(BACKGROUND MUSIC: If you have a recording of Shirley Temple singing, 'Let Me Entertain You', then, first of all, that's just wrong. Secondly, either put it on or start humming it as you read the following.)
A 25 year-old East Indian man, Samhbu Roy, lived to tell when his skull top quite literally popped off the top of his head. Months before, an electric acccident burning his scalp The cranial loss happened as a result of that and you can get details are all over the news as we speak...
Mr. Roy is actually fine after the kind of accident that might have the rest of us banned from the usual parties. 'My skull has made me famous, ' he says as he holds out a Frisbee-sized hunka-mind for all to see. Strangers by the busload and dozens of doctors encircle his bed. Clearly, in the world of Samhbu Roy, this beats buying a vowel.
But wait! Watch. Soon. And, as shocking as it might seem, I am predicting that a major network and not fringe cable will air, "My Fucking Skull Popped Off and What Are YOU Gonna Do About It?!?!?!?!" The actual show title will certainly be a harder sell that my timid suggestion, but you get the drift.
Seemingly, a tale like Sambhu Roy's happen severy now and again usually far, far away in a land time forgot. Or in Pittsburgh. We cannot help our fascination with the geek/ alien scene. A marginal America appreciates tabloid injuries at its lurid peak and receives it most literally. Other, hopefully more numerous, better read and slightly more hypocritical Americans, cannot help but notice these periodic jolts, too. We were born to be shocked. Now we are as accustomed to watching freeway shootouts as we drench our bran with soy milk. We want body parts in incorrect places and we'd like to see it fast and repeatedly. We'll IM about it later. And be ashamed.
The Sambhus of the world have always been with us. But 600 channel world round video access is somewhat new. After a while, you may intuit the headlines before they even arrive. It's almost like we know nothing grotesque has passed the desk since the last beheading. (Overheard: "Yeah, but you couldn't really see the blade in that last one. It's like so fake!") Dammit, it's time to be grossed out. We want our carnage and we want it now! 'Man Has Tiller Blade Removed From His Upper Intestine'. 'Chinese-American Woman Cannot Stop Eating Ghetto Rhinestone Studs'. "Grandmother Hit By Same Bolt of Lightening Fifty-Seven Years Later'. Pretty soon, countries will be bragging about who has the most surprising deformity. There will be committees and investigations. And many six-figure deals among the lucky. A pox on your plasma tv.
If America can't find a match for Mr. Roy's tale - wait, maybe 'match' isn't a nice word to associate with a man whose head was recently flash fried - then what kind of entertainment pie are we baking here in the land of the free? Of course, the fun of it all is the caste aspect of Mr. Roy's life. Maybe being just one rung up from the 'untouchables' is the punchline. Who's to say? I'd like to think I would've laughed just as hard if this had happened to a Saab salesman.
At the very least, give us a move of the week! Use this story. Put it in Madison, Wisconisin and get that Rick Schroeder guy to play Roy's doctor. By the way, in 'real' life, the Sambhu Roy's doctor's glossolalia-ish name is Ratan Lal Bandyopadhyay. I don't want to hear a bunch of whining about not being able to pronounce names, either. I prefer it immensely over the pompous, benign 'Marcus Welby, M.D.'. No one's going to spit coffee out of his nose when they hear, 'Paging Dr. Welby.'
Dr. Bandyopadhyay's verbatim comment to Reuters was, "When the skull came off, I thought he will die, but we noticed a new covering on his head forming and that might have pushed the 'dead skull' out," he said.
Sigourney Weaver, are you listening?
