Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd (24 page)

In November 2006, four police officers in Lakeland, Florida, risked their lives when they jumped into a lake in the middle of the night to pull a man from the jaws of an 11-foot-long alligator. The man lost part of his left arm—but survived. He later told police he was at the lake—naked—smoking crack when he was attacked. The incident led to several odd news headlines, including: “CROCODILE BITES NAKED MAN ON CRACK.”

*       *       *

MOOVY, BABY:
In 2006 a woman in Lobez, Poland, was charged with “cultivating a narcotic” when police found marijuana plants on her property. The 55-year-old farmer defended herself by saying that it wasn’t for humans—she was feeding the plants to her cow, which had been “skittish and unruly.” She said that ever since she started feeding the cow the marijuana, it had been “calm as a lamb.” She faces up to three years in jail.

CAT-ASTROPHE:
Bill Jenness got in trouble with the city of Whitman, Massachusetts, because of his cat—its poop was radioactive. The 11-year-old cat, Mitzi, was being treated for hyperthyroidism with radioiodine, which can make cats radioactive for weeks. The vet had warned Jenness that he had to limit his snuggling time with Mitzi, had to keep the cat away from children, and had to use gloves when flushing the cat’s litter. But Jenness was afraid the litter would clog his septic system, so he put it in the garbage instead. After alarms at the local incinerator detected the radioactivity, workers found Mr. Jenness’ mail nearby, and the city fined him $2,800 to clean up the radioactive scat.

In addition to fame and fortune, many celebrities also have some really bizarre personality quirks.

P
AST LIVES

•
Sean Connery
believes that in a previous life he was a polygamist alcoholic railroad builder.

•
Sylvester Stallone
says he was a French nobleman who was executed during the French Revolution.

•
John Travolta
believes he was silent film actor Rudolph Valentino.

• In her autobiography,
Anne Heche
declared herself both “the reincarnation of God” as well as an alien named “Celestia.”

•
Nick Nolte
has tanks of ozone in every room of his house because he thinks ozone kills “bad things.”

• Lots of people think crystals have special powers, but British actor
Michael York
says that a pocketful of crystals caused six thugs who attacked him in Brazil to suddenly run away.

• For reasons unknown,
Bruce Willis
wears his watch upside down.

•
W. C. Fields
had chronic insomnia. When he couldn’t fall asleep, he’d wrap his face in hot towels and lie in a barber’s chair. If that didn’t work, he’d try to sleep on his pool table. If
that
didn’t work, he’d lie in his yard under a beach umbrella while being sprinkled with a garden hose.

• Since he’s so reclusive, author
J. D. Salinger
(
The Catcher in the Rye
) probably has a lot of quirks no one knows about. What is known: he has three cats named Kitty 1, Kitty 2, and Kitty 3.

• Actor
Andy Dick
(
News-Radio
) and his wife divorced in 1990 but still lived together to raise their son. Then Dick and his wife both found new live-in partners…but continued to live together. Dick even had children with his new love, with everybody living in the same house for a decade.

• Comedian and author
Amy Sedaris
runs a cheese-ball and cupcake business out of her New York apartment. She also likes to pick up waitressing jobs occasionally because she enjoys the work.

•
Christina Ricci
can’t stand houseplants, and will not swim in a pool because she has an irrational fear that a shark might enter through a hatch.

•
Orlando Bloom
(
The Lord of the Rings
) is terrified of pigs.

•
Roger Moore
starts twitching whenever he picks up a gun. His case of
hoplophobia
was difficult for him to control while he was playing James Bond, a role that required lots of gunplay.

•
Billy Bob Thornton
has intense fears of antique furniture, stage plays, silver cutlery, and bright colors. He also reportedly doesn’t say his children’s names out loud because he fears it will curse them.

•
David Gest
, the record producer briefly married to Liza Minnelli, tries not to use the phone. Reason: he has
phonophobia
, or the fear of his own voice.

•
Nicole Kidman
hates acting. Whenever she starts a movie, she becomes convinced she’s a terrible actress and presents the director with a list of actresses who would be better suited for her role.

• Rush bassist and lead singer
Geddy Lee
owns the world’s largest collection of monocles.

• With over 6,000, actor
Corbin Bernsen
(
L.A. Law
) has the world’s largest collection of snowglobes.

• Actor
Matt Dillon
(
Crash
) collects baseball cards…but only those of 1980s New York Mets star Mookie Wilson.

• Country singer
Faith Hill
isn’t into art or photography, but she does collect picture frames.

*       *       *

“Being Vice President means you get all the French fries the president can’t get to.”

—
Al Gore

Ever been in a gallery or museum and seen something that made you wonder, “Is this really art?” Answer: If an artist says it’s art, then it’s art. That doesn’t mean it’s normal or makes any sense.

A
RTIST:
Mark McGowan

TITLE:
“Monkey Nut”

THE WORK:
In 2003, McGowan, a British performance artist, rolled a nut with his nose to the prime minister’s office to protest high college-tuition costs. This was a follow up to several other “works.” These include “Sausage Chips and Beans,” in which he sat in a bathtub full of baked beans with two chips (French fries) stuck in his nose and sausages draped around his head to protest the decline of the traditional English breakfast; “Big Toe Bus Pull,” in which McGowan pulled a bus with his big toe to protest London’s department of transportation; and “Artist Eats Fox,” wherein he cooked and ate a fox to call attention to the plight of crack addicts.

