Makes sense: It is illegal to drive without a steering wheel in Decatur, Illinois.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957) Science Fiction
Review: “A philosophical thriller about a man who is doused with radioactive mist and begins to slowly shrink. His new size means that everyday objects take on sinister meaning and he must fight for his life in an increasingly hostile environment. A surreal allegory with impressive special effects and endowed with the tension usually reserved for Hitchcock films.” (Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever) Stars: Grant Williams. Director: Jack Arnold.
DOGFIGHT (1991) Drama
Review: “Lily Taylor is superb as a physically plain folkie who becomes an unwitting partner in River Phoenix’s attempt to bring the ugliest ‘date’ to a party held by Vietnam-bound Marines in 1963 San Francisco. This sleeper has a good script, tough direction, and apt use of period music.” (Leonard Maltin’s Video Guide)
A WORLD APART (1988) Drama
Review: “Anti-apartheid struggles in the 1960s seen through the eyes of a 13-year-old South African girl whose mother is imprisoned for her support of the African National Congress. Excellently acted and moving mix of political and domestic drama.” (Halliwell’s Video Guide) Stars: Jodhi May, Barbara Hershey.
LIVING IN OBLIVION (1995) Comedy
Review: “An intricately constructed film-within-a-film: each of the movie’s three sections involve a single scene that a director is trying desperately to film, and every problem, both conceivable and otherwise, a struggling film might encounter. It’s a consistently funny inside-movies comedy, a witty revenge against the dream factory.” (Never Coming to a Theater Near You, by Kenneth Turan) Stars: Steve Buscemi, Catherine Keener. Director: Tom DiCillo.
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975) Adventure
Review: “Old-fashioned adventure and derring-do. Two British soldier-pals try to bamboozle high priests of remote Kafiristan into turning over their riches by convincing them that one of them is a god. The acting is ideal, the script is superb, and the film is entertaining.” (Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide) Stars: Sean Connery, Michael Caine. Director: John Huston.
What? OCTOPUSSES ARE DEAF.
WHEN YOU GOTTA GO…
Everybody has to die sometime. At least some of us get to go in interesting ways.
BLUE MOON
In 1995 two pilots and a navigator were flying a warplane in a U.S. Navy training exercise. When another warplane flew up beside them, the three men stripped off their clothes and mooned the other plane, pressing their buttocks against the cockpit glass. But to get their clothes off, they had to remove their oxygen masks. They quickly lost consciousness, and the plane plunged to the ground, killing all three.
COLD CASE
Playwright Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire) took a variety of pills the night he died in 1983, but that’s not what killed him. Williams, 71, opened up a bottle of nose spray, used it, and accidentally dropped the cap in his mouth. Moments later, he choked on the bottle cap and died.
NO ROAMING
In November 2005, Jimmy Ray George of Easley, South Carolina, died of smoke inhalation when his home caught fire. Oddly, George made it out of the house safely. He wasn’t overcome by smoke until he went back inside the burning house to get his cell phone so that he could call 911.
LOVE LIFTED THEM
Frauke Punz and Ulf Lech worked together at a steel mill in Essen, Germany, and were secretly dating. The day their plant was to close for a monthlong summer break, they snuck into an elevator for a romantic liaison. Unaware that Punz and Lech were in the elevator, everybody left for vacation and maintenance shut off the electricity. Their bodies were discovered a month later.
CABBAGE PATCH KILLER
Three 18-year-old members of the Ukraine military were ordered to clean a food storage container that was buried 12 feet underground in the city of Charkov. Cabbage had been left in it for weeks, and the fumes were so severe that they overcame and killed the three teenagers as well as the 48-year-old worker who tried to rescue them.
Alabama’s state quarter spells out Helen Keller’s name in braille.
CLEAN SWEEP
Reggie Peabody, a car-wash worker in Melbourne, Australia, liked to turn on the automated system and “ride the brushes” when business was slow. But the system malfunctioned during one of his “rides,” and Peabody was crushed to death between two large industrial brushes.
GONE TO POT
In August 2005, Michael Johnson was riding his motorcycle on a highway in Custer, South Dakota. He tried to pass a sanitation truck carrying Porta Potties, but as the truck tried to get out of the way, a strap broke, causing one of the portable toilets to come loose and fly off the truck. It struck Johnson, killing him and sending his motorcycle sliding into three moving cars.
NO SMOKING
Late one night in November 2005, 23-year-old Bartosz Drobek of Mount Prospect, Illinois, was hanging out on the balcony of his apartment with his brother. They were smoking cigarettes, which made them want to clear their throats, so the two decided to make a long-distance spitting contest out of it. As Drobek was getting ready to spit, he lost his balance, fell 20 feet to the ground below, struck his head on the pavement, and died.
NICKELED-AND-DIMED
In 1987 the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology reported on a 58-year-old woman who’d died of copper poisoning. How? For some reason she’d swallowed 275 coins. Her metallic meal, consisting of 174 pennies, 33 nickels, 37 dimes, and 31 quarters, amounted to $14.84 in change.
* * *
“The gods too are fond of a joke.” —Aristotle
Ewww! A healthy bladder can hold 2 cups of urine for up to 5 hours.
