Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  What Happened: People were more receptive to the story in New York. Stark got some top talent working on it—producer David Merrick, director Jerome Robbins, lyricist Jule Styne, and others. Their first task was finding a leading lady. Front-runners were veterans like Mary Martin, Carol Burnett, and Eydie Gorme. But when Robbins and Styne went to a New York nightclub and saw a 21-year-old singer named Barbra Streisand, they wanted her for the part. Stark wanted a more glamorous star (ironically, since his mother-in-law, Fanny Brice, wasn’t glamorous). But Robbins won out and Streisand got the part. Merrick ultimately dropped out of the project—but before he did, he convinced Stark to change the name of the play from My Man to Funny Girl.

  Epilogue: Stark was proved right when his dream of a movie version finally came true in 1968. It was Streisand’s film debut, and a huge hit; she won an Oscar for Best Actress.

  Paul Anka wrote Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” theme song.

  THE RESURRECTION OF ELVIS, PART II

  Here’s what the Presley estate did to preserve Elvis’s memory…and make a fortune from it in the process. Continued from Part I, page 177.

  ENTER PRISCILLA

  The effort to keep Elvis’s estate out of bankruptcy was exhausting and probably contributed to his father Vernon Preslev’s death from heart disease in June 1979.

  In his will, Vernon named three co-executors to take over his responsibilities: Elvis’s accountant Joseph Hanks, the National Bank of Commerce, and Priscilla Presley—Elvis’s ex-wife and the mother of his daughter, Lisa Marie. Priscilla had no business experience and had known nothing about the King’s financial affairs during the marriage…but to everyone’s surprise, she and her advisors took a leading role in rescuing the Presley estate for Lisa Marie.

  FORCED INTO ACTION

  With the bulk of Elvis’s fortune gone forever, Priscilla was forced to make the best of what remained, namely: 1) Graceland, and 2) Elvis’s name and likeness.

  She immediately put both to work for the estate. First she opened Graceland to the public, charging $5 a head to the hundreds of thousands who visited each year. Then she took over the Elvis merchandising operations. Her strategy was simple but brilliant. “Since…the estate would have to rely on Elvis’s memory to generate revenue,” writes Sean O’Neal in Elvis, Inc., “Elvis would be transformed into a symbol, a character that could be licensed to merchandisers. The estate would turn Elvis Presley into its own

  version of Mickey Mouse.”

  The problem with this idea was that, during the last eight years of his life, Elvis’s image was not very Disneyesque. His weight had ballooned and he had been addicted to prescription medication. By the time of his death, Elvis had become a grotesque caricature of the performer he once was. This Elvis would never do as the symbol of the new empire.

  The average depth of the ocean is 2 1/4 miles.

  Priscilla’s solution to this problem was also simple and brilliant: she would act as though the 1977 Elvis never existed. Only the young Elvis, the King in his prime, would be acknowledged. It was this Elvis that would adorn the T-shirts, plates, shot glasses, billboards, and promotional literature of Priscilla’s new empire. In her sanitized version of his life, he died after his 1968 Comeback Special, an idol in his prime, like James Dean.

  COPYCATS

  The only problem with this approach was that it had no teeth. After the King’s death, hundreds of companies had come out with Elvis posters, T-shirts, videos, calendars, velvet paintings, whiskey decanters, and just about anything else imaginable. The knockoffs were cheap and tacky; even worse, they competed against “official” Elvis memorabilia licensed by the Presley estate.

  Obviously, without control of the Elvis image, Priscilla’s strategy would never work…and Lisa Marie would inherit nothing. So the estate was forced to fight for control of Elvis in court.

  The heirs to Bela Lugosi and Laurel and Hardy had put up strong fights, but those battles were nothing compared to the efforts of the Presley clan. They fought lawsuit after lawsuit, in state after state. They put up millions of dollars. But they still couldn’t get the issue resolved.

  The outcome in every state was different: In New York, for example, the estate won—Presley’s name and likeness were considered their exclusive property; but in California and Tennessee, Presley’s likeness was judged to be public domain. The upshot: Merchandisers who were chased out of one state could set up business in another. Then the Presley estate would have to start all over again and fight them there, too.

