Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 104

9 Celebrities Who Started Out as Teachers

School is starting for kids, but it is out forever for these teachers who found fame and fortune.

Sting

Sting wrote the Police song “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” in part about Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, but was also inspired by an uncomfortable crush a student had on him when he taught at St. Paul’s, a school in Cramlington, England. (They called him Mr. Sumner, not Sting, by the way.)

Sheryl Crow

In the late 1980s, Sheryl Crow was the music teacher at Kellison Elementary School in Fenton, Missouri. She wrote commercial jingles on the side, and then landed a gig as a backup singer for Michael Jackson.

Bill O’Reilly

Before he broke into TV news in the early 1970s, Bill O’Reilly taught English and history at Monsignor Edward Pace High School outside of Miami for two years. (He writes popular history books now, so that was good practice.)

Andy Griffith

Andy Griffith taught English at Goldsboro High School in his native North Carolina. (One of his students was Carl Kassell of NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.)

Gene Simmons

Prior to forming KISS, Gene Simmons (under his real name Chaim Witz) taught at PS 75, an elementary school in the Spanish Harlem section of New York City.

Dan Brown

Dan Brown has sold millions of copies of his novels The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. In the early 1990s, he taught English and Spanish at Beverly Hills Prep, and then a number of other private schools before he quit teaching in 1996 to write full time.

Laurence Tureaud

Pity the fools: Laurence Tureaud taught physical education in the 1970s before he adopted the stage name Mr. T.

Jon Hamm

After graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia, Mad Men star Jon Hamm taught acting to eighth graders at a Missouri middle school. (Among his students: his future The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt co-star Ellie Kemper.)

Teller

Teller, the silent half of comedy-magic duo Penn and Teller was once a high school Latin teacher. (He presumably spoke to them.)

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The Latest In Poopy Pet Products

Would you like to get something a bit more exciting than a chew stick for your little fluffy-wuffy?

Twinkle Tush

Lots of people love to dress their pets in cute outfits. If you find your feline’s “nudity” offensive and can’t convince them to wear pants, you may be able to get them to settle for this compromise. The fine folks at Twinkle Tush have created a dazzling device that will cover up kitties’ naughty bits. For just $6, their product can be hung from your cat’s tail to prevent them from, literally, showing their rear end. A quick head’s up though: while the designers have managed to get their cat Vladimir to wear a Twinkle Tush and pose for photos for their website, they say it’s intended as a gag gift. Your own kitty may claw every piece of furniture in your house if you make them wear one.

Doggie Diapers

Believe it or not, there are a variety of different types of diapers for dogs. Pet owners and veterinarians say they’re a great idea for untrained puppies, canines that suffer from submissive urination, older dogs, and furry friends who simply can’t stand doing their business in a backyard or on a newspaper. Most offer a hole for tails and have tabs instead of tape, which can easily stick to fur. Are these diapers right for your dog? It really depends on their temperament. Some pooches can’t stand them and immediately begin trying to tear them off. The creators of Happy Jack Dog Diapers say that they’ve come up with a solution to this problem: non-slip straps that fit just under the neckline. They came up with their product after becoming frustrated with Hercules, their Jack Russell Terrier, who wouldn’t stop peeing in their house and always figured out ways to escape from more conventional doggy diapers. Just what your dog wants—a diaper that encompasses its entire body!

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Extreme BBQ!

The grilling season is almost over, but are you ready to take your cookout to the next level!

BBQ on a Volcano

A commercial for Jupiler beer currently airing in Europe features two determined cooks grabbing a backpack full of beer and a few steaks as they drive towards an active volcano. After a long hike, they find a pool of molten lava and use it to grill their meat.

Believe it or not, it’s possible to do this in real life. Molten lava can reach temperatures of up to 1300° F, allowing two professors from the University of Syracuse recently built a “volcano grill. They have to wear heavy protective gear, but “The Lava Project” can be used to prepare several T-bones in under three minutes.

BBQ With a Flamethrower

The problem with grilling with lava is that the stuff is hard to come by if you don’t live near a volcano. If you’re unwilling to track one down, you may want to try frying up a couple of sirloins with a flamethrower.

This video features a group of guys using an M4 flamethrower to cook up ribs, popcorm and more. Needless to say, it’s very easy to burn your dinner (or yourself) with one of these things.

