Uncle John's Presents Book of the Dumb 2

by John Michael Scalzi

  There is a silver lining to this tale: Walker put in a call to Brian May’s personal assistant, detailing his sad story; she took sympathy on the poor guy and passed along the tale to May, who agreed to resign the guitar. We hope that Tim will be more careful this time. Brian may not be so keen to sign again if another one bites the dust.

  Source: Daily Record (UK), The Sun (UK)

  The Camera Has Stopped. Please Don’t Act Anymore

  Daryl Hannah apparently has difficulty interacting with the press—and for good reason, if you’ve read most of the reviews of her acting (she was excellent in Roxanne, though. Check it out). So when the long-legged actress had to chat up the press at the premiere of Kill Bill Volume 2, in which she plays a ruthless one-eyed assassin named Elle Driver, she struck upon what she thought was a fine idea. Instead of talking to the press as Daryl, famous movie star, she’d chat them up as Elle, cold-blooded sword wielding killer: “So I went through the press line and I was standing on my car and doing kung fu and giving them the finger or whatever,” she told a reporter for TeenHollywood.com.

  How convincing was she? Convincing enough that when she later left the theater, there were policemen waiting for her, asking her to take a Breathalyzer test. Because, you see, in the real world, she’s not Elle Driver, the hard-as-nails extinguisher of life—she’s Daryl Hannah, actress. When celebrities seem memorably erratic at movie premieres, police tend to think they’ve probably got just a little too much of something alcoholic in their system.

  Hannah had to talk to them to prove that she was sober (and sane) before they let her go about her life. “They couldn’t seem to understand that I was just acting,” she said. Well, Ms. Hannah, maybe they saw you in Legal Eagles.

  Source: Ananova, TeenHollywood.com

  A Step Down from “Clapton Is God,” To Be Sure

  If you ever want assurance that even the most famous of people on the globe aren’t famous to everyone, everywhere, one need look no further than Eric Clapton, noted rock ’n’ roll guitarist. From his early days with John Mayall, through Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, and his own solo work, Clapton has been consistently regarded as one of the most gifted—and famous—rock guitarists ever. But all that fame meant nothing in Surrey, England, when a cop pulled over Clapton’s Ferrari for speeding.

  According to news reports, the conversation between police officer Jim Jackson and one of the most popular and revered recording artists of the last half century went something like this:

  Jackson: And what’s your name, then?

  Clapton: Eric Clapton, officer.

  Jackson: So, Mr. Clapton, what do you do for a living to have such a nice car?

  Clapton: I’m in the music business.

  Jackson: Music business, eh? You must be doing okay, then.

  And then he wrote Clapton a speeding ticket. It wasn’t until later that Jackson’s partner, a huge Clapton fan, got his pal up to speed on who it was he’d just pulled over. Or as the UK paper The Daily Record put it, cheekily: “Jackson has since been debriefed about the identity of the little-known Ferrari driver. He can at least breathe a sigh of relief that a cranky Clapton did not shoot the sheriff.”

  Well, of course he didn’t. Clearly Jackson was the deputy.

  Source: Daily Record (UK)

  To Tell the Truth

  NBC’s The Apprentice was a huge hit when it aired. Viewers tuned in every week to watch teak-haired billionaire Donald Trump humiliate willing, would-be assistants. After the first season had ended, the apprentice candidates became mini-celebrities themselves, appearing on everything from Oprah to Larry King Live. One particular contestant, a woman by the name of Omarosa had become the one that people loved to hate, mostly because she had developed quite an evil reputation for lying that was clinched by the dramatic season finale where cameras caught Ms. O spewing falsehoods to her teammates. Omarosa defended herself vigorously on the talk show circuit, despite all that the cameras had captured.

  In one late-night appearance, when Omarosa was scheduled to appear on an April 2004 episode of the late night Jimmy Kimmel Live show, she backed out of the appearance midway through the taping. Just picked up and left, she did. The reason—there was a lie detector on the set, and Omarosa assumed it was for her. Apparently show producers had assured the jittery Omarosa that she wouldn’t be strapped to it—indeed, it was for a heavily promoted skit between host Jimmy Kimmel and his Uncle Frank. Here’s the thing: if you become known for lying, there’s a pretty good chance you assume others aren’t telling the truth either.