  THE ELVIS LOBBY

  As the legal battles continued, Priscilla and Co. adopted a new tactic. They began lobbying the Tennessee state legislature to create a “Personal Rights Protection Act.” This act was finally passed in 1984, and though it only officially applied in the state of Tennessee, its passage was quickly felt all over the country. Reason: In the American legal system, the laws of the state in which a person dies are the ones that apply in federal court. If someone in Missouri began selling an unlicensed Elvis poster, the Presley estate could now go into Missouri federal court and force the person to comply with Tennessee law. For the first time, the Presley estate had teeth all over the country.

  The only state with no straight-line boundary is Hawaii.

  Not long after the Tennessee law passed, California enacted a similar law, the Celebrity Rights Act, thanks in large part to a lawsuit filed by the heirs of comedian W. C. Fields (they had been trying to block a centerfold-style poster of Fields’s head superimposed over another naked fat man’s body).

  Several other states, including Virginia, Florida, Utah, and Kentucky, passed their own versions of the law. And as more and more states followed, courts began recognizing that control of a celebrity’s name and likeness were as “inheritable” as any other piece of property.

  ELVIS PRESLEY ENTERPRISES

  These laws changed the face of celebrity merchandising in America. Suddenly, officially licensed products featuring icons such as Marilyn Monroe and James Dean started popping up. And in Memphis, Elvis Presley Enterprises, the merchandising arm of the estate run jointly by Priscilla and Jack Soden, became the “Elvis police.” They controlled every aspect of the Elvis image, from T-shirts to TV documentaries to random snapshots that had been taken by private photographers.

  Priscilla’s original strategy was implemented—and today there are no fat Elvis photos floating around, ruining the King’s memory. Licensees only use “approved” pictures of the early Elvis; if they don’t have one, they can pick from the estate’s library of several thousand acceptable photos. And woe to anyone who tries to use Elvis’s name or likeness—no matter how innocent the motivation—without the consent of Presley Enterprises. Charities, cities, artists, and even school teachers have received lawyers’ letters.

  The result of this effort has been impressive. In 1981, the Presley estate was on the verge of bankruptcy. By the 20th anniversary of Elvis’s death, in 1997, it was worth nearly $200 million. And it just keeps growing.

  The kitty-litter capital of the world is Quincy, Florida.

  THEY WENT THATAWAY

  More morbidly fascinating details of the death-styles of the rich and famous.

  CATHERINE THE GREAT

  Claim to Fame: Empress of Russia, 1762-1796

  How She Died: Like Elvis—from a stroke, suffered while going to the bathroom

  Postmortem: There are probably more rumors about Catherine’s death than that of any monarch in history (except “The King”: Elvis). Most of them relate to her reputedly unusual sexual appetite. For some reason, many people believe a horse was being lowered onto her when the cable holding the beast aloft snapped, crushing her. That’s 100% myth (perhaps invented by the French, Russia’s enemies at the time).

  The truth: Two weeks after suffering a mild stroke at the age of 67, Catherine appeared to be making a strong recovery. On Nov. 5 she began her day with her usual routine: she rose at 8:00 a.m., drank several cups of coffee, then went to spend 10 mi
nutes in the bathroom. This morning, however, she didn’t come out. When her footman Zotov finally looked in on her, he found her sprawled on the floor, bleeding and barely alive. She died the next day.

  GEORGE EASTMAN

  Claim to Fame: Founder of Eastman Kodak and father of modern photography

  Postmortem: In 1932 the 78-year-old Eastman was tired and ill. On March 14 he updated his will; later in the day, he asked his doctor and his nurses to leave the room, telling them he wanted to write a note. It turned out to be a suicide note. “As methodically has he had lived his 71 years [sic],” the New York Times reported the following morning, “he penned a brief note, carefully put out his cigarette, placed the cap back on his fountain pen and removed his glasses before firing a shot through his heart.”

  Big surprise: About 60% of U.S. kids say they “don’t want to be like their parents.”

