And He's Falling Down the Stairway... to Heaven

Or
God to Ford: Drop Dead

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He Was Delicious (He was a former president. Do you want to say he wasn’t delicious?)
(An epitaphany surprisingly shared only with Mark)

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No Pardon for President Ford
(Props to Warren Fellman)

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Hark the Gerald Angels Sing
(Stolen from the Derby Dead Pool, where I am now in 35th)
Accidental and Accident-prone President Gerald Ford, whose term in the White House was more of a Constitutional test case than a Presidency, has died senselessly at the age of 93. One of two presidents to take office without having won a national election, Ford’s tenure in the Oval Office lasted 896 days. In that time, he became the first to survive two assassination attempts – and really, isn’t shooting at Gerald Ford like arguing with a bowl of vanilla ice cream? His term in office was defined and essentially ended by a decision made in his first month in office: the pardon of his predecessor Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up. Although the move was largely unpopular at the time and drove his wife to drink, Ford argued he was ending the “long national nightmare” the Watergate scandal had become. Course, he also elevated Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to national prominence, so he laid the groundwork for our current national nightmare. As President, Ford also finished losing the Vietnam War, attempted to defeat inflation by having Americans wear “WIN” buttons, let New York City add financial to its moral bankruptcy, oversaw a swine flu epidemic where more people died from the vaccine than the flu, encouraged Suharto to kill one-third of the population of East Tumor, put the current most liberal member of the Supreme Court (John Paul Stevens) on the bench, couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time and assured the world that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Prior to being appointed Vice President, Ford had served 13 terms in Congress, edited the Warren Commission report to move President Kennedy’s fatal wound 6 inches up from his back to his neck and was captain on the 1932 and 1933 Michigan national championship teams, playing, as Lyndon Johnson observed, without a helmet.

The wolves had been circling Ford for some time, so 13 Pooligans took a very small step forward. Chief among them was Mark’s Beltway Boneyard IV: Foreign Exchange, taking over first place as the first with 2 hits. The 12 of us sharing 12th place: Michelle’s As I Lay Dying, Joy, Matt, Jen, my The Family Plot Thickens, Shawn’s Team One – Oldest, Greg's Team Quincy, Dawn’s Go for the light, it’s right there, damn it, Nancy, Jenni, Monty’s D.C. Dead and Paul’s Pushing Daisies. Of note, that was Joy’s first hit in 2 years and 4 months – the longest active scoreless streak, and Jenni’s first in 16 months, the longest consecutive drought. The distinction of longest with their face pressed against the mortuary glass looking in now goes to Jeannie, sitting quietly since Curt Gowdy’s mike was silenced 10 months and 9 days ago.



Papa’s Got a Brand New Body Bag
(An epitaphany shared with Monty)

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AOOOOOOOOOOWWWW – I Don’t Feel So Good

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Dying in America
(An epitaphany shared by Mark and Monty)

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The Godfather's Soul
(More props for Monty)

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The Most Recently Deceased Man in Show Business
(Additional accolades for Monty)

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Get on Down (I'm a Croakin' Machine)
(Kudos for Mark)

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I'm Dead and I'm Proud
(Further Fooferaw for Mark)

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The Archangel of Soul
(Another cap tip to Mark)

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Dead at the Apollo
(Honorifics for Joe Wright)
James Brown is dead isn’t just an L.A. Style song anymore as the Godfather of Soul has succumbed to heart failure at the age of 73. Even as he lay in a hospital bed with pneumonia on Christmas Eve, the pompadoured dynamo told friends that he was looking forward to his New Year’s Eve gig. But decades as the hardest working man in show biz, as well as a tanker full of alchohol and a chemistry set, had taken their toll and this time he did not emerge from under the cape. Brown spent 50 years defining soul, rhythm, disco, hip-hop, rap and dance music and influencing generations of musicians with such hits as ''Papa's Got A Brand New Bag'' and ''I Got You (I Feel Good).'' He was one of the founding class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, won two Grammys for recordings and one lifetime achievement award. On stage, Brown was a whirling dervish, routinely losing two to three pounds over the course of a performance and, in the days when he was not headlining, making closing acts, including the Rolling Stones, very nervous at having to follow him.