  One assumes she left before her reputation could be trashed by either refusing to submit to a lie detector test or by failing a lie detector test. But rest assured Jimmy Kimmel took care of that; after she ditched, Kimmel told the audience, in the studio and over the air: “She left because the lie-detector is out here. I’m not kidding, she was worried we were going to find out what a horrible, horrible, lying, filthy . . .” and then he trailed off while the studio audience laughed.

  The moral? Don’t lie, or at the very least, don’t tell lies while there are rolling cameras trained on you. Or, at a minimum, don’t cross Jimmy Kimmel on his own show.

  Source: New York Post

  A Jewel of a Concert

  Everyone agrees that the first show waifish folk-pop star Jewel played at New Hampshire’s Hampton Beach Ballroom Casino in May 2004 was perfectly fabulous. But something happened between the first show and the second, because when the blonde, snaggle-toothed songstress came out for show number two she was apparently a bit unhinged.

  Well, you say, she’s a rock star. They’re supposed to be unhinged. Yeah, but it’s supposed to be a fun sort of unhinged, and this was, according to concertgoers, merely strange and unpleasant. The singer began her set by mocking the fat and the toothless (never a smart thing in a casino). Later, she asked the crowd to yell requests and then told them to shut up. To top it all off, Jewel eventually told the audience to stop looking at her teeth (snaggly) and instead and look at her breasts (not snaggly).

  And then there was that ten-minute meandering discourse on the antidepressants Zoloft and Paxil about halfway through the show. As one concertgoer said to the Hampton Union newspaper: “I don’t know what that was all about. I don’t know if she was on it or what. Maybe she didn’t take it.”

  In all, Jewel played four or five songs in an hour-long concert, which is not very much. And for the encore? About a minute’s worth of yodeling. That’s gonna drive t-shirt sales for sure.

  Source: The Hampton Union

  Slappin’ to the Oldies

  Don’t get Richard Simmons angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. No, the exercise guru will bring the slapdown. Don’t think that just because he’s, well, you know, Richard Simmons, that he won’t mix it up. He is a man without fear.

  Just ask Christopher Farney, who crossed paths with Mr. Simmons at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport in March 2004. As a bit of background, let us note that Farney stood 6′2″, weighed 250 pounds, and worked as a motorcycle salesman and an ultimate cage fighter (a sport like wrestling but with less brains involved). This chunky hunk of a man saw the diminutive Mr. Simmons (5′7″, 155 pounds, 55 years old), who was waiting for his plane, and according to the police report, said “‘Hey everybody. It’s Richard Simmons. Let’s drop our bags and rock to the ’50s!”

  Well, rather than do the usual celebrity thing (which would be to smile mirthlessly at the lame joke, find out the name of the miscreant, and then have your minions ruin his credit record), Simmons walked over to Farney and said, “It’s not nice to make fun of people with issues,” and slapped the burly boy right across the kisser. Farney wasn’t physically injured, but pressed misdemeanor assault charges against Simmons.

  Does this mean Simmons is headed toward the big house? No, because Farney later dropped the charges in May.

  Sources: TheSmokingGun.com, Associated Press, CBS News

  The Really Stupid Quiz


  Blame It on the Fame

  Can you tell a true story from a fake one? One of these is true. Two of them could not be more fabricated if you found them in a tabloid. Which is which? Well, it’s time to step into the spotlight and guess.

  1.Shock rocker Alice Cooper has grown a softer side through his enthusiasm for playing golf. Every year, he sponsors a celebrity golf tournament, the proceeds of which go to Cooper’s youth-oriented charity, the Solid Rock Foundation. But along with that enthusiasm comes a dark secret: a reputation on the fairways of his native Scottsdale, Arizona, for accidentally striking large numbers of course-residing animals with his drives. His most memorable incident occurred in 1998 when, while practicing for his tournament, Cooper knocked a goose right out of the sky, causing the guilt-stricken rocker to pay for the dazed animal’s rehabilitation. “I feel terrible about it,” Cooper said about his animal-striking reputation. “I really don’t do it on purpose.”

