Honorees: Li Zhaoxing, a Chinese diplomat, and Taro Aso, a Japanese diplomat
Notable Achievement: Successfully practicing “toilet diplomacy”
True Story: In Malaysia in 2006, during summit talks to improve the tense relationship between China and Japan, Aso was using the men’s room when Li happened to walk in. With the press corps waiting outside, the two talked about state matters…for 20 minutes. Then they exited (one at a time) and went to their respective seats for the “formal” set of meetings. Once there, Aso announced to his colleagues, “I just met Li in the toilet and we had a good discussion.” Asked later whether Aso knew that Li was already in the restroom, he dismissed it as pure coincidence, adding, “But it was awfully cold in the conference room.”
The term “Dixieland” is rumored to come from a New Orleans bank currency called a dix—French for “ten.”
Honoree: Yellowcard, a rock group from Jacksonville, Florida
Notable Achievement: Turning the bathroom into a trophy room
True Story: After the band won a 2004 MTV Music Video Award for their song “Ocean Avenue,” the members had a group meeting to figure out where they would display the award, known as a Moonman. They decided to put it in the bathroom. Why? Because that’s where they write most of their songs. “The acoustics are really good in there,” explained the group’s guitarist.
Honorees: Writer Christopher Welzenbach, producer Rodrigo Frampton, and director Roberto Lage, of São Paulo, Brazil
Notable Achievement: Play-ing in the bathroom
True Story: In 2006 Welzenbach teamed up with Frampton and Lage to produce his play, “Fine Comb,” inside a men’s room. The play is about businessmen who have meetings in a bathroom to decide whom to promote and fire. But because it’s staged inside a real bathroom, only 30 people can squeeze into the room at a time to see the 30-minute play. And they can’t sit down (the toilets are part of the “set”). It looks like Welzenbach and company will be stuck in the bathroom for a while as the play has had an unexpectedly long run. “We’re a huge success,” Frampton told reporters. “We have to perform extra shows every week!”
Honoree: British actress Emma Thompson
Notable Achievement: Writing an Academy Award–winning screenplay in the bathroom
True Story: In addition to acting, Thompson is also a screen-writer. Her husband converted a barn on their Scottish estate into a workspace for her, but Thompson prefers to work in the bathroom. It was in the privacy of her home’s smallest room that she wrote much of the screenplay for the movie Sense and Sensibility, which she adapted from the Jane Austen novel. The result of her efforts: a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 1996. (She keeps the golden statuette right next to the Best Actress Oscar that she won for Howard’s End…on a shelf in the bathroom.)
IT’S A HOOTENANNY!
These songs are so well known, it seems they’ve been around forever. But they haven’t. Here are the origins of some folk classics.
Song: “Turkey in the Straw”
Story: This upbeat fiddle tune (you might know it as “Do Your Ears Hang Low”) was a part of many blackface minstrel shows in the 1820s. George Washington Dixon, Bob Farrell, and George Nichols all frequently performed the song and all claim to have written it. They didn’t—it’s an old Irish ballad originally called “The Old Rose Tree.” An unknown musician sped up the tune and it became “Natchez Under the Hill.” Some racist lyrics (befitting a blackface minstrel show) were added, and in 1834 the song was published as “Old Zip Coon.” The same tune with new, nonsensical lyrics appeared in 1861 as “Turkey in the Straw.” The song became a standard for fiddlers at barn dances. It’s still a fiddle standard but is more commonly heard today as ice-cream truck music.
Song: “Red River Valley”
Story: The Sons of the Pioneers made this 1860s folk song—about a girl saying goodbye to her departing soldier lover—a country music hit in 1938. So it must be about Texas’s Red River Valley, right? Wrong. It’s about the Red River Valley of the North, in Manitoba. The song was written by an unknown British soldier who was part of a platoon sent to quell an 1869 uprising in what was then British territory and is now part of Canada. Fun fact: A hard-driving instrumental rock ’n’ roll version called “Red River Rock” by Johnny & the Hurricanes was a hit in 1959.
