Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  There are about 10,000,000,000,000 ways to play the first 10 moves in a game of chess.

  A BOOB FOR THE BOOB TUBE

  But what was most remarkable about Gorgeous George was the impact he had on TV sales. In Los Angeles, wrestling matches—many featuring Gorgeous George—were broadcast on TV as early as 1945, and they proved so popular that by the late 1940s, many TV stations around the country were broadcasting live pro wrestling every night of the week. It was the perfect sport for television—the ring was small and easy to film and the action was larger than life, so viewers had no problem following the fights at home on their tiny black-and-white screens. Baseball and football players looked like ants by comparison.

  TV turned Gorgeous George into a national star, even for people who didn’t watch wrestling. And in the process, he helped make television the centerpiece of the American living room. Appliance dealers put TVs in their store windows and pasted pictures of Gorgeous George onto their screens. People who’d never owned a TV before came in and bought TVs…just so they could watch Gorgeous George. As Steve Slagle writes in The Ring Chronicle,

  In a very real sense, Gorgeous George single-handedly established the unproven new technology of television as a viable entertainment medium that could reach literally millions of homes all across the country. Pro wrestling was TV’s first real “hit”…and Gorgeous George was directly responsible for all of the commotion. He was probably responsible for selling more television sets in the early days of TV than any other factor.

  YOU’RE MY INSPIRATION

  As we told you in Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader, a young pro boxer named Cassius Clay, soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali, reinvented his public persona after he happened to meet Gorgeous George on a radio show in Las Vegas in 1961. “That’s when I decided I’d never been shy about talking, but if I talked even more, there was no telling how much people would pay to see me,” Ali remembered. That’s when he started calling himself “The Greatest”…just like Gorgeous George.

  Legal capacity of the bar in TV’s Cheers: 75. How we know: It was posted over the door.

  Muhammad Ali wasn’t the only one—Gorgeous George is credited with inspiring Little Richard…and even Liberace. “He’s imitating me,” George groused to a reporter in 1955.

  THE FINAL BELL

  There was, however, a limit to how long American TV viewers could stand to watch live pro wrestling every single night of the week, and by the mid-1950s, the craze had died down. George continued to wrestle until 1962, when a liver ailment—brought on by heavy drinking—forced him into retirement. Nearly broke from two expensive divorces, George had a heart attack on Christmas Eve 1963 and died two days later. He was 48.

  Ironically, the fame that made Gorgeous George a national celebrity may have also contributed to his death. Believe it or not, he was a reticent person, and for years he had used alcohol to stiffen his spine and give him the courage to be Gorgeous George.

  “He really didn’t have the nerve to do all those things,” his second wife, Cherie, remembered. “That’s why he drank. When he was sober, he was shy.”

  SIGNATURE WRESTLING MOVES

  Lord Blears: The Oxford Leg Strangle

  The Leduc Brothers: The Lumberjack Bearhug

  Baron Michele Scicluna: The Maltese Hangman

  Leo “The Lion” Newman: The Diamond-Drill Neck Twist

  Hard-Boiled Haggerty: The Shillelagh Swing

  Johnny Valentine: The Atomic Skullcrusher

  Cowboy Bob Ellis: The Bulldog Headlock

  Danny Dusek: The Filipino Guerrilla Hold

  Lord Athol Layton: The English Octopus

  The Shiek: The Camel Clutch

  Big Mess: The sun spews out more than a million tons of matter every second.

  CARTWHEEL KICKS

  These wrestling moves have very colorful names, but boy are they violent. In fact, they’re so violent that you wonder why wrestlers don’t get killed. Oh! It’s because THEY’RE FAKE! But just to be safe, please don’t try them at home—somebody’s brain might get busted.

  Forward Russian Leg Sweep. Stand next to your opponent, facing in the same direction. Wrap one arm around his (or her) neck, and step in front of his nearest leg, hooking it. Then fall forward, and cause your opponent to fall face first onto the mat.

  Airplane Spin. Lift your opponent over your head and hold him so he is facing up toward the ceiling. Then spin around and around to make him dizzy, and then drop him on the mat.

  Brainbuster. Lift your opponent up across your shoulders, hooking one of his legs with one arm, and cradling his neck in your other arm. Then fall to the side that your opponent’s head is on, and release his legs, causing him to fall head first onto the mat.

  Tilt-a-Whirl Pile Driver. Grab your opponent around the waist, lift him, and spin his body until he is upside down, then wrap your arms around his body to hold him in place. Then sit or kneel, dropping your opponent on his head.

  Atomic Drop. Stand behind and to the side of your opponent. Grab his midsection with one arm, and hook one of his legs with the other. Lift him up over your shoulder so that he is parallel with the mat, then drop him tailbone first on your knee.

  Gutbuster Drop. Bend your opponent over in a crouch, then grab him by one leg and across his chest. Lift him up so that his body is facing downward, then drop him stomach first across your knee.

  Cartwheel Kick. Do a cartwheel in the direction of your opponent, taking care to kick him in the head with the side of your foot as it contacts his body.

  Shooting Star Press. Climb up onto the top rope, then do a backflip, landing on your opponent.

