Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  “I cheated a lot at school. I just couldn’t sit and do homework. I usually sat next to someone extremely smart.”

  —Leonardo DiCaprio

  “All reporters ask exactly the same questions, and I say exactly the same answers. I don’t have to think; I can just stand there like a broken record going LALALA….”

  —Emma Watson

  “I don’t keep track of paper that well. My desk is a mess.”

  —Barack Obama

  “I’ve never seen a phone bill of mine in my life.”

  —Paris Hilton

  “I used to use the name ‘Mr. Stench.’ It was funny to be in a posh hotel and hear a very proper concierge call out, ‘Mr. Stench, please.’”

  —Johnny Depp

  THAT’S AMORE?

  Love is a many-splendored thing…except when it isn’t.

  STUPID CUPID

  James Miller’s girlfriend broke up with him in early 2009. So on Valentine’s Day, the 19-year-old British carpenter dressed up like Cupid (wearing only boxer shorts) and ran across the field at a Premier League soccer match shooting roses with a bow and arrow toward his lost love, who was sitting in the stands. Did it work? “If he honestly thought I would be impressed, then he must be more stupid than he looks,” she said. Adding insult to injury, Miller was banned from the stadium for three years and fired from his job. “That sort of behavior always works some romantic magic in the movies,” he said. “Now I have no girlfriend and no job.”

  WHO’S SORRY NOW?

  When police arrived on the scene in Palm City, Florida, in April 2009, Derick Culberson, 22, was sitting next to his truck—his hands and ankles bound with zip ties. He told them he’d been robbed at gunpoint by two men. More than a dozen officers began to canvass the area…until a cop happened to notice the same brand of zip ties in Culberson’s truck. When confronted by cops, Culberson admitted he’d made the whole thing up. Why? His girlfriend had recently left him, and he wanted her to hear about his “ordeal” and feel sorry for him and take him back. (She didn’t.)

  SLEEP THE NIGHT AWAY

  After working a 14-hour day as a courier in Christchurch, New Zealand, 18-year-old Tim Roberts wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, but his fiancée got upset when he tried to call off their movie date. So Roberts grudgingly showed up at the theater just as the romantic comedy was starting. He was fast asleep within minutes. When he awoke, he was all by himself in the dark, locked theater, the movie having long since ended. Upset that his fiancée had left him there, and still groggy from having been asleep, he stumbled out into the lobby…and tripped the security alarm. “It was this horrible, ear-piercing, screeching sound,” he said. Roberts tried to leave, but the doors couldn’t be opened without keys. The situation got scary when the police rushed the building with their guns drawn. Somehow, Roberts was able to communicate his dilemma, and finally got out via the fire escape. The episode convinced the couple that they weren’t as compatible as they thought they were, and they made a “mutual” decision to call off their engagement.

  OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEB SITE

  In 2007 a married couple in Connecticut (names not released to the press) began receiving strange phone calls that were very sexually suggestive, and all for the wife. The husband did a Web search and discovered that his wife had posted several lewd profiles on adult dating sites. She flat-out denied it, so he asked around and found the real culprit: his ex-girlfriend, Pilar Stofega, who was hell-bent on breaking up the couple. Stofega, 34, was arrested and charged with second-degree harassment. When asked why she did it, she explained, “To be vindictive.”

  TRADING PLACES

  Victoria Thorp, 19, was so desperate to see her boyfriend that she broke into a detention center in Gainesville, Florida, where he was being held on drug charges. Her boyfriend, 18-year-old Aquilla Wilson, was equally desperate to get out, so he jumped out of the window that she had come in through. When the guards arrived, he was gone, and she was still there. Thorp was charged for “aiding in a prisoner’s escape.” She was jailed; he remains at large.

  I WANT HALF!

  After 18 years of marriage, a Cambodian man named Moeun Sarim accused his wife, Vat Navy, of having an affair with a policeman in their town. She denied it, but he didn’t believe her. He filed for divorce in October 2008, and in the settlement, he got half of their estate—literally. He and some of his relatives showed up at the 20-by-24-foot wooden house with saws in hand. Police tried to talk him out of it, but Sarim was adamant. The sawers started cutting the house right down the middle, loading the parts into pickup trucks. The remaining half of the house—although a bit draftier—was still structurally sound, so Navy kept living there. “Very strange,” she said, “but this is what he wanted.”