Lamborghini Sausage

If these methods seem a little too bourgeois for your tastes, you could also prepare some sausage with a $400,000 Lamborghini. The manufacturer’s Aventador models are known to spit fireballs out of their tailpipes in certain situations. As this host for a online video series called SCDTV demonstrates, they can be used to roast meat. After sticking a sausage on a metal stick, he places it in front of an Aventador’s tailpipe. The car’s fireballs manage to cook the meat in under a few minutes.

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3 Maladies Caused By Trips to Foreign Lands

For most travelers, food poisoning and pickpockets are the biggest things they worry about while exploring different countries. For others, it’s these peculiar syndromes.

Paris Syndrome

It’s not uncommon to see women strolling through the city’s ritzy Ginza district while wearing the hottest fashions straight from Paris. Unfortunately, when Japanese people who love French food and culture finally make a trip to the fabled “City of Light,” they tend to be disappointed with what they discover. Instead of enjoying leisurely meals with fantastic wine at picturesque sidewalk cafes, they wind up being completely disgusted by Paris’ graffiti-covered modern streets and its citizens’ inability to pick up dog poop. Most of them head back home and vow never to return but, for others, they get very, very depressed. There’s even a term for this malady: Paris Syndrome. Symptoms include: extreme distress, anxiety, sweating, dizziness, intense culture shock, and even hallucinations. It’s so common that the Japanese Embassy in Paris reportedly has a 2- hour phone line to help tourists suffering from the effects of Paris Syndrome. As of 2006, the embassy claimed that they deal with around 12 serious cases annually.

Jerusalem Syndrome

For many religious people, a trip to this city is a lifelong dream. Unfortunately, it’s one that can also turn into a nightmare for the unprepared. “Jerusalem Syndrome” was coined by local psychiatrist Heinz Herman in 1930 but it’s been theorized that visitors have been suffering from it since at least the Middle Ages. For the devout, a trip to Jerusalem is a proper pilgrimage that must be taken very seriously. As such, this can lead to all sorts of weird disorders. The symptoms of Jerusalem Syndrome include: anxiety, intense desires to bathe due to feelings of “impurity” and even bizarre religious delusions. In recent years, around 100 visitors to the city are treated for the syndrome and 40 or so are admitted to area hospitals. (In a 2010 episode of The Simpsons, Homer catches it after becoming dehydrated and drinking water from the Dead Sea. He briefly becomes convinced that he’s the new Messiah.)

Stendhal Syndrome

This one is supposedly caused by the famous paintings and sculptures that are located in the Italian city. Tourists, overtaken by the splendor of works like Michelangelo’s David, are said to suffer from dizziness, confusion, and fainting. It’s named for 19th century author Stendhal who supposedly caught it while viewing frescos at Florence’s Basilica of Santa Croce. While there aren’t many official studies or accounts of the syndrome, Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini published a report in 1979 claiming that he had encountered no less than 100 cases among visitors to the city.

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Sports Trivia: Wrestling Lingo

Can’t get enough pro wrestling? Well, if you want to sound like a “real” pro, you have to know the special lingo. Here’s some sports trivia to help you out.

Face (noun). A “good guy.” (Wrestlers with pretty faces are often cast as good guys.)

Heel (noun). A “bad guy.” Someone who cheats and breaks the rules to win.

Feud (noun). A grudge match, frequently between a face and a heel.

Turn (noun or verb). When a heel changes his persona and becomes a face, or vice versa.

Potato (verb). To injure a wrestler by hitting him on the head or causing him to hit his head.

Stiff (adjective). A move intended to cause real injury.

Run-in (noun). Intervention in a match by an audience member or other nonparticipant.

Blade (verb). To intentionally cut yourself with a hidden piece of razorblade in order to produce “juice” (see below).

Juice (noun or verb). Blood. Usually caused by blading.

Job (noun). A staged loss.

Post (verb). To run someone into the ring post.

Hardway juice (noun). Blood from an unintentional injury.

Heat (noun). The negative reaction and booing from the crowd at a fight.

Pop (noun or verb). A sudden positive rise in the crowd, such as when a popular wrestler makes his entrance.

Bump (noun). A fall or other move that results in the wrestler falling out of the ring.

Jobber (noun). A wrestler who does a job—he’s hired to lose to the featured wrestler. Also known as redshirts or PLs, short for “professional losers.”

Clean job (noun). A staged loss that doesn’t involve illegal wrestling moves.

Screw-job (noun). An ending that isn’t clean—someone, usually the heel, wins by cheating.

Shoot (noun). The opposite of a job—one wrestler really is trying to hurt another.

