Read Uncle John’s Briefs Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Uncle John’s Briefs (21 page)
“Never hire a cleaning lady named Dusty.”
—David Corrado
“Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.”
—Aesop
“Never assume the obvious is true.”
—William Safire
“Never play peekaboo with a child on a long plane trip. There’s no end to the game. Finally, I grabbed him by the bib and said, ‘Look, it’s always gonna be me!’”
—Rita Rudner
“Never pet a porcupine.”
—Kid on
Sesame Street
“Never send a man to do a horse’s job.”
—Mr. Ed
“Never trust a wolf’s tameness, a horse’s health, or an enemy’s smile.”
—Israel Boone,
Daniel Boone
“Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.”
—John Adams
“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”
—Winston Churchill
“Never spend your money before you have it.”
—Thomas Jefferson
“Never miss a good chance to shut up.”
—Will Rogers
“Never get married in the morning, ’cause you may never know who you’ll meet that night.”
—Paul Hornung
“Never explain—your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.”
—Elbert Hubbard
“Never believe in mirrors or newspapers.”
—Tom Stoppard
“Never eat more than you can lift.”
—Miss Piggy
What can you do with food, besides eat it? Use it to drive evil spirits away, of course. People once believed in these bizarre rituals
.
“Sprinkle pepper on a chair to ensure that guests do not overstay their welcome.”
“If cooking bacon curls up in the pan, a new lover is about to arrive.”
“Eating five almonds will cure drunkenness.”
“If the bubbles on the surface of a cup of coffee float toward the drinker, prosperous times lie ahead; if they retreat, hard times are promised.”
“Cut a slice from the stalk end of a banana while making a wish. If a Y-shaped mark is revealed, the wish will come true.”
“Feed red pistachio nuts to a zombie—it will break his trance and allow him to die.”
“When a slice of buttered bread falls butter-side-up, it means a visitor is coming.”
“Put a red tomato on the window sill—it scares away evil spirits.”
“If bread dough cracks during baking, a funeral is imminent.”
“It’s lucky to see two pies, but unlucky to see only one.”
“A wish will come true if you make it while burning onions.”
“Feeding ground eggshells to children cures bedwetting.”
“Stirring a pot of tea stirs up trouble.”
“It’s bad luck to let milk boil over.”
“Bank up used tea leaves at the back of the fire to ward off poverty.”
“If you find a pod with nine peas in it, throw it over your shoulder and make a wish. It will come true.”
“Finding a chicken egg with no yolk is unlucky.”
“If meat shrinks in the pot, your downfall is assured. If it swells, you’ll experience prosperity.”
“Beans scattered in the corners of a home will drive out evil spirits.”
“It is unlucky to say the word ‘salt’ at sea.”
Charlie Sheen once wrote a collection of poetry, but couldn’t find anyone willing to publish it.
Lots of movies have inspired their own fan conventions. Let’s see, there’s
Star Trek
and
Star Wars
and
…The Big Lebowski?
B
IG FLOPSKI
When
The Big Lebowski
hit theaters in 1998, it didn’t make much of a splash. Though it met with critical acclaim and was well received by loyal fans of Joel and Ethan Coen, the film’s director, producer, and co-writers, it barely broke even at the box office. Following on the heels of
Fargo
, the Coens’ most successful film to that point,
Lebowski’s
modest earnings came as a disappointment. But then in 1999 it was released on video and became a cult classic.
As
Lebowski
fans will tell you, this is a movie that gets better with repeat viewings. There are so many threads woven into the complicated plot, and so much dry humor and memorable dialogue, that the film simply can’t be taken in at a single glance.
The Big Lebowski
is one of those movies where you catch something new every time you watch it.
Here’s the basic plot: In a case of mistaken identity, Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski—a lazy, unemployed, hippie bowler—is assaulted by thugs who are actually looking for a paraplegic millionaire named Jeffrey Lebowski, whose trophy wife “owes money all over town.” During the course of the assault, the assailants pee on The Dude’s living room carpet. Deciding to seek restitution from the real Lebowski (because “the carpet really tied the room together, man”), The Dude and his two bowling buddies, Walter and Donny, are drawn into a web of intrigue involving kidnapping, pornographers, and nihilists; Lebowski’s avant-garde daughter, Maude; a high-school student whose father used to write for the TV western,
Branded
; and intricately choreographed bowling-dream sequences. There’s a lot more, but you’ll have to watch the movie a few times to figure it all out…which is exactly what thousands of devoted fans have been doing for nearly a decade.
WHY NOT?
Three years after the movie’s release on video, two
Lebowski
fans, Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt, were killing time while manning a T-shirt booth at a tattoo convention in Louisville, Kentucky. Business was so
slow that the two friends began entertaining themselves by quoting lines from
Lebowski
. The people at the next booth turned out to be fans as well, and soon joined in. Eventually, Russell and Shuffitt’s booth became the most popular spot in the convention hall, with bored vendors congregating to repeat their favorite bits of dialogue from the film. At some point, according to Russell, “Scott and I were like, man, if they can have this goofy tattoo convention, we should have a
Big Lebowski
convention.”
The largest ant colony in the world is in Southern Europe—it stretches for over 3,700 miles.
BOWLING AND WHAT-HAVE-YOU
Because bowling is a central theme in the movie, they decided the event should be held in a bowling alley. Unfortunately, the only alley in Louisville that they could afford was a Baptist-run establishment that prohibited both drinking and bad language—a problem because it’s hard to quote lines from the film without cursing, and because The Dude is rarely seen without a White Russian in hand (at one point he can’t find any half-and-half, so he mixes his White Russian using powdered nondairy creamer). Nevertheless, the alley was rented and, with a $42 advertising budget, the “First Annual
Big Lebowski
What-Have-You Fest” was scheduled for October 2002. They expected a handful of their friends to show up and were surprised when 150 people—dressed up as their favorite characters from the movie—arrived for a night of bowling and a screening of the film.
