Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (5 page)

The Sicarii:
In 72 A.D., in the midst of the First Jewish-Roman War, about 1,000 Jewish extremists known as the Sicarii (“dagger” in Latin) were holed up in the Masada, a massive stone fortress at the top of an isolated plateau. An army of 10,000 Roman soldiers surrounded it and spent nine months building a ramp to the top. Then they dragged up huge battering rams and slammed the 12-foot-thick walls over and over until they finally breached it. They put on their armor and prepared for battle…but found every man, woman, and child inside dead. The night before they had all committed suicide rather than be taken alive.

Admiral Yi Sunsin:
On October 26, 1597, a Korean force of 13 ships met 133 Japanese warships and 200 more smaller ships in Myeongnyang Strait at the southwest tip of Korea. When the day-long battle was over, Korean admiral Yi Sunsin had masterminded one of the most successful naval stands in history, losing no ships while sinking 31 Japanese ships and damaging 92 more.

Los Niños Héroes:
On September 12, 1847, an American force of 13,000 led by General Winfield Scott attacked Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City in one of the last battles of the Mexican-American War. Near the end of the following day, Mexican General Nicolás Bravo finally ordered retreat, but six military cadets—between 13 and 19 years old—refused. They stayed and faced the American onslaught, going down one by one to rifle fire or bayonet wounds. Legend says the last one wrapped himself in a Mexican flag and threw himself off the castle. Los Niños Héroes—the Boy Heroes—are among Mexico’s most admired historical figures.

Where sit-down readers salute stand-up comedians
.

“When people blow their noses, they always look into their hankies to see what came out. What do they expect to find?”

—
Billy Connolly

“I love to sleep. It’s the best of both worlds—you get to be alive…and unconscious.”

—
Rita Rudner

“The sign said, ‘This door to remain closed at all times.’ Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a door?”

—
Danny McCrossan

“Who invented the brush they leave next to the toilet? That thing hurts!”

—
Andy Andrews

“Is it fair to say that there’d be less litter if blind people were given pointy sticks?”

—
Adam Bloom

“I’ve always wanted to give birth…to kittens. It would hurt less, and when you’re done, you’d have kittens!”

—
Betsy Salkind

“My love life is like a fairy tale. Grimm.”

—
Wendy Liebman

“I realized I was dyslexic when I went to a toga party dressed as a goat.”

—
Marcus Brigstocke

“I wish I could play Little League now. I’d be way better than before.”

—
Mitch Hedberg

“I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.”

—
George Carlin

“I joined Gamblers Anonymous. They gave me two-to-one odds I wouldn’t make it.”

—
Rodney Dangerfield

“Fortunately my parents were intelligent, enlightened people. They accepted me for what I was: a punishment from God.”

—
David Steinberg

“If I ever had twins, I’d use one for parts.”

—
Steven Wright

Ever wonder what inspired your favorite songs? Here are a few inside stories about some legendary hit tunes
.

T
he Artist:
Elton John
The Song:
“Bennie and the Jets”
The Story:
John’s lyricist Bernie Taupin wrote the song about a fictional glam rock band—it was a satire of the cocaine-fueled excesses of the 1970s music industry. But after recording the song, John and his band thought the song was bland, so producer Gus Dudgeon added in applause, whistles, and handclaps to make it sound more like a “live” performance. Released on John’s 1973 album
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
, it wasn’t intended to be a single, but when an R&B station in Detroit surprisingly started playing “Bennie and the Jets,” MCA Records decided to release it. John thought the song was too weird and predicted it would flop. He was wrong—it went to #1 on the pop chart.

The Artist:
The Go-Go’s

The Song:
“Our Lips Are Sealed”

The Story:
In 1980 the British band the Specials asked the Go-Go’s, who had not yet made a record and were still basically unknowns, to be the opening act on their American tour. Specials singer Terry Hall and Go-Go’s guitarist Jane Wiedlin struck up a romance on the road, but a few weeks after the tour ended, Hall sent Wiedlin a “dear John” note explaining that they had to break up because he had a girlfriend back in England. Wiedlin turned the letter into the bouncy pop song, “Our Lips Are Sealed,” which became the Go-Go’s first single and first hit in 1981, reaching the Billboard Top 20. (Hall got a co-writing credit.)

The Artist:
AC/DC

The Song:
“You Shook Me All Night Long”

The Story:
AC/DC was one of the most popular hard rock bands of the late 1970s. In 1980 lead singer Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning and the band, as well as its fans, didn’t think it should—or could—continue. But they had an album’s worth of
songs already written when Scott died, so they went into the recording studio to record them with a new singer, Brian Johnson. One day while they were working on the new album, Johnson was staring out the window watching cars go by and had a thought that cars and women were similar. “They go fast and then they let you down,” he said. He immediately came up with the line “She was a fast machine/She kept her motor clean” and then wrote “You Shook Me All Night Long,” which became AC/DC’s first pop hit in the United States. Not only was the band able to carry on without Scott, it was more successful than ever. The album,
Back in Black
, sold 42 million copies worldwide.