  2.They say that the artist must suffer for the art; perhaps Oscar-winner Halle Berry had this in mind when she revealed on the Web site TeenHollywood.com that the preparation for her action film Catwoman gave her a serious and persistent case of flatulence: “It was wicked stuff,” confessed one of the beautiful women in Hollywood. “I had the worst gas in the world!” The proximate cause were protein shakes the actress drank to help bulk up. Something for you guys to remember. Coincidentally, we hear she’s single now.

  3.Pop star diva Christina Aguilera caused a ruckus at the Plaza Hotel in New York City when she pronounced the suite in which she was to be quartered as “utterly unacceptable” and demanded a new suite. The problem? The suite’s Feng Shui was off, according to Aguilera’s spokeswoman. “Christina is very sensitive to the energy flow of her surroundings,” said the spokeswoman. “We had spoken to the Plaza staff beforehand, who assured us that the suite was in order.” The Plaza Hotel management quickly moved Aguilera to another suite on the same floor and reportedly comped her stay for the egregious lack of chi.

  Turn to page 329 for the answers.

  The Annals of Ill-Advised Television

  today’s Episode: Emeril

  Welcome to the Annals of Ill-Advised Television, in which we look at some of the most inexplicably green-lit television shows in the history of the medium, and ask, “With shows this bad, how could the medium have possibly survived?” It’s a stumper all right.

  Starring in this Episode: Emeril Legasse and Robert Urich

  Debut Episode: September 25, 2001, on NBC. Small bit of trivia: the show’s debut was a week delayed because of 9/11 terrorist attacks.

  The Pitch: Bam! It’s America’s favorite obnoxiously antic chef, Emeril! Bam! Chuckles abound as he plays himself, surrounded by lots of amusingly colorful characters who pretend to be involved in his real cooking show! Bam! And it has food! Bam! What could go wrong! BAM!

  It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Because: Emeril was a legitimate cultural phenomenon—a telegenic cook who made Cajun cooking accessible to Midwestern housewives, and whose popularity would pre-sell the show. The show would be produced, written, and directed by Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who had created the hits Designing Women and Evening Shade, so there was every expectation the show would hit the ground running.

  In Reality: Well, it hit the ground, all right. Test audiences reportedly enjoyed the show’s pilot, which featured Emeril at work and at home, but NBC executives hated it. The pilot had to be reshot and focused more on Emeril’s cooking show and the side characters, which confused viewers since the show was ostensibly about Emeril himself, not his culinary pit crew. And Emeril himself didn’t come off well: “The Food Network’s most engaging frontman, Legasse, comes off stiffer than a well-whipped meringue when he has to play, um, himself,” said E! Online. The Detroit News sent the show back to the kitchen, calling it “The worst sitcom of the year,” and noting, “This could kill anyone’s appetite.”

  How Long Did It Last? Ten episodes were filmed; just seven aired.

  Were Those Responsible Punished? Neither Harry Thomason nor Linda Bloodworth-Thomason has done a series since, but Thomason has been busy with documentaries and a Designing Women reunion show. Emeril, of course, is still merrily Bam!-ing along on Emeril Live on the Food Network. It’s as if everyone agreed to forget that whole crazy sitcom adventure ever happened.

  CHAPTER 3

  Chug-a-Lug!

  Heave you heard? Alcohol can make you do dumb things. We know—we were shocked when we heard, too. And yet, as story after story of intoxicated people acting dumb spilled on us like beer in the hands of a tipsy reveler, we had to admit that there was something to this “too much booze = big trouble” equation. Especially when there’s some sort of vehicle involved, like, say, a bulldozer or a train.

  And so we present the following stories strictly as a public service: laugh, drink and be merry—but be aware of the fine line where “merry” turns into dumb.

