Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  3. Touch. Crush a small portion of the plant and rub it between your armpit and elbow. Wait a few minutes. If your skin starts itching or swelling up, don’t eat it. (And remember that if it has three shiny leaves, it’s most likely poison oak or poison ivy.)

  4. Taste. Place a small portion on your lips, work it into your mouth, and then let it touch your tongue. If there is no immediate reaction, then chew a small portion. If you notice any discomfort whatsoever, don’t eat it.

  5. Swallow. If your plant has passed all of the tests so far, then eat a very small portion…and wait at least five hours. Don’t eat or drink anything else in that time period. Symptoms to look for: soreness in the mouth, burping, nausea, stomach and/or abdomen pains, hallucinations, or anything else that doesn’t feel right.

  6. Eat. If after five hours you haven’t felt any ill effects, the plant is most likely safe to eat. But don’t eat a lot at one time—ration it and keep a very close eye on yourself for the next few days.

  We don’t have enough room to go into trapping animals, but here’s a quick tip: Pound for pound, insects have more protein than cows. The larger bugs, such as beetles and grasshoppers, are usually (but not always) safer then the smaller bugs, such as ants, which may be poisonous. Earthworms are excellent sources of protein.

  One more important tip: If you have food but no water, don’t eat it, because that will start up your digestive system, which requires a lot of water. Unless you drink at least one pint of water per day, eating dry food by itself will dehydrate you much faster than not eating at all. Also, drinking beverages such as beer or soda can dehydrate more than hydrate you.

  Prickly subject: The world’s largest cactus plantation is in Edwards, Mississippi.

  TIP #6: FIND OR BUILD SHELTER

  In Outdoor Survival Skills, Larry Dean Olsen, who also wrote the requirements for the Boy Scouts’ outdoor survival merit badge, writes, “Building for survival requires more than a minimum of effort and careful planning. Most essential to this planning is the selection of a campsite.”

  • Find as flat an area as you can, preferably with trees to one side. But if you’re camped next to the only trees in sight, be careful: you may get unwanted four-legged visitors.

  • Don’t build or seek shelter in dry gullies, at the base of unstable cliffs, or in any spot that may be prone to flash floods or landslides. Remember that flash floods can occur many miles away from a thunderstorm.

  • Inspect your area thoroughly before you set up. Move on if you find anthills, poisonous plants, or signs of predators.

  • While there are many types of shelters, the easiest to build is a lean-to. Find three large sticks or branches and lean them against each other in the shape of a teepee. Anchor each into the ground by digging a hole at least eight inches deep, and surrounding each base with packed dirt and rocks. Then lean more sticks on the foundation, leaving one side open, facing away from the wind.

  • Be careful where you seek shelter in the woods. A tree snag (a felled tree leaning on a cliff or another tree) may look like a ready-made shelter, but can give way and collapse at any time.

  • Caves are good, but make sure nothing else is living in them. If you see droppings or bones, move on.

  • If there’s snow, use it to your advantage. Dig a trench, insulate it with branches and leaves, and huddle inside to keep warm.

  TIP #7: DETERMINE WHICH DIRECTION IS NORTH

  Sometimes, finding your way back to civilization can be as simple as knowing which way is north. Then, if you’re sure there’s a town somewhere to the southeast, for example, you can head in that direction. If you don’t have a compass, here are some ways to determine north:

  • In the daytime, look at plants. They tend to lean toward north, so the highest abundance of leaves will face south. (It’s the opposite in the southern hemisphere.)

  Quick! Name the only state capital with three words in its name. Answer: Salt Lake City (Utah).

  • On a clear night, look for the Big Dipper and find the two “pointer stars” that make the forward edge of the cup. Draw a line from the star at the bottom of the cup through the top star and keep going to the first bright star—that’s Polaris, the North Star.

  • The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It’s not always due west or due east, but the sun’s position can give you a general sense of direction.