Song: “Tom Dooley”
Story: This song about the murder of a woman and the subsequent execution of her estranged lover is based on a real event. In 1866 Laura Foster of Wilkes County, North Carolina, was found dead. Police arrested her ex-boyfriend, a Confederate veteran named Tom Dula (pronounced “doo-lee”). The trial was widely sensationalized throughout the South. Former North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance was Dula’s lawyer, but he couldn’t get him off and Dula was convicted and hanged. As time passed, the trial was forgotten, but the song, written by Thomas Land, a local poet, in 1868, remained popular. It was recorded many times, but the most famous version was by the Kingston Trio in 1958. It sold six million copies and helped start the folk music revival of the 1950s and ’60s.
Temperature of milk inside the cow: 101°F.
Song: “Oh My Darling Clementine”
Story: It is alternately credited to songwriters Percy Montrose and Barker Bradford. Whoever wrote the song based it on an old ballad called “Down the River Liv’d a Maiden.” A man sings about his dead lover, the big-footed daughter of a gold miner, who drowns because the narrator can’t swim to save her. At the end of the song, he consoles himself by getting together with Clementine’s sister (a verse usually left out of children’s songbooks). It became popular as a campfire song and endured into the 1960s as the warbled, off-key signature song of Huckleberry Hound.
Song: “There’s a Hole in the Bucket”
Story: A boy (Henry) complains to his sister (Liza) that there’s a hole in his bucket so he can’t do chores. She tells him to fix it with various things and the song starts right back where it started: Henry needs water to wet a stone to sharpen a knife to cut some straw to plug the hole in the bucket…but can’t get water because there’s a hole in his bucket. The song is translated from a German folk tune called “Lieber Heinrich” (“Dear Henry”), which first appeared in print in 1700 in a book for silver miners in the German region of Saxony. The song came to America with German immigrants in the 1800s.
Song: “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain”
Story: This was first a slave spiritual called “When the Chariot Comes,” about the second coming of Jesus, with lyrics like, “Oh, who will drive the chariot when she comes” and “King Jesus he’ll be the driver when she comes.” (The “she” referred to the chariot he’d be driving.) The song spread across the country: In the Midwest, railroad workers sang their own version, with the lyrics changed to “She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes”—the “she” meaning the railroad that would soon ride the tracks they were constructing. A similar version was popular in Appalachian coal mining camps in the 1890s. In that one, the “she” they’re waiting for was labor union organizer Mary Harris Jones, also known as Mother Jones.
The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, is the size of 78 football fields.
Song: “Goodnight, Irene”
Story: Best known from several recordings by bluesman Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter in the 1930s and ’40s, it was originally written in 1886 by Gussie L. Davis, an African-American songwriter living in Cincinnati. Leadbelly said his uncle taught it to him when he was a boy. The song is a first-person account of a man wishing he could be with his true love, whom he secretly meets late at night. She tells him to go home to his wife, but the man threatens to overdose on morphine should she ever leave him. When the folk group the Weavers recorded the song in 1950, it became the #1 song of the year.
Song: “Kumbaya”
Story: It’s a song from the Gullah, people descended from former African slaves who live on the Sea Islands off South Carolina and Georgia. The word kumbaya (or kum ba y
ah) is a derivative of the once-common English greeting “come by here,” and the song is similar to slave spirituals. It wasn’t widely known in the United States until the 1960s folk music craze. Joan Baez recorded it in 1962, and it became an unofficial theme song of the civil rights movement.
Song: “Blue Tail Fly”
Story: You might know this one as “Jimmy Crack Corn.” It was an African-American folk song dating to about 1845. White performers took the song and added it to minstrel shows. Sung from the point of view of a slave, it details all the things he does for his cruel master, including batting away blue tail flies (a Southern term for horseflies). “Jimmy crack corn” is a corrupted form of “gimcrack corn,” slave slang for homemade corn whiskey. “Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care / My master’s gone away” means that the master has died, so the slaves are drinking and celebrating. Fun fact: “Blue Tail Fly” was Abraham Lincoln’s favorite song.
