Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Q: What is the official state rock song of Ohio? A: “Hang On Sloopy.”

  • One of comedian Redd Foxx’s recurring jokes on the 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son was faking a heart attack any time things didn’t go his way. “It’s the big one!” he would yell. On October 11, 1991, Foxx was working on a new show called The Royal Family. During rehearsal, he suddenly clutched his chest and fell to the floor. The cast and crew started laughing at the star’s brilliant performance…until they realized it wasn’t a joke. Foxx died a short time later.

  Final Irony: Before producers decided to call the show The Royal Family, its working title was Chest Pains.

  FLAMING IRONY

  It was supposed to be a celebration marking the end of Fire Awareness Week in Shimohetsugi, a town in southern Japan. But festivities were cut short when the two-story fire station where the event was taking place caught fire. Everyone made it out, but the station was severely damaged. What caused the fire? A gas canister improperly connected to the barbecue grill the firefighters were using to cook dinner. “It’s very embarrassing that this should happen to people whose job it is to go and put out fires,” said one of the firefighters.

  HAPPY-ENDING IRONY

  An elderly man was attending a banquet in Santa Barbara, California, in 2005 when he clutched his heart and collapsed. The event was the Heart Ball, and most of the 300 people in attendance were cardiologists. “Several doctors sprang into action and began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” newspapers reported. The man, who had no blood pressure or heartbeat, was revived and taken to the hospital. One of those who helped him, Dr. Richard Westerman, commented afterward: “If you have to go down, this was the place, I guess.”

  Say hello to his little friend! Al Pacino was once arrested for carrying a concealed weapon.

  WEIRD CANADA

  Canada: land of beautiful mountains, clear lakes, bustling cities…and some very weird news reports. Here are a few odd entries from the BRI news files.

  YOUR (CANADIAN) TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

  In June 2006, the federally funded Council for the Arts gave a $9,000 grant to a performance artist named Jess Dobkin. Her performance: She set up a bar called “Lactation Station” where patrons could sample human breast milk. Dobkin modeled the event after a wine tasting, providing milk from six different women. In similar news, the Ontario provincial government gave $150,000 to researchers at Laurentian University to study the sex drive of squirrels.

  AN “A+” FOR CREATIVE THINKING

  In January 2006, history professor David Weale of the University of Prince Edward Island had a severely overcrowded class, with 95 students. His solution: He offered a work-free B-minus to any student who agreed not to show up for the rest of the semester. Twenty accepted. When administrators found out, Weale, who had come out of retirement to teach the class, was asked to re-retire.

  NAME GAME

  James Clifford Hanna, a resident of the Yukon Territory, argued before a court that he didn’t have to pay his taxes. Reason: “James Clifford Hanna” was a name given to him involuntarily. Since he never asked for nor accepted the name, he wasn’t legally responsible for paying the taxes of anyone named James Clifford Hanna. Whatever his name is, he lost the case.

  A BIRD IN THE HEAD

  Shawn Hacking, 13, of Winnipeg, suffered scraped knees, a sprained wrist, and a bruise on his face when a Canada goose landed on the boy’s head and slapped a wing into his face at the same time. The force knocked Hacking off his skateboard. Hacking’s friend Brent Bruchanski, who witnessed the event, said, “It was so funny…but I felt sorry for him at the same time.”

  Try it: It is physically impossible to tickle yourself.

  MORE! MORE! MORE!

  After winning a $1.2 million lottery jackpot in 1989, Barbara Bailey of Montreal enjoyed her windfall modestly, buying a house for about $200,000 and loaning money to friends and relatives. Then she started blowing it on extravagances, and within two years she was broke and living on welfare. Desperate to recapture her millionaire lifestyle, Bailey got her niece, a bank teller, to divert $500,000 from other peoples’ accounts into Bailey’s. The bank quickly caught on. She was sentenced to a two-year jail term.

