Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (75 page)

“One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.”

“Without deviation, progress is not possible.”

“In the old days your old man would say ‘Be home by midnight’ and you’d be home by midnight. Today parents daren’t tell you what time to be in. They’re frightened you won’t come back.”

“Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”

“Everyone has the right to be comfortable on his own terms.”

“Most people wouldn’t know good music if it came up and bit them in the ass.”

“Pop is the new politics. There is more truth in pop music than in most political statements rendered by our leaders, even when you get down to the level of really simplified pop records. What I’m saying is that’s how bad politics is.”

“If your children ever found out how lame you are, they’d kill you in your sleep.”

“Politics is a valid concept but what we do is not really politics...it’s a popularity contest. It has nothing to do with politics. What it is, is mass merchandising.”

“I can’t understand why anybody would want to devote their life to a cause like dope. It’s the most boring pastime I can think of. It ranks a close second to television.”

“I think cynicism is a positive value. You have to be cynical. You can’t not be cynical. The more people that I have encouraged to be cynical, the better job I’ve done.”

The average American travels a million miles in their lifetime, mostly by car.

We mentioned Swanson’s TV dinners briefly in
Uncle John’s Sixth Bathroom Reader.
Here’s the rest of the story, submitted by BRI correspondent Jack Mingo.

I
N THE BEGINNING

Credit the Swanson brothers, Gilbert and Clarke, with inventing the TV dinner in 1951. The Swansons owned the nation’s largest turkey plant in Omaha, Nebraska, and were frustrated that most Americans ate turkey only on Thanksgiving. They wanted to make turkey an everyday part of the American diet.

GONE TO POT

Their first attempt was the Swanson turkey pot pie. It was extremely popular. In fact, people started demanding more variety. The Swansons tried another approach: Inspired by popular diner “blue plate specials” in which an entire meal was served on a segmented plate, the Swansons began putting individual meal courses on segmented aluminum trays.

BALANCING ACT

In the early 1950s, television was taking over America’s living rooms, and Swanson decided to sponsor its own show, “Ted Mack’s Family Hour.” On the night of the show’s premiere, Gilbert Swanson invited some friends over for a buffet dinner to celebrate. One of the guests looked around and pointed out how funny it looked for everybody to be balancing trays on their laps in front of the TV.

Swanson suddenly thought about the product his company was working on. It would be perfect for eating in front of television— and tying it into the TV craze couldn’t hurt. Why not call it a TV dinner? Gilbert mentioned the idea to his brother, who suggested putting a picture of a TV on the box, with the dinner coming off the screen. In January 1952, the first Swanson’s TV Dinner rolled off the line. It contained turkey with cornbread stuffing and gravy, buttered peas, and sweet potatoes in orange and butter sauce, and cost only 98¢.

When TV lost its novelty in the 1960s, Swanson redesigned the package, got rid of the picture of the TV, and downplayed the TV Dinner brand name. By 1984 it was completely off the package.

First vehicle to use inflatable rubber tires: Queen Victoria’s carriage, in 1846.

Everyone’s got a question or two they want answered—basic stuff like “Why is the sky blue?” Here are a few of those questions, with answers from books by some top trivia experts.

N
AVEL ENCOUNTER

Q:
Where does belly-button lint come from?

A:
“Your navel is one of the few places on your body where perspiration has a chance to accumulate before evaporating. Lint from your clothing, cottons especially, adheres to the wet area and remains after the moisture departs.” (From
The Straight Dope
, by Cecil Adams)

MYTH-INFORMATION

Q:
Why do the symbols
and
represent male and female?

A:
“They’re related to Greek mythology. The female symbol
is supposed to represent a woman holding a hand mirror, and is associated with Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of beauty. The male symbol
represents a spear and a shield and is associated with the Greek god of war, Ares. The male and female symbols also represent the planets Mars (the Roman god of war) and Venus (the Roman goddess of beauty).” (From
The Book of Totally Useless Information
, by Don Voorhees)

CIRCULAR LOGIC

Q:
Why do clocks run clockwise?