  TIP #8: IN EXTREME HEAT, STAY COOL

  • The hotter you get, the more difficult it is to think clearly. Heat stroke will kill you quicker than thirst, so find shade and avoid exposure by covering your entire body with clothing, especially your face.

  • Although sweat is undrinkable, it can keep you cool. Wear a headband to collect sweat, then wring it out down your back.

  TIP #9: IN EXTREME COLD, STAY WARM

  • Your best defense against frostbite is to stop it before it starts. The key is movement. Jump up and down, wave your arms, extend your fingers, wiggle your toes, pull on your ears, make funny faces. Do whatever you can to keep your blood flowing.

  • Moisture combined with cold can be deadly. Stay as dry as possible. If your clothes are wet, wring them out. If all that moving around made you sweat, wipe it off.

  • Excessive cold causes mucus to leak from your nose. Don’t give it a chance to freeze—wipe it away.

  • Find anything dry to create layers around your body, such as leaves or newspapers. Loose clothes are better than tight ones.

  • If your feet get frostbitten, you can usually keep walking on them for a while. But if you find shelter and warm them up, it’s better to stay put—walking again could cause severe damage.

  • Once you’ve made it to safety, go straight to a hospital. If that’s not an option, soak any frostbitten areas in warm (not hot) water, then wrap yourself in warm blankets. Avoid direct heat from a fireplace, stove, or heating pad.

  • Never rub or scratch frostbite; dress it loosely with a sterile cloth. If fingers or toes are affected, wrap each one individually.

  A male sea catfish keeps the eggs of his young in his mouth until they are ready to hatch.

  THE WILL TO SURVIVE

  Of course, this chapter only scratches the surface of what you can do to survive in the wilderness until you’re rescued or you find your way to safety. For more information, read some survival books and how-to guides on your favorite outdoor activity (hiking, camping, skiing, etc.), which often have good tips on what to do if you get lost. And if you’re a novice, it’s a good idea to head out with an experienced guide or friend before you try it on your own.

  Ultimately, though, knowledge alone may not be enough. Many people who survived wilderness ordeals report that they simply wanted to survive…and, just as importantly, kept a clear head. We’ll end with the opening words of the U.S. Army Survival Manual:

  Many survival case histories show that stubborn, strong willpower can conquer many obstacles. One case history tells of a man stranded in the desert for eight days without food and water: he had no survival training, but he wanted to survive, and through sheer willpower, he did. With training, equipment, and the will to survive, you will find you can overcome any obstacle you may face.

  Now get out there and have fun…but stay safe.

  * * *

  POSITIVELY NEGATIVE

  During a lecture, a linguistics professor said to his students, “In English, a double negative forms a positive. For example, ‘He doesn’t have no apples’ actually means he does have apples. In some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is actually still a negative. However, there is no language in which a double positive can form a negative.”

  Just then, one of the students huffed and said, “Yeah, right.”

  History Quiz: Name the famous slogan of the Spanish-American War. (“Remember the Maine.”)

  MAKING THE GODFATHER, PT. III

  Here’s the third installment of our story on how the most popular novel of the 1970s ended up as one of the greatest films of the 20th
century. (Parts I and II are on pages 91 and 354.) Salud!

  THOSE EYES

  Coppola had his heart set on Al Pacino for the role of Michael Corleone, and, as he had with Marlon Brando, he just kept pushing until he finally got his way. Paramount forced him to test other actors for the part, and every time he did he had Pacino come in and do another screen test, too. Robert Evans got so sick of seeing Pacino’s face that he screamed, “Why the hell are you testing him again? The man’s a midget!”

  But Coppola would not back down, not even when Pacino grew discouraged filming test after test after test for a part that he knew the studio would never give him. Ironically, it may have been that very frustration that got Pacino the part—in some of the screen tests he appears calm but also seems to be hiding anger just below the surface. This moody intensity was an accurate reflection of his state of mind, and it was just the quality he needed to convey to be successful in the role.

