Wednesday, February 03, 2010

the day the music sustained severe scrotal abrasions

Today is the 51st anniversary of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. Obviously very tragic, except in that it inspired Don McLean's classic American Pie, and I have nothing particularly profound to say about it other than to draw your attention to the text, and in particular the last sentence, of Buddy Holly's autopsy report:
The body of Charles H. Holley was clothed in an outer jacket of yellow leather-like material in which 4 seams in the back were split almost full length. The skull was split medially in the forehead and this extended into the vertex region. Approximately half the brain tissue was absent. There was bleeding from both ears, and the face showed multiple lacerations. The consistency of the chest was soft due to extensive crushing injury to the bony structure. The left forearm was fractured 1/3 the way up from the wrist and the right elbow was fractured. Both thighs and legs showed multiple fractures. There was a small laceration of the scrotum.
Why is that last bit relevant, particularly in the light of the gross bodily destruction listed immediately before? I'm now picturing the guy who did the autopsy as some sort of scrotum fetishist (never mind that half the head was missing, you just know that was the first thing he checked) whose modus operandi was to apply a twisted form of Sherlock Holmes' old maxim to every case: once you have eliminated scrotum injuries, whatever remains, however seemingly un-scrotum-related, must be the cause of death.

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