Russell and Shuffitt immediately began making plans for the second festival. Word got around on the Internet, and it proved to be almost too successful: 1,300 devotees showed up to a venue that could only hold 800. The following year 4,000 fans came…and the event’s organizers have never looked back—they’ve added festivals in Las Vegas, New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Boston, and London.
THE DUDE ABIDES
The event has taken on a life of its own. A few years ago, strange signs began appearing in the crowds at concerts and sporting events. Back in 2003 they read, “Lebowski 7:19.” The next year: “Lebowski 6:19.” These are not references to some book of cinematic scripture, they are the dates of the next annual Lebowskifest in Louisville. Keep your eyes peeled—in 2010 they read “Lebowski 7:16.”
That spot on your back that you can’t scratch is called the
acnestis
.
Once again, the BRI asks—and answers—the question: Where does all this stuff come from?
W
ATERBEDS
The waterbed has actually been developed—unsuccessfully—numerous times. The first was more than 3,000 years ago, when Persians filled goat skins with water, sealed them with tar, and left them out in the sun to warm the water. The next time was in 1832, when Scottish doctor Neil Arnott filled a rubber-coated, mattress-sized piece of canvas with water, hoping to prevent bedsores. It wasn’t a big seller (even in hospitals), nor was it when English doctor James Paget copied the design in 1873. The main reasons: The beds leaked, and they were cold. But in 1926, scientists at B.F. Goodrich came up with a synthetic material that could make waterbeds both leakproof and warm: vinyl. Sold via mail order, they were, once again, a commercial disappointment. Then in 1968, a San Francisco State University student named Charles Hall was trying to create an ultra-soft piece of furniture. After rejecting a gigantic vinyl bag filled with Jell-O, he tried filling it with water. Hall called his creation the Pleasure Pit and patented it. Waterbeds finally caught on, at least with Bay Area hippies. They became a national fad in the early 1980s.
THE KAZOO
Similar instruments, called
mirlitons
, had been used in Africa for hundreds of years, either to imitate the sounds of animals when hunting or in religious rituals. The sound comes from the user humming (not blowing air) across a membrane, which causes it to vibrate. An African-American named Alabama Vest based the modern kazoo on these instruments. He invented his in Macon, Georgia, in the 1840s. They were mass-produced to Vest’s specifications by German clockmaker Thaddeus von Clegg and were first demonstrated at the 1852 Georgia State Fair.
First cloned dog to survive: Snuppy, an Afghan hound, who was born in April 2005.
HEIMLICH MANEUVER
Throat surgeon Dr. Henry Heimlich had long noticed the high number of deaths that resulted from simple choking incidents. In the early 1970s, the common method used to relieve choking was a slap on the back.
Though it sometimes worked, it often forced food farther into the windpipe, making the choker’s situation worse. Heimlich had a theory: a sudden burst of air pressure up through the esophagus would expel an obstruction. He tested it on dogs and found that it worked. Heimlich’s “maneuver” forced any food caught in the throat
up
, rather than down, the way a back slap sometimes did. The technique: the person applying the maneuver stands behind the victim with interlocked fingers held below the rib cage and above the navel, and pulls upward. Heimlich published his findings in 1974. Within a week, the Heimlich maneuver was used to save a person from choking. It has saved tens of thousands since.
TARTAR SAUCE
Before there was tartar sauce, there was
steak tartare
, a French dish that consists of chopped and seasoned raw beef topped with onions and capers. Whoever invented it (that person is lost to history) named it after the Tatars, a nomadic Turkic group who lived in Russia in the medieval era and, according to legend, were known for eating raw meat.
Sauce de tartare
was created in France the 18th century to accompany the entree. It consisted of mayonnaise, pickles, capers, onions, and tarragon. The thick, goopy sauce made its way to England in the late 19th century, where
tartare
was anglicized to
tartar
and was served alongside a distinctively English dish: fried fish.
MAD LIBS
In November 1953, TV writer Leonard Stern was stuck trying to describe the appearance of a new character he’d created for
The Honeymooners
. His friend, game-show host Roger Price, was in the next room and Stern called out, “Give me an adjective.” But before Stern could finish his sentence—he’d needed a word to describe “nose”—Price responded, “Clumsy.” The two found the idea of “a clumsy nose” absurdly funny and spent the rest of the day writing short stories, then removing certain words and replacing them with blank spaces, prompting the reader for a certain part of speech: a noun, adjective, verb, etc. When the stories were read back with all the blanks filled, the results were hilarious. For the next five years, Price and Stern tried, in vain, to get
Mad Libs
published. Finally, in 1958, they printed up 14,000 copies themselves. By then, Stern was writing for
The Steve Allen Show
and convinced his boss to use Mad Libs as a comedy bit. All 14,000 copies sold out in a week.
In Tokyo, the “911” emergency number is 119.
Remember the mullet? That quintessential ’80s haircut (think MacGyver, or Billy Ray Cyrus) was short on the top, long in the back…and ridiculed by people all over the world, as you’ll see here
.
•
France:
Coupe à la Waddle
(named after a famous 1980s footballer who sported the ’do)
•
French Canadian:
coupe Longueuil
•
Sweden:
hockeyfrilla
•
Norway:
hockeysveis
•
Czech Republic:
colek
(“newt”)
•
Poland:
Czeski pi karz
(“Czech football player hair”)