  Did the screen tests convince Paramount that Pacino was right for the part, or did Coppola finally just wear them down? Whatever it was, Pacino got the job. “Francis was the most effective fighter against the studio hierarchy I’ve ever seen,” casting director Fred Roos told one interviewer. “He did not do it by yelling or screaming, but by sheer force of will.”

  YOU LOSE SOME, YOU WIN SOME

  By the time Paramount finally got around to approving Pacino for the role, he’d signed up to do another film called The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. To get him out of that commitment, Coppola made a trade: He released another young actor from appearing in The Godfather so that he could take Pacino’s place in The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. The actor: Robert De Niro—he’d been cast as Paulie Gatto, the driver and bodyguard who betrays Don Corleone. Losing the part may have been disappointing to De Niro at the time, but it also cleared the way for him to play the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II, the role that won him his first Oscar, for Best Supporting Actor, and made him an international star.

  The famous “horse’s head” seen in The Godfather…

  FAMILY PROBLEMS

  As if fighting Paramount wasn’t bad enough, Coppola also had to contend with the real-life Mafia, which wasn’t too pleased with the idea of a big-budget Italian gangster movie coming to the screen. Joe Colombo, head of one of the real “five families” that made up the New York mob, was also the founder of a group called the Italian-American Civil Rights League, an organization that lobbied against negative Italian stereotypes in the media.

  The League had won some impressive victories in recent years, successfully lobbying newspapers, broadcast networks, and even the Nixon Justice Department to replace terms like “the Mafia” and “La Cosa Nostra” with more ethnically neutral terms like “the Mob,” “the syndicate,” and “the underworld.” The League was at the height of its powers in the early 1970s, and now it set its sights on The Godfather.

  I’M-A GONNA DIE!

  How would you deal with the Maf…er, um…the “syndicate” if they were trying to stop the project you were working on? Albert Ruddy, the producer, decided to face the problem head on: He met with Colombo in the League’s offices to discuss mutual concerns, and he even let Colombo have a peek at the script. Colombo’s demands actually turned out to be fairly reasonable: He didn’t want the film to contain any patronizing Italian stereotypes or accents—“I’m-a gonna shoot-a you now”—and he didn’t want the Mafia identified by that name in the film. Ruddy assured Colombo that Coppola had no plans to use that kind of speech, and he even promised to remove all references to “the Mafia” from the script.

  Colombo didn’t know it at the time, but removing the word “Mafia” from the script was an easy promise to keep because it wasn’t in there to begin with—guys who are in the Mafia don’t sit around discussing it by name.

  …was a real horsehead the producers got from a dog-food company.

  In effect, Colombo had agreed to end the Mob’s opposition to the film and even to make some of his “boys” available for crowd control and other odd jobs, and had gotten next to nothing in return. (In 1971, during filming of The Godfather, Colombo was gunned down in a Mob hit and lingered in a coma until 1978, when he finally died from his wounds.)

  LASHED TO THE MAST

  One of the nice things about winning so many battles with studio executives is getting to make the film you want to make; the bad thing is that once it becomes your baby, if things start to go wrong it’s easy for the studio to figure out who they need to fire—you.

  Filming of The Godfather got off to a rough start—Brando’s performances in his first scenes were so dull and uninspired that Coppola had to set aside time to film them again. Al Pacino’s earliest scenes didn’t look all that promising, either. His first scenes were the ones at the beginning of the film, when he’s a boyish war hero determined to stay out of the family “business.” Pacino played the scenes true to character—so true, in fact, that when the Paramount executives saw the early footage, they doubted he’d be able to pass as a Mafia don.

  For a time the set was awash with rumors that Coppola and Pacino were both about to be fired. How true were the rumors? Both men were convinced their days were numbered—that was one of the reasons Coppola cast his sister, Talia Shire, as Don Corleone’s daughter, Connie: He figured that if he was going to lose his job, at least she’d get something out of the film.