MODERN MYTHOLOGY
In ancient Greece, they had heroes like Hercules and Pegasus. Today we have new “heroes,” like the San Diego Chicken and the GEICO Gecko.
THE SAN DIEGO CHICKEN
In 1974 San Diego State University journalism major Ted Giannoulas was hired off the street by a local radio station to dress up in a chicken suit and hand out Easter eggs at the San Diego Zoo. He must have done a good job, because a few weeks later the station had him appear at a San Diego Padres game. The chicken was a hit: Giannoulas ran all over the field, jumping and prancing around, entertaining the fans. After that he became a fixture at the ballpark, performing at 5,200 consecutive Padres home games. (In 1979 the chicken suit was replaced with a custom made chicken-in-a-baseball-uniform outfit.) The San Diego Chicken led to the emergence of fuzzy mascots throughout Major League Baseball, including the Phillie Fanatic, the Baltimore Bird, and the St. Louis Fredbird. In 1999 The Sporting News named the Chicken one of the 100 most powerful sports figures of the 20th century.
THE CREAM OF WHEAT CHEF
In America’s slavery era, slave owners commonly gave their slaves Biblical names. A popular choice was Erastus (a disciple of St. Paul). After the Civil War, Erastus was shortened to Rastus and became a common (and somewhat racist) term whites used for black men. When the Diamond Milling Company launched Cream of Wheat cereal in 1893, it used the image of a smiling African-American chef as its trademark on the box and in print advertising. His name: “Rastus.” Using a black worker in a logo wasn’t uncommon; Aunt Jemima products and Uncle Ben’s Rice also used them. But “Rastus” was actually based on a real person, a chef named Frank White who was photographed working in a Chicago restaurant.
RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS
It’s estimated that more than 500 million people have played the game of Monopoly. And every one of them probably knows the game’s mascot: a short, stubby, white-mustachioed man in a top hat. Monopoly was first released in 1935, and the old man first appeared on Chance and Community Chest cards in 1936 editions of the game. So who is “the Monopoly guy”? It’s believed that the model for the character was Albert Richardson, the first traveling salesman for Monopoly’s maker, Parker Brothers. The character went nameless until he appeared on another board
game—Rich Uncle—in 1946, and his name became Rich Uncle Pennybags. (Parker Brothers says his first name is “Milburn.”) But after Hasbro bought Parker Brothers, he was officially renamed “Mr. Monopoly” in 2000.
Only animal that can see both infrared and ultraviolet light: the goldfish.
GEICO GECKO
This computer-animated lizard pitchman was thought up by the Martin Agency in 2000. The premise: A gecko is annoyed that people keep calling him because they are confusing his number with the insurance company GEICO, because “gecko” and “GEICO” sound so similar. Aside from a verbal pun, the cartoon character was created out of necessity: The Screen Actors Guild was on strike, making live actors unavailable. The original voice behind the British-sounding gecko was supplied by Kelsey Grammer. In 2005 the character was changed from an annoyed upper-crust Brit into a helpful lizard with a Cockney accent. His voice is now performed by British soap opera actor Jake Wood.
REDDY KILOWATT
In the 1920s, electricity was nothing new, but thousands of rural homes still weren’t wired because many people thought electricity was dangerous. In 1925 Ashton Collins, general manager of the Alabama Power Company, had just returned home from an electric industry convention and was thinking about how to change consumers’ minds. Staring out a window into a thunderstorm, he saw two lightning bolts merge and strike the ground. It looked like a human figure to him, and Collins said that in that instant, Reddy Kilowatt, fully formed, popped into his head—a stick figure made of lightning bolts, with wall outlets for ears, a lightbulb for a nose, and two tiny lighting bolts for tufts of hair. Reddy debuted in print ads in March 1926 as a way to convince Alabamans that electricity was safe and attractive. It worked, so Reddy was licensed by 200 other utility companies and became the personification of electricity for millions of people around the country.
Clean-freak fact: The fear of dust is called koniophobia.
Martha Mitchell is largely forgotten now, but at the height of her fame in the 1970s, she was one of the most popular women in America.
THE MOUTH OF THE SOUTH
On November 21, 1969, Martha Beall Mitchell, wife of Attorney General John Mitchell, gave an interview on the CBS Morning News. Her husband had been on the job for nearly a year, and in that time she hadn’t attracted much attention. Her TV appearance changed that. She came out against Vietnam War protestors, whom she denounced as “liberal Communists…As my husband has said many times, some of the liberals in this country, he’d like to exchange them for the Russian Communists.” Nixon administration officials cringed when they saw the show; they wondered how bad the fallout would be…until letters started pouring into the White House supporting Martha.
SPEAKING HER MIND
Suddenly people were interested in Martha Mitchell. She cut quite a figure: A native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, she was a 51-year-old Southern belle whose loud clothes, big hair, and cat-eye sunglasses competed with her big mouth for attention.
But the big mouth always won. Martha had an opinion on everything—she loved Richard Nixon (one of the funniest and sexiest men in America) but hated liberals (communistic), teachers (too liberal), lawyers (they’re lawyers), the Supreme Court (too liberal), the press (too powerful), and universities (too liberal).
