2007-03-19 - 7:41 p.m.
I think I might have the whole thing wrong, but a few people have offered suggestions of famous deaths to complete the trifecta with Anna Nicole and Capt. America offered in the last entry. Possibly the most appropriate offer � although perish the thought of it actually happening � is William Shatner. An American icon,, but a pretty ridiculous one indeed. I mean his greatest moment of fame was as Captain Kirk. Certainly a heroic figure, but also a guy wearing a goofy uniform and saying silly things like �set phasers on stun�.
From there he only continued the journey into absurdity. Did you know he made a movie in Esperanto? You may recall his record album on which he performs �Mr. Tambourine Man� and �Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds� in his important-sounding, ponderous, Shatner-esque oration. T. J. Hooker of course, with the grabbing onto moving car hoods during a chase. Today he does Priceline commercials, fully self-conscious of his fame and his ludicrousness.
But perhaps the most interesting suggestion was a Sesame Street muppet like Big Bird or Oscar the Grouch. The recommender noted: �It�s a good idea to reintroduce the kiddies to the idea of death and loss.� Hmm. At first I thought death was unlikely to pass muster with the Children�s Television Workshop. But she continued: �PBS will decide, at the urging of some clever child psychologist who is working out Captain America issues. Captain America doesn�t resonate with the little ones, but Oscar would��
I suspect PBS is unlikely to kill off a money-machine like Big Bird or Oscar and will probably opt for a lesser muppet. Perhaps Tickle-me Elmo�s uncle, Telly Monster, or Barkley the Dog (is he still an extant character these days?). Still, I know what she means. Sesame Street teaching about life also including things like grief and sorrow would be an important lesson, one I wish I�d been taught as a wee one. Difficult to impart sensitively, but I�m confident CTW can pull it off.
But I think I may have had this all wrong. Maybe Captain America actually completes a trifecta that began with James Brown. Nya and I had put the Godfather of Soul with Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein who died around the same time. But now that I think about it, maybe this wasn�t a good trifecta. We were lumping them together for being powerful men in the 1970s. But they�re really three different levels of fame, a couple spanning far beyond the Seventies.
Ford was I guess a career politician, but no one had really heard of him until he became vice-president and later president. His moment of infamy, when he tripped down the stairs, was really just a brief moment of �70s glory. Shortly thereafter, he went on to being an elder statesman and other ex-presidential stuff. I suppose he was an essential part of the �70s, but he really wasn�t particularly powerful (the only unelected president) or world-changing (doing nothing to head off the looming oil crisis).
Saddam was a horror far beyond the 1970s. Yeah, he conducted a coup for the presidency (he was prime minister before that) in 1979, just in time for the Iran-Iraq war. But he gassed the Kurds in the 1980s, was in power for the first Gulf War in the early �90s, and kept murdering people right up until his arrest last year. No mere flash in the pan; he was a force of evil for a very long time. His level of fame, although it�s actually infamy, ranks him pretty high, maybe with someone like Ted Kennedy or Jacques Chirac.
But James Brown is freakin� James Brown. Ridiculous by definition like Little Richard, but infinitely cooler. Unquestionably an American icon like Anna Nicole and Cap. Made his fame by performing to exhaustion, then draping himself in a flag! How American is that? How ridiculous is that? I think he is the actual complement for this trifecta. So it was actually over when I wrote about it. Sorry. William Shatner and a muppet were good calls, but they�ll have to wait. This one is closed.
� 2007 Geoff Gladstone
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