  METROPOLIS CONFIDENTIAL

  Random facts about Superman.

  • In the comic books, when Clark goes into a phone booth to emerge as Superman, what does he do with his clothes? He has a small pouch hidden on the underside of his cape.

  • Lois Lane is not Superman’s first love. He once dated a girl named Lana Lang, who later became a superhero named Insect Queen.

  • While Superman’s city of Metropolis is obviously a stand-in for New York City, co-creator/artist Joe Shuster modeled the city’s skyline off of his hometown of Toronto.

  • Superman’s popularity is almost entirely confined to the United States. In fact, Richard Lester, the director of Superman III, grew up in England and had never heard of the character.

  • Little-known Kryptonite fact: After Superman succumbs to an individual piece of Kryptonite once, he’s forever immune to that one piece.

  • For the 1990s TV series Lois and Clark, the Daily Planet editor Perry White’s catchphrase from the 1950’s TV series The Adventures of Superman was updated from “great Caesar’s ghost!” to “great shades of Elvis!”

  • The first three movies did well at the box office, but the low-budget Superman IV did not, earning just $15 million in 1987. Assuming this meant that superhero movies were dead, the studio, Cannon, canceled a planned Spider-Man movie. (Oops.)

  • According to Superman III, Kryptonite can be synthesized. Ingredients: 15% plutonium, 18% tantalum, 24% promethium, 28% xenon, 11% dialium, and 4% mercury.

  • There was a Superman broadway musical. Staged in 1966, It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane… It’s Superman was a campy take (a “ten-time Nobel Prize-losing scientist” wants to kill Superman; scenes are intercut with go-go dancing), inspired by the Batman TV series of the day. It lasted just three months on Broadway.

  • First-ever Superman: radio actor Bud Collyer on The Adventures of Superman from 1940–51. He received no on-air credit because producers wanted audiences to believe Superman was real. Collyer became better known as host of the TV game shows Beat the Clock (1950–61) and To Tell the Truth (1956–68).

  • Though Superman first appeared in comics in 1938, creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster came up with the original incarnation of Superman in 1932…as an evil, bald telepath who wants to take over the world.

  • Actor Nicolas Cage is such a Superman fan that he named his son Kal-El (Superman’s name on his home planet, Krypton).

  • Superman had several pets from Krypton, including Krypto the Superdog, Kal-El’s family dog who makes it to Earth; Beppo, a monkey who stows away on baby Kal-El’s rocket; and Kelex, a robot who serves as the housekeeper in Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

  A MINI-ENCYCLOPEDIA OF KRYPTONITE

  Green Kryptonite: Deadly.

  Red Kryptonite: Causes weird, erratic behavior.

  Blue Kryptonite: Safe for Superman, but deadly to Bizarros, who live in an alternate universe where everything is the opposite.

  X-Kryptonite: Gives Earthlings superpowers for a limited time.

  Gold Kryptonite: Removes superpowers permanently.

  White Kryptonite: Kills any plant life from any world.

  Jewel Kryptonite: Pieces of Krypton’s Jewel Mountains that allow resi
dents of the Phantom Zone—a two-dimensional “prison dimension”—to focus their energy and make objects in the outside world explode.

  Black Kryptonite: Effects unknown.

  EATING CONTESTS TO AVOID

  You’d think that with all the donut, hot dog, and pie eating contests there

  are in the world, there’d be no call for the competitions listed below. Try

  telling that to the International Federation of Competitive Eating

  (IFOCE), which has certified all of the following contests.

  CRANBERRY SAUCE

  Titleholder: Juliet Lee, who polished off 13.24 pounds of the sauce in eight minutes in November 2007. Additional Accomplishments: Lee, who once taught chemistry at the University of Nanjing in China, also won first prize at the 2008 Ultimate Eating Tournament after she downed seven chicken wings, one pound of nachos, three hot dogs, two personal pizzas, and three Italian ices in 7 minutes, 13 seconds.

