SCRATCH FEVER
• Why do itches get worse when you scratch them? Because when you scratch, you irritate a second set of nerve endings—the ones that transmit pain. So even if you get rid of the original irritant, you’ve created a whole new one—you.
Two most recognized men of the 1970s: Muhammad Ali and the Ayatollah Khomeni.
• Scratching also temporarily thickens your skin. “It sets up what I call a hot spot,” says Dr. Nia Terezakis, a New Orleans dermatologist. “Scratching thickens the skin, and when skin gets thicker, it itches more. You’ve got a nervous itch going. You stimulate the nerves to fire more and more.”
• With allergic rashes, the problem is even worse. On top of irritating the nerve endings and thickening your skin, you also spread the histamine into unaffected cells—which makes the rash bigger.
SCRATCH FACTS
• Do you itch when you come in from the cold? That’s because cold weather “numbs” your nerve endings…which makes them transmit signals more slowly. But when you get back into a warm environment, your nerve endings spring back into action and flood the brain with itch signals. Your brain makes you feel itchy until it adjusts to the warmth.
• Wool is itchier than most fabrics because it stimulates two types of nerve endings at once: the pressure of the wool against your skin activates the itch nerves, and the individual fibers tickle the nerve endings that are wrapped around your hair shafts.
• No one knows why people itch so strongly at the base of the shoulder blades, the very place that’s impossible to reach and scratch. “It’s an intense itching that drives people crazy,” says Dr. David R. Harris, a Stanford University dermatologist. “And no one knows why this occurs. We think it might be a peculiar reaction to the nerve fibers, but we don’t know for sure.”
ITCHY INFO
• Chicken pox gets its name from the itch, not chickens. The ailment was originally called gican pox in Old English, which meant “itchy pox.”
• It takes about three minutes from the time a mosquito bites you for the bite to begin itching.
• Everyone itches at least once a day. Even thinking about itching can make you itch.
More thunderstorms—3,000 a day—hit the tropics than any other place on earth.
SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCK ’N’ ROLL STAR?
There have been some pretty amazing success stories in the history of rock. But there’s never been a better example of “overnight stars” than the McCoys. One day they were in a local Dayton, Ohio, band called Rick and the Raiders, and the next—literally—they were in New York recording a #1 song. Here’s the story of how it happened, from Behind the Hits, by Bob Shannon and John Javna.
THE STRANGELOVES
In 1965, a trio of New York writer/producers (Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, and Richard Gottehrer) decided to call themselves The Strangeloves, record a few songs, and go on a U.S. tour. In their first session, they recorded two songs called, “I Want Candy” and “Hang on Sloopy.” “I Want Candy” was released first. It was an immediate hit.
The Strangeloves planned to make “Sloopy” (which they were sure would be big) the follow-up, but they had to wait until “Candy” peaked on the charts before they could release another single.
ON THE ROAD
They decided to start performing “Sloopy” on their live tour anyway. During a gig in Tulsa, Oklahoma, another band heard and realized that “Sloopy” was a sure hit. The leader of the band taped the Strangeloves’ performance and told the group he planned to record it the same way when he got home.
This was trouble for the Strangeloves. There was no way their version could be rushed out without undermining “I Want Candy” as it headed up the charts…but now a rival band could steal the song. They knew they had to do something quick; they just weren’t sure what.
FATE STEPS IN
Bob Feldman was afraid to fly. He insisted that the group drive back to New York from Oklahoma. And since they were passing through Ohio anyway, the group set up a quick concert in Dayton.
Whales can get lice.
When the scheduled backup musicians didn’t show, a local band was hired to fill in. It was Rick and the Raiders, led by 16-year-old guitarist Rick Zehringer.
The band impressed Feldman, Goldstein, and Gottehrer—who suddenly came up with a brilliant idea: Why not take this young group back to New York and have them sing “Sloopy” over the already-recorded music tracks! The trio talked to the boys’ parents about the idea. Coincidentally, Zehringer’s parents were starting their summer vacations the very next day. They agreed to chaperone the band, so the rest of the families agreed to let their kids go to the Big Apple. The two groups drove there the next morning.
