BRAD DOHERTY

Brad Doherty is resting well after surgery.

"I had several hemorrhoids removed," said Doherty in his private room at Brownsville Valley Baptist Hospital. "The damn newspaper doesn't pay us much, but the insurance is excellent."

Dr. Polyphemous Pangloss, Doherty's personal physician, estimated that the multiple hemorrhoids weighed several pounds.

"He had a pair of bull's balls hanging from his butt," said an amazed Pangloss. "I stuck them in a jar so he can brag about them to his friends or his wife can take them to her kindergarten class for show-and-tell."

Doherty said it wasn't the first time that he had suffered a significant weight loss after an operation.

"I weighed twelve pounds when I was born, but after the circumcision my weight dropped to less than seven pounds," laughed the self-deprecating photographer.

"I was talking to my good friend Joe Kenney and he told me that hemorrhoids baked in goat sperm are a Philadelphia delicacy. When you're living on a Herald salary, you sometimes get so goddamn hungry that you'll eat anything."

As to his artistic endeavors, Doherty will be exhibiting a series of nudes at Texas Southmost College featuring fat women.

"Much like Rodin took a block of granite and created beauty, I believe I have taken one of the worst expressions of femininity and have captured what was rather than what is or what will be," said Doherty.