by Uncle John’s
STAFF INFECTION
In late 17th-century France, Jean-Baptiste Lully was King Louis XIV’s favorite dancer and composer…until he “baroque” his foot. Lully was one of the first composers to lead an orchestra with a baton. But this wasn’t like today’s tiny batons, waved all about. A baton back then was a really big stick—six feet long with a brass point on the bottom, more like a staff—that the conductor would pound on the floor to help the musicians keep time.
One night in 1687, during a celebratory performance (the king had just recovered from a long illness), Lully was exuberantly banging his big stick on the floor over and over while the orchestra played. He got so caught up in the moment that he stabbed his big toe with the baton. Lully screamed in pain as the crowd recoiled in horror. The performance came to an abrupt end. But not Lully: His wound was bad, but survivable. The king’s doctors, noting that gangrene would soon spread upward from the abscess, attempted to amputate Lully’s toe. But the composer protested (he was a dancer, too, after all), and fought off the doctors and their saws. The gangrene spread, and Lully died a slow, painful death.
“HIS WOUND WAS BAD, BUT SURVIVABLE.”
THE COCAINE AMPUTATION
Cocaine, a powdered extract of the coca leaf, has been used as a recreational drug for more than a century. It makes users incredibly alert, but it also makes their hearts beat faster, potentially leading to stroke, heart attack, or sudden death. In the 1970s and ’80s, it gained popularity as a sexual-enhancement drug—people wouldn’t just ingest it, they would rub it on or inject it into their genitals to concentrate the drug’s powerful effects.
In a report in a 1988 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, three doctors wrote about an (unnamed) man who experienced the worst cocaine side effects imaginable (death may or may not be worse). The 34-year-old New York City man told doctors that on occasion, he injected a cocaine solution directly into his urethra through the tip of his penis. It had no ill effects, until he did it before a romantic encounter in June 1987. Afterward, his erection didn’t go away for three days (a medical condition called priapism). He sought medical attention, and doctors were able to drain his penis of blood.
“PEOPLE WOULDN’T JUST INGEST IT, THEY WOULD RUB IT ON OR INJECT IT INTO THEIR GENITALS TO CONCENTRATE THE DRUG’S POWERFUL EFFECTS.”
The problem was that the blood went inward, not outward. The blood, full of cocaine and bacteria, coursed throughout his body. From there it coagulated under the man’s skin, leading to blood clots in his genitals, arms, legs, back, and chest, and gangrene in his legs, fingers, and penis. Twelve days later, doctors had to amputate both of the man’s legs, nine fingers…and his penis.
E.T., GO HOME
It’s one of the most famous parts of one of the most popular movies of all time. In the 1982 blockbuster E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Elliott (Henry Thomas) lures the alien out of a hiding place with a trail of bite-size Reese’s candies.
It wasn’t the first-ever instance of “product placement,” but it’s certainly among the most high-profile, and it put the practice on the radar of the general public. What’s more is that it worked—in June 1982, shortly after the release of the movie, sales of Reese’s Pieces went up by 65 percent.
The loser in the story: Mars candy company. Producers of E.T. went to Mars first, wanting Elliott’s candy of choice to be M&M’s. Despite the fact that the movie looked like it was going to be a hit—and Steven Spielberg was directing it—Mars turned down the chance to pay to put M&M’s in the film. Why? The company had already allocated its entire advertising budget for the year.
“PRODUCERS OF E.T. WENT TO MARS FIRST, WANTING ELLIOTT’S CANDY OF CHOICE TO BE M&M’S.”
GENITAL WARFARE
MY OLD VIRGINNY HOME
An elderly North Carolina woman arrived at the ER saying she had green vines growing in her “virginny,” as she quaintly called it. An exam and a few X-rays confirmed her story: It was a vine, and it had sprouted…out of a potato. The woman explained that her uterus had prolapsed, or fallen out (a condition not uncommon in elderly women), so she’d popped in a potato to hold it up—and forgotten about it.
