Uncle John’s Briefs (43 page)

If you think about it, it’s kind of unfair that we have to spend
one-third of our entire lives unconscious. But it turns out
that if we didn’t, our lives would be a lot shorter
.

T
HE NEED FOR SLEEP
Newborn babies sleep about 16 hours a day—adults average half that. Teens, especially girls, are gluttons for sleep (10 hours average), but it’s not because they’re lazy, as many parents think. Stanford researchers found it was tied to the complex inner labors of puberty. This hunch is underlined by teen girls’ need for extra Z’s during their periods.

• We sleep best at certain times and if we stray from our required sleep needs, there’s no telling what will happen. The nuclear disasters at both Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, as well as the Exxon
Valdez
wreck and
Challenger
shuttle explosion, have been linked to lack of sleep or altered sleep cycles among key people at key moments.

• “Jet lag” shifts our sleep cycle, often creating confusion, mental dullness and a desire to sleep at odd times. The U.S. Army was disappointed to find that troops flown overseas often require a week to overcome their disorientation. This phenomenon is the bane of passenger jet crews. In one instance, for example, all three members of a jetliner crew fell asleep as they reached the end of their overnight New York-to-Los Angeles flight. While air traffic controllers radioed them frantically, the jet flew 100 miles out over the ocean. Finally, one of the crew woke up and saw the sea in every direction. They had just enough fuel to make it back to LAX.

NAPTIME
According to Stanley Coren, in his book
Sleep Thieves
, scientists have identified the two big peaks in our need for sleep—at 3 a.m. and 3 p.m. The first is dead in the center of our sleep cycle, but the second is smack in the middle of our workday. Conclusion: We should be napping in mid-afternoon. At present, only 38% of us do.

75% of women make a birthday wish when they blow out the candles; only 17% of men do.

Who’s getting the most sleep? Surveys find:

• In the U.S., Westerners and Southerners sleep longer than Easterners and Midwesterners.

• Women sleep more than men.

• Poor people sleep more than the rich.

• People who work evening or night shifts get far less sleep—about 5.6 hours—than day workers. No matter how hard they try, researchers say, people who sleep out of their normal cycle never fully adjust.

DOES LESS SLEEP = SUCCESS?

• A short sleep cycle is not inherently bad. Some people seek it out and sing its praises. Multi-millionaire magnate Donald Trump boasts of needing only three to four hours a night. Former junk-bond king Michael Milken gets only four to five hours.

• This raises the question: Is there a link between sleep and success? Tufts University researcher Ernest Hartmann found that people who sleep less than 5.5 hours tend to be extroverted, ambitious and efficient, while people who sleep more than 9 hours tend to be anxious, insecure, introverted and indecisive. Other researchers think this is nonsense, noting that short-sleepers tend to be fast-paced, Type-A personalities (thus prone to heart disease), while long-sleepers include society’s creative, alternate type thinkers and artists.

• Researchers conducted a survey of the CEO’s and chairs of the Fortune 500 companies to settle the question of whether “the early bird really does get the worm.” Apparently, it does. They found that 46% of the leaders they surveyed slept an hour less than the national average of 7.5 hours. Fifteen percent slept 5–6 hours and 2% slept 4–5 hours.

THE TRICK OF GETTING MORE SLEEP

Most of us, however, aren’t looking for ways to sleep less—our focus is on how to get more. Here are some tips from the experts:

• Go to bed about the same time each night.

• Avoid nightcaps, except warm milk.

• Avoid illuminated clocks (they’re a reminder you can’t sleep).

• Exercise before going to bed.

• A dark and slightly cool bedroom is best (about 65°F).

J. M. Barrie, author of
Peter Pan
, stopped growing at age 15, at the height of 5 feet.

GAME SHOW GOOFS

Being on a game show may look easy from the comfort of your
living room, but under those hot television lights, contestants’
mouths sometimes disconnect from their brains
.

Anne Robinson:
What insect is commonly found hovering above lakes?

Contestant:
Crocodiles.

—
The Weakest Link

Alex Trebek:
If a Japanese
isha
(doctor) asks you to stick out your
shita
, he means this.

Contestant:
What is…your behind?

—
Jeopardy!

Anne Robinson:
Who is the only Marx brother that remained silent throughout all their films?

Contestant:
Karl.

—
The Weakest Link

Todd Newton:
Bourbon whiskey is named after Bourbon County, located in what state?

Contestant:
England.

—
Press Your Luck

The Puzzle:
TOM HANKS AS _ORREST GUMP

Contestant:
Tom Hanks as Morris Gump.

—
Wheel of Fortune

Richard Dawson:
Name something a blind man might use.

Contestant:
A sword.

—
Family Feud

Eamonn Holmes:
Name the playwright commonly known by the initials G.B.S.

Contestant:
William Shakespeare?

—
National Lottery Jet Set

Steve Wright:
What is the capital of Australia? And it’s not Sydney.

Contestant:
Sydney.

—
Steve Wright Radio Show

Bob Eubanks:
What is your husband’s favorite cuisine?

Contestant:
All in the Family
.

—
The Newlywed Game

Kevin O’Connell:
What moos?

Contestant:
A car.

—
Go

Richard Dawson:
Name an occupation whose members must get tired of smiling.

Contestant:
Game show host.

—
Family Feud

The surgical device used to extract bullets is called an
alphonsin
.

THE AVRO ARROW, PT. II

Here’s the conclusion of a story that’s familiar to many Canadians but, for the rest
of the world, was just “the fastest plane that never was.” (Part I is on page 197.)

