Death American Style, Part 1: The President and the Godfather

Laying in state is weird. Is it just me?

I've been riveted by the twinned images of the President and the Godfather, the multitudes turned out to see these men off -- ex-President Ford in a coffin that looks like the highest-end industrial-style Yuppie fridge, itself then draped in the flag; and the Godfather of Soul James Brown, resplendent in his open casket, wearing what he might have worn for another brilliant, powerhouse gig New Year's Eve at B.B. King's Blues Club in New York City, had he lived another few days.

James Brown had way more cool titles than Gerald Ford. Ford was Senator Ford, and then Vice President Ford, and finally, Zelig-like, President Ford. James Brown, on the other hand, was the Hardest Working Man In Show Business, and also Soul Brother Number One. He was the Black President, and in the end he reigned as the Godfather of Soul -- and he reigneth forever.

Ford was the kind of decent, conservative statesman and only mildly unethical rich man that we now have a name for - we call such people Democrats. He was a modest man who almost literally stumbled into the most powerful office in the world when Spiro Agnew had the lack of grace to take a petty bribe from a minor camapign contributor (apparently unaware of the truest truism in politics, "Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king"). In came Ford from the Senate, a loyal and competent sort, and soon out went Nixon and, well, you know the rest.

Then there was James Brown, who apparently could be a real dick but was certainly the type to leave his mark on the world. A rigid taskmaster who fined his musicians for too many notes, too few notes, or missed dance steps; a man capable of hitting his wife on occasion; a musical and terpsichorean innovator with one good foot planted in Africa and the other right here in the African American ghetto; in short, a man with real drive, pulling himself out of the kind of Georgia childhood that swallowed multitudes of Black Americans in the first few decades of the 20th century, but which by God would not take him without a motherfuckin' fight.

Ford had much of what usually is considered glory handed to him by fate, by coincidence, by Dick Nixon. James BRown clawed and scratched for every dime he spent or saved, and every ounce of glory he ever tasted. The President-select and the Godfather by acclamation.

It is typical of poor old Gerald Ford's lot in life that his death, too, should be so thoroughly upstaged. But then, that befits Ford's willingness to laugh at himself and allow himself to be somewhat overshadowed: he was the junior partner in his marriage, as it's safe to say that the Betty Ford Clinics have made a more lasting contribution to American culture than anything Ford accomplished as President. He will probably go down, in fact, as only the THIRD-most historically important member of HIS OWN ADMINISTRATION, what with Rummy and Dark Lord Cheney getting their first intoxicating whiffs of the Oval Office, testing the outer limits of the evils of statecraft under Ford's tenure. Now even as a dying American President, Gerald Ford is Number Two (Three, actually if you count Saddam Hussein's death the same week). It's appropriate that Ford looked sort of like Charlie Brown all grown up. Good Grief!

So there's President Ford's coffin, in the stentorian chilliness of the Capitol Rotunda, draped in the flag. Mourners file by, some lay a hand on the flag while others shed a tear. Memories echo in the air, unseen. And there's Soul Brother Brown, sprawled out for all to see at the Apollo Theatre on 125th Street in Harlem, where he recorded one of the greatest live albums of all time and where he made men dance and women swoon. Lines stretch out into the cold Harlem night. This last gig may be the Godfather's best performance yet.