  By the time you reach age 60, your eyes will have been exposed to more light than would be released by detonating a nuclear bomb

  WRESTLING LINGO

  Had enough of wrestling yet? But wait, there’s more. If you want to sound like a pro, you have to know the special lingo. Here’s a sample.

  Face (noun). A “good guy.” (Wrestlers with pretty faces are often cast as good guys.)

  Heel (noun). A “bad guy.” Someone who cheats and breaks the rules to win.

  Feud (noun). A grudge match, frequently between a face and a heel.

  Turn (noun or verb). When a heel changes his persona and becomes a face, or vice versa.

  Potato (verb). Injure a wrestler by hitting them on the head or causing them to hit their head.

  Stiff (adjective). A move intended to cause real injury.

  Run-in (noun). Intervention in a match by an audience member or other nonparticipant.

  Blade (verb). Intentionally cut yourself with a hidden piece of razorblade in order to produce “juice” (see below).

  Juice (noun or verb). Blood. Usually caused by blading.

  Job (noun). A staged loss.

  Post (verb). Run someone into the ringpost.

  Hardway juice (noun). Blood from an unintentional injury.

  Heat (noun). The level of the crowd’s enthusiasm for a fight.

  Pop (noun or verb). A sudden rise in the heat of the crowd, such as when a popular wrestler makes his entrance.

  Bump (noun). A fall or other move that results in the wrestler falling out of the ring.

  Jobber (noun). A wrestler who does a job—he’s hired to lose to the featured wrestler. Also known as redshirts or PLs, short for “professional losers.”

  Clean job (noun). A staged loss that doesn’t involve illegal wrestling moves.

  Screw-job (noun). An ending that isn’t clean—someone, usually the heel, wins by cheating.

  Shoot (noun). The opposite of a job—one wrestler really is trying to hurt another.

  DID YOU KNOW THAT BEES…

  Some scientists think that after a nuclear holocaust, bees might become the predominant species on Earth. True? We hope we never find out, but look at some of the astonishing things bees can do.

  …COMMUNICATE BY DANCING

  Studies show that bees are far more complex than you might thin
k, with a sophisticated system of communication. They report the location of food sources to other bees using a kind of waggling dance. The dances always show the direction of the food in relationship to a reference point—the sun.

  In 1919 an Austrian zoologist named Karl von Frisch became one of the first people to study and understand the dancing language of bees. In a series of trials, he found that if the bee’s view of the sun was entirely blocked by artificial means, the dances became disoriented. If the view of the sky was replaced with a mirror that reflected the sky’s scenery backward, the dances were reoriented to the sun’s reflection. When von Frisch moved the hive into a darkened room and provided only the light of a flashlight, the dances were oriented to that artificial sun. Bees raised indoors with only a stationary electric light to guide them became hopelessly lost when their hive was moved outdoors under a constantly moving sun.

  …SEE IN COLOR

  Popular theory once held that bees could see only in black and white. Von Frisch designed an experiment to test this. First he trained bees to feed at a clear glass container full of sugar water located on a brightly colored card. Then, when the bees left to return to their hive, an array of empty glasses was set out on cards of many different colors, as well as cards that were various shades of gray. Would the returning bees be able to distinguish the container that was sitting on the correct color, or would they be confused and go to the wrong dish? Over and over the bees returned without hesitation to the correct color, proving that they see in color. (The only exception was when the sugar water sat on a red card. Bees would often go to a dark gray card instead, showing that they are unable to distinguish the color red.)

  As you read this sentence, your eyes are moving back and forth 100 times per second.

  How do they do it? In a test to see whether they could distinguish shades of gray, the experimenter was surprised to find that bees were able to differentiate between two gray cards that looked absolutely identical to him. He eventually discovered that different companies manufactured the cards, and one reflected more ultraviolet light than the other—an important visual clue for a bee. Think of this: If bees were color-blind, flowers would not be so colorful.

  …HEAR

  One experiment testing the hearing of bees involved rigging a feeding station with an electrical current. A tone sounded three seconds before an electrified current was passed through the station. A different tone sounded when the current stopped, and would sound again periodically until the juice was turned back on. The bees soon learned the meaning of both sounds. They ignored the “safe” noise and reacted immediately to the “warning” noise.

  …ANTICIPATE

  Princeton University ethologist (animal behavior specialist) James Gould, one of the world’s foremost authorities on bee behavior, performed an experiment in which he placed a source of food next to a beehive. Once the bees discovered it, he moved it 164 feet (50 meters) away to see how long it would take the bees to relocate the supply. After only one minute, they found the food. Gould then moved it another 164 feet, and again the bees tracked it down again in less than a minute. Every time Gould moved the food another 164 feet, the bees found it without delay. Then he noticed that the bees were flying on to the next station before he had even moved the food.

  In the next experiment, Gould placed a bowl of sugar water near a beehive and then, after it had been discovered by the bees, started moving it. Every few minutes, he moved the dish, but each move was four times longer than the previous move. He moved it 1 inch, then 4 inches, then 16 inches, and so on. Soon he was moving the dish more than 100 feet in a single jump. Amazingly, the bees soon caught on…and were waiting for him when he got there.