  THE REAL POOP

  Bill Sewepagaham, a leader of the Cree tribe in northern Alberta, offered a good luck charm to the Edmonton Oilers during the 2006 National Hockey League playoffs: a necklace made of lacquered deer and moose feces. Sewepagaham claimed it was based on an ancient Cree tradition in which hunters who’d had a fruitless day would smear their weapons in animal droppings and the next day they’d have better luck. Unfortunately, the charm didn’t work—the Oilers lost in the Stanley Cup finals.

  A SHOT IN THE…

  Police were called to a home in Burnaby, British Columbia, when a local resident reported hearing a gunshot in the yard of the house next door. Police discovered a drunken 55-year-old man with a shotgun partially hidden behind his couch. The man admitted that he had fired the shot. Why? He was annoyed that his nephews were taking too long to finish their yard work, so he shot the gun into the air to motivate them. The kids ran away and the man went to jail.

  SPACE CADET

  Former minister of defense Paul Hellyer recently announced that he believes in UFOs. Seriously. He said he once saw one, but then put the event out of his head…until he saw a TV show about UFOs in early 2005. That prompted him to read books about Roswell, New Mexico, which sealed his belief in aliens. At a political conference in Toronto in November 2005, Hellyer accused U.S. president George W. Bush of plotting an outer-space war, and the U.S. military of preparing weapons on a secret military base on the moon to use against aliens.

  Big Red: The world’s tallest tomato plant grew to a height of 65 feet.

  MMM…CANDY

  Who cares if it’s bad for you?

  • Americans eat 25 pounds of candy per person each year. Worldwide leader: Denmark, at 36 pounds.

  • Easter candy: 60 million chocolate bunnies are made each year; 74% of people eat the ears first.

  • The melting point of cocoa butter is just below human body temperature, which is why it melts in your mouth.

  • First candy: Ancient Arab, Egyptian, and Chinese cultures candied fruits and nuts in honey.

  • Holidays in order of candy sales: Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Valentine’s Day.

  • In surveys, 90% of parents admit to stealing Halloween candy from their kids.

  • Celebrate! January 3 is National Chocolate-Covered Cherry Day, April 12 is National Licorice Day, and May 23 is National Taffy Day.

  • One chocolate chip provides enough food energy to walk 150 feet.

  • Twizzlers contain no actual licorice.

  • Hershey’s Kisses weren’t made during World War II: The foil for wrapping them was unavailable due to aluminum rationing, and chocolate-making equipment was being used to make candy bars for the military.

  • Sales of KitKat bars surge in Japan around the time of college entrance exams. “KitKat” sounds like the Japanese phrase kitto katsu, which means “good luck.” Parents buy the candy for their kids as a good luck charm.

  • An average bag of M&Ms contains 10% blue ones, 10% green, 10% tan, 20% red, 20% yellow, and 30% brown.

  • When Saddam Hussein was found in a hole in Iraq in 2003, he had Mars and Bounty candy bars with him.

  • Some failed chocolate bars: Milk Nut Loaf, Fat Emmas, Big Dearos, Vegetable Sandwich, Kandy Kake, and Chicken Dinner.

  Rock on! General Colin Powell has a bachelor’s degree in geology.

  DUDE, YOUR PANTS ARE FALLING DOWN

  As a fad, baggy hip-hop jeans have lasted longer than bell-bottoms and parachute pants…combined.

  DROOPY DRAWERS

  Believe it or not, the modern fad of wearing oversized, low-riding pants originated in U.S. prisons. In the late 1980s, many prisons banned the wearing of belts. And because standard-issue prison pants were often too big for inmates, they sagged. Inst
ead of being embarrassed by having to wear clothes that didn’t fit, inmates turned it into a fashion statement. The fad spread to the outside world when gang members in Los Angeles started wearing their pants baggy and low in solidarity with their friends in prison. From there, it took off.

  The style first found its way into pop culture through rap music. It started with M.C. Hammer’s 1990 hit single “U Can’t Touch This” and the video, which featured Hammer dancing in oversized “genie” pants. Within a year, the first beltless, boxers-revealing jeans showed up on rap artists such as Ice-T, Too Short, and Kriss Kross (who also ushered in a short-lived craze of wearing the baggy pants backwards).

