Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader Read online

  Background: For hundreds of years, stealing and butchering another person’s livestock was a common crime. But it was hard to prove unless the thief was caught with the dead animal...and blood on his hands.

  CAN’T HOLD A CANDLE TO (YOU)

  Meaning: Not as good as (you)

  Background: Comes from England. Before there were streetlights, when wealthy British nobles went walking at night they brought along servants to carry candles. This simple task was one of the least-demanding responsibilities a servant could have; people who weren’t able to handle it were considered worthless. Eventually, the term “can’t hold a candle” came to mean inferiority.

  GIVE SOMEONE THE BIRD

  Meaning: Make a nasty gesture at someone (usually with the middle finger uplifted)

  Background: Originally referred to the hissing sound audiences made when they didn’t like a performance. Hissing is the sound that a goose makes when it’s threatened or angry.

  Albert Einstein slept 10 hours a night.

  INSIDE CHEERS

  What was the best sitcom of the 1980s? Most TV critics say “Cheers” Did you know...

  How it Started. Producers Glen and Les Charles and producer/director James Burrows were part of the team that created the successful 1970s sitcom, “Taxi.” When they left that show, they decided to work together on a comedy set in a hotel... so they’d be able to bring in new characters whenever they wanted. However, when they sketched out plots, they found that most of the action would take place in the hotel bar. So they dumped the hotel and kept the bar.

  The show debuted on September 30, 1982. But despite critical acclaim, it was a flop. The first episode was rated 60th out of 63 programs, and it didn’t do much better for the rest of the season. To everyone’s surprise, NBC decided to renew the sitcom anyway (because it had faith in its creators). Result: By the following season it was in the top 20, and a year later it was in the top 10.

  INSIDE FACTS

  • Ted Danson got his start on TV in the 1970s soap opera “Somerset.” The turning point in his career was a guest appearance he did on “Taxi,” playing an obnoxious beautician who gave Elaine Nardo a dreadful new-wave hairdo. He was so impressive that the producers took him aside and convinced him to audition for the lead role in a new series they were developing—”Cheers.”

  • The “Cheers” creators intentionally picked the name Norm for George Wendt’s character because he’s supposed to be the guy who represents the “norm.”

  • The exterior of the “Cheers” bar belonged to a real Boston bar called the Bull and Finch. Inside, however, the dimly lit, crowded interior was nothing like Sam Malone’s place.

  • Shelley Long was pregnant during most of the third season. It was covered up by strategically placed trays and by having her stand behind the bar a lot. “I’m sure,” Long recalls, “there were times when the audience said, ‘My God, she’s pregnant.’”

  In 1992, about 1 in 4 Americans who ate breakfast away from home ate it at McDonald’s.

  MADE IN AMERICA?

  How can you be sure the “American” product you’re buying is really made in the U.S.? According to a little volume called Buy American—Buy This Book, by Eric Lefcowitz, it’s not as easy as it might seem.

  THE TOWN CALLED USA

  Some people say this is an urban legend, but according to Lefcowitz: “Before World War II, products stamped MADE IN USA were not necessarily made in the United States or its territories. Many items were made in the town of Usa, Japan (current pop: 27,994). Usa is known to tourists as the home of a beautiful Shinto shrine....However, prior to World War II it was notorious for manufacturing articles stamped MADE IN USA, which, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, was used “as a means of circumventing American boycotts of Japanese goods.”

  AMERICAN QUILTS

  In 1992 the Smithsonian Institution contracted with a firm to manufacture reproductions of four antique quilts in its quilt collection. The company hired was in China—and the move infuriated the American quilt industry, which accused the Smithsonian of undercutting their business. The quilts were mass-produced at a price much lower than it would have cost to make them in the U.S. (thanks to cheap labor), and sold in the Smithsonian gift shop, as well as in Land’s End and Speigel catalogs for $200-400. The only thing identifying them as Chinese: a removable tag. (One of the four quilts selected for reproduction was “America’s Great Seal”)

  AMERICAN FLAGS

  An estimated 15% of all American flags are manufactured in other countries. “This phenomenon is not new,” Lefcowitz writes. Before World War II, the American Legion chapter in Cambria County, Pennsylvania complained that was “unable to find any small American flags that were not made in either Germany or Japan.” Today most foreign-made American flags come from Taiwan. It can be hard to tell whether a flag is foreign made or not, because the tag identifying them as such is usually removable. Experts advise examining the quality of the flag—stitched flags are more likely to be American made than printed flags, and the colors of imported flags “rarely” match the official Old Glory red, Old Glory white, and Old Glory blue.