Rick Zehringer: “They said, ‘Do you want to come back tomorrow?’ My parents’ vacation started then. We said, ‘Sure, it sounds like a great idea.’ That’s how easy it was. We were back in New York City the next day and went into the studio because everything had been prearranged and set up.”
IT’S A HIT!
One problem they’d already solved: Their name was too close to a popular group called Paul Revere and the Raiders. But a Zehringer family album showed an early picture of the band with “The McCoys” written on the base drum. By the time they reached New York, the boys had become the McCoys again. In the studio, the McCoys sang “Sloopy” over the existing instrumental tracks, with Rick adding a guitar solo.
Rick Zehringer: “They gave us a small record player and a copy of the musical track and told us exactly what they wanted us to sing. We went out into the park for a few days, practiced singing it, and put the vocal on. They jumped up and down in the control room and yelled, ‘Number One!’ and a few weeks later, it was. That’s how easy it was for us.”
EPILOGUE
“Sloopy” hit #1 on October 2, 1965, sold over a million records and became a rock classic. The McCoys had several more hits. Rick Zehringer changed his name to Rick Derringer, and became a star on his own in the 1970s with the hit song “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo.”
Sonny Bono had only one big solo hit: “Laugh At Me.”
YOU CALL THAT ART? II
Here are some more great art fakes.
DS. WINDLE
Background: In 1936 Windle entered a painting called Abstract Painting of Woman in the International Surrealist Exhibition taking place in London. The work was one of the most talked-about and admired paintings of the show.
The Truth: D. S. Windle (“De Swindle”) was actually B. Howitt-Lodge, a portrait painter who hated surrealist art. He created his painting out of “a phantasmagoria of paint blobs, variegated beads, a cigarette stub, Christmas tinsel, pieces of hair, and a sponge.” Howitt-Lodge chose the materials, he later admitted, because he wanted to create “the worst possible mess” and enter it in “one of the most warped and disgusting shows I’ve ever seen.”
What Happened: Modernists were unmoved by his confession—they accepted Howitt-Lodge’s work as genuine surrealist art, even if he didn’t. “He may think it’s a hoax,” one fan told reporters, “but he’s an artist and unconsciously he may be a surrealist. Aren’t we all?”
ALCEO DOSSENA
Background: In 1922 the Boston Museum of Fine Arts paid $100,000 for the marble tomb of a wealthy Italian woman named Maria Caterina Savelli, who died in 1430. The tomb was supposedly carved by a famous Florentine sculptor named Mino da Fie-Savelli, and was so impressive that the museum set the exhibit up right at the building’s entrance.
The Truth: As Kathryn Lindskoog writes in Fakes, Frauds & Other Malarkey, “No one seemed to notice that the Mino Tomb was dated one year after its sculptor was born, and that the brief Latin inscription on the tomb, which was naively copied from a book about the Savelli family, said, ‘At last the above-mentioned Maria Caterina Savelli died.’ ”
What Happened: No one realized it was a fake until 1928, when an obscure Italian sculptor named Alceo Dossena sued art dealer Alfredo Fasoli for $66,000, claiming that wit
hout his knowledge, Fasoli had been selling his copies of Renaissance art as the genuine article.
6 most-hated creatures in the U.S.: cockroaches, mosquitoes, rats, wasps, rattlesnakes and bats.
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts refused to accept that the Mino Tomb was fake…until Dossena produced photographs of the work in progress, as well as a toe that had broken off a figure carved in the tomb.
Museums all over the world scoured their collections looking for Dossena’s fakes—hundreds were found. The Cleveland Museum of Art was particularly hard hit—after finding modern nails deep inside a “13th-century” Madonna and Child, it replaced the piece with a marble statue of Athena that cost $120,000. That statue also turned out to be a Dossena fake. For what it’s worth, not everyone suffered from the scandal: Alceo Dossena flourished. People became so interested in his work that he was able to launch a career as a legitimate artist.
THOMAS KEATING
Background: In 1976 thirteen paintings by Samuel Palmer, a famous English artist, inexplicably came on the market at the same time.