VERY BAD KITTY
A panicked woman brought her unconscious boyfriend into the ER and explained that she’d found him lying in the bathtub. Doctors noted a large lump on the man’s head…and some curious scratches on his scrotum. As they were trying to determine what happened, the man woke up and told his story: He’d been cleaning his tub in the nude, and while kneeling to scrub the drain, he didn’t realize that his swaying testicles had drawn the attention of his cat. The cat pounced, and the man jumped in pain…then hit his head on the tiles and knocked himself out.
SAY WHAT?
In August 2003, Valdemar Lopes de Moraes of Monte Claros, Brazil, walked into a medical clinic to get treated for an earache. A few hours later he walked out—with a vasectomy. What happened? The nurses called “Aldemar” (for a vasectomy), and Valdemar thought he’d been called. “The strangest thing,” said the clinic manager, “is that he asked no questions when the doctor started preparations in the area which had so little to do with his ear. He later explained that he thought it was an ear inflammation that got down to his testicles.”
LOVE MACHINE
In a 1991 issue of the journal Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality, a urologist from West Chester, Pennsylvania, wrote about an ER patient he’d treated for a lacerated and swollen scrotum. At a checkup appointment, the man admitted how he’d gotten the injury: He’d been pleasuring himself by holding his genitals against the canvas belt on a piece of industrial equipment at his machine shop (during his lunch hour, because otherwise it would have been weird). He pressed against it too hard. It gets worse: He tried to close the wound himself…with an industrial staple gun.
WEIRD (AND REAL) CELL-PHONE INSURANCE CLAIMS
A couple filed a claim for a new phone after they lost theirs while on a cruise ship. They had dropped the phone into the ocean, they said, while trying to take a photo of themselves attempting to reenact Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s “I’m the king of the world!” scene from the film Titanic.
•A woman from Liverpool, England, filed for a new phone because, she said, hers had a crack in it. After discovering that her boyfriend was cheating on her, she explained, she threw the phone at his head. He ducked—and the phone hit a wall and broke.
•A woman from Bristol, England, filed a claim to have the cost of a new BlackBerry Bold 9900 reimbursed because she had worn out the phone’s vibrator function with, uh, intimate use.
•A construction worker applied for a replacement phone when his fell out of his back pocket just as he was sitting down…“on the loo.” Unfortunately, he didn’t notice…and went about his business, so to speak. He didn’t know the phone was missing from his pocket until he saw it in the toilet bowl.
MUSICIAN BOMBS
Wayne Coyne is the front man of the Flaming Lips, a popular arty rock band. They’ve done a lot of kooky things over the years, including releasing a four-album set designed to be played all at once, and performing onstage encased in a bubble. But in November 2012, Coyne was flying out of Oklahoma City (his hometown) to Houston, Texas, when he was stopped at a security checkpoint. An X-ray scan alerted officials to contraband inside his luggage. Drugs? Guns? Nope—a grenade. When questioned by NSA workers Coyne said he had taken it from a party in Arkansas a week earlier but that it was not a live grenade and that it was painted gold. In other words it was a piece of art and he took it because he thought it was interesting.
The TSA wasn’t going to take any chances. They detained Coyne…and shut down the Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City for several hours. By the time all was clear, hundreds of people had missed their flights. Coyne posted an apology on Twitter along with a picture of himself in the airport flashing a peace sign.
“DRUGS? GUNS? NOPE— A GRENADE.”
FLAMEOUTS
After William Bonner, 36, a
woke in the intensive care unit, he told police officers that his face had been burned by some thugs at a bar in Augusta, Georgia. The surveillance video told a different story: Bonner’s friends had burned his face. He told them to. He even bet them that he would let them do it. His buddy poured a shot of rum on Bonner’s head and tried to light it. It wouldn’t light, so he tried again. That did the trick. Bonner’s world went up in flames as he screamed and ran wildly around the bar. His friends laughed and called him “Ghost Rider.” Once they realized he was in serious trouble, they called an ambulance.
