanhassen. "We used to get packages from MJJ Productions [with] footage of Sly Stone performing in Europe. Prince would pop it in the VCR, and we'd watch it."

He did name one of his kids "Prince" - perhaps after The Purple One?? Apparently one of the times he was in MN he ate at the Rainforest Cafe at Mall of America..I know this because my friend Tim (who worked there along with my own husby and the husby of one of my best friends, in their cute little Ranger outfits) saw Michael come in one time, surgical mask and all.

It will be a day of all Michael Jackson tunes for me - I still listen to "Wanna Be Startin Something," "Billie Jean," and "PYT" every time we take a road trip or drive to a cabin in the baby bug, and am always blown away by the amazing production of these tracks that were made in the early 80s - any of them could come out today and be on par the best songs on the radio, they were so ahead of their time. So much talent and so much fame, a person can only take for so long.

RIP, MJ.