BRAD DOHERTY

Brad Doherty, the starving Brownsville Herald photographer who ekes out an existence on slave wages, is contemplating suicide again. He plans to train the camera as well as his pistol upon himself should he take that dramatic step.

"Tell him to speak with me before he decides on a craven course," said Father Jesus P. Cadissimo. "If he's unhappy at the newspaper, I have some connections with the diocese. We need to allow more light into his shutter. With his photographs he could record the miracle of my unselfish contribution to this woebegone community."

Justo Leyes, Doherty's lawyer, traces Doherty's depression to his failure to excite the public with his latest exhibition at UTRGV.

"His show exploring in grainy detail the university president's vagina has been a critical disaster," lamented Leyes. "He has long flown the envelope, but his audiences aren't ready for these excursions into the stratosphere.

"I marvel at his talent and respect his courage. Unfortunately, we live in a country increasingly defined by the religious right to whom Doherty is the devil incarnate. I told him there would be fallout, but it is his nature to explode grenades as if they were firecrackers. He innocently assumes that everyone shares his radical perspective.

"I thought he was going to kill himself last weekend. When I asked him who was going to feed his dog and fuck his wife, he had second thoughts. This would be a lesser place without Brad's alien eye."