•When Johnny Knoxville set himself on fire on the MTV show Jackass (he was roasted on a rotisserie spit), he was shown first putting on a flame-retardant suit. A message was displayed onscreen in big letters that informed viewers Knoxville was wearing a flame-retardant suit. He said, “I am wearing a flame-retardant suit. Do not try this at home.” Within days of the episode’s airing, at least two preteen boys did try it at home. Neither wore a flame-retardant suit. Both received severe burns. One of the burned boys even appeared on Good Morning America just so he could blame Johnny Knoxville for giving him the idea.
•Poor Gary Allen Banning. He made the all-too-common mistake of accidentally taking a swig from a jar of gasoline and then lighting a cigarette. He was 43.
•Christine Mecca, 51, of Ford City, Pennsylvania, accidentally lit herself on fire at a gas station. At the hospital, Mecca first blamed the flames on a lit cigarette, but then confessed to what really happened: She told police she had accidentally set herself on fire while trying to set fire to a letter from her boss informing her that she had been fired.
•A 51-year-old drunk man from Kamloops, British Columbia, passed out in a grassy field one night with a lit cigarette in his mouth. When he awoke, he was on fire. So was the field. He got up and ran away while trying to brush off the flames. Then he got on a bike and tried to ride farther away from the fire. That’s when he got hit by a train. When he awoke on the tracks, he had severe burns and a big gash on his head (from the train). Later, at the hospital, his bad day was made worse when he got arrested for starting the fire. Then he was charged with theft for stealing the bike.
•Thanks to the thousands of surveillance cameras in England, there’s a lot of great footage of Brits embarrassing themselves. One such Brit is Michael Morgan. In 2012 a sidewalk security camera recorded him as he rode his bike up to the entrance of a pub that he’d been ejected from the night before for fighting. Seeking sweet revenge, the 33-year-old (still on his bike) doused the door with gasoline and lit it on fire. Then he rode away, seemingly unaware of the flames leaping up his legs and back. Morgan escaped without serious injury (as did the pub), but he was easily recognized from the security footage and arrested soon after. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. The landlord of the adjacent building pointed out that karma goes far beyond a mere prison sentence: “People will always remember Michael Morgan as the clown on the bike who set himself on fire.”
ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP PLAN
Sweden’s King Gustavus Adolphus refused to wear armor at the 1632 Battle of Lützen, a decisive battle in the Thirty Years’ War, between the Swedish Protestant Union and the Catholic League. The king claimed that “The Lord God is my armor.” Then he got shot and died.
DIG IT!
Until the 1980s, Lake Peigneur was a popular fishing spot for sportsmen in Louisiana. The areas around and beneath the lake were also popular, having been mined for salt and tapped by oil companies. At least they were until November 21, 1980, when a petroleum-seeking drill from a Texaco platform plunged through the lake. Unfortunately, a member of the company’s crew made a critical miscalculation. Instead of hitting a deposit filled with Texas Tea, the drill pierced a mine shaft beneath the lake owned by the Diamond Crystal Salt Company.
The crew realized that something was wrong when they tried to free the drill and it wouldn’t budge. The platform began to tilt and a series of loud pops filled the air. They fled to shore as thousands of gallons of water surged into the ruptured mine shaft.
As the hole grew bigger and bigger, Junius Gaddison, an electrician working in the mines, heard a series of strange noises. He went to investigate and suddenly found himself knee-deep in muddy water. He sounded an alarm, sending the mine’s 50-man crew rushing for the nearest exit route to the surface: a slow-moving elevator that could hold only eight people at a time.
“THOUSANDS OF GALLONS OF WATER SURGED INTO THE RUPTURED MINE SHAFT.”