W
HAT’S THE PROBLEM?
The irony of the Avro Arrow’s cancellation was that in spite of all the problems, Avro had managed to produce a very sophisticated aircraft that had performed exceptionally well in flight testing. At the time the program was cancelled, the company was only two weeks away from fitting the aircraft with improved jet engines that would likely have made it the fastest fighter plane in the world.

Would the Arrow have broken the world speed record? We’ll never know for sure, because shortly after the program was cancelled, the Canadian government ordered everything associated with the program—aircraft, models, tooling, spare parts, even blueprints and photographs—to be destroyed to prevent the technology from falling into the hands of Soviet spies. Canadian taxpayers had pumped more than $300 million into the project by then, but had literally nothing to show for it. Avro closed its doors; Canada lost its edge in defense aviation and never built another fighter plane. Many of Avro’s top designers and engineers went abroad to find work: Some went to Europe and worked on the Concorde, and more than 30 went to NASA and played leading roles in the effort to land
American
men on the moon.

JET SET
All that survives today are a couple of engines, a cockpit and nose cone, a few diagrams, odd parts, and some historical photos. This near-total destruction of the Arrow, combined with the fact that it was the most advanced fighter of its day, has elevated the plane to mythical status. “Arrow Heads,” as fans are known, build replicas, trade conspiracy theories, and dream of what might have been. Wishful thinkers look at the 1959 photo showing the jets lined up outside the factory to be destroyed and note that one plane, RL-202, is not in the picture. Does that mean it’s still out there somewhere, waiting to be found? University of Toronto historian Michael Bliss likes to tell his students it’s in a barn in Saskatchewan. “It’s taken out and flown once a year. By Elvis.”

The common garden slug may be soft and slimy, but it does have a shell. It’s inside its body.

THE BEST DEAL IN
$PORT$ HISTORY

When you hear about how much money sports generates for players, owners, and agents,
it can make you feel sick—even fed up with the whole sports
establishment. But, for some reason, these guys make us smile
.

T
HE A-B-AWAY
In 1974 textile tycoons Ozzie and Dan Silna paid about $1 million for the struggling Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association and moved the team to Missouri, where they renamed it the Spirits of St. Louis. Why did they buy the team? Oddly enough, because they knew the league would be going out of business soon. The ABA, just seven years old at the time, was in terrible shape: They couldn’t compete with the growing and much more popular National Basketball Association, and ABA teams were losing money or folding altogether. The Silna brothers felt that a merger between the two leagues was probably in the cards, and that some of the more successful ABA teams would become NBA teams, a potentially lucrative opportunity. So they beefed up the Spirits with great young players—Moses Malone and Don Chaney among them—and waited for the league to collapse. In 1976 it did, and the NBA moved in. One problem: They didn’t want the Spirits.

THE DEAL
The ABA was down to just six teams by this point (the NBA had 18), but the bigger league wanted only four of them—the Denver Rockets (later the Nuggets), the Indiana Pacers, the New York (later New Jersey) Nets, and the San Antonio Spurs. The two they didn’t want: the Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits. Luckily, that didn’t leave the Silnas and the Colonels’ owner John Y. Brown powerless: For the merger to go through, every owner had to agree with whatever deal was hammered out. The NBA dealt with the Colonels by offering Brown a $3.3 million “buyout”—and he took it. They offered the same to the Silnas…but they declined. They had other ideas.

Gastromancy
is the art of telling the future by the noises in your belly.

On top of the $3.3 million, the Silnas, along with their bulldog of an attorney, Donald Schupak, demanded one-seventh of future television revenues generated by the four former ABA teams. At the time, television revenues for pro basketball games were relatively miniscule—the league had terrible ratings compared to pro baseball and football. So the NBA, after negotiating the lump-sum payment down to $2.2 million, agreed. It was a mistake that they regret to this day.

SPIRITS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD
For the first few years, the Silnas made less than $100,000 per year from the TV deal. That’s not bad for doing nothing, but it was about to get a lot better. The legendary rivalry between Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics and Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers, starting in 1980, fueled a huge growth in the NBA’s popularity—and in TV revenues. By 1982 the Silnas were making almost $200,000 a year. The league offered the brothers $5 million to buy out their contract. They said they’d take $8 million, but the NBA refused—which was probably a dumber move than when it made the original deal. In 1984 Michael Jordan entered the league; by 1988 the Silnas were getting nearly $1 million per year. In 1992 the league offered them $18 million to end the contract. No way. By 1994 their earnings were up to around $4 million annually. And it gets still better.

SLAM DUNK
Business experts have called the Silna brothers’ 1976 contract possibly the best in history—and not just in sports, but in all business. And the most significant clause in it: “The right to receive such revenues shall continue for as long as the NBA or its successors continue in its existence.”

As of 2010, the former owners of the former team known as the Spirits of St. Louis have raked in about $180 million in total. Over the next eight years, based on the NBA’s latest contracts with ABC, TNT, and ESPN, they’ll be getting around $130 million
more
. That’ll bring their total up to more than $320 million…for an initial investment of about $5 million. “I would have loved to have an NBA team,” says 73-year-old Ozzie Silna. “But if I look at it retrospectively over what I would have gotten, versus what I’ve received now—then I’m a happy camper.”

Horses in New York City caused 75% more fatalities per capita in 1900 than cars did in 2000.

VAMPIRES ON
BIKINI BEACH

Film historian David Skal writes,“Dracula has been depicted in film
more times than almost any fictional being.” Here’s a look at some
of the more unusual vampire movies that have been made
.