Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (22 page)

WHAT WAS SAID:
“The only thing that they have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease. You cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine. It is the country with the worst food after Finland.”

REACTION:
France and England may not be the best of friends, but they are expected at least to act civilly toward each other. So it caused quite a stir to hear the French president blatantly insult the British (and the Finns), especially in the presence of other world leaders. And the insults ended up hurting Chirac in a big way: Paris had been the front-runner to get the Games, but two of the voting members of the International Olympic Committee were from Finland. Result: London won the bid by a narrow margin. The French still maintain that had Chirac just kept his mouth shut, Paris would have been the host.

As for the British, they took the tactful way out. A spokesman for Tony Blair responded by saying that “there are some things that are better not responded to.”

Why are the restaurants on the moon so dull? Because there’s no atmosphere.

VIDEO TREASURES

Ever found yourself in a video store staring at thousands of films you’ve never heard of, with no idea what to rent? It happens to us all the time—so we decided to offer a few recommendations
.

S
COTLAND, PA
(2001)
Comedy/Thriller
Review:
“In this darkly comic and faithful adaptation of
Macbeth
, Joe ‘Mac’ McBeth and his frighteningly ambitious wife both work at a hamburger joint. Mac is full of ideas about the future of fast food, but his boss isn’t listening. When he passes over Mac to give the manager position to his son, Mac’s thoughts turn to murder.”
(TV Guide’s Movie Guide) Director
: Billy Morrissette.

TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN
(1969)
Comedy

Review:
“Woody Allen’s first feature is still a laugh-filled delight as the star-director plays an inept criminal in a story told in pseudo-documentary style. It’s hilarious.”
(Video Movie Guide) Stars:
Woody Allen, Janet Margolin.
Director:
Woody Allen.

BORN INTO BROTHELS
(2004)
Documentary

Review:
“Two American photographers went to Calcutta to film prostitution and hit upon the idea of giving cameras to the children of prostitutes, asking them to take photos of the world in which they lived. The filmmakers bring out the innate intelligence of the children as they use their cameras to see their world in a different way. (There are no scenes that could be described as explicit, because filmmakers did not want to exploit their subjects.) The movie is a record by well-meaning people who try to make a difference for the better.” (Roger Ebert)

GHOST WORLD
(2001)
Comedy/Drama

Review:
“Two cynical, trendy teenagers who recently graduated from high school are getting an apartment together instead of going off to college—the thing that everyone else is doing. A dark, humorous coming-of-age story with a little twist, it excels at showing how bumpy the transition to adulthood can be.”
(Scarecrow Video Movie Guide) Stars:
Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson.

Makes sense: It is illegal to drive without a steering wheel in Decatur, Illinois.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN
(1957)
Science Fiction

Review:
“A philosophical thriller about a man who is doused with radioactive mist and begins to slowly shrink. His new size means that everyday objects take on sinister meaning and he must fight for his life in an increasingly hostile environment. A surreal allegory with impressive special effects and endowed with the tension usually reserved for Hitchcock films.” (
Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever
)
Stars:
Grant Williams.
Director:
Jack Arnold.

DOGFIGHT
(1991)
Drama

Review:
“Lily Taylor is superb as a physically plain folkie who becomes an unwitting partner in River Phoenix’s attempt to bring the ugliest ‘date’ to a party held by Vietnam-bound Marines in 1963 San Francisco. This sleeper has a good script, tough direction, and apt use of period music.” (
Leonard Maltin’s Video Guide
)

A WORLD APART
(1988)
Drama

Review:
“Anti-apartheid struggles in the 1960s seen through the eyes of a 13-year-old South African girl whose mother is imprisoned for her support of the African National Congress. Excellently acted and moving mix of political and domestic drama.” (
Halliwell’s Video Guide
)
Stars:
Jodhi May, Barbara Hershey.