First rock ’n’ roll gold record: “Rock Around the Clock,” by Bill Haley and the Comets, 1954.
WHAT WON’T THEY TAX?
They say the only certainties are death and taxes. Death may be the better option…
BACKGROUND
Oliver Wendell Holmes called taxes “the price we pay for civilization.” But few things provoke more outrage in people than being taxed. The first recorded tax evader was imprisoned by Roman Emperor Constantine in A.D. 306. The greatest revolt in English history occurred in 1381 when Richard II imposed a poll, or “head,” tax. The first armed rebellions against the newly formed United States were Shay’s Rebellion in 1786 (by New England farmers against property taxes) and the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 (against a liquor tax). During the French Revolution in 1789, all tax collectors were rounded up and sent to the guillotine. And despite all that, governments persist in extracting revenue from their reluctant citizenry. Here are some of the more peculiar examples through the centuries:
• URINE TAX. Imposed by the Roman emperor Nero, around A.D. 60. Why urine? The contents of public toilets were collected by tanners and laundry workers for the ammonia, which was used for curing leather and bleaching togas. Nero slapped a fee on the collectors (not the producers) and it was such a money-raiser that Nero’s successor, Vespasian, continued the tax. When his son, Titus, complained about the gross nature of the tax, Vespasian is reputed to have held up a gold coin and said, “Non olet” (“This doesn’t stink”).
• SOUL TAX. Peter the Great, czar of Russia, imposed a tax on souls in 1718…meaning everybody had to pay it (it’s similar to a head tax or a poll tax). Peter was antireligious (he was an avid fan of Voltaire and other secular humanist philosophers), but agreeing with him didn’t excuse anyone from paying the tax—if you didn’t believe humans had a soul, you still had to pay a “religious dissenters” tax. Peter also taxed beards, beehives, horse collars, hats, boots, basements, chimneys, food, clothing, all males, as well as birth, marriage, and even burial.
The first electric ovens were used in a Swiss hotel in 1889.
• BACHELOR TAX. A favorite strategy of governments to encourage population growth and raise money at the same time. Augustus Caesar tried it in 18 B.C. The English imposed it in 1695. The Russians under Peter the Great used it in 1702, as did the Missouri legislature in 1820. The Spartans of ancient Greece didn’t care about the money—they preferred public humiliation. Bachelors in Sparta were required to march around the public market in wintertime stark naked, while singing a song making fun of their unmarried status.
• WIG POWDER TAX. In 1795 powdered wigs were all the rage in men’s fashion. Desperate for income to pay for military campaigns abroad, British prime minister William Pitt the Younger levied a tax on wig powder. Although the tax was short-lived due to the protests against it, it did ultimately have the effect of changing men’s fashions. By 1820 powdered wigs were out of style.
• WINDOW TAX. Pitt the Younger also tried a chimney tax, but found that windows were easier to count. People paid the tax based on the number of windows in their home. Result: a lot of boarded-up windows.
• LONG-DISTANCE TAX. On June 30, 2006, the U.S. Treasury Department stopped collecting a 3% federal excise tax on long-distance calls—familiar to billpayers as one of a list of taxes tacked onto every phone bill. The purpose of the tax? To help pay for the Spanish-American war…in 1898. Phone service was so rare at the time that the tax was intended to impact only the wealthiest Americans. But the tax persisted long after the war ended, and virtually every American household ended up paying it. “It’s not often you get to kill a tax,” Treasury Secretary John Snow said after the tax was repealed, “particularly one that goes back so far in history.” Taxpayers can file for a refund for the last three years the tax existed…but not for the previous 105. (Note: There’s still a 3% excise tax on local phone calls.)
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Eyes are of little use if the mind is blind. —Arab proverb
Cheaper than a babysitter? 56% of American kids ages 8–16 have a TV in their bedroom.
IF ELECTED, I PROMISE TO…
Sometimes politicians come up with strange campaign promises. It rarely gets them elected, but it does make for good bathroom reading.