Dudley Do-Nothing
Chris Hayward, who created Dudley Do-Right, the Mountie who succeeds despite his best efforts, has died at the age of 81. He also was a co-creator of The Munsters, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Barney Miller and was a primary writer on Get Smart. Hayward helped make The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle the standard for cartoon genius for decades with a litany of awful puns and sharp satire: In one story, the plot requires Bullwinkle to survive a week in the Abominable Manor in England, he says, "Shucks, I've been livin' in an abominable manner all my life!" In one of Aesop and Son’s Fables, Aesop says "Barking dogs seldom bite," in a story about a dog and his stolen false teeth. Junior, his son, retorts: "Nothing dentured, nothing gained."

Dead Turkmen Don’t Wear Plaid
The man who reduced Turkmenistan Idol to a kazoo contest has died at the age of 66. Saparmurat Niyazov’s authoritarian regime was renowned for it’s randomness and self-aggrandizement. Turkmenbasy, his official title, was liberally applied to official placenames, making him roughly the equivalent of peaches in Atlanta. The self-appointed Leader of all Ethnic Turkmens, Niyazov’s face appeared on his country’s currency, his portrait adorned all major public buildings, streets and the cabins of state-run airplanes and a giant gold-plated statue of him topped the Neutrality Arch in the center of the capital city, rotating constantly to face the sun and reflect light into driver’s eyes. He renamed a town, several schools, airports, a meteorite, the months of the year and the days of the week after himself and his family. And what’s the fun in being a totalitarian dictator if you can’t mix in a little capriciousness? He banned ballet, opera, long hair and beards, make-up for news readers, video games, the Internet, lip synching and recorded music. Libraries were closed, but all textbooks except the Ruhnama, Niyazov’s manifesto of revisionist history and moral guidelines had been banned, so it wasn’t a total loss. Young men were encouraged to chew on bones to preserve their teeth rather than be fitted with gold teeth.

Dog-gone
Cheap Seats lovers everywhere are in mourning as Anne Rogers Clark, the first female dog handler to win best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club, has gone to grandmom’s farm to have more room to run around. Winner of best-in-show honors in 1956, 1959 and 1961 and a judge at 22 other shows, she was a very good dog handler. Oh yes she was. Oh yes she was.

Au Revoir, Mon Sherry
Larry Sherry, MVP of the 1959 World Series as a reliever for the Los Angeles Dodgers, has died after a long battle with cancer at the age of 71. Sherry recorded two saves and two wins, including the deciding 6th game as the Dodgers won the championship in their second year in LA, more salt in the wounds of Brooklynites that had endured 54 “next” years before taking the title.

Sad Times
Mike Evans, the original Lionel Jefferson on All in the Family and The Jeffersons, has died of throat cancer at the age of 57. Evans had to leave the show after 4 seasons to spend more time on Good Times, where he was co-creator and primary writer of one of the first original shows with a predominantly black cast. After Good Times devolved from socially relevant sitcom to a Dy-no-mite-athon thanks to JJ Walker, Evans returned for the final two seasons of The Jeffersons.

Brown and Out
Chris Brown, best remembered as the Padres third baseman with a propensity for unusual excuses for failing to reach his potential, including missing a game with a strained eyelid after sleeping on an eye wrong and another with a bruised tooth, has died at the age of 45 from injuries sustained in a suspicious fire that he may or may not have started or may or may not have been the work of the men he claims had tied him up and robbed him but who may or may not have existed. The second suspicious death of a Giants infielder from the 1980s in the last month has Columbo, Dan Brown and Oliver Stone trying to put together the pieces. After his baseball career ended in disappointment, he bounced around in odd jobs before ending up in Iraq driving trucks for Halliburton.

Defaulted
(Can I get a whoop-whoop for Mark?)
Robert Stafford, the Boston University Law School graduate who served as governor, congressman and senator from the hippie commune of Vermont has died at the age of 93. Stafford is best remembered for the namesake federal student loan program that allows students to attend universities well beyond their means, leading to lifestyles also well beyond their means.