  Talking trash: 80% of U.S. men say they’re the ones who take out the garbage.

  FLORIDA ORANGE JUICE

  Is your container of orange juice stamped with the Florida Seal of Approval? That doesn’t necessarily mean that the juice inside comes from oranges grown in the United States. In 1991, for example, more than 300 million gallons’ worth of frozen citrus concentrate was imported into the United States from Brazil, reconstituted and sold to U.S. consumers. Any orange juice, no matter where it comes from, can be given the Florida Seal of Approval if it meets Florida state standards. Only orange juice with the “100% Florida” label is certified to come from oranges grown in the United States.

  ASK THE EXPERTS

  STAR-GAZING

  Q: What are those silvery, star-like spots I sometimes see in my eyes?

  A: “Those spots may look like tiny flickers of light or swarms of fireflies. Usually they last a second or two. You may see them after receiving a blow to the head, or after doing a somersault or making some other sharp head movement.

  What happens is that the sudden movement increases the pressure in the blood vessels in your eyes for a few moments. That triggers the nerves of your eyes, fooling your brains into thinking you’re seeing spots of light.” (Know It All! by Ed Zotti)

  POSSESSED

  Q: Why do cats’ eyes shine in the dark?

  A: “[It’s] due to the reflection of light by the tapetum lucidum—a part of a membrane layer between the retina and the outer covering of the pupils that enables [cats] to see even when there is very little light. In the domestic cat the tapetum lucidum is brilliant green or blue in color and has a metallic luster.” (Why Do Some Shoes Squeak? and 568 Other Popular Questions Answered, by George W. Stimpson)

  Technically, snow is considered a mineral.

  HOORAY FOR

  HOLLYWOOD

  Hollywood is so closely identified with the “decadent” film industry, that it’s hard to imagine that it started out as a prim Victorian town...but it did.

  HISTORY. In 1886, Kansas prohibitionists Harvey and Daeida Wilcox “bought a 120-acre citrus farm in sleepy Cahuenga Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles, for $150/acre.” They built an elaborate Victorian house in the middle of a fig orchard, then began subdividing the property. Liquor wasn’t allowed, and only “well-educated, worldly, decent” people were offered the property.

  In 1903 the subdivision was big enough to become the city of Hollywood. But that didn’t last long. In 1910, the citizens voted to make Hollywood an official district of L.A. The reason: They wanted access to L.A.’s water system. Since then, one historian laments, “Hollywood has been reduced to a mere ‘northwest sector of the city of Los Angeles.’”

  NAME. While her California house was being built in 1886, Daeida Wilcox went East to visit her family. On the train, she met a woman who described
a lovely Illinois summer estate, called Hollywood, that was sprinkled with holly trees.

  Wilcox was taken with the idea. She repeatedly tried to grow holly on her citrus farm before deciding that the climate wasn’t suitable. Perhaps to console herself, she named their ranch “Hollywood” anyway. In 1887 she registered the name with the Los Angeles recorder.

  MAIN INDUSTRY. In the early 1900s, the film industry was centered in both New York City and Fort Lee, New Jersey. But soon movie companies were headed west.

  The First West Coast Studio. In 1907, Col. William Selig was producing crude silent movies in Chicago, “whenever the sun was shining—which was not frequently enough to make [his business] a profound success.” He happened to read a promotional pamphlet sent East by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce that mentioned the city was “bathed in sunshine some 350 days of the year.” This impressed Selig, and he sent two men—Francis Boggs and Thomas Parsons—to see if it was true.

  The game of badminton used to be called “poona.”