  FAIR-WEATHER FRIENDS

  More than 30 years later, it’s difficult to say how true the rumors were, especially now that the film is considered a classic—the executives who would have wanted to fire the pair back then are now more likely to take credit for discovering them. But the threat was real, and Marlon Brando saved Coppola by counter-threatening to walk off the job if Coppola was removed from the film.

  Al Pacino saved his own skin when he filmed the scene where he murders Virgil Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey (Al Lettieri and Sterling Hayden) in an Italian restaurant. That was the first scene in which he got the chance to appear as a cold-blooded killer, and he pulled it off with ease. Finally, Paramount could see that he could indeed play a Mafia don.

  You gotta start somewhere: Jack Nicholson once had a job answering Tom and Jerry’s fan mail.

  PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

  Once these early problems were resolved, the production made steady progress and remained more or less on schedule and on budget. Marlon Brando behaved himself on the set and delivered one of the greatest performances of his career; the other actors gave excellent performances as well. As Paramount executives reviewed the footage after each day of shooting, it soon became clear to everyone involved that The Godfather was going to be a remarkable film.

  In 62 days of shooting, Coppola filmed more than 90 hours of footage, which he and six editors whittled down to a film that was just under three hours long. (Paramount made Coppola edit it down to two and a half hours, but that version left out so many good scenes that the studio decided to use Coppola’s original cut.) By the time they finished—and before the film even made it into the theaters—The Godfather had already turned a profit: So many theaters rushed to book it in advance that it had already taken in twice as much money as it had cost to make.

  LARGER THAN LIFE

  The advance bookings were the first sign that The Godfather was going to do really big business; another sign came on March 15, 1972, the day the film premiered in the United States. That morning when Albert Ruddy drove into work, he saw people waiting in front of a theater that was showing The Godfather. It was only 8:15 a.m., and the first showing was hours away, but the fans were already lining up around the block—not just at that theater, but everywhere else in America, too.

  The long lines continued for weeks. As The Godfather showed to one sold-out audience after another, it smashed just about every box-office record there was: In April it became the first movie to earn more than $1 million in a day; in September it became the most profitable Hollywood film ever made, earning more money in six
months than the previous record holder, Gone With the Wind, had earned in 33 years. In all, it made more than $85 million during its initial release. (How long did it hold the record as Hollywood’s most profitable film? Only one year—The Exorcist made even more money in 1973.)

  Barry White’s music has been used by marine biologists to encourage sharks to mate.

  Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, The Godfather won for Best Actor (Brando), Best Adapted Screenplay (Coppola and Puzo), and Best Picture.

  The Godfather revived Marlon Brando’s career and launched those of Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Talia Shire, and even Abe Vigoda (who later starred in TV’s Barney Miller and Fish), whom Coppola discovered during an open casting call. “The thing that I like most about the film’s success is that everyone that busted their hump on this movie came out with something very special—and good careers,” Albert Ruddy said years later. “All of these people came together in one magic moment, and it was the turn in everybody’s careers. It was just a fantastic thing.”

  SERENDIPITY

  Two memorable scenes in The Godfather came about only by chance:

  • Luca Brasi Memorizes his Speech

  It wasn’t unusual for real-life wiseguys to hang out around the set during location shoots; one day during filming in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York, a mobster visited the set with an enormous bodyguard in tow. The bodyguard, a onetime professional wrestler named Lenny Montana, was 6'6" and must have weighed over 300 pounds. Albert Ruddy spotted him and pointed him out to Coppola, who cast him on the spot as Luca Brasi, the hit man who is garroted early in the film and ends up “sleeping with the fishes.”

  Montana had no acting experience, and in his scene with Marlon Brando he was so nervous that he kept stumbling over his lines. Rather than replace him with someone who could act, Coppola made Montana’s fumbling a part of the story by creating the scene where Luca Brasi rehearses and repeatedly flubs the few words he wants to say in his meeting with Don Corleone at Connie and Carlo’s wedding. For the meeting with the Don, Coppola used one of Montana’s actual blown takes.