Category: Weird & Wacky

5 Fun Facts You May Not Know About Liz Taylor

An American icon died yesterday, and needless to say there will be a few questions about her tonight at quizzo. In the meantime, here are a few things you may not have known about Liz Taylor.

  • Liz’s Hollywood acting career was begun in part by World War II. The Taylors were living in London when Liz was a little girl, as her father was an art dealer there (Liz was born in London and had joint UK/US citizenship) but when the war broke out, they moved back to the United States. Since Liz’s mom had family in Los Angeles, they decided to move there. (Source: wikipedia.)
  • Taylor was born with a mutation that gave her two sets of eyelashes. (Source: Washington Post)
  • Liz Taylor was the voice behind Maggie’s first word on The Simpsons. The word was “Daddy”, but because Taylor repeatedly said it too sexily for a baby, they had to record 24 takes. Finally, Taylor said “F*** you” to Simpson’s creator Matt Groenig and walked out. They went with the best one they had. (Source: NY Daily News)
  • Liz and her final husband, Larry Fortensky, met at the Bette Ford Clinic and were married at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. A parachuting papparazzo landed 20 feet from the wedding gazebo during the ceremony. (Source: People Mag.)
  • Taylor tried to renounce her US citizenship in 1965 in an attempt to shield her income from US taxes, but lost her nerve and refused to renounce “all allegiance to the United States of America.” (source: Mental Floss)

Why Are There Two Bottles of Soy Sauce In My Flower Box?

IMG_1902I got home from lunch at Paesano’s* and noticed a few items had been tossed into my flowerbox. Now, the empty bottle of Bud Ice was no big surprise. There are virtually no trashcans in my neighborhood, so my flowerbox becomes a de facto trashcan fairly regularly. But that is where the mystery begins. Underneath the Bud Ice can were not one but two unopened bottles of Soy Sauce. Who was on their way home and decided, “You know what, these two bottles of soy sauce were luxury items. I don’t need these.”? I mean, I could see one bottle of soy sauce. But two? Could someone have put them down to tie their shoe and then gotten home and realized they left them somewhere? If you or anyone you know is missing two bottles of soy sauce, please tell them that Johnny Goodtimes has them and has not thrown them away. I gotta be honest, though, they’ve kinda put me in the mood for sushi.

soysauce

*The Arista is the best sandwich in the city. Hands down.

The Best Song About Cannibalism Ever


Jack from the Champs posted a comment yesterday that made me aware of one of the most amazing songs ever recorded, Timothy by the Buoys. The song was written by a young Rupert Holmes. I did a little research on the song, and found a great interview with Holmes about the novelty tune that actually reached #17 on the Billboard charts, despite being banned by hundreds of radio stations due to its lyrics about cannibalism. (I love how on this site, you can get a “Timothy” ringtone on your cell, in case you want to hear a song about cannibalism every time your phone rings.) He knew he wasn’t going to get a marketing budget for thsi band, the Buoys, so he had to create controversy. He did it with cannibalism:
“At the time, I was working on an arrangement of ’16 Tons,’ the Tennessee Ernie Ford hit from the ’50s, for an artist named Andy Kim. While I was working on the arrangement, there was a cooking show on the TV in the kitchen. It was called The Galloping Gourmet with Graham Kerr. It’s on in the background and I’m singing the lyrics to ’16 Tons,’ playing it to a kind of vamp sort of like ‘Proud Mary,’ and I sing ‘Some people say a man is made out of mud, a coal man’s made out of muscle and blood. Muscle and blood and skin and bones, a mind that’s weak and a back that’s…’ and I think, you know, that almost sounds like a recipe – muscle and blood and skin and bones, bake in a moderate oven for 2 hours, top with Miracle Whip. I had seen the movie Suddenly Last Summer about a week earlier on TV, and it had a revelation about cannibalism in it, and I thought, If it’s good enough for Tennessee Williams, it’s good enough for The Buoys. So I thought, Cannibalism during a mining disaster, that’ll get banned. It’s not like I’m really telling people to go out and eat someone, this is just this dark, horrible thing that happened in this story. So I write this lyric: ‘Timothy, Timothy, where on Earth did you go?’ It’s about three boys who are trapped in a mine with water but no food for maybe a week. When they’re pulled free, they don’t remember what happened, but they know they’re not hungry. One of them is missing, and that’s Timothy.

Gervase Sighting!

GervasePic Needless to say, we hadn’t heard much from Gervase in the past few years. The Survivor contestant who made a fortune by being a former Survivor contestant had seen the clock tick away on his 15 minutes of fame. But now he’s back…bartending at the bar of former Q102 personality Diego Ramos. Diego and Gervase? This is a duo that brings to mind some of the greats, like Redford and Newman, Simon and Garfunkel, MC Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock. Yes, this looks the start of something special.

RELATED: I hope Gervase brings back reality show quizzo. Now is the time!

Thomas Crapper and the Etymology of “Crap”

crapperThomas Crapper turns 173 today (he doesn’t look a day over 135). Crapper probably has more rumors and innuendo swirling around him than any other plumber in the world. For one, there are many who believe that he invented the flush toilet. Not true. This from snopes:

Although Thomas Crapper took out nine plumbing patents between 1881 and 1896, none of these patents was for the “valveless water-waste preventer” he is often credited with having invented. The first  patent for a siphonic flush was taken out by Joseph Adamson in 1853, eight years before Crapper started his plumbing business.

Ok, but what about the fact that the word “crap” comes from Thomas Crapper? That has to be true, right? Alas, no. This from the online etymology dictionary. crap: (n.), from one of a cluster of words generally applied to things cast off or discarded (e.g. “weeds growing among corn” (1425), “residue from renderings” (1490s), 18c. underworld slang for “money,” and in Shropshire, “dregs of beer or ale”), all probably from Middle English (1100-1500 a.d.).crappe “grain that was trodden underfoot in a barn, chaff”

Lily Tomlin Smackdown (NSFW. At all)


This will give away an answer to a question at tonight’s quizzo, but oh well. It’s an easy first rounder anyway. This is