The time James Brown, Weird Al, Lee Greenwood, and Little Richard played Wheel of Fortune

1. I don’t know how all four people were allowed to assemble in the same place, since there should have been some national security argument against having Weird Al, James Brown, Little Richard, and Lee Greenwood under the same roof. A single accident of nature could have wiped them all out, and reduced America’s vital parody music and patriotic anthem reheating capacity to nothing. James Brown is wearing some blue alien fabric that would have protected him from any assault, attack, or disaster, though. He’d be just fine.

2. James Brown solves a puzzle successfully! It is not without struggle, and not without instantly thinking of this quote from Phillip Gourevitch’s New Yorker profile “Mr. Brown.”

In his speech, as in his music and dance, he is at once fiercely controlling and wildly spontaneous, unpredictable even to himself. But, unlike his songs, his conversation can be nearly impossible to follow. The patchwork of his syntax and the guttural slipstream of his diction—a gravelly, half-swallowed slur whose viscosity has increased through the decades, in lockstep with his pursuit of perfect dentistry—are only part of the challenge. After deciphering what he’s saying, it frequently remains necessary to determine what he’s talking about.

At one point he asks for an “I” and it sounds like someone in his lungs throwing an “I” sound up to his throat and barely out of his mouth. To be fair: it’s way more lucid than the time he said “ I look good, I feel good...and I make love good, too” on CNN. Even on Wheel of Fortune, James Brown talked like he sang: incomprehensibly.

3. “James Brown, Weird Al, get in here for a minute.” Pat Sajak got to say that sentence out loud once in a real life situation, and is clearly one of the luckiest people on the planet.

4. Lee Greenwood is the surprise winner--I would have pegged high school valedictorian Weird Al for the win-- but it’s obvious that Weird Al and Little Richard are both sort of having fun here, while Lee Greenwood is thinking and trying as hard as his little beaky skull possibly can. I want to say this is an indicator of Lee Greenwood not being that bright, but give him some credit. He has managed to live off one song for the better part of 30 years, and that has to take some kind of cunning.

6. WEIRD AL HAS NOT AGED EITHER. It’s possible this entire episode is a cover for a meeting of vampires and assorted immortals, some of whom has since faked their deaths to live elsewhere without the hassles of fame.

HT: @kpnbarca via Warming Glow