A:
No one knows for sure, but here’s one answer: “Before the advent of clocks, we used sundials. In the Northern Hemisphere, the shadows rotated in the direction we now call ‘clockwise.’ The clock hands were built to mimic the natural movements of the sun. If clocks had been invented in the Southern Hemisphere, [perhaps] ‘clockwise’ would be in the opposite direction.” (From
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and Other Imponderables
, by David Feldman)

First U.S. novel, by W. Brown, 1789, was about “seduction, incest, abduction, rape, suicide.”

DON’T WORRY, BEE HAPPY

Q:
We’ve all heard the phrase “busy as a bee.” Are bees really busy?

A:
Judge for yourself: “In order to fill its honey sac, the average worker bee has to visit between 1,000 and 1,500 individual florets of clover. About 60 full loads of nectar are necessary to produce a mere thimbleful of honey. Nevertheless, during a favorable season, a single hive might store two pounds of honey
a day
—representing approximately five million individual bee journeys.” (From
Can Elephants Swim?
compiled by Robert M. Jones)

STAYING COOL

Q:
Does iced tea or iced coffee really cool you off?

A:
“Contrary to popular belief, neither iced tea nor iced coffee will really cool you off much because they contain caffeine, which constricts the blood vessels. Because of this effect, coffee or tea, either iced or hot, can cause you to become overheated...so it’s best to avoid these drinks on hot days. But don’t substitute a cola drink for them; colas also contain caffeine. Instead, drink water or juice.” (From
FYI, For Your Information
, by Hal Linden)

GONE TO THE DOGS

Q:
Is a dog year really the equivalent of seven human years?

A:
“No—it is actually five to six years. The average life expectancy of a dog is 12-14 years. However, most dogs mature sexually within six to nine months, so in a sense there is no strict correspondence to human years.” (From
The Book of Answers
, by Barbara Berliner)

TO PEE OR NOT TO PEE?

Q:
Why does people’s pee smell funny after eating asparagus?

A:
“The odor is caused by an acid present in the vegetable, and it doesn’t happen to everybody. Whether you produce the odor or not is determined genetically.” In a British study using 800 volunteers, only 43% of the people “had the characteristic ability to excrete the six sulfur alkyl compounds that combine to produce the odor in urine. This inherited ability is a dominant trait. If one of your parents had it, so will you.” (From
Why Do Men Have Nipples?
by Katherine Dunn)

The New York Yankees were the first baseball team to assign numbers to players, in 1929.

Have you ever thought that you were communicating brilliantly, only to find out other people thought you were speaking nonsense? That’s a particularly easy mistake when you’re speaking a foreign language. A few classic examples:

B
UT HE’S NOT SQUEEZING THEM

When President Jimmy Carter arrived in Poland in 1977, he made a brief speech to press and officials. But his interpreter delivered a slightly different speech. Carter said he had “left the United States that day.” His interpreter said he’d “abandoned” it. Carter referred to the Poles’ “desires for the future.” His interpreter translated this as “lusts for the future.” And, finally, the interpreter explained to the crowd: “The president says he is pleased to be here in Poland grasping your private parts.”

LOOKING FOR PROTECTION

Shannon, Ireland
(UPI) — “A young Russian couple caused an embarrassing mix-up at Shannon Airport when they were mistaken for political defectors.

“The pair, on a technical stopover on the Havana-Moscow Aeroflot route, approached a counter at the big Shannon duty-free store Monday. In halting English, the man asked for “protection,” according to an airport spokesman.

“He was quickly whisked away for questioning by immigration authorities. But after 20 minutes, officials determined it was not political protection he was after, but sexual protection. He just wanted to buy some condoms.”

MORE BIRTH CONTROL

In one campaign to introduce its ballpoint pens to Mexico, the Parker Pen Co. used the slogan “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” The company’s translators mistakenly used the verb
embarazar
, which sounds like “to embarrass” but actually means “to become pregnant.” The ad appeared to suggest that the pen could prevent unwanted pregnancies.

New Mexico is the only state named after a country.

CULTURAL THAI’S

“Thais still talk about President Lyndon Johnson’s visit in the mid-’60s, when, seated next to King Bhumibol Adulyadej on national television, the lanky Texan hitched his foot up over his thigh and pointed his shoe directly at the king—a common obscene gesture in that country. It didn’t relieve tensions when, on the same telecast, the American president gave the Thai queen a big “hi, honey” hug. Solemn tradition in Thailand demands that nobody touches the queen.”