Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Zipper Accidents (12 page)

Aye, Spy!
Spy
magazine decided to call out politicians on what it hypothesized was common: They have no idea what they’re talking about and will tell reporters what they want to hear. A member of the
Spy
staff, impersonating a radio host, called members of the newly elected 1993 Congress. Among serious questions, they threw in, “Do you approve of what we’re doing to stop the ethnic cleansing in Freedonia?” “It’s very, very sad. We need to take action to assist the people.”—Corrine Brown, Florida. “Anything we can do to use the good offices of the U.S. government to assist stopping the killing over there, we should do.”—James Talent, Missouri. Jay Dickey of Arkansas blamed the newly elected President Clinton. Steve Buyer of Indiana said that “it’s a different situation than the Middle East.” Indeed, it is. Because Freedonia is a fictional country from the Marx Brothers movie
Duck Soup
. There is no such place.

Pay Moore attention.
Tom Moore Jr. was working as a representative from Waco in the Texas Legislature in 1971 when he became worried that his fellow lawmakers didn’t fully read or even pay any attention to the bills and resolutions they were tasked with passing. So Moore introduced a motion honoring Albert DeSalvo for his work in population control, praising his “dedication and devotion to achieve and maintain a new degree of concern for the future.” The motion passed unanimously. DeSalvo, who is better known by his nickname the “Boston Strangler,” murdered 13 women in Boston in the 1960s.

Free labor.
Tommaso Coletti was president of Chieti, a province in southern Italy. In order to help promote employment assistance centers in the area in 2006, he approved an ad campaign with the slogan “Work makes you free.” “I don’t remember where I read this phrase but it was one of those quotes that have an instant impact on you because they tell an immense truth.” It should have been familiar. It was the slogan the Nazis used at the concentration camps during in World War II.

Hardy, har-har.
Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy during World War II, was very short. Thinking that short stature equated with weakness, he used a variety of tactics to look taller, including standing on hidden stools during speeches and sitting in a special extra-high chair. When he first came to power, he also wore a bowler hat, until advisors told him the British news media said it made him look like “the fat one” from Laurel and Hardy.

You’re doing it wrong.
In 1983 China’s health ministry conducted a massive population-control drive, as the country was rapidly outgrowing its resources (today China has more than a billion residents). TV ads, print ads, seminars, and home demonstrations were conducted to show people how to prevent the conception of children they didn’t want. Birth-control pills and condoms were distributed by the millions. After one year, there was no decline. The reasons were revealed in a survey of participants: 80 percent of men
had taken the birth-control pills, which were intended for women, and a whopping 98 percent of the men wore the condoms on a finger—because that’s what the government instructors had done in their demonstrations.

The heat is on.
The government of Bangladesh introduced a plan to defeat national poverty in 1982, helping its citizens financially by subsidizing heating gas, charging only a flat fee of $1.60 a month. Then the government found out that most people just left their ovens on all the time, since the gas was cheap, and they didn’t have to buy matches to light the ovens. The government lost millions on unused gas.

Let’s French!
In 1890 the provincial government of Manitoba, Canada, passed a law declaring English to be the official language, contrary to Canada’s federal English/French rule, because most Manitobans were English speakers. In 1985 the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that such a law was unconstitutional, because the Canadian constitution mandates bilingualism. That, in effect, rendered all laws passed in Manitoba since 1890 invalid. Lawmakers had to translate into French about 4,500 laws and 30,000 regulations, then reenact them all. It took five years.

P
aradise Lost
,
lost.
Written in the 17th century, John Milton’s
Paradise Lost
is one of the most important and widely read works in the history of the English language. Milton sold the rights to the first edition to a London bookstore for £10. After he died, his wife sold the rest of the rights for £8. Their financial loss? Immeasurable.

He didn’t start the fire.
It took English historian Thomas Carlyle most of 1834 to write the first volume of the three-part series
The French Revolution: A History
. Carlyle gave his only copy of the manuscript to a friend, economist John Stuart Mill, for critique. Mill never saw it—his maid thought it was wastepaper and used it to start a fire. Carlyle had to rewrite the entire book.