Meanwhile up top, the small hole created by the drill became a mile-wide whirlpool that sucked the drilling platform down into the mine while the intense air pressure in the mine caused a series of 400-foot-tall geysers to burst out of the ground. The awesome sucking power of the whirlpool could not be abated: Over the following hours, it gobbled up a second drilling platform, a loading dock, a parking lot, and over 70 acres of terrain. So much water filled the mine that the Delcambre Canal, which typically empties the lake into the bay, began to flow backward, pulling 11 barges into the spinning vortex.
After three hours, Lake Peigneur had lost all of its 3.5 billion gallons of water. Then saltwater from the canal started flowing into the empty pit where the lake once sat, creating what would temporarily be the tallest waterfall in Louisiana. It reached a height of 164 feet and flowed for a day or two before the canal refilled the lake with water from Vermilion Bay. Eventually, nine of the sunken barges popped back up to the lake’s surface. The tugboat and the drilling platforms are still trapped in the destroyed mine.
Amazingly enough, the accident didn’t cause a single human fatality or even an injury. All 55 miners managed to escape to shore before the whirlpool’s current became too strong. Texaco was later required to pay around $45 million in out-of-court settlements.
REAL ANSWERS FROM FAMILY FEUD
Host: “Tell me a slang word for money.”
Contestant: “Money.”
Host: “Name a state that begins with the letter N.”
Contestant: “Mexico.”
Host: “Name a candy bar that might describe your mate in bed.”
Contestant: “Butterfinger.”
Host: “Tell me a food that comes in instant form.”
Contestant: “Asparagus.”
Host: “Besides a bird, name something in a birdcage.”
Contestant: “Hamster.”
Host: “Name a noisy bird.”
Contestant: “Chipmunk.”
Host: “Name a way of cooking fish.”
Contestant: “Cod.”
Host: “Name something a man might have in his pants when he’s going on a hot date.”
Contestant: “A boner.”
Host: “Name something a burglar would not want to see in your house.”
Contestant: “Naked grandma!”
Host: “Name something a blind person might use.”
Contestant: “A sword.”
FLAMIN’ HOT HEALTH CRISIS AVERTED
As part of the ongoing fight against childhood obesity, many school districts nationwide have banned vending machines and junk foods that lack nutritional value. Singled out for omission in New Mexico, California, and Illinois: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, a variety of the cheese-powder-coated corn-based snack that is also covered with a spicy-hot red powder. In addition to providing a delicious carbohydrate boost, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos stain the eater’s fingers red (as opposed to the orange fingers provided by traditional Cheetos).
“THAT FOOD DYE TENDS TO SEEP INTO FECES.”
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos get their distinctive red hue from a large amount of food dye. That food dye tends to seep into feces, leading to anecdotal reports around the country of panicked parents bringing their children to doctors’ offices and emergency rooms because they have bloody stools, a symptom of a number of terrifying medical conditions. Thankfully, more often not, it’s just red poop brought on by a bag of red-hot Cheetos.
DISCO INFERNO
The only cultural force as stron
g as disco in the late 1970s was the “disco sucks” movement, adhered to by those tired of disco. Feelings reached their peak on July 12, 1979: “Disco Demolition Night,” a promotion that was part of a Chicago White Sox doubleheader at Comiskey Park. It was orchestrated by Chicago disc jockey Steve Dahl, who had lost his job when his rock station changed its format to disco. Between games, Dahl planned to blow up a massive pile of disco records. The White Sox hired security for an expected crowd of about 35,000. Instead, 60,000 people showed up, and started demolishing disco a little early, throwing records at each other and at the players on the field.
When the intermission finally came, Dahl drove a Jeep around the field as the crowd chanted “Disco sucks!” Then Dahl used dynamite to detonate crates full of more than 1,000 disco records. The explosion ripped a giant hole in the turf and sent vinyl everywhere. Players fled into the dugouts while fans jumped the fences and further vandalized the field, stealing bases and toppling a batting cage. The White Sox had to forfeit the second game.