  To give the area a test, Boggs and Parsons set up a temporary studio in L.A. and began making pictures, recruiting actors off the streets of the city. When they’d completed several pictures, they left to test another location—Colorado—where they compared the climate and photographic possibilities to those on the coast. The West Coast won. Not only was there almost unlimited sunshine, but the varied scenery—mountains, rivers, deserts, and ocean—was unbeatable. Boggs and Parsons shared their discovery with other filmmakers in the east, and in early 1909, Selig went to Los Angeles to build the first L.A. film studio.

  The First Hollywood Studio. Ironically, it was the Wilcoxes’ puritanism that brought moviemakers to Hollywood. When the couple subdivided their estate, one plot of land wound up in the hands of a tavern owner, who opened a bar there. The outraged Victorians passed a law prohibiting booze, bankrupting the bar. So when the Nestor Moving Picture Company arrived from New Jersey in 1911, it was able to buy the abandoned tavern cheap and convert it into the first Hollywood studio. Within a week, the company had produced Hollywood’s first film, Her Indian Hero, a Western featuring real Native Americans. Within three months, it was sharing Hollywood with 14 other film companies—despite the “Actors Not Welcome” signs posted all over town.

  HOLLYWOOD FACTS

  • Early filmmakers who moved West weren’t just looking for a place in the sun; they were looking for a place to hide. So many were violating Thomas Edison’s motion picture patents that a legal battle known as the Patents War erupted. Southern California was the perfect refuge—as far from the federal government as possible and close enough to the Mexican border for a quick getaway.

  • The famous “HOLLYWOOD” sign in the hills above the film capital originally said “HOLLYWOODLAND.” It was built in 1923 to promote a real estate development. The last four letters fell down during WW II.

  White is the most common color for houses in the United States.

  THE LAST LAUGH: EPITAPHS

  In the Second Bathroom Reader, we included some unusual epitaphs sent to us by BRI members. Here’s a bunch we’ve gotten since then.

  Seen in Medway, MA:

  In Memory of Peter Daniels, 1688-1746

  Beneath this stone, a lump of clay,

  Lies Uncle Peter Daniels,

  Who too early in the month of May

  Took off his winter flannels.

  Seen in Ribbesford, Engfond:

  Anna Wallace

  The children of Israel wanted bread,

  And the Lord he sent them manna.

  Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,

  And the Devil sent him Anna.

  Seen in Westminster Abbey:

  John Gay

  Life is a joke, and all things show it;

  I thought so once and now I know it.

  Seen in Death Valley, CA:

  May Preston

  Here lies the body of fat May Preston

  Who’s now moved to heaven

  To relieve the congestion.

  Seen in Falkirk, Scotland:

  Jimmy Wyatt

  At rest beneath this slab of stone

  Lies Stingy Jimmy Wyatt;

  He died one morning just at ten

  And saved a dinner by it.

  Seen in Thanet, Engfond:

  Against his will, here lies George Hill

  Who from a cliff, fell down quite stiff.

  When it happened is not known,

  Therefore not mentioned on this stone.

  Seen in Shutesbury, MA:

  To the Four Husbands of Miss Ivy Saunders

  Here lies my husbands, One, Two, Three,

  Dumb as men could ever be.

  As for my fourth, well, praise be God,

  He bides for a little above the sod.

  Alex, Ben and Sandy were the first three’s names,

  And to make things tidy I’ll add his—James.

  Canada is the second largest country on Earth.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

  It may come as a surprise to learn that celebrating birthdays is a relatively new tradition for anyone but kings and queens.

  BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS. The first people known to celebrate birthdays were the ancient Egyptians—starting around 3000 B.C. But only the queen and male members of the royal family were honored. No one even bothered recording anyone else’s birthdates.

  • The ancient Greeks expanded the concept a little: they celebrated the birthdays of all adult males...and kept on celebrating, even after a man had died. Women’s and children’s birthdays were considered too unimportant to observe.

  • The Greeks also introduced the birthday cake (which they got from the Persians) and birthday candles (which may have been used to honor Artemis, goddess of the moon, because they symbolized moonlight).