LIVING IN OBLIVION
(1995)
Comedy

Review:
“An intricately constructed film-within-a-film: each of the movie’s three sections involve a single scene that a director is trying desperately to film, and every problem, both conceivable and otherwise, a struggling film might encounter. It’s a consistently funny inside-movies comedy, a witty revenge against the dream factory.”
(Never Coming to a Theater Near You
, by Kenneth Turan)
Stars:
Steve Buscemi, Catherine Keener.
Director:
Tom DiCillo.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
(1975)
Adventure

Review:
“Old-fashioned adventure and derring-do. Two British soldier-pals try to bamboozle high priests of remote Kafiristan into turning over their riches by convincing them that one of them is a god. The acting is ideal, the script is superb, and the film is entertaining.”
(Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide) Stars:
Sean Connery, Michael Caine.
Director:
John Huston.

What? OCTOPUSSES ARE DEAF.

WHEN YOU GOTTA GO…

Everybody has to die sometime. At least some of us get to go in interesting ways
.

B
LUE MOON

In 1995 two pilots and a navigator were flying a warplane in a U.S. Navy training exercise. When another warplane flew up beside them, the three men stripped off their clothes and mooned the other plane, pressing their buttocks against the cockpit glass. But to get their clothes off, they had to remove their oxygen masks. They quickly lost consciousness, and the plane plunged to the ground, killing all three.

COLD CASE

Playwright Tennessee Williams (
A Streetcar Named Desire
) took a variety of pills the night he died in 1983, but that’s not what killed him. Williams, 71, opened up a bottle of nose spray, used it, and accidentally dropped the cap in his mouth. Moments later, he choked on the bottle cap and died.

NO ROAMING

In November 2005, Jimmy Ray George of Easley, South Carolina, died of smoke inhalation when his home caught fire. Oddly, George made it out of the house safely. He wasn’t overcome by smoke until he went back inside the burning house to get his cell phone so that he could call 911.

LOVE LIFTED THEM

Frauke Punz and Ulf Lech worked together at a steel mill in Essen, Germany, and were secretly dating. The day their plant was to close for a monthlong summer break, they snuck into an elevator for a romantic liaison. Unaware that Punz and Lech were in the elevator, everybody left for vacation and maintenance shut off the electricity. Their bodies were discovered a month later.

CABBAGE PATCH KILLER

Three 18-year-old members of the Ukraine military were ordered to clean a food storage container that was buried 12 feet underground in the city of Charkov. Cabbage had been left in it for weeks, and the fumes were so severe that they overcame and killed the three teenagers as well as the 48-year-old worker who tried to rescue them.

Alabama’s state quarter spells out Helen Keller’s name in braille.

CLEAN SWEEP

Reggie Peabody, a car-wash worker in Melbourne, Australia, liked to turn on the automated system and “ride the brushes” when business was slow. But the system malfunctioned during one of his “rides,” and Peabody was crushed to death between two large industrial brushes.

GONE TO POT

In August 2005, Michael Johnson was riding his motorcycle on a highway in Custer, South Dakota. He tried to pass a sanitation truck carrying Porta Potties, but as the truck tried to get out of the way, a strap broke, causing one of the portable toilets to come loose and fly off the truck. It struck Johnson, killing him and sending his motorcycle sliding into three moving cars.

NO SMOKING

Late one night in November 2005, 23-year-old Bartosz Drobek of Mount Prospect, Illinois, was hanging out on the balcony of his apartment with his brother. They were smoking cigarettes, which made them want to clear their throats, so the two decided to make a long-distance spitting contest out of it. As Drobek was getting ready to spit, he lost his balance, fell 20 feet to the ground below, struck his head on the pavement, and died.

NICKELED-AND-DIMED

In 1987 the
American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology
reported on a 58-year-old woman who’d died of copper poisoning. How? For some reason she’d swallowed 275 coins. Her metallic meal, consisting of 174 pennies, 33 nickels, 37 dimes, and 31 quarters, amounted to $14.84 in change.

*        *        *

“The gods too are fond of a joke.” —
Aristotle

Ewww! A healthy bladder can hold 2 cups of urine for up to 5 hours.

