Mike lived like a rock star. However, since it was 1947 and rock and roll hadn’t yet arrived, Mike was a bit ahead of his time. Traveling the country, drawing crowds, living out of hotel rooms, making absurdly easy money. But Mike was pushing the envelope every day. He’d been on the road for eighteen months and inevitably the road began to take its toll. He put on weight. The stubble on his neck was a premature grey. And the unfortunate incontinence...Late one evening, in a dirty Phoenix hotel room (sometime around March 15, though we’ll never know the exact date because of the ensuing cover-up), Mike’s breathing became labored. Panic set in and he began flailing furiously, desperate for a gulp of air. His manager, Lloyd was in the bed next to him and leaped to his feet at the commotion. Lloyd had been through this a few times before and knew exactly what to do. Unfortunately, when he reached for the medical bag that he always kept on the nightstand, it wasn’t there. He’d left it at the show. Without it, there was nothing he could do to clear the blockage in Mike’s throat. The Heimlich Maneuver hadn’t yet arrived either...
That night, Mike would share the same fate of so many others that lived the fast life, cheating death, until it would finally catch up to them. And he would become an early part of an oddly long list of celebrities (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, John Belushi, Anna Nicole Smith, and David Carradine to name but a few) whose lives ended tragically and suddenly in a hotel room. But that is where Mike’s similarity with mega-stars ends...
Mike’s stage name was “Miracle Mike.” He was a chicken and his miracle was that he had no head.
7 comments:
+JMJ+
I had no idea what that picture was and I did not at all see this twist coming!
Someone once told me that even chickens who are properly decapitated will run around headless for a while before finally "dying." Is that true, or do they just have more-or-less intact brain stems, too?
(I just realised that I am now treating you like some expert on chickens. LOL!)
Look at that, I've been a chicken-rancher for a month and already an expert LOL Most of a chicken's vital functions are actually located/controlled in the brain-stem. So, if somehow the jugular is not severed when it's decapitated, they can still survive for a short time (running around like a headless chicken). I remember hearing about one that had survived for 49 days but died because it wandered blindly into the highway. Mike was unique in living for 18 months and dying only because of an accident; he might have gone on for 15 more years as long as he was fed. My dad used to have to "do in" the chickens when he was a kid. He carried a revulsion towards them to his death.
Oh dear..
I hate that I read this. Haha. I guess I could understand how the chicken could still live after that. Was it really proven as a fact or as a hoax?
I have also heard a lot through watching both the History Channel and Discovery Channel that there was a huge possibility that the people that were sentenced to be decapitated years and years ago could still feel everything and were actually still alive. At least, for a couple of minutes. Have no idea if that's true but there's a lot of study going on surrounding that.
I would think that once the arteries around the neck were cut off, you're pretty much gone. You won't feel a thing, and there won't be a source of life anymore, ,right? But I guess it could be a possibility if there were still some blood remaining flowing in your brain.
Sorry for the long comment, LOL.Oh and Enbrethiliel sent me here.
Hi Jillian, welcome! Mike was sent to a university in Utah to be autopsied and verified - no hoax! As far as humans go, I'm pretty sure once the brain is separated from the nervous system, there's not much else to be said as far as feeling anything! (And to add: I'm not so sure that the History or Discovery Channels are much more reliable than your average Wiki page anymore :( ) Come back again, not all the stories are gross!
Hey! And thanks for the "follow"!
+JMJ+
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: It had no idea it was crossing the road, as its head had been taken off forty-nine days earlier!
And it's not a joke! It's fact!!! ROFL . . .
Another random chicken-related fact: Servant of God Fulton Sheen announced on his TV show that because he had had the job of decapitating dinner as a boy, he no longer ate chicken as an adult. And then he said that he mentioned it in public once every two years, for the benefit of anyone planning to invite him to dinner. (I'm not sure whether the "every two years" bit can be verified as well as stand as a joke.)
Now I hate to say this, but I think the flamingos have been completely eclipsed.
PS -- On the History Channel: Remember that it's the one running Ancient Aliens!!! Anyone willing to give Jor-jee-oh Tsoo-ka-los (Deliberately misspelled to confound bots) that kind of a soapbox over several seasons automatically loses a hundred credibility points.
...aaah, the flamingos will NEVER be eclipsed !!! LOL I don't remember that about Fulton Sheen, pretty funny. I'm not exactly sure how revolted my father was with chicken, since I distinctly remember his depression-era habit that he never broke free from of eating the bones of the birds as well, sucking all the marrow out before the crunching sounds began...
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