This article first appeared in Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Sports Spectacular. Check it out for more sports trivia.

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The War on Wizz Marches On

Public urination continues to be a problem in many cities all around the world.

San Francisco’s Crumbling Light Poles

In early August, a three-story-tall light pole in San Francisco broke and landed on a nearby car, nearly crushing the driver. Experts from the city’s Public Utilities Commission believe that many years of getting targeted by public urinators (both human and canine) had caused its base to corrode and snap. Officials are worried that the city’s 25,000 aging light poles may soon suffer the same fate and they’re urging swift action. So far, 100 of the city’s most dilapidated poles have been replaced and residents can download an app onto their phones to report others that look like they’re about to collapse. The commission is also trying to encourage people (and dogs) to use restrooms or take aim at sturdier targets. “Our fire hydrants are stronger and made out of cast iron,” quipped PUC Spokesman Tyrnoe Jue.

New York City’s Problematic Pee Policy

In the Big Apple, public urination is a criminal offense that can lead to a stiff fine or even jail time. The hardline policy dates to the early ‘90s as part of a series of strict regulations that helped clean up the city’s famously crime-ridden streets. Now, officials are thinking of softening their stance on public peeing. Community activists argue that treating public pee-ers severely can have unintended negative consequences, such as criminal records that will prevent them from getting into college or landing a new job. Others argue that the regulations should stay in place since this continues to be a huge problem in the city. Last year, 28,609 people were cited for whizzing in public. A controversial July cover story in The New York Post that featured a homeless man relieving himself in the middle of traffic on Broadway may help convince city officials to keep these regulations in place.

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3 Movies Quickly Made To Keep the Rights

That poorly-received Fantastic Four movie isn’t the first reboot of the series, nor is it the most poorly received. Here’s a look at a 1994 version made just so its owners could hold on to copyright.

Marvel Studios is now a major movie producer in its own right, releasing a handful of big-budget movies each year based on characters like The Avengers, Iron Man, and Ant-Man. The latest superhero movie in theaters is Fantastic Four, a reboot of the 2005 movie series. But it’s not made by Marvel, it’s made by 20th Century Fox, which obtained the rights in the ‘90s, before Marvel Studios existed. And it’s a strange story how it got them.

In 1986, German film company Constantin Film bought the movie rights to the superhero team for $250,000. The purchase had the caveat that if the studio didn’t make a Fantastic Four movie by January 1, 1993, it would lose the rights. If Constantin did produce a movie, however, they’d keep the rights for another decade…or it could go ahead with its plan to sell them to 20th Century Fox, so that studio could make a Fantastic Four movie.

So, it rushed into a production The Fantastic Four, produced by B-movie king Roger Corman on a tiny $1 million budget. The film was advertised and promoted for release in 1994, but it never hit theaters. That’s because Constantin never intended to release it—it was a contractual obligation. Marvel later obtained all copies of the movie and ordered them destroyed…but bootlegs got out, and you can easily find it online.

Here are two other notable examples of what in the movie industry is called an “ashcan copy”:

The Dick Tracy TV Special

In 1990, Warren Beatty produced, directed, and starred in a big-screen version of Dick Tracy, based on the old crimefighter comic strip. Beatty still owns the rights, but they were scheduled to expire in 2008 if he didn’t make another Tracy film. He bought himself some time by making The Dick Tracy TV Special. It consists of footage from the first film intercut with scenes of film critic Leonard Maltin interviewing Beatty…in character as Dick Tracy. (It’s been aired frequently since 2010 on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel.)

 Hellraiser: Revelations

Dimension Films produced several successful movies in the Hellraiser horror series—those were the ones about Pinhead, the monster with pins sticking out of his face. In 2010, the company discovered that it’s rights would expire in just 11 days if it didn’t make another Hellraiser movie. So, that’s what it did. Hellraiser: Revelations, the eighth movie in the series, was produced in under two weeks.

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Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go in the Water…

…it never really was. And we’re talking about swimming pools. They’re really, really gross.

Pee Gets in Your Eyes 

Have your eyes ever burned and stung after an afternoon spent swimming in the city pool? You probably have, and you probably attributed it to sensitivity to the chlorine in the water. According to the a new study by the Centers for Disease Control (with help from the Water Quality and Health Council), that’s a big misconception. The chlorine mixtures used in swimming pools are actually protecting you from reactions like burning eyes. Chlorine seeks out and binds with pollutants in pools, creating a new compound of chemical irritants. And it’s that which stings your eyes—it’s the chlorine clinging to the all of the urine and sweat other people left behind in the pool. In other words, if you get out of a pool and your eyes are burning, somebody peed in there. The CDC also noted that the chemicals municipal pools use to protect against urine don’t really work—there isn’t really a dye that turns the water green around a rouge pee-er. It’s just meant to scare people so they don’t use a public pool as their personal toilet.

