Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ (3 page)

The answer is a big, fat no.

We’re
more
concerned that we’re not going to live long enough to write about everything we plan to write about. (For example, in next year’s Bathroom Reader we’re going to include an amazing article about…on second thought, why spoil the surprise?) For us, every day is another fantastic opportunity to plunge into the depths of science, history, current events, language, sports, and pop culture. To explore strange, new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go… (Oops. I got carried away again.)

But what’s even more gratifying than hunting and gathering all the great information that goes into
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader
is paring it all down to its most absorbing elements and passing it along to you.

So without further ado, here are a just a few of the
Heavy Duty
duty topics you’ll find in this book:

•
When Words Collide:
Pun-ishing quotes, a guide to “butt” words, phrases coined on
The Simpsons,
and Esperanto—the invented language that was supposed to bring about world peace

•
Flubs and Flops:
The best worst movie ever, the Wicked Witch who fell through the stage, and Michelangelo’s dirty little secrets

•
Throne Room Tales:
Toilet mishaps (as told by ER docs), an interesting “morsel” of archaeology called the Lloyd’s Bank Turd, poop that’s art, and art that poops

•
Oddities Galore:
The Whopperknocker and other mythical beasties, the strange fate of Big Nose George’s skull cap, some
other
famous leaning towers, and how to make prison wine

•
Pop Science:
The healing powers of witch hazel, all about anthrax, the solar system’s most violent moon, what the dinosaurs ate, and the physics of breakfast cereal

•
Origins:
The Mini Cooper, the Magic 8-ball, the office cubicle, the shopping mall, and the Ch-ch-ch-chia pet!

• History Unleashed:
Intrepid explorers who never returned, the Mohawk “skywalkers” who built New York’s City’s skyscrapers, and the man who made Pearl Harbor a “day that will live in infamy”

•
The Sporting Life:
The weightlifter who ate himself out of the Olympics, the dangers of watching the Super Bowl, NASCAR’s most dangerous family, and Rollie Fingers’ $300 mustache

•
Creature Features:
The powerful brains of birds, the complex societies of ants, a devil of a turtle, 185 uses for a pig (would you believe…train brakes?), and the secret language of dogs

And speaking of dogs, I’m going to forego the usual thanking of the inhouse and outhouse BRI staff (Great job, everyone!) and take a moment to say thanks to the
Bathroom Reader’s
best friend, Porter the Wonder Dog. You’ve been our loyal companion since…well, before we even had an e-mail address. Thanks for your love, your cuteness, your tricks, and your sticking by my side on all those long nights of writing and editing. Porter, you give real meaning to the phrase “good dog.” Oh, yes you do!

So on behalf of Porter and the entire BRI staff, Happy Reading.

And as always…

Iri kun la Fluo!
*

—Uncle John

(*That’s Esperanto for “Go with the Flow!”)

Check us out at
www.bathroomreader.com
. (We’re now on Facebook and Twitter, too!)

YOU’RE MY INSPIRATION

It’s always interesting to find out where the architects of pop culture get their ideas. These may surprise you
.

P
ATRICK BATEMAN.
In the 2000 movie
American Psycho,
Christian Bale portrayed Patrick Bateman, a stockbroker by day, sociopathic serial killer by night. Bale based his characterization on another actor. According to director Mary Harron, “he had been watching Tom Cruise on
David Letterman,
and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes.”

DONKEY KONG.
When a 1981 video game called
Radar Scope
sold poorly, Nintendo suddenly had 2,000 empty arcade-game cabinets to fill. At the same time, a deal with King Features to make a Popeye Nintendo game fell apart, so staff designer Shigeru Miyamoto just used the Popeye love triangle for inspiration—Popeye, his girlfriend Olive Oyl, and brute Bluto became Mario, Pauline, and a giant ape named Donkey Kong.