  HAGGIS

  Description: For the uninitiated, haggis is a traditional Scottish dish that consists of sheep’s lungs, liver, and heart that are combined with oatmeal, onion, spices, and other ingredients, then stuffed into a sheep’s stomach and boiled for three hours. Titleholder: Eric Livingston, who ate three pounds of haggis in 8 minutes in 2008.

  RAMEN NOODLES

  Titleholder: Timothy Janus, who slurped down 10.5 pounds of noodles in 8 minutes in October 2007.

  Additional Accomplishments: Janus, a day trader who uses the name “Eater X” and wears makeup to disguise his true identity, currently holds six eating records, including nigiri sushi (141 pieces in 6 minutes), tamales (71 in 12 minutes), and burritos (11.81 pounds in 10 minutes).

  CHILI SPAGHETTI

  Titleholder: “Humble” Bob Shoudt put away 13.5 pounds of “Cincinnati Chili” (a thin, meaty chili flavored with oregano, cinnamon, and cloves, served over spaghetti) in 10 minutes in September 2008.

  Additional Accomplishments: Shoudt also holds the record for beef brisket BBQ sandwiches (34.75 sandwiches in 10 minutes), and the miniature-hamburger two-minute speed-eating record—39 burgers. When he isn’t competing, he’s a vegetarian.

  PICKLED BEEF TONGUE (WHOLE)

  Titleholder: Dominic “The Doginator” Cardo, who consumed an entire 3-pound tongue, plus “a few bites” of a second tongue, in 12 minutes on Fox TV’s prime-time Glutton Bowl in 2002.

  BUTTER (¼-pound sticks)

  Titleholder: Don Lerman, who goes by the name “Moses” and is another Glutton Bowl winner, downed seven ¼-pound sticks of salted butter in 5 minutes.

  Additional Accomplishments: Lerman, an IFOCE Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, also holds records in baked beans (6 pounds in 1 minute, 46 seconds), bologna (2.76 pounds in 6 minutes), quarter-pound hamburgers (11 ¼ in 10 minutes), and other categories. He placed third in the Glutton Bowl’s cow brain eating finals, losing to Takeru Kobayashi—the Tiger Woods of “gurgitation,” as it’s known in the trade. Kobayashi, who is most famous for winning the Nathan’s Famous 4th of July hot dog eating contest six years in a row (2001–06), consumed 57 entire cow brains, or 17.7 pounds’ worth, in 15 minutes to win first prize.

  HARD-BOILED EGGS

  Titleholder: In 2003 Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas downed 65 eggs—more than five dozen—in 6 minutes, 40 seconds, smashing the old record of 38 eggs in 8 minutes. Thomas swallowed the eggs whole. So why’d she stop at 65? The organizers ran out of eggs. Additional Accomplishments: Thomas, one of the biggest stars of the competitive eating world, holds 29 different world titles in foods as diverse as cheesecake (11 pounds in 9 minutes), chicken nuggets (80 nuggets in 5 minutes), crawfish jambalaya (9 pounds in 10 minutes), and oysters (46 dozen in 10 minutes). To keep her stomach in top form, Thomas eats one very large meal per day.

  When she worked as an assistant manager at Burger King, a typical daily meal consisted of one chicken Whopper, 20 chicken nuggets, three large orders of fries, and 64 ounces of diet soda, consumed over the course of a couple of hours. You might assume that Thomas is overweight, maybe even obese, but she’s not. She exercises two hours a day, five days a week, to maintain her competitive edge. Her weight typically fluctuates between 98 and 105 pounds.

  PICKLED JALAPEÑO PEPPERS

  Titleholder: Richard “The Locust” LeFevre, a retired accountant, popped 247 pickled peppers at the Texas State Fair in 2006. (No word on who picked the peck of pickled peppers.)

