Saturday, November 8, 2008

SCIENTISTS COAX BRAIN CELLS OF ST. HOLIDAY TO REGENERATE!


St. Holiday, a briefly-mentioned figure in anecdotal lore, in a footnote here and there, was as calm as a beanless casserole today following an experimental operation fraught with risk, performed by the clinical cooperative group of the White Mountain Brain Center. Tests have confirmed that he is still alive. His first words after the operation were, "Call me Fliptop." His wife, the Lovely One replied, "We may have to call you, Scooby Doofus." Long known to reject the blind application of standard solutions to personal difficulties, solutions such as suicide or euthanasia, the suffering soul opted for radical, invasive surgery to remove vast areas of necrotic tissue from both sides of his cerebral Partisan Divide. Sources report that when the top of his skull was removed for the debulking procedure, a cloud of dead brain cells, having the consistency of vacuum cleaner dust, caused a fit of sneezing among all present in the operating room. Oddly enough, what remained after the necrotic tidbits and itty-bitties were excised could not accurately be called "gray matter," for it had the multi-colored appearance of tutti-frutti icecream. The second part of the operation involved a revolutionary breakthrough in science. Surgeons sought to stimulate mitosis, or cell division and proliferation, by injecting an extract of cocoa into the Golgi apparati of his remaining brain cells. Only time will tell if the operation is successful. Now St. Holiday faces a long, hard struggle to recovery, as he has for the past fifty years.

The patient was awake throughout the operation and was able to carry on a conversation of sorts with the circling surgeons, nurses, media reps and members of the Obama Transition team. "I feel rattled," he said. "Someone Kevork me; I hurt," he mumbled. When asked if he would like an analgesic for the pain, St. Holiday replied, "No, that part of me is fine. Do you have a headogesic?"

A sort of minor figure among Show Low's Holy Illuminati, St. Holiday, whose very voice in days long past could make a preacher cry, confess and check into rehab, had noticed a diminishment of all his geek signifiers ever since his days as a Cold War superspy (code name: Deep Thought) and his debut in the national tabloids. Many have mentioned that every time he speaks, something ordinary comes out of his mouth, something mundane and unremarkable.

Upon seeing him for the first time, laid out on the operating table, a nurse said, "I can't believe how powerful he looks in person!" One of his surgeons replied, "Except for his body and soul, he is just like you and me." "Doesn't he look natural!" another said. "With his head shaved like that and his tongue hanging out, he kinda looks like a capital Q," added the saintly one's wife, who has a fondness for surgical procedures and insisted upon being in the operating room during the entire 16-hour operation. As a nurse shaved his head in preparation for the craniotomy, St. Holiday amused her and onlookers by singing a jingle from the '50's, made famous by Fearless Fosdick himself, "Wildroot Cream-Oil, Charlie!" This was followed by his stirring rendition of another old jingle, "Bryl-Cream, a little dab will do ya. She'll love to run her fingers through your hair."

Prior to the operation, St. Holiday put in brutal 8-hour shifts at his tee-shirt factory, The Bustin' T Party, and struggled to find energy for his quirky adaptation of the play "Death Takes a Holiday." When the Spirit moved him, he spent time playing rap records backwards, listening for cloaked messages from the angels. If the operation proves to be a success, we might hope that the holy man will recommence his retreat from private life and continue to make his small contribution to society by varnishing harsh truths for the sake of his posterity and his adoring disciples. It is also to be hoped that the surgery will influence his sins of humor.

St. Holiday's children tried to talk him out of the risky surgery, saying, "Dad, you're just doing this for your insanity defense. Besides, you haven't made your will yet or chosen your taxidermist." Despite his children's preference for cryogenic taxidermy, St. Holiday often speaks of his desired interment at Coopertown Burying Ground, where many of his ancestors are awaiting the morning of the First Resurrection. Now it appears that his burial will be accomplished on an installment plan, inasmuch as his excised dead brain cells and a canister of dead skin cells from a Kirby Vacuum Cleaner demonstration on his own bed were collected and mixed together for early burial at his Coopertown plot. A special graveside service is planned for the event, with Tina Turner singing, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."

As a sidenote, St. Holiday has named his new dog, Bark Obama, in honor of the victor in the Nation's presidential campaign. There is hope that the pup icon will become the first dog on the moon, a true lunar rover.