  The trend quickly caught on with teenagers—urban and suburban—and the fashion industry knew it had a winner. By the mid-1990s, brands such as Levi’s, J. Crew, Tommy Hilfiger, Savanna, and Khakis had all released “anti-fit” jeans, and within a few years it was a multi-billion dollar industry.

  PULL THEM UP!

  As with a lot of new clothing fads, many parents, school officials, and even lawmakers dislike baggy pants. Some say the pants are dangerous because they make it easier to conceal a weapon. A counter-argument: baggy pants make concealed weapons that much harder to retrieve. But the loudest objections to the style center on the fact that some people don’t want to look at other people’s underwear. A few examples:

  Little known fact: The Chihuahua is the longest-lived breed of dog.

  • Louisiana House Bill 1626, drafted by state lawmakers in 2004, tried to target any person who “intentionally exposes undergarments or intentionally exposes any portion of the pubic hair, or cleft of the buttocks.” After a close vote, the bill was defeated.

  • A year later, Virginia legislators tried to create the “Droopy Drawers Law,” which would issue a $50 fine to any person whose pants were worn low enough to reveal their skivvies. “Underwear is called underwear for a reason,” said one congressman. The bill was voted down.

  • Many school systems have had better luck. In a move to ban baggy pants, Lynn, Massachusetts, public schools issued a dress code in 2006, requiring all male students to wear belts and have their shirts tucked in at all times.

  Most kids, however, don’t see what the big deal is. A 2005 USA Today poll asked 218,000 teenagers whether baggy pants should be banned. Results: Over 80% said “no.” A Virginia high school student, Jessica Miller, when asked by the Washington Post about proposed anti-baggy pants laws, summed up the majority view: “They’re using words like ‘lewd’ and ‘indecent.’ War is lewd. Homelessness is indecent. Boxers showing—that’s tacky, but it’s not worth spending taxpayers’ money on.”

  NO END IN SIGHT

  After more than 15 years, the baggy-pants craze is still here. And between the hip-hop and skateboarding cultures, it looks like the trend won’t be sagging anytime soon. In a June 2006 TransWorld Business fashion trends article, industry expert John Lacey reported that the “loose, baggy fit comprises more than 80% of the market, and we’ll continue driving that.” He goes on to say, however, that there is a growing market for tighter pants. Does that mean that when the baggy-pants craze finally ends, it will be replaced by the tight designer jeans John Travolta wore in the 1970s?

  WALK, DON’T RUN

  Whether or not the style is offensive, baggy pants can be a crime deterrent, as these would-be crooks found out.

  • A thief in Detroit stashed six stolen DVDs in his oversized pants, then tried to get away on a bike. Bad idea: the pants kept getting caught in the chain. So he ditched the bike and ran into an alley. That didn’t work either—his pants fell down around his ankles, tripping him up. He got up, ran a few more feet, then fell down again, making it easy for cops to catch him.

  Obscure sports trivia: Wakeboarding was originally called skurfing.

  • “That kid, he could run fast. But he got caught up by his pants, which were real big and baggy,” said 55-year-old Vicki Chandler. She was walking to her car in Chattanooga, Tennessee, when the young man snatched her purse. Fortunately for Chandler, he had to throw the purse on the ground and use both hands to hold his pants up as he ran away.

  • A would-be robber in North Carolina tried to hold up a Subway sandwich store…but his pants got caught on the counter when he tried to jump over it, sending him crashing to the floor. He fled without taking anything. Then, when he tried to make his getaway over a fence, his baggy pants got hung up on the links. Police found him hanging upside down and had to cut him down with a knife before arresting him.

  • In 2004, a suspect in handcuffs tried to run away from Officer Denny Fuhrman. But he didn’t get far—his jeans fell around his ankles while he tried to cross the street. “He was flopping around like a fish out of water,” Fuhrman told reporters. The suspect got out of his trousers and continued running, wearing only a shirt and boxer shorts, prompting Fuhrman to make one of the strangest calls of his career: “White male, running, no pants, in handcuffs.” The man was caught and arrested a few minutes later at the entrance of a J.C. Penney store after a 61-year-old grandmother grabbed him by his shirt collar and pulled him to the ground.

