strange deadfellows

james brown, gerald ford and saddam hussein all die away in the course of a week. anyone see a connection here? i don't, but that's never stopped people in desperate need for entertainment from cooking up really improbable conspiracy theories. and in this spirit, i offer the following absurdity... (with a tip of the x-ray superspy goggles to jane and doug for the ideas and indulging my nonsense)

************
saddam gets notice that it's all over. he's to face the baghdad gallows for his crimes against his ppl. desperate to escape his fate, he mentally scrambles for something that might offer him chance of reprieve... then it comes to him: gerald ford had pardoned richard nixon. maybe, just maybe by appealing to the oldest, perhaps most revered living president in the us he could usurp the american-led hanging decision and convince a weakened GW Bush of a pardon for the deposed leader. it was worth a shot.

this is where secret al qaeda operative james brown comes in. a long history of erratic behavior, police run-ins, and songs like "payback" and "super bad" should have tipped us off. “the hardest working man in show business” was also working behind the scenes for a terrorist cell in america. saddam figures that if anyone can get an audience with gerald ford, it's the godfather of soul. he places the call and james accepts the mission.

jb has no problem getting ahold of the ford family. anyone with his record of substance abuse has a direct line to betty. the meeting is arranged and james readies his appeal for saddam's life, flying out to meet gerald at his home in rancho mirage, ca.

the meeting goes smashingly, james wins over gerald and convinces him the best thing for the iraqis and the american public is to peacefully tuck saddam away in jail somewhere and avoid adding more violence on top of an already bloody debacle.

this is where it all goes wrong. the secret service had been keeping a close watch on gerald ford's residence and james' visit did not go unnoticed. before gerald can take action on his agreement with james, the agents sneak into his home and subject him to repeated listenings of the kevin federline album in order to keep him from upsetting the current plans for saddam's execution. his will broken, he passes away under the aural assault.

james nearly manages to make a clean getaway. he traverses the country all the way back to georgia and would have been ok, had he not stopped in a diner along the way. james' years of substance abuse and passion for french fries had left him in a fragile state. working behind the scenes (and in the kitchen), the secret service injects his order of chicken-fried steak with a perilous, additional load of transfats.

the affects were nearly immediate as the artery clogging baddies established a strangle-hold on the godfather's failing system. the grim reaper had him at a nearby hospitol, extinguishing his life and saddam's last hope of escaping the hangman's noose.
***********
so there you have it. not only were their deaths intimately related, but they are also connected in no small way to kevin federline, al qaeda and a substance more deadly than nerve gas itself, the ghastly transfat.