  Mmmm . . . Felonious Beer

  The cellblock doors at the Hawkins County, Tennessee, jail were unlocked, and a faulty control panel meant that the jailers were none the wiser. The inmates, however, were only too aware of this fact. So one night, two of them made their move. They opened their cells, slipped out a fire exit, and then made a hole through the exercise yard fence to break free. So why did they come back shortly thereafter? Well, to hand out the beer, of course!

  See, these inmates weren’t interested in escaping—apparently they agreed with the social imperatives that required them to spend their time incarcerated. However, they didn’t see why they couldn’t knock back a brew just because they happened to be repaying their debt to society at the time. So our two inmates did not hightail it to parts unknown but rather to a local liquor store for a beer run. There, dressed in civilian clothes borrowed from other inmates (the jail didn’t have enough orange jumpsuits to go around), they bought some beer and took it back to the big house. And when all the beer had been drunk, another two inmates went out to get some more. In all, the authorities believe the inmates consumed two cases of beer.

  Naturally, the authorities were not pleased when they learned about the smuggled suds. They charged the four men for escaping and bringing alcohol into the jail. “I guess they thought if they came back they wouldn’t be charged with escape,” Sheriff Warren Rimer said, “but they were wrong.” Yes, that’ll teach ’em (unless the jail cells still aren’t fixed).

  Source: Associated Press

  Chug-a, Chug-a, Choo-Choo!

  As anyone who has overindulged knows, there’s blacking out, and then there’s blacking out. The first of these happens when you wake up the morning after a hard night of drinking at home, you’re still in your clothes from the night before, and you have no idea how you wound up sleeping on the kitchen floor.

  Somewhere past that is what happened to “Jorge,” a hard-drinking Mexican citizen from the town of San Nicholas de los Garza. It seems that after a night of enthusiastic imbibing, Jorge lost track of, well, pretty much everything until he woke up with paramedics standing over his body, looking at him like he was some really interesting specimen of road kill.

  Which in a way he was. The night before in a beer-hazed stupor, Jorge had apparently confused the local railroad tracks with his own bed. He snuggled down in between the rails for a long winter’s nap. After he woke up, Jorge was shocked to learn what he had slept through: a train just plain running over him.

  As it turns out, it’s probably a good thing Jorge was so drunk because he did not move a muscle, which allowed the train to pass over his heavily slumbering body by a margin of just a few inches. If he had lifted his head at all, there’s a good chance he would have lost it.

  Once the paramedic roused Jorge from his little nap, he professed mystification as to how it all happened. “I counted only six beers,” Jorge explained to local newspaper El Norte, although he then allowed “But who knows how many more there might have been. I don’t remember.” Yes, well. After the firs
t six, they do tend to run together.

  Source: Reuters

  Bulldozing Berlin

  One of the well-known side effects of alcohol is that funny effect it has on judgment: alcohol impairs it, and then (because alcohol is just that way), it doesn’t do you the courtesy of letting you know that it’s done so. So you feel as if you’re making rational decisions when in fact, you’re acting foolish.

  Let’s hope after an evening of beer-tinged fun you don’t make the same judgments as “Rolf,” a 28-year-old Berliner, who enjoyed too much of something in a Neukoelln district pub and then weaved out into the streets in the early hours of the morning. On his way to wherever he was going, Rolf passed by a bulldozer and found himself uncontrollably attracted to the machine. He climbed up in it, turned it on, and hit the road at about 20 miles per hour.

  The Berlin cops saw the errant bulldozer and its drunken pilot. They ordered Rolf to pull over, but his impaired judgment helped him to ignore those silly little people with their silly little badges. Well, at least until they jumped on the bulldozer, broke the cab’s window, and then spritzed him in the eyes with mace. Impaired judgment or not, chances are Rolf paid attention to blinding pain.

  Rolf was arrested for drunk driving; there was also the small matter of the theft of the bulldozer. Rolf’s next trip will be to the courthouse, where it’s unlikely judgment will be impaired.