She didn’t agree with everything Nixon did, either, and she wasn’t afraid to say it: Nixon appointed only men to the Supreme Court; Martha wanted a woman. The Vietnam War, which Nixon showed no signs of ending, as he’d promised to do on the campaign trail? “It stinks!” she said. The courage and spunk she showed in speaking her mind struck a chord with the American public and made her very popular, even with people who disagreed with her. In one poll, she was voted one of the 10 most-admired women in the world. She was the second-most-requested speaker for Republican fundraisers after the president himself. If you mentioned “Martha” in conversation in the 1970s, everyone knew who you were talking about. She was the most famous Cabinet wife in American history.
All gas has mass. (Even the gas you pass.)
MARTHA-GATE
Nixon and his staff encouraged Martha’s antics—even her late-night calls to reporters when she may have had a little too much to drink. They believed the administration was actually benefiting from her fame…until June 17, 1972, when five men were caught breaking in to the Democratic Party’s headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
Martha’s husband, John, was a central figure in the Watergate scandal; he sat in on the meetings where this and other “dirty tricks” were planned. It would take more than two years for the details to become public, but Martha already knew much of what was going on, because in addition to being a big mouth, she was also a world-class snoop—when John met with his co-conspirators in their home, she eavesdropped from the stairway. When he talked on the phone, she listened in on the extension in the bathroom. When Mitchell went to bed, she rifled through his briefcase and read his secret documents. He eventually bought a briefcase that locked, but Martha got into that one, too.
IN THE DARK
John and Martha were in Southern California on political business when the break-in was foiled; by then Mitchell had stepped down as Attorney General to run Nixon’s reelection campaign. When Mitchell dashed back to Washington, D.C., to contain the scandal, he left Martha behind in California, without telling her what was going on. Then, when Martha read about the burglary in the newspaper, John Mitchell ignored her frantic calls for three entire days. That sent her into such a frenzy that she made one last call and left a message with an underling to tell John that 1) she was leaving him unless he got out of politics right now, and 2) her next call was going to be to UPI reporter Helen Thomas.
That call got Mitchell’s attention—how could the White House pretend Watergate was just a “third-rate burglary” if Martha was spilling the beans to the press? Someone made a quick call to California; moments later a Nixon staffer burst into Martha’s room and ripped the phone out out of the wall. Then several aides held her down while a doctor injected her with a sedative against her will—“they pulled down my pants and shot me in the behind!”—and held her as a “political prisoner,” she claimed, for several days.
Many shampoos and lipsticks contain stearic acid. What is it? Another name for beef fat.
Sedating Martha was only a temporary “solution”—Nixon and his cronies couldn’t keep her out of the public eye forever. So they began leaking stories to undermine her credibility, saying she was an alcoholic (she did have a drinking problem), mentally ill (false), and an airhead who knew nothing. The strategy worked: Woodward, Bernstein, and other reporters apparently never saw her as a major source for the Watergate story.
BITTER END
The Watergate cover-up failed, of course, and as the scandal began to threaten Nixon and his top aides, John D. Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, they tried to save themselves by setting John Mitchell up as a scapegoat. Martha turned on Nixon with a vengeance, telling reporters that the cover-up scandal went all the way to the top—to Nixon himself—and calling for his resignation in late-night calls to reporters even as John continued fighting to save the president’s skin. Watergate placed an unbearable strain on their marriage; in September 1973, John Mitchell moved out of their apartment and filed for divorce.
Martha played no direct role in Watergate, and yet she is arguably one of its biggest victims. John Mitchell never saw or spoke to her again, and she became estranged from her 12-year-old daughter, who blamed her for John’s problems. So did Mitchell—when he was sentenced to prison in 1975, he said, “It could have been worse. They could have sentenced me to spend the rest of my life with Martha Mitchell.”
The strain of Watergate may have even sent Martha to an early grave. In October 1975, she was diagnosed with an incurable form of bone-marrow cancer. For the rest of her days she wondered if the shot she received in California caused her illness. The following May she died, never having reconciled with her daughter. Now, more than 30 years after
Watergate, Martha’s most lasting claim to fame may be what psychiatrists have dubbed “The Martha Mitchell Effect.” That’s what it’s called when someone is mistakenly diagnosed as delusional, only for it to be revealed later that their “delusions” were actually true.
Israel is about the size of Massachusetts, and has about the same population.
Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert is so good at parodying arrogant news hosts that it makes you wonder if he’s really pretending.
“I’m not a fan of facts. You see, facts can change, but my opinion will never change, no matter what the facts are.”
“Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. Now, I know some of you are going to say, ‘I did look it up, and it’s not true.’ That’s ’cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut.”
“I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit.”
“All God’s creatures have a soul. Except bears. Bears are godless killing machines.”
“It’s never okay for men to cry. Man holds it in until his eyeballs swell to the size of baseballs, his throat feels like it’s about to explode, and his gut just aches like there’s a snake wrapped around his heart. That’s why we die earlier, but it’s worth it. At least we don’t look weak while we’re alive.”
Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader Page 16