POLITICIAN: Andrew Uitvlugt, running for mayor of Kelowna, British Columbia, in 2005
PROMISE: Free crack cocaine for anyone who volunteers to pick up trash
BACKGROUND: Uitvlugt’s reasoning: the town had too many crack addicts and too few garbage collectors. So why not let the crack addicts pick up the trash? The work, said Uitvlugt, would be so satisfying that they wouldn’t even want the crack anymore. (He also proposed moving all of the city’s homeless people to the local landfill, where they could learn to manufacture products out of the trash.)
RESULT: Uitvlugt lost (he finished fourth out of five candidates).
POLITICIAN: Silvio Berlusconi, Italian prime minister, running for reelection in 2006
PROMISE: To abstain from sex until after the election
BACKGROUND: At a campaign rally in February, Berlusconi was blessed by Massimiliano Pusceddu, a famous Italian televangelist, who congratulated the conservative prime minister for his strong stance on “family values.” To show his appreciation for the blessing, the 70-year-old Berlusconi, who is married to actress Veronica Lario, proclaimed, “Thank you, dear Father Massimiliano, I will try not to let you down and I promise you two and a half months of complete sexual abstinence until the election.”
RESULT: No word on whether Berlusconi kept his promise, but he lost the election.
POLITICIAN: Jackie Wagstaff, who calls herself “J-Dub,” running for mayor of Durham, North Carolina, in 2005
PROMISE: To form a “hip-hop cabinet” full of “streetwise teens”
Napoleon’s favorite horse was named Marengo; George Washington’s was named Lexington.
BACKGROUND: Running on the “Gangsta” platform, the 46-year-old former city councilwoman acknowledged that because most of her support came from young African-Americans, that was the demographic she was targeting. To prove her street cred, J-Dub bragged about her checkered past of run-ins with the law (although she wasn’t alone in this: 8 of the other 17 mayoral candidates also had criminal records). J-Dub said she wanted to get drug dealers off the street and into her cabinet because “they already have some business skills.”
RESULT: J-Dub lost (she received less than 5% of the vote).
POLITICIAN: Percy, running for U.S. Congress in 2002
PROMISE: “Ruff ruff. Bark bark. Bow wow.”
BACKGROUND: Percy, a dog, challenged Katherine Harris in Florida’s Republican congressional primary. “No one has a realistic expectation that a dog can get elected,” said Wayne Genthner, Percy’s owner and campaign manager. “But plenty of people will be willing to vote for a dog to represent their discontent with the political system.” He then added that, if elected, Percy promised to be obedient. “Don’t you wish your representative in Washington could do that?”
RESULT: Percy never go
t the chance to run: The Florida election board ruled that he was ineligible (because he’s a dog), so Genthner ran in his place…and lost.
POLITICIAN: Jacob Haugaard, running for Parliament in Denmark in 1994
PROMISE: Better weather, and tail winds for Danish bicyclists
BACKGROUND: Haugaard is the founding member of the “Party of Conscientiously Work-Shy Elements.” He’s also a stand-up comedian and admitted that he was only joking when he announced his candidacy (and then spent all his campaign money on beer).
RESULT: Haugaard won, becoming Denmark’s first independent legislator in 50 years. “I don’t know anything about politics,” he said, “but now I get an education…with full salary!”
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“I never vote for anybody. I only vote against.” —W. C. Fields
How do they know? Scientists say butterflies see in shades of green, red, and yellow.
Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z
We don’t really mind if this page puts you to sleep. (Nighty night.)
• If it takes you less than five minutes to fall asleep, it probably means you’re sleep-deprived. Healthy sleepers need between 10 and 15 minutes to doze off.
• Researchers at Oxford University concluded that counting sheep may actually keep you awake. Why? Counting sheep is so boring that the mind brings other, more interesting thoughts to the surface just to keep itself occupied.
• Elephants sleep standing up when they’re not dreaming, but lie down when they enter REM sleep.
• Every year, more than 100,000 U.S. drivers crash their cars because they fall asleep at the wheel.
• Cramming for a test? You’ll recall the information better if you review it once and get a good night’s sleep than if you stay up all night studying.
Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader Page 8