Cable news networks’ ratings boom during wartime (surely one of the reasons there weren’t that many hard questions asked at CNN et al in the buildup to the Iraq invasion) and small wonder: death doesn’t pause for commercial announcements, chaos needs to be witnessed live. Blink and you’ll miss the end of someone’s life.
State funerals, on the other hand, are like watching black paint dry and show up the shallowness of the newscasters more than scripted programs. (It’s hard to ad lib when you have nothing on your mind but your hair.) Gerald Ford may have wanted a simpler send-off than the one Reagan received (it’s hard to imagine one more spectacularly pompous) but that won’t stop cable news from treating it like a Leni Riefenstahl spectacle. By going through his old home of Alexandria and pausing at the House chamber, Ford probably hoped to keep it real, remind folks that he really was a man of the people — not a phony one, like the 43rd but an authentically ordinary guy.
Nothing ordinary about James Brown and his own funeral tour — the Apollo Theater yesterday, Augusta GA today — was meant to evoke his own remarkable life. When Ford died they could only think of one great quote from him — “Our long national nightmare is over” — while James dispensed more wisdom than the Tao: “Money won’t change you but time will knock you out,” he sang and who can forget the immortal words of “Superbad”: “Sometimes I feel so nice I wanna jump back and kiss myself.”
Too bad you couldn’t have seen your funeral, JB! When your widow got done singing “Hold On, I’m Coming” you would have thought she was going to jump in the casket with you. Michael Jackson was there, looking pretty dead himself, and the house band entertained the mourners with a redition of “Sex Machine” (you think they’re gonna play that at my funeral?). If Ford were to get into heaven he’d do it unostentiously, slipping in the side door. Al Sharpton asked St. Peter to “open the gates of heaven wide because James Brown likes a lot of room to swagger.”
Get on the good foot.