The Artist:
Tracy Chapman

The Song:
“Give Me One Reason”

The Story:
The singer was discovered in a Boston coffeehouse in 1988, and her first single “Fast Car,” a melancholy acoustic-guitar driven folk song, went to #5 on the chart. Chapman won the Grammy for Best New Artist but had no more hit singles. Then in late 1995, she quietly released her album
New Beginnings
. It included an old-fashioned acoustic blues song she’d written called “Give Me One Reason,” which she had been playing live in clubs for years. Despite the fact that the dominant musical styles of the day were alternative rock and gangsta rap, and Chapman was considered a has-been, the song went to #3 on
Billboard
, making it an even bigger hit than “Fast Car.”

The Artist:
Marty Robbins

The Song:
“El Paso”

The Story:
In 1959 Robbins, a country music star, recorded an album of cowboy songs called
Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
, inspired by stories he’d heard as a child from his grandfather Bob Heckle, who had been a Texas Ranger. The standout song was “El Paso,” a first-person story of a cowboy who falls in love with a Mexican dancer, kills his romantic rival, goes back for the girl, gets shot, and dies in her arms. Columbia Records refused to release it as a single—at five minutes long, it was nearly twice as long as the average hit song. But
Gunfighter Ballads
was selling briskly and radio stations were playing “El Paso.” Columbia relented and made it a single, and it went to #1 on both the pop and country charts.

The Big Apple isn’t the only big-city nickname. For instance, there’s…

• Chicago, the City of Big Shoulders:
You may know it as the “Windy City” (which refers to blustery politicians, not the weather), but it’s also called the “City of Big Shoulders,” taken from a line in Carl Sandburg’s 1916 poem “Chicago.”

• Seattle, the Emerald City:
This was the winning entry in a 1982 contest held by the Seattle-King County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

• Charlotte, the Queen City:
Settlers named the North Carolina city after the wife of King George III of England, Queen Charlotte.

• Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love:
A reflection of the state of Pennsylvania’s founding by the peaceful religious sect known as the Quakers,
Philadelphia
in Greek translates literally to “city of brotherly love.”

• Rochester, New York, the Flour City:
Flour milling was the biggest industry in the city in the late 19th century.

• Milwaukee, the Cream City:
It has nothing to do with the dairy industry for which the rest of the state is famous. Red lacustrine clay is found in nearby lakes, and when it’s fired, it turns from red to cream-colored. Since the late 1800s, these cream-colored bricks have been a popular building material in the Milwaukee area.

• Houston, the Magnolia City:
First coined in the 1870s. Parts of the city occupy what used to be large forests of magnolia trees.

• New Orleans, the Big Easy:
There are two versions of the origin, both from the early 1900s. Theory #1: Musicians called it “the Big Easy” because it was so easy to find work in one of the city’s many nightclubs. Theory #2: There were too few cops in New Orleans to enforce Prohibition, so there were a lot of illegal bars—so many that the city earned the nickname the “Big Speakeasy,” or the “Big Easy,” for short.

•
Miami, the Magic City:
The term was coined by a reporter in the 1910s after the city’s population exploded, as if by magic, from 300 in 1896 to 12,000 by 1910.

•
Dallas, the Big D
: The name was used as early as the 1930s but was popularized by the 1956 musical
The Most Happy Fella
. A character sings “Big D” about Dallas, which includes the lyric “Big D, little
a
, double
l
,
a
-
s
.”

•
Nashville, the Athens of the South:
The city has been called that since the 1850s. Like the ancient Greek city, Nashville was a center of education, hosting four colleges. It was also the first Southern city with a public school system. (Nashville is also known as “Music City, USA,” because it’s the hub of the country music industry.)

•
San Francisco, Baghdad by the Bay:
San Francisco Chronicle
columnist Herb Caen invented the phrase in the 1940s in honor of the city’s multicultural population.

•
Indianapolis, the Circle City:
Unlike most cities, which are arranged in a rectangular grid, Indianapolis was originally built as a series of concentric circles, with a circular commons at the center.

•
Portland, the City of Roses:
The city’s wet climate makes it well suited for growing roses. The International Rose Test Garden is located there; there’s been an annual Rose Festival since 1905.

•
Boston, the Cradle of Liberty:
Two major events that directly led to the American Revolution occurred in Boston: the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.

•
Washington, D.C., the Chocolate City:
It may not be politically correct, but Washington disc jockeys coined the term in the 1970s to affectionately refer to the city’s predominantly African-American population. It was popularized when the funk band Parliament released an album called
Chocolate City
in 1975.

“I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighborhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets.”

—
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tales of humans and animals getting their dander up
.