BENDER AND NELSON.
Cartoonist Matt Groening’s two TV series are laced with references to John Bender, the teen rebel portrayed by Judd Nelson in
The Breakfast Club,
one of Groening’s favorite movies. The hard-drinking, sarcastic robot Bender on
Futurama
was named for him; school bully Nelson Muntz on
The Simpsons
was named after Judd Nelson; and Bart Simpson’s catchphrase “eat my shorts” was first uttered by John Bender.

OLD NAVY.
Is there really a sea-based military force of elderly people? No, but there is a bar in Paris called Old Navy. In 1994 the president of the Gap, Millard Drexler, saw it while he was in France. He scrapped the name he was considering for his discount clothing store, Forklift, and decided instead to call it Old Navy.

THE
SS MINNOW
.
The boat that took the seven castaways to
Gilligan’s Island
was named after FCC chairman Newton Minow. In a 1961 speech he called television a “vast wasteland.”
Gilligan’s Island
creator Sherwood Schwartz named the doomed vessel after Minow as an insult.

Paper made from banana-plant fiber is about 3,000 times as strong as regular paper.

EMBARRASSED IN THE E.R.

What’s worse than a trip to the emergency room? A trip to the E.R. for something really humiliating. These are real-life E.R. reports
.

“Forehead pain: Patient shot self in nose with BB gun.”

“Head injury: Rolled off couch and hit telephone.”

“40-year-old female using toothbrush to make herself gag, accidentally swallowed toothbrush.”

“Abdominal pain. Diagnosis: tight pants and belt.”

“Patient stuffed ear with toilet paper so roach wouldn’t crawl in, now unable to remove.”

“Patient missed punching bag, hit metal safe.”

“Concussion, severe headache: Patient being pulled on a sled behind golf cart, struck a bump, launched in air.”

“Pulled groin while riding mechanical bull.”

“Bruised shoulder: Husband was throwing cell phone at cat, missed cat.”

“Patient, 23, used a sword to cut a piece of paper. Laceration left arm.”

“Accidentally swallowed guitar pick.”

“Patient, 31, was playing sex games with wife, had belt around neck, jumped over something and got hung up. Also fell down stairs.”

“Ankle injury from falling off stage doing karaoke.”

“Swallowed toothpick while eating cabbage.”

“Fell off monkey bars at police academy.”

“Patient playing with pillow case, buddy put a rock in it.”

“Insect bites on lips while riding a go-kart.”

“Generalized body rash after being in pool and hot tub at hotel.”

“Pain, swelling, blister on palm: Patient, 15, was playing video games, woke next day with swollen hand. Pain and swelling getting worse.”

“Patient has wrist pain after sex and bowling.”

Fewer than 1% of all patented inventions ever make money.

FOUNDING FATHERS

Three famous food origins to chew on
.

R
OBERT H. COBB.
In the 1930s, the hot restaurant for anyone in the movie industry was the Hollywood Brown Derby, located at North Vine Street. Owner Robert Cobb claimed to have invented the restaurant’s signature dish in 1935, and named it after himself: the Cobb Salad. (A more likely scenario: the chefs at the Brown Derby invented it.) The original Cobb consisted of a mixture of greens (iceberg lettuce, watercress, chicory, and romaine), topped with diced chicken breast, tomatoes, avocado, chopped bacon, hard-boiled eggs, chives, and Roquefort cheese, served with a red wine vinaigrette. The Brown Derby closed in 1985 (Cobb died in 1970), by which time they’d sold more than four million Cobb Salads.

GRANNY SMITH.
Maria Sherwood Smith was 50 years old when she and her husband Thomas settled on a farm in New South Wales, Australia, and began planting fruit orchards. She liked to experiment with fruit hybrids, and in 1868, at the age of 69, she crossed a European wild apple with a common Australian apple to create a new breed—light green in color, tart in flavor, and slow to brown when cut and exposed to air. Smith died just two years later, not living to see her apple blossom. The Australian government began cultivating it in 1895. It was first exported to the U.K. in the 1930s, but didn’t make it to the U.S. until 1972. Today it’s one of the most popular apple varieties in the world.