  ISADORA DUNCAN

  Claim to Fame: One of the world’s most famous modern dancers

  How She Died: From a broken neck

  Postmortem: On September 14, 1927, Duncan climbed into the passenger seat of a Bugatti race car wearing a long red silk scarf. The scarf was a little too long: when the car started off, the tail end wrapped around the wheel and yanked Duncan out of the car, snapping her neck and dragging her for several yards before the driver realized what had happened. It was too late. Final irony: A day before she died, Duncan had told an Associated Press reporter, “Now I’m frightened that some quick accident may happen.”

  MARGARET MITCHELL

  Claim to Fame: Author of Gone with the Wind

  How She Died: Run down by an automobile

  Postmortem: Mitchell was crossing busy Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta with her husband. She was halfway across when she saw a speeding motorist bearing down on her. Mitchell had previously said she was certain she would die in a car crash. Perhaps that’s why she panicked, darting back across the street and leaving her husband standing there in the middle of the road. She got hit; he didn’t. She died in the hospital five days later. The driver who hit her turned out to be a 29-year-old taxi driver with 23 traffic violations on his record.

  NELSON ROCKEFELLER

  Claim to Fame: Former governor of New York; vice president under Gerald Ford; grandson of John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil

  How He Died: According to official reports, he had a heart attack while sitting at his desk

  Postmortem: It was a cover-up. He was actually alone in his townhouse with 25-year-old Megan Marshack, who was on Rockefeller’s staff. She had reportedly been working with him on a book about his modern art collection, but as the New York Daily News reported, there were no work papers in the house—just food and wine. What really happened? Only two people know for sure…and one is dead.

  It costs the Coca-Cola Company more to buy the can than it costs them to make the cola.

  RADIO WAVES

  Uncle John found this in a book called Reading the Numbers, by Mary Blocksma. He’s embarrassed to admit that when he was a kid, he thought FM stood for “foreign music,” and AM stood for “American music.” But after reading this piece, he finally understands what radio waves are.

  Did you ever wonder why the AM numbers on your radio dial are bigger than the FM numbers? Or what the difference is between regular (VHF) television channels and UHF channels? Or why you sometimes hear a CB radio in the middle of your favorite rerun? In fact, what do these things—plus electricity, microwaves, infrared waves, light waves, X-rays, and gamma rays, have in common? All are electromagnetic waves—all of which travel at the same speed—the speed of light—and each of which vibrates at a constant rate.

  DOING THE WAVE

  What makes one electromagnetic wave different from another is how fast it’s vibrating, or the frequency (number) of the waves, called cycles, that go by per second. Frequency is measured in hertz: 1 hertz = 1 cycle per second. Very low frequency waves with long wavelengths, like electricity (AC power) vibrate at only a few cycles per second; 60 hertz is common in the United States. Radio waves begin at about 15,000 hertz. Compared to electricity, that sounds high, but it’s nothing compared to X-rays, which vibrate at about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 cycles per second (10 to the 18th power hertz), or gamma rays, at more than 10 to the 24th power hertz. Hertz are also referred to in larger, more easily used units:

  1 cycle per second

  = 1 hertz (Hz)

  1,000 hertz

  = 1 kilohertz (kHz)

  1,000 kilohertz

  = 1 megahertz (MHz)

  = 1,000,000 hertz

  1,000 megahertz

  = 1 gigahertz (GHz)

  = 1,000,000,000 hertz

  George Washington’s favorite tooth whitener: household chalk.

  ON YOUR RADIO

  How does this translate to your radio dial? The AM side, usually numbered from 550 to 1600 (some dials remove the last zero, leaving it 55 to 160), stand for kilohertz, although today’s AM band extends from 525 to 1,700 kilohertz, or 525,000 to 1,700,000 cycles per second. The FM side of your dial is usually numbered from 88 to 108, which stands for megahertz. FM numbers are lower than AM numbers, but the frequencies are much higher—88,000,000 to 108,000,000 cycles per second. The FM stations are sandwiched between television stations, which are assigned frequencies according to channel: VHF channels 2 through 6 broadcast at 54 to 88 megahertz, below FM frequencies; while channels 7 to 13 broadcasting at 174 to 216 megahertz, and the UHF channels (14 to 83), broadcast at 470 to 890 megahertz, are above the FM channels. CB radio uses two bands, one of which is in 460 to 470 right under the UHF band, which accounts for its occasional television interference.