  • It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that German peasants became the first to celebrate the birthdays of everyone in the family. Children’s birthday celebrations were especially important. Called Kinderfestes, they were the forerunner to our toddler birthday parties.

  THE BIRTHDAY SONG. Mildred and Patty Smith Hill, two sisters from Louisville, Kentucky, published a song called “Good Morning to All” in a kindergarten songbook in 1893. They wrote it as a “welcoming” song, to be sung to young students at the beginning of each school day.

  In 1924, a songbook editor changed the lyrics to “Happy Birthday to You” and published it without the Hill sisters’ permission. The new lyrics made it a popular tune, but the Hill family took no action...until the song appeared in a Broadway play in 1933. Then Jessica Hill (a third sister) sued for copyright infringement. She won, but most singers stopped using the song rather than pay the royalty fee. In one play called Happy Birthday, for example, actress Helen Hayes spoke the words to avoid paying it.

  Today, whenever “Happy Birthday” is sung commercially, a royalty still must be paid to the Hills.

  What’s the most popular candy bar in the U.S.? Snickers.

  REAL-LIFE SONGS

  Some pop songs are pure fiction, but some are inspired by real events in a songwriter’s life. Here are four examples of “pop autobiography” from Behind the Hits, by Bob Shannon and John Javna.

  THE DOCK OF THE BAY—OTIS REDDING. One warm morning in late 1967, Redding relaxed on a houseboat he’d rented in Sausalito, across the bay from San Francisco. He was “just wastin’ time”—and he could afford to. A few days earlier, he’d electrified the audience with his midnight show-closing performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Then, he had headed north to the legendary Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco and knocked out the audience there. He was definitely on his way to rock stardom. Satisfied, Redding kicked back in the sunshine, played a few chords on his guitar, and dreamed up a little tune: “Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun...”

  When Redding got back to Memphis, he went into the studio and recorded his song. At the end he wasn’t sure what to sing or say—so he just whistled, capturing the casual mood he’d been in on that h
ouseboat in Sausalito.

  For the Record: Three days later, Redding died in a plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin. “The Dock of the Bay” became the first posthumous #1 record in history—and Redding’s only #1 pop hit.

  ROXANNE—THE POLICE. On October 20, 1977, the Police—a starving “art rock” band—were scheduled to be the opening act for a punk band in a Paris club. So they loaded up their car with equipment and drove to France. But when they arrived at the club, they found that there was no gig. They weren’t opening for anybody, and no one had come to watch them. They played to an empty house anyway, and left disconsolate, because they could scarcely afford to have made the trip for nothing.

  Things got worse: As they drove around the city right after the gig, their car broke down; it had to be towed back to London.

  Sting, their bass player and singer, decided that as long as he had to walk, he might as well take a stroll through Paris’s famous red-light district. “It was the first time I’d seen prostitutes on the streets,” Sting recalls. “I imagined being in love with one of those girls. I mean, they do have fellas. How would I feel?” He translated the experience into a song called “Roxanne.” Two years later it became the first big New Wave hit and established the Police.

  Someone paid $14,000 for the bra Marilyn Monroe wore in Some Like It Hot.

  For the Record: Where did he get the name? “It’s a beautiful name, with such a rich history....Roxanne was Alexander the Great’s wife, and Cyrano de Bergerac’s girlfriend.”

  UP, UP AND AWAY—THE FIFTH DIMENSION. Here’s songwriter Jimmy Webb’s version of writing the song: “A friend of mine named William F. Williams, who was at radio station KMEN in San Bernardino, was using this hot air balloon for promotions in the...area. He and I were just kind of hanging out, and he took me up a couple of times. The first time, he and I started thinking about doing a film about hot air balloons...just because they were so colorful and so big and so different....He said, ‘I’ve got a great idea for a title—Up, Up and Away.’ And I said, ‘Oh, that’s good, I like that.’ I was still going to San Bernardino Valley College, so that afternoon I sneaked into a practice room and I wrote ‘Up, Up and Away.’ The next time I saw him, I said, ‘Well, I’ve got the music for the film.’ As it turned out, there never was a film made. But the Fifth Dimension recorded it a few years later, and it worked out nicely for everybody.”