The Truth: When the London Times challenged their authenticity, an English painter named Thomas Keating wrote in to confess that he had forged the paintings—as well as 2,500 other paintings during his illicit 20-year career, including works attributed to Rembrandt, Degas, Goya, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, Van Gogh, and others. Keating claimed he left a clue in every painting that proved it wasn’t authentic—sometimes he used modern materials; other times he painted “this is a fake” on the canvas using lead-based paint, which would show up on X-rays. But he was never caught.
What Happened: Keating was in such poor health when he confessed that he was never put on trial. He became a cult hero in England for fooling art experts for so long, and his own paintings soared in value. One which he called Monet and his Family in their Houseboat, sold at an auction for $32,000. By the time of his death in 1983, his work was so popular that other forgers were cashing in by copying his work.
The tubeless auto tire was invented by a man named Frank Herzegh. He made one dollar for it Knights in armor used to lift their visors when riding past the king—the original military salute.
TOP-RATED TV SHOWS, 1985-1990
More of the annual Top 10 TV shows of the past 50 years.
1985-1986
(1) The Cosby Show
(2) Family Ties
(3) Murder, She Wrote
(4) 60 Minutes
(5) Cheers
(6) Dallas
(7) (tie) Dynasty
(7) (tie) The Golden Girls
(9) Miami Vice
(10) Who’s the Boss?
1986-1987
(1) The Cosby Show
(2) Family Ties
(3) Cheers
(4) Murder, She Wrote
(5) The Golden Girls
(6) 60 Minutes
(7) Night Court
(8) Growing Pains
(9) Moonlighting
(10) Who’s the Boss?
1987-1988
(1) The Cosby Show
(2) A Different World
(3) Cheers
(4) The Golden Girls
(5) Growing Pains
(6) Who’s the Boss?
(7) Night Court
(8) 60 Minutes
(9) Murder, She Wrote
(10) (tie) ALF
(10) (tie) The Wonder Years
1988-1989
(1) The Cosby Show
(2) Roseanne
(3) A Different World
(4) Cheers
(5) The Golden Girls
(6) Who’s the Boss?
(7) 60 Minutes
(8) Murder, She Wrote
(9) Empty Nest
(10) Anything But Love
1989-1990
(1) Roseanne
(2) The Cosby Show
(3) Cheers
(4) A Different World
(5) America’s Funniest Home Videos
(6) The Golden Girls
(7) 60 Minutes
(8) The Wonder Years
(9) Empty Nest
(10) NFL Monday Night Football
1990-1991
(1) Cheers
(2) 60 Minutes
(3) Roseanne
(4) A Different World
(5) The Cosby Show
(6) Murphy Brown
(7) (tie) Empty Nest
(7) (tie) America’s Funniest Home Videos
(9) NFL Monday Night Football
(10) The Golden Girls
THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES
Here’s another tale from Myths and Legends of the Ages.
There was once a rich and powerful king in Greece named Dionysius. A clever, ruthless man, Dionysius had fought his way to the throne. In gaining the crown, he’d made many powerful and bitter enemies. Yet there were many who envied Dionysius and wished they were in his place.
Among the king’s courtiers was a man called Damocles. Damocles was constantly praising Dionysius and saying, “Oh great king, you are indeed blessed of the gods. Everything you could wish for is yours. How happy you must be!”
One day, when Damocles was speaking in his flattering way, Dionysius said, “Well now, Damocles, what are you saying? Would you like to be king in my place?”
Damocles was frightened. He didn’t want the king to think he was plotting to seize the throne. Quickly he replied, “Oh no, great king. I was only thinking how wonderful it would be to enjoy your riches for even one day.”
“It shall be as you desire,” said King Dionysius. “For one day, you shall enjoy the position and power and luxury of a king. You shall know exactly what it feels like to be in my place.”
The next day the astonished Damocles was led into the king’s chamber. He was dressed in royal robes and told that he could do whatever he wished.