  Additional Accomplishments: Another living legend in the world of competitive eating, LeFevre, 63, has held records in 24-inch-diameter pizza slices (7 ½ extra-large slices in 15 minutes), birthday cake (5 pounds in 11 minutes, 26 seconds), chili (1 ½ gallons in 10 minutes), SPAM (6 pounds in 12 minutes), huevos rancheros (7 ¾ pounds in 10 minutes), and other categories. He weighs 132 pounds.

  GURGITATION SECRETS OF THE PROS

  Some tips we’ve collected from current and former IFOCE champs:

  • Eat healthy in your daily diet. Avoid junk food.

  • Eat fewer meals, but make each one larger to get your stomach used to accommodating large quantities of food. As a contest date approaches, eat larger and larger quantities of food.

  • Exercise regularly, and lose weight! Belly fat surrounding your stomach can impair its ability to stretch out as needed when stuffed with hot dogs, beef tongue, hard-boiled eggs, etc. (This theory is especially popular with titleholders weighing under 125 pounds. It’s much less popular with those weighing over 300 pounds.)

  • Don’t eat the night before an eating contest.

  • If you start to feel sick during the contest, slow down! Gurgita-tors who regurgitate are disqualified on the spot.

  • Kids, don’t try this at home.

  THE FIRST TRAIN ROBBERS

  Train robberies are such a common part of Western movies that we forget that somebody had to be the first to do it.

  SOMETHING NEW

  On October 16, 1866, brothers John and Simeon (“Sim”) Reno and a third man, Frank Sparkes, boarded a train in Seymour, Indiana, and broke into the express car (where the money was kept) once the train was underway. After overpowering a guard, the men smashed open a safe and stole its contents—$10,000. They pushed a larger safe off the train at a spot where other members of the “Reno gang,” including John and Sim’s brothers Frank and Bill Reno, were waiting. An approaching posse forced the gang to flee before it could get the big safe open. Not the biggest haul in the world, but it was the very first train robbery in U.S. history.

  END OF THE LINE

  John Reno soon went to prison for robbing a courthouse; the rest of the gang kept robbing trains. Their second robbery netted $8,000; a third was thwarted by Pinkerton detectives. A fourth netted $96,000. Then the gang’s luck ran out: While attempting a fifth train robbery, they were ambushed by Pinkertons, and though all but one of the robbers escaped, they were quickly rounded up. Three were arrested, then seized by vigilantes and hanged from a tree on July 20, 1868. A few days later three more gang members were captured and hanged from the same tree. Bill and Sim Reno were arrested at the end of July; then Frank Reno and another gang member named Charlie Anderson were caught in Canada and extradited to the U.S., where they were put in the same jail with Bill and Sim. All four men were hanged by a third lynch mob that stormed the jail on December 11, 1868.

  The lynching of ten members of the Reno gang, which never numbered more than about 15 people, put it out of business for good. But newspaper coverage of the their exploits inspired other criminal gangs (the James-Younger gang, the Wild Bunch, the Dalton gang, etc.), who would soon follow in their footsteps. The era of Wild West train robberies had begun.

  TITANIC, STARRING MACAULAY CULKIN

  Some movie roles are so closely associated with a specific actor that it’s hard to imagine he or she wasn’t the first choice. But it happens all the time. Can you imagine, for example…

  DRIVING MISS DAISY, STARRING LUCILLE BALL

  Ball loved Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning
play Driving Miss Daisy. In 1988, when she heard it was going to be turned into a movie, the 76-year-old actress went after the title role of the crotchety old Southern woman who develops a tender friendship with her African-American driver. Ball almost landed what would’ve been a career-capping comeback part, but right before producers Lili and Richard Zanuck made a decision, they got a phone call from her—she felt she was too ill to play the part. Indeed, by the time cameras rolled in early 1989, Ball had died.

  TITANIC, STARRING MACAULAY CULKIN

  By 1996 Culkin was a fading former child star (Home Alone, Richie Rich) who had pretty much quit show business, having not made a movie in three years. But in casting what would ultimately be the highest-grossing movie to date, Titanic producer/director James Cameron nearly hired Culkin for the male lead. When 20th Century Fox wanted him to cast Matthew McConaughey instead, Cameron compromised with a third option: critically acclaimed actor—and former child star—Leonardo DiCaprio.