MODERN MYTHOLOGY

In ancient Greece, they had heroes like Hercules and Pegasus. Today we have new “heroes,” like the San Diego Chicken and the GEICO Gecko
.

T
HE SAN DIEGO CHICKEN

In 1974 San Diego State University journalism major Ted Giannoulas was hired off the street by a local radio station to dress up in a chicken suit and hand out Easter eggs at the San Diego Zoo. He must have done a good job, because a few weeks later the station had him appear at a San Diego Padres game. The chicken was a hit: Giannoulas ran all over the field, jumping and prancing around, entertaining the fans. After that he became a fixture at the ballpark, performing at 5,200 consecutive Padres home games. (In 1979 the chicken suit was replaced with a custom made chicken-in-a-baseball-uniform outfit.) The San Diego Chicken led to the emergence of fuzzy mascots throughout Major League Baseball, including the Phillie Fanatic, the Baltimore Bird, and the St. Louis Fredbird. In 1999
The Sporting News
named the Chicken one of the 100 most powerful sports figures of the 20th century.

THE CREAM OF WHEAT CHEF

In America’s slavery era, slave owners commonly gave their slaves Biblical names. A popular choice was Erastus (a disciple of St. Paul). After the Civil War, Erastus was shortened to Rastus and became a common (and somewhat racist) term whites used for black men. When the Diamond Milling Company launched Cream of Wheat cereal in 1893, it used the image of a smiling African-American chef as its trademark on the box and in print advertising. His name: “Rastus.” Using a black worker in a logo wasn’t uncommon; Aunt Jemima products and Uncle Ben’s Rice also used them. But “Rastus” was actually based on a real person, a chef named Frank White who was photographed working in a Chicago restaurant.

RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS

It’s estimated that more than 500 million people have played the game of Monopoly. And every one of them probably knows the game’s mascot: a short, stubby, white-mustachioed man in a top hat. Monopoly was first released in 1935, and the old man first appeared on Chance and Community Chest cards in 1936 editions of the game. So who is “the Monopoly guy”? It’s believed that the model for the character was Albert Richardson, the first traveling salesman for Monopoly’s maker, Parker Brothers. The character went nameless until he appeared on another board game—Rich Uncle—in 1946, and his name became Rich Uncle Pennybags. (Parker Brothers says his first name is “Milburn.”) But after Hasbro bought Parker Brothers, he was officially renamed “Mr. Monopoly” in 2000.

Only animal that can see both infrared and ultraviolet light: the goldfish.

GEICO GECKO

This computer-animated lizard pitchman was thought up by the Martin Agency in 2000. The premise: A gecko is annoyed that people keep calling him because they are confusing his number with the insurance company GEICO, because “gecko” and “GEICO” sound so similar. Aside from a verbal pun, the cartoon character was created out of necessity: The Screen Actors Guild was on strike, making live actors unavailable. The original voice behind the British-sounding gecko was supplied by Kelsey Grammer. In 2005 the character was changed from an annoyed upper-crust Brit into a helpful lizard with a Cockney accent. His voice is now performed by British soap opera actor Jake Wood.

REDDY KILOWATT

In the 1920s, electricity was nothing new, but thousands of rural homes still weren’t wired because many people thought electricity was dangerous. In 1925 Ashton Collins, general manager of the Alabama Power Company, had just returned home from an electric industry convention and was thinking about how to change consumers’ minds. Staring out a window into a thunderstorm, he saw two lightning bolts merge and strike the ground. It looked like a human figure to him, and Collins said that in that instant, Reddy Kilowatt, fully formed, popped into his head—a stick figure made of lightning bolts, with wall outlets for ears, a lightbulb for a nose, and two tiny lighting bolts for tufts of hair. Reddy debuted in print ads in March 1926 as a way to convince Alabamans that electricity was safe and attractive. It worked, so Reddy was licensed by 200 other utility companies and became the personification of electricity for millions of people around the country.