HE SPEAKS!

Saint Holiday broke away from his handlers at the executive brainstorming session of the semi-annual conference of the Show Low Temperance and Abstinence League to issue the following statement: "My permanent state of apology will end soon. I'm sorry it has lasted so long. I regret that I must cut it short. I beg the kind indulgence of the public during this period of personal transition, as I attempt to transcend the monotony of my exciting life. Beyond this, it grieves me to admit that I have nothing more substantial to add to current discourse."

HOLY COWS!

The first meeting of the White Mountain Sacred Cow Society, held in the Show Low Library on Friday, was a surprising success. There has been a remarkable flowering of consciousness in these parts, leading to a shift toward true bovine tolerance in a broader "reverence for life" movement, which has taken hold of the people here like a fever. The venerable St. Holiday welcomed a standing-room-only crowd (someone forgot to set up the chairs) of dignitaries and residents from Show Low, Pinetop-Lakeside, Linden, the White Mountain Apache tribe and other surrounding communities. After a good-natured roasting of the inspired founder of the newly-organized society by prominent members of the ranching community, time was given to a special guest, His Divine Grace B. S. Bhaktishiva Swami Bhagadung, to explain the rudiments of true ruminant enlightenment. After his stirring presentation, many made their way to the front of the room to kneel and renounce their former carnivorous ways, swearing ever after to abstain from the eating of red meat, together with green or bluish meat. Wal-Mart and Safeway are said to be gearing up for a surge in sales of soy-based products. The question of whether to admit bulls to the sacred order was tabled indefinitely. There was widespread resistance to the notion of allowing calves to participate, based upon a literal reading of the Biblical book of Exodus. A women's auxiliary was appointed and charged with fashioning colorful head-dresses for our sacred cows as a fundraising activity. It is anticipated that these floral crowns will be available for purchase in a variety of sizes and styles at the Show Low City Hall in about a month. Representatives of the governing bodies of major White Mountain cities and towns expressed their willingness to introduce municipal ordinances permitting sacred cows to freely roam throughout the communities. This prospect of bovine emancipation was met with such wild cheering and applause that several shushing librarians rushed to the scene of the celebration. St. Holiday was the closing speaker for the evening, and many were moved by the crackling precision of his participles. The next general meeting of the White Mountain Sacred Cow Society was scheduled for 7 PM, November 18th in the City Council Room of the Show Low Library. Another large crowd is expected to attend, so we would urge the public to come early for the best seating.

In a completely unrelated development, closely connected to the afore-mentioned proceedings, we have learned that attorneys for St. Holiday and his wife are finalizing an agreement of reconciliation. This week, the holy man's embarrassed wife fled to Albuquerque to avoid her commitment at the White Mountain Institute for the Clinically Addicted. The discovery of her chocolate addiction was widely reported last week through the organs of our national media. Informed sources are saying that agents for the two are applying last touches to an accord, which will permit each of them to consume liberal amounts of chocolate without criticism from the other. It is now expected that the Lovely One will join her husband tomorrow at the International Lego League Championship.

HYPOCRISY EXPOSED!

Disturbing news has been leaked from the Monasterio de Santo Holiday today, which throws new light upon the true character of the one commonly known as the Venus de Show Low. Humor has it that Yo Yo Pa, as he is affectionately called by the adoring acolytes who manage his exclusive compound on the city's fashionable 8th Avenue, took a fat fatwa to the heart in the midst of his own sanctuary early this morning. While searching for his personal Blarney Stone, a gift from Hym Selph, the exiled King of the Emerald Isles, he opened a drawer of the Lovely One's desk and discovered a massive, secret cache of assorted chocolates. For nearly eight years, the Right Rev has been happily-married to the provocative mall-mouse and henherdess, who is sometimes justifiably compared to Raquel Welch in her hayday, and yet he never once suspected that she has been living a parallel life of her own, consumed in her own addiction to chocolate. This has been the most shocking thing he has experienced since the pecking of Tippi Hedren. In response, St. Holiday has cancelled tonight's meeting of the White Mountain Sacred Cow Coalition and has suspended tomorrow's expedition in search of Occam's toothbrush. There is fear that he may lapse in preparation for a relapse and revert to a cowboylike silence.

This revelation of his wife's duplicity could not have come at a worse time. Paying the wages, principle, interest, tithing and taxes of old age, tectonic pressures of daily life have placed St. Holiday a mere heartbeat away from the low swing of the sweet chariot. In his mind, he has always been the shirtless, dirty coalman, shoveling coal endlessly into the locomotive's unsatiated steam furnace, vainly hoping for the station at the end of the eternal tracks. Recent events have thrust the holy man from the comforts of domesticity and from the maternal care he has always craved. He has worked at the limits of his strength, quelling national rebellions, and struggling against enormous odds to express his deep-seated opposition to resistance in all its contrary forms. However, he has learned through it all that patrician cheekbones can only get one so far. In his world of ruptures, the Lovely One always supplied the trusses. Nevertheless, it is expected that he will haul her hallelujah corpus down to the White Mountain Institute for the Clinically Addicted and enroll her in the same program that recently upholstered him for recovery.

Our sung hero is intensely public and notoriously reluctant to discuss his personal life anyplace but on television, radio, the internet, in all forms of print media, face to face or by telephone. However, in view of today's distressing revelation, he has decided to quit all public speaking in order to spend more time with his family. He will recommence communication tomorrow.

WIFE TIRES OF BOY TOY, BEGS TO COME HOME

Soon after returning from his pilgrimage to the Ganges River, where the holy man, in the company of sacred cows, spent a week ridding himself of the filthy excreta of this present world, Saint Holiday was surprised to receive several emotional telephone calls from his distant wife, who pleaded with him to take her back. She has grown weary of the young Asher Guillory. He lacks maturity, she said. And though the Marquis de Sad may not be able to surpass his rival in maturity, he does have the advantage of height and reach. Because the pious one dispenses mercy and forgiveness the way the US Treasury prints tens and twenties, he has agreed to receive his prodigal wife with open arms.

There he was, sitting cross-legged on his living room floor, singing, "Felines; nothing more than felines! trying to forget you, and these felines of love!" when the first call came. He listened as the Lovely One whimpered on the phone, allowing himself to be drawn from his great, overarching ideas into a few moments of pity for his anguished bride. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know I've hurt you deeply. You didn't deserve what I've done to you. I was carried away by infatuation. O, how can you ever forgive me? I was so wrong! Did you get your paycheck yet?"
"Come home," he replied. "Let's take it one stipulation at a time."

Since the collapse of the subprime market, Saint Holiday's struggle to find liquidity led him to the Ganges. There, among a poor and simple people, the holy man was inspired from on high. He now plans to establish the Equatorial Center for Middle Intermediacy, where he shall assume a state of equipoise in this unbalanced world, and where he shall offer courses for mental and emotional steadiness and physical equilibrium to the masses of staggering humanity. Voila le philosophe! Here is a man to be wrecked with. In the alternative, he has been training to become a hand model.