  * * *

  IRONY AT SEA

  On a voyage in 2006, the luxury cruise ship Crown Princess suddenly—and unexpectedly—listed heavily to one side. More than 240 passengers were injured when the ship’s four swimming pools emptied, flooding the decks. The accident, blamed on a faulty steering mechanism, occurred just before the start of the day’s movie: Titanic.

  First city to have mechanized street cleaners: Philadelphia.

  BEHIND THE HITS

  Popular songs are more than just background music—we mark the milestones in our lives by the songs we listened to. Here are the stories behind how some of our favorites were created.

  ARTIST: Marvin Gaye

  SONG: “What’s Going On” (1971)

  STORY: By the end of the 1960s, Gaye had become unhappy with the way Motown was treating its artists, and with how it valued commercialism over content. Like a lot of other Americans, Gaye was also feeling disillusioned by the war in Vietnam, so in 1970, when Obie Benson of the Four Tops wrote “What’s Going On” and asked Gaye to record it, Gaye jumped at it—he felt the song perfectly summed up his frustrations. But when they played the record for Motown chief Berry Gordy, Gordy refused to release it, claiming it “wasn’t commercial enough.” In protest, Gaye refused to record any more songs until “What’s Going On” was released as a single. After a few tense weeks, Gordy relented. Good move: In January 1971, “What’s Going On” hit the Top 5. Suddenly, of course, Gordy was all for Motown’s music having a message, and Gaye recorded the rest of the songs for soul music’s first concept album, written from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran (based on letters Gaye received from his brother, who was serving in the war). The album sold two million copies in 1971—Gaye’s biggest success to date—and ushered in a decade of socially themed soul music.

  ARTISTS: U2

  SONG: “Where the Streets Have No Name” (1987)

  STORY: This song took so long to record, and caused so much strife between the band and producer Brian Eno, that the track almost never saw the light of day. Eno was so frustrated with the band members’ inability to agree on the melody lines and instrument sounds that one day he threatened to erase all the tapes—three weeks of work—on the theory that they would be better off starting over from scratch. The band had Eno physically restrained and then asked engineer Steve Lillywhite to mix the tapes into the finished track. The song became the third big hit off their album The Joshua Tree, reaching #4 on the U.K. charts in 1987.

  Some Middle Eastern farmers breed bald chickens. Why? They do better in the heat.

  So exactly where are those no-named streets? The prevailing theory: Africa. Bono traveled to Ethiopia in 1985, and the impact the trip made on him found its way into many U2 songs. “The spirit of the people was very strong,” he recalled. “There’s no doubt that, even in poverty, they had something we didn’t
have. When I got back, I realized the extent to which the people in the West were like spoiled children.” But when U2 performs the song onstage, Bono usually dedicates it to his love of God, leading many to believe that the place “where the streets have no name” is actually Heaven.

  Bono has never stated specifically where the streets are, but he has said where they’re not. “In Belfast (Ireland), you can almost tell what the people are earning by the name of the street they live on and what side of that street they live on. That said something to me, and so I started writing about a place where the streets have no name.”

  ARTIST: Nirvana

  SONG: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991)

  STORY: Before Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain fell for Courtney Love, he dated Tobi Vail, drummer of Bikini Kill, for a while in 1991. But she eventually lost interest in the troubled rocker and broke it off. One night, one of Vail’s bandmates, Kathleen Hanna, was hanging out at Cobain’s apartment, listening to him lament the break-up. At some point she grabbed a can of spray paint and scrawled the words, “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” on Cobain’s wall. (Teen Spirit was an underarm deodorant that Vail wore, and her scent was still lingering on Cobain.) The phrase immediately struck him and provided the inspiration for what he later called “the ultimate pop song.” “Smells Like Teen Spirit” became the first big hit from Nirvana’s seminal album, Nevermind. It reached #6 on the Billboard charts and has since been called the anthem of a generation. Ironically, Cobain later admitted that he didn’t know that Teen Spirit was a deodorant until after the song was released—he would have never knowingly put the name of a mass-produced product for teenagers into the title of one of his songs.