GENNARO SBARRO.
In 1956 Sbarro emigrated from Naples, Italy, to Brooklyn, where he found work in an Italian deli. By 1959 he’d opened his own deli in the Bensonhurst neighborhood, and five years later he owned four delis around New York. In 1977 Sbarro expanded into restaurants. The first one was located where you’d still find a Sbarro today: a shopping mall. The store in Kings Plaza Shopping Center in Brooklyn (it’s still there) established the Sbarro format of pizza and pasta, served cafeteria-style. Today there are more than 1,600 Sbarro restaurants in 47 states and 43 countries. (And they’re still mostly in malls.)

Makes cents: Men tend to tip female waiters more; women tend to tip male waiters more.

DREAMY FACTS

What happens to you when you sleep? Read on
.

• According to experts, dreaming is a natural brain function, and all human beings do it. But some people never remember their dreams.

• People who have quit a longtime smoking habit report having very vivid dreams for several weeks after stopping.

• The Old English word
dream,
which etymologists believe is the origin of our word dream, meant “'joy,” “mirth,” or “music.”

• Psychologists say that both men and women become sexually aroused while dreaming—even if the dream has no sexual content.

• Average amount of time spent dreaming per night: 1½ to 2 hours.

• The Raramuri people of northern Mexico believe that dreams are the result of one’s soul “waking” or “sobering,” and seeing the world more clearly than usual. (Raramuri families often wake up and discuss their dreams during the night.)

• The longest dreams—up to 45 minutes long—usually occur in the morning.

• Negative emotions, such as anxiety, are more commonly felt during dreams than positive ones are.

• Studies show that women who experience nightmares during pregnancy have easier births than women who don’t.

• Birds, like humans, experience REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, during which they experience brain wave activity similar to that of humans. This suggests that birds dream.

• Reptiles also experience brain activity during sleep that suggests they too may dream. (Fish do not.)

• Scientists believe schizophrenics suffer from irregular REM sleep, and that the hallucinations and delusions they experience may actually be “waking dreams.”

• For most of his life, President Lyndon Johnson had nightmares that he was paralyzed.

Shock jock: Green Bay QB Matt Hasselbeck has been struck by lightning twice.

LITTLE THINGS
MEAN A LOT

“The devil’s in the details,” says an old proverb. It’s true—sometimes the littlest things can cause BIG problems
.

T
HE WRONG E-MAIL LIST

In April 2009, more than 30,000 applicants to the University of California San Diego received an e-mail that began: “We’re thrilled that you’ve been admitted to UC San Diego, and we’re showcasing our beautiful campus on Admit Day!” Thousands of excited students shared the good news and started booking flights and hotel rooms. But two hours later, those same applicants received a second e-mail from UCSD informing them that the first one was a mistake. “In all humility, I ask that you please accept my apologies,” wrote admissions director Mae Brown, who later explained that the first e-mail was supposed to go only to the 18,000 applicants who had been accepted, but it was accidentally sent to all 47,000 who applied. “We accessed the wrong database,” she admitted. Said one of the rejected applicants: “It was one of the greatest moments in my life and then, boom, it was one of the lowest.”

AN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT…IN AUSTRALIA

A man, a woman, and a dog walked into the Thai Spice restaurant in Adelaide, Australia, in 2009, only to be told by a waiter: “We don’t allow dogs in here!” The woman responded (in her native Australian accent), “But he’s a gay dog!” Offended, the waiter—who was from Thailand—told them to leave immediately. A few days later the restaurant’s owner, Hong Hoa Thi To, received a call from South Australia’s Equal Opportunity Tribunal asking him why service was refused to a blind man who came in with a friend and his guide dog.
“Guide
dog?” asked Hong? He thought the woman had said
“gay
dog.” The restaurant was ordered to apologize to the man and pay him $1,500. “My staff genuinely believed that it was an ordinary pet dog which had been desexed to become a gay dog,” said Hong.