  WHAT’S THE FREQUENCY?

  Whatever it’s broadcasting, each station is assigned its frequency by the FCC—the Federal Communications Commission—which has been regulating American broadcasting since 1934, to keep stations from interfering with one other. Each station operates strictly within its assigned channel, whose size depends on the type of broadcast. AM channels require only a 10-kilohertz band, while FM channels require closer to 200 kilohertz, and television channels require 6,000 kilohertz each.

  So how big is a radio wave? The length of a wave (cycle) is measured from crest to crest, or from the tip of one wave to the tip of the next. Very low frequency waves (lower than 30 hertz) can measure over 10,000 yards—more than six miles—from crest to crest. Medium frequency waves—AM broadcasting waves fall in here—are about 100 to 1,000 yards each. VHF waves—used for FM and television broadcasting—measure 1 yard to 10 yards. UHF waves are from about a yard to half an inch. Extremely high frequency waves, such as X-rays, are so small that they are measured in angstroms (one ten-billionth—0.0000000001—of a meter): light rays are approximately 3,900 to 7,700 angstroms wide, while an X ray might measure 1 angstrom, and gamma rays can be smaller than 0.000001 angstrom.

  Aardvarks eventually stop growing…but their teeth never do.

  LIGHT VS. RADIO

  It’s the size of the electromagnetic wave, related to its frequency, which is really what makes a light wave (which you can see) different from and electrical wave, or a radio wave, or an X ray. The range is phenomenal—frequencies run from 1 to more than 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 0.0000000000000001 meter.

  ****

  SCIENTIFIC HOAXES

  The Amazing Tomato-wheat-cow

  Background: In September 1984, Omni magazine ran a story about “an amazing tomato-wheat-cow,” a single plant-animal hybrid that had been created by two biologists at the University of Hamburg in West Germany. “With all the characteristics of a giant stalk of wheat,” Omni wrote, “the skin can be tanned and used as leather, and several udder blossoms provide the grower with a steady supply of tomato juice.” Omni attributed the genetic breakthrough to “Dr. Barry MacDonald and William Wimpey of the Department of Biology at the University of Hamburg.”

  The Truth: Omni got the story from the April issue of New Scientist magazine…whic
h turned out to be the April Fool’s issue. The “cow” was an obvious hoax—Wimpey’s and McDonald’s are the two largest hamburger chains in England—but Omni somehow missed the joke. According to one account, “fact-checking for the article was limited to leaving a message for Wimpey and MacDonald at the University of Hamburg. The message was not returned.”

  Bruno Bettelheim

  Background: From the 1940s until he committed suicide in 1990, he was considered a pioneering psychologist in the study of the treatment and education of emotionally desturbed children.

  What Happened: In 1997 biographer Richard Pollak (whose mentally ill brother had been treated by Bettelheim) discovered that Bettelheim “constantly falsified his credentials after arriving in the U.S. in 1939,” had plagiarized the work of others throughout his career, and had never even earned a degree in psychology.

  Las Vegas is growing so fast that the phone company issues new phone books every 6 months.

  FOR CYNICS ONLY

  Are you the kind of person who always expects the worst—who’s never surprised by scandals or heroes who are exposed as phonies? Then this page is for you. Read it and weep…or laugh…or whatever.

  DENNIS THE MENACE

  Hank Ketcham, creator of the “Dennis the Menace” comic strip, considers his work a beacon for families. “The Mitchells represent what I hope America is,” he said in 1990. But at last report, he was estranged from the real Dennis—his son—who inspired the strip in the first place. “We lead separate lives, there’s very little communication,” Ketcham told a reporter unapologetically. He added: “I don’t want a closer relationship.”