Suddenly, as he leaned back among his silken cushions, he gasped with horror. Just above his head was an enormous sword hanging by a slender thread! If the thread broke, the sword would instantly fall and kill him. He sat, pale and trembling. Pointing to the sword in terror, he whispered, “That sword! That sword! Why is that sword hanging above me? Hanging by so slender a thread?”
Gilligan’s first name on Gilligan’s Island was Willy. The skipper’s name was Jonas Grumby.
“I promised you,” answered Dionysius, “that you should know exactly how it feels to live like a king, and now you know! Did you expect that you might enjoy all of a king’s riches for nothing? Do you not know that I always live with a sword hanging over my head? I must be on my guard every moment lest I be slain.”
Then Damocles answered, “O king, take back your wealth and your power! I would not have it for another moment. I would rather be a poor peasant living in a mountain hut than live in fear and trembling all the days of my life!”
Never again did Damocles envy the king.
****
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Here’s another newspaper hoax.
Nuclear War: It’s Hell!
(The San Francisco Chronicle, 1960)
The Story: In 1960 the San Francisco Chronicle posed this question: If there were a nuclear war, “could an average city dweller exist in the wilderness tomorrow with little more than his bare hands?” The paper answered its own question by assigning outdoor columnist Harvey Boyd, his wife and their three children to spend the next six weeks living in a mountain wilderness area near San Francisco. The Chronicle called the series “The Last Man on Earth.”
Reaction: In his articles, Boyd described the experience as “the most brutish, hellish, most miserable days of our lives.” But after several days of struggle, his son learned to capture frogs and Boyd himself learned how to trap a deer. After ten days, Boyd reported, he was feeling “ahead of the game at last.”
The Truth: Editors at the rival San Francisco Examiner decided to check up on The Last Man on Earth…and found a campsite filled with modern conveniences and store-bought foods, including “matches, canned spaghetti, fresh egg
s, watermelon, and the current Reader’s Digest.” The only thing missing: the Boyds themselves. The Last Man on Earth and his family had already gone home.
Karate was not introduced to Japan until about 1917.
WHAT HAPPENED AT ROSWELL? PART II
The “Incident at Roswell” is probably the biggest UFO story in history. Was it a military balbon…or an alien spacecraft? You be the judge, as the story continues. (Part I starts on Page 251.)
DEJA VU
The Roswell story would probably have stayed dead if Stanton T. Friedman, a nuclear physicist, hadn’t lost his job during the 1970s. UFOs were Friedman’s hobby…until he got laid off; then it became his career. “In the 1970s, when the bottom fell out of the nuclear physics business,” he explains, “I went full time as a lecturer.” His favorite topic: “Flying Saucers ARE Real,” a talk that he gave at more than 600 different college campuses and other venues around the country.
In his years on the lecture circuit, Friedman developed a nation-wide reputation as a UFO expert, and people who’d seen UFOs began seeking him out. In 1978 he made contact with Jesse Marcel, the Army Intelligence Officer (now retired) who’d retrieved the wreckage from Mac Brazel’s ranch 31 years earlier.
At Friedman’s urging, Marcel gave an interview to the National Enquirer. “I’d never seen anything like it,” Marcel told the supermarket tabloid, “I didn’t know what we were picking up. I still believe it was nothing that came from Earth. It came to Earth, but not from Earth.”
BACK IN THE HEADLINES
The Enquirer interview couldn’t have come at a more opportune time: it was 1979, and Steven Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which had premiered several months earlier, had stoked the public’s appetite for UFO stories. After lying dormant more than 30 years, the Roswell story blew wide open all over again.
From there the story just kept growing. Dozens of new “witnesses” to the Roswell UFO began seeking out Friedman at his public appearances to tell him their stories. Soon, the Roswell “cover-up” included humanoid alien beings. “Over the years,” Joe Nickell writes in the Skeptical Enquirer, “numerous rumors, urban legends, and outright hoaxes have claimed that saucer wreckage and the remains of its humanoid occupants were stored at a secret facility—the (nonexistent) ‘Hangar 18’ at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. People swear that the small corpses were autopsied at that or another site.”
Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader Page 44