Just Like Parasite

The CDC is apparently intent on ruining summer for everyone. According to data from 2012 that the agency just finished analyzing, we’re in the middle of a pool-based outbreak of “Crypto,” or Cryptosporidium, a water-borne parasite that’s resistant to the chlorine used in pools that usually kills a lot of other germs. It can live in chlorinated water for up to 10 days, and can stay in a human body for as long as five weeks. The CDC says that pool-based Crypto has been responsible for as much as half of all water-borne disease cases over the last few years.

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The Banned Episode of “Sesame Street”

The iconic children’s show has handled a lot of tough topics over the years. What was the one it couldn’t pull off? Divorce.

By 1991, divorce rates in the U.S. were as high as they would ever be, with reports calculating that 40 percent of American children had divorced parents. A huge social and emotional issue, Sesame Street’s writers wanted to cover the topic in a way that its preschool-age viewers could understand and be comforted if their parents were divorcing. The show had received plaudits many times over for its sensitive handling of other issues facing kids, including death, natural disasters, and a new baby in the family.

The plot: The elephantine Snuffleupagus plays blocks with his best friend Big Bird, and knocks down a tower, sending himself into hysterics. Big Bird surmises that something else is wrong, and Snuffy confesses that his “dad is moving out of our cave. I’m not sure where. Some cave across town.” The two go to the human character Gordon, who gently explains that sometimes divorce happens, how sometimes it’s a good thing, and, most importantly, that Snuffy and his little sister Alice won’t be loved any less by either of their parents.

The show was written, taped, and was then scheduled to air on PBS in April 1992. Then Sesame Street’s producers, the Children’s Television Workshop, decided to test it out with a panel of preschoolers. It was nothing short of traumatic and confusing. One toddler reportedly thought Snuffy didn’t have a place to live anymore, some thought that Snuffy’s father ran away and would never be heard from again, others thought Snuffy’s parents were divorcing because of Snuffy, and a few cried because they got so worried about their own parents potentially getting divorced. CTW pulled “Snuffy’s Parents Get a Divorce” from the schedule. It has never been aired anywhere.

CTW was so put off by the experience that Sesame Street didn’t address divorce until 2012—20 years later. But instead of an episode, a home video was produced called Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce. It’s only available to family counselors, family courts, and childcare facilities. Instead of Snuffy and his parents going through divorce, the video features the Muppet named Abby Cadabby. And this time, the divorce was in the past: Abby talks about how she got through the divorce, rather than Snuffy going through the traumatic event as it occurs.

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Rest in Pieces, HITCHBot

This little robot traveled all around the world and had tons of crazy adventures. (We wrote about him in Robotica !) Then he made the mistake of trying to hitch a ride in Philadelphia.

HITCHBot was designed by a team of students at McMaster University in Ontario. Built out of a beer cooler, garbage can lid, and robot parts, the goal was to get HITCHBot across Canada intact, relying on others to safely transport the robot as it hitchhiked. It did it, in three weeks, and his progress was followed on social media via the photos and status updates HITCHBot uploaded along the way. Next stop: Europe, where the robot safely made its way through Germany and the Netherlands.

After he returned to North America, the McMaster students wanted to see if he could make it across the USA, and HITCHBot began his third adventure on July 17 in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It started out well enough, with HITCHBot enjoying a Boston Red Sox game, appearing on a news show in Rhode Island, and landing outside of Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

But then tragedy struck. On July 31—two weeks into its American Odyssey—HITCHBot was trying to catch a ride out of Philadelphia, where he was destroyed by unknown vandals. The robot’s team received a photo of his mangled body the following morning but they were unable to determine his location. The battery for his GPS unit had either gone dead or been destroyed in the attack.

Despite this setback, the McMaster students aren’t pulling the plug, and want to send him out on another journey someday. Until then, HITCHBot has been retrieved by someone a little bit kinder, and took him to a screening of the 1995 movie Mallrats in Brooklyn. Here is a press release about the future of HITCHBot.

For more interesting stories about robots, check out Uncle John’s Robotica.

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