  Rabbits can’t walk. They always hop or leap.

  …SENSE TIME

  Bees like the nectar of the buckwheat flower, which exudes nectar in the morning. Bees know this and visit the flowers only during the morning hours. This led scientists to wonder if bees had a built-in sense of time, so they did some experiments. In the first experiment, they put out a bowl of sugar water from 10:00 a.m. to noon every day. After only a few days, the bees learned exactly what hours to come for the food and didn’t waste time coming early or late.

  So next time you’re at a picnic and are tempted to swat a curious bee, remember how astonishing the honeybee is and leave it…bee.

  RANDOM BEE FACTS

  • Honeybees are not native to North America. They were introduced here from Europe in the 1600s by the Puritans.

  • Different bees have different dialects. A German bee cannot understand an Italian bee.

  • Honey never spoils. In fact, honey placed in tombs in Southampton, England, over 400 years ago was still good when the tombs were opened.

  • A typical American consumes about a pound of honey per year. A typical worker bee lives for one month and in that time collects enough nectar to make about one-twelfth a teaspoon of honey.

  • Bees use ultraviolet vision—a specialized vision that allows them to see which flowers have the largest amounts of nectar.

  • Honey comes in different colors and flavors—there are more than 300 unique kinds of honey in the United States alone. Why? Honey is made from diverse flower sources—clover, eucalyptus, or orange blossom, for example—and soil chemistry and honeycomb quality also influence how it tastes and looks.

  • Another experiment: Will bees feed from water that’s been artificially sweetened with Sweet ’N’ Low? No.

  Q: How many U.S. states have a royal palace? A: One—Hawaii (Iolani Palace).

  AFTER THE QUAKE: THE HEROES

  Disasters often bring out the best in people. At 5:13 a.m., April 18, 1906, an earthquake rocked San Francisco (see page 45). For the next four days, fire ravaged the city. City fathers, the army, police, and firefighters all worked together to put the fires out. But the city might not have survived without the extraordinary efforts of ordinary people who stepped up and helped out. Here are some of their stories.

  The Post Office remained standing after the quake but was soon threatened by the growing blaze. Many brave postal workers risked their lives by beating out the smaller fires with wet mail sacks. As soon as the danger was past, they fervently began sorting the tons of mail city residents needed to get out to worried relatives. Survivors scribbled messages on boards, newspapers, even shirts, and as long as it had a legible address, it was delivered—no stamp needed.

  The Western Union lines were down, but the Postal Telegraph office managed to stay open for business, providing a link of communication with the outside world.

  • Of the city’s five newspapers, one, the Daily News, actually managed to put out an edition Wednesday afternoon. The other four newspapers, long bitter rivals, joined forces with the Daily News to put out a combined issue on Thursday. The editors never bothered to ask permission of the owners, knowing it would be denied. The most important task at that moment was to get out the information that citizens needed to find food, shelter, services, and loved ones.

  • The Southern Pacific Railroad Station depot was saved by brave men with one pumper, a single stretch of hose, some wet gunny sacks, and a few buckets. Volunteers carried water from the bay three blocks away. Through this depot in the next few days passed millions of tons of food, blankets, clothing, and medical supplies—as well as 300,000 refugees fleeing the city. All traveled free of charge.

  • The San Francisco Mint was built of steel and concrete with metal windows. It was fireproof on the outside, but the rampaging fires blew out the windows and set fires inside. Firemen and employees frantically hauled water from a cistern to put out fires in interior woodwork and on the tarpaper roof. Seven hours later, the mint—and all the money inside—was safe.

  • The Hopkins Art Institute contained thousands of dollars worth of paintings and statues. Throughout Wednesday, teachers and students removed hundreds of pictures to the lawn, where they were carried in wheelbarrows, wagons, and on shoulders to safe spots around the cit
y. Navy men arrived to help Wednesday night, and a young lieutenant used his service pistol to encourage other folks from the passing crowds to assist.

  • Bank owner Amadeo Giannini walked 17 miles to inspect the damage of his livelihood, the Bank of Italy. When he arrived, the fire was approaching fast. His clerks swore the fire would never reach that far, but Giannini disagreed. He loaded all the bank’s funds into two wagons and hauled them to his house, where he hid the money behind his fireplace. When the fires were out, Giannini hauled the money to a new location in the financial district. Giannini’s bank later expanded to become one of the largest in the nation—the Bank of America. Another bank president, Charles Crocker, had workers load all of his bank’s cash into sacks, stack them in a wagon, and take it to the docks. Then he put the money on a boat, which took it out to the middle of San Francisco Bay until all the fires were out. So why is this important? It meant that survivors would be able to withdraw much-needed funds.

  • Alice Eastwood made her way downtown to the California Academy of Sciences. She was the curator of botany and managed to save many treasured plants while her own home burned to the ground. She could have saved her own possessions, but decided it was easier for her to buy new furniture than to replace the botanical specimans. All she had left after the fire was the dress she wore.

  • The Ultimate Sacrifice: Police Sergeant Behan saved much of the city’s paperwork by wetting it down with beer collected from nearby stores.