Starving artist.
Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, like many artists, was unrecognized for his talent during his life and, also like many artists, his work skyrocketed in value after his death in 1920. Modigliani had routinely traded his work for drinks and food, and when he died, café owners who had kept the paintings could cash in. Except for the café owner whose wife had scraped the paint off of their Modigliani so as to use the canvas to reupholster a sofa.

I
n 2007 actor John Cusack agreed to do an interview with
Take 5
, a pop-culture show on the University of Southern California’s studentrun television station. Minutes before the interview was to begin, the student host told Cusack she was missing her film class to interview him, adding, “It’s so funny, because they’re watching
American Beauty
today!” Puzzled, Cusack asked, “
American Beauty
? What’s funny about that?” She answered, “You were in that!” For the record, Cusack was
not
in
American Beauty.
But Kevin Spacey, who, like Cusack, is a Caucasian, American, middle-aged film actor,
did
star in the film. But the student interviewer just kept pushing the issue. “
American Beauty
?” she said. Cusack said, “Nope.” “What’s the one with the rose petals?” she asked. “I’m not in that,” Cusack responded. “That’s not you?” she persisted. “No,” said Cusack. “Really?” Cusack said, again, “No.” She finally asked, “Am I just really confused?” To which Cusack responded, “I think you are.”

The interview never aired. But the pre-interview described above ended up in a cringe-inducing video on YouTube, under the title “How NOT to start an interview.” It has since been viewed millions of times.

“I
t’s a fake noose, a prop noose!” insisted Joe McMahon, the owner of the Pink Punters nightclub in Buckinghamshire, England. The fake noose and gallows gets pulled out of storage every October for silly photo ops; it’s low to the floor and “doesn’t go tight ’round the neck.” No one had ever managed to hurt themselves on it.

Until Richard Parry, a reveler wearing a Joker mask, put the noose around his neck during a 2012 Halloween party. He passed out with his neck in the noose, but it was impossible to know that because of the mask. Parry slumped over, his legs bent at the knees while his dangling, limp body swayed back and forth. His friends laughed and poked and prodded him while posing next to him for pictures. Finally, after about three minutes of dangling, a security guard noticed that something was wrong and rushed over and tried to get the Joker to respond. Parry just hung there, so the guard lifted him out of the noose. He wasn’t breathing. The Halloween party came to an abrupt end as Parry was rushed to the hospital. After several scary hours, he finally came to and made a full recovery. McMahon is relieved Parry didn’t die, but said he has no plans to get rid of the noose.

M
ICROPHONE MALFUNCTION

During a 2009 concert in Tampa, Florida, Britney Spears finished a song, the arena went dark, and the crowd started cheering. Then, suddenly, the singer’s voice could be heard over the speaker system, yelling, “My p**** is hanging out!” Spears had apparently had a wardrobe malfunction and was yelling to her stage techs, thinking her microphone was off. Videos of the incident were on YouTube within hours.

PUTTING THE “F” in “FCC”

In July 2008, veteran WNBC (New York) anchor Sue Simmons was getting ready to go to commercial when the video inexplicably went to a large ship in a harbor. After a second or so of silence, Simmons, still on a live mic, was heard by her millions of viewers saying, “What the f—?” The ship was on the screen for eight more seconds before the station cut to a commercial. When the news returned, Simmons apologized, saying she was “truly sorry” for using “a word that many people find offensive.” What had happened—and who she was talking to—was never revealed.

AW, NUTS

In July 2008, Jesse Jackson was getting ready for an interview on Fox News when he leaned to the guest sitting next to him and, speaking about presidential candidate Barack Obama, whispered, “Barack’s been talking down to black people. I wanna cut his nuts off!” Jackson wasn’t on the air—but the remarks were caught on camera nonetheless, and someone got the tape to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, who played it on his show. Jackson was forced to issue a hasty public response, especially since he publicly endorsed Obama’s candidacy.