ARTISTS:
Toronto theater company Mammalian Diving Reflex

TITLE:
“Haircuts By Children”

THE WORK:
In May 2006, MDR recruited a bunch of elementary school kids, gave each one a pair of scissors and a barber chair at the Milk International Children’s Festival of the Arts, and told them to cut people’s hair. The artist’s intent, according to MDR: “Letting a child who doesn’t know how cut somebody’s hair is an exercise in exploring human trust.”

ARTIST:
Carsten Holler

TITLE:
“Test Site”

THE WORK:
In 2006, Holler erected five five-story-tall twisty slides inside London’s Tate Modern art gallery. Holler says the slides are “a playground for the body and the brain.” Not only are the slides a fun form of art, Holler says they also have practical implications: Sliding relieves stress, so the adult-sized slides should be used more in society and could possibly be used as a new form of transportation.

ARTIST:
Kira O’Reilly

TITLE:
“Inthewrongplaceness”

THE WORK:
O’Reilly staged this performance-art piece in Penzance, England. It consisted of a naked woman (not O’Reilly) holding a dead pig in her arms for four hours. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) denounced the show as “sick.” O’Reilly said the piece was about the intimate relationship between humans and animals. She claimed it gave her “an undercurrent of pigginess,” and that “unexpected fantasies of mergence and inter-species metamorphoses began to flicker into my consciousness.”

ARTIST:
“Banksy”

TITLE:
Untitled

THE WORK:
In 2006 a British “guerrilla artist” known as Banksy snuck a dummy dressed as a Guantanamo Bay terrorism prisoner into Disneyland. It was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and black hood and was first noticed by park patrons on the Rocky Mountain Railroad ride. Banksy claims he did it to highlight the plight of prisoners in the military prison. Earlier in the year, Banksy had replaced 500 copies of Paris Hilton’s CD in British record stores with his own “alternate version,” which criticized the socialite with song titles such as “Why Am I Famous?” and the artwork altered to show Hilton topless, with her head replaced by a dog’s.

ARTIST:
Ye Fu

TITLE:
Untitled

THE WORK:
In 2006 Ye, a 28-year-old Chinese poet and artist, locked himself inside a cage in a lion enclosure for 10 days at the Qingdao Forest Wildlife World in an attempt to call attention to the plight of caged animals. Ye ate only raw meat during his captivity. He was joined by Luo Xianhui, 26, who quit her job to participate in Ye’s “art piece.” As part of the performance, they also used plastic bags to go to the bathroom.

ARTIST:
Rebecca Warren

TITLE:
Untitled

THE WORK:
In a London gallery in 2006, Warren displayed five cases filled with various things she found on the floor of her studio
and the road outside. Included were bits of dust, hair, twigs, and a cherry pit. The point of the piece, according to Warren: exploring the power of perception. “I’m interested in what a bit of fluff and a bit of twig can mean. For somebody it could mean one thing, and for somebody else, it could mean something else.” Amazingly, Warren’s collage of garbage was the runner-up for the 2006 Turner Prize, England’s highest honor for visual artists.

ARTIST:
Zhang Huan

TITLE:
Untitled

THE WORK:
In 1998, the San Francisco-based artist took off his clothes, covered himself with liquefied hot dogs and flour, and then had eight dogs lick him. Zhang wanted to “explore the physical and psychological effects of human violence in modern society.” He ended up exploring the effects of
canine
violence when one of the dogs bit his rear end, ending the exhibition at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum permanently.

*       *       *

For some unknown reason, there were a lot of violent criminals with the middle name “Wayne” in the news during 1996.

•
Conan Wayne Hale:
confessed to his priest that he killed three people.

•
Michael Wayne Thompson:
murderer who escaped from prison and was the subject of a multi-state manhunt. (He was captured in Indiana.)

•
Danny Wayne Owens:
murdered his neighbor in Alabama.

•
Ellis Wayne Felker:
executed for the 1981 murder of a college student.

•
Larry Wayne Cole:
died while running from the law on rape charges.

A lot of medicine is trial and error: Try something—it might cure you. Here are a bunch of real folk cures we found in a book about medical practices in medieval England. (We don’t advocate trying them…but let us know if any of them work.)

•
For deafness,
a mixture of a rabbit’s gallstone and fox grease was warmed and then poured into the ear.

•
To treat baldness,
dog urine was rubbed into the scalp. If dog urine wasn’t available, horse urine could be used instead.

•
To treat a child’s case of whooping cough
, milk was fed to a ferret. Whatever milk the ferret didn’t drink was given to the sick child.

•
To eliminate jaundice
, nine head lice were drowned in a pint of beer. The mixture had to be drunk every morning for a week.

•
For arthritis
, the skin of a donkey was worn.

•
Gout could be cured
by boiling a red-haired dog in oil, adding worms and pig’s bone marrow, and then applying the mixture to the affected area.

•
To stop an asthma attack,
baby frogs or live spiders were coated in butter and swallowed.

•
Venereal disease was prevented
by rubbing one’s genitals with vinegar. By the 18th century, a more modern method was favored: The genitals were wrapped in a freshly killed chicken.