The beat goes on

Nickelodeon fans in the 1990s will remember the animated series Doug. As the parent of an adolescent interested in animation, I had more than the usual share of exposure to this and other Nick toons. What's relevant here is that the script had a running joke, more of an idee fixe really, about beets.

The weekend's festivities at the Vatican have themes relating to beat** on my mind--or beet, if one is hooked on phonics. So the object here is to play with this charming word, syllable, or what have you.

First in my mind is the political turnaround involved. When the saint-to-be John Paul was a young priest, a Polish priest was more likely to beaten by a Hitler Youth than beatified by one. Yet here is Pope Benny, presiding over the festivities as if such a thought never crossed his youthful Teutonic mind.

I was also taken by the business of exhuming the late pontiff so that the faithful could pray at his coffin. Is it that the Miracles Verification Unit is a little short of this prerequisite for sainthood, and someone is hoping that the blind obligingly see and the lame walk during this act of the production? Even a sainthood candidate so obviously in the political express lane should have a good portfolio of miracles.

The church is on Facebook and Twitter, but they've missed a bet by bringing John Paul VI's remains back to centre stage with sombre Vatican piety. They should have produced a YouTube video, coffin raising up through the centre of the altar, with the sound track playing "The Beat Goes On," (with cuts to the "I Vas Not A Nazi Polka" whenever the camera panned to Bennie). The video could have a heartwarming closing, with beatific Father McFeeley taking a choirboy into the sacristry by the shoulder. I leave the rest of that dialogue to reader imagination.

But surely, there must be other plays on this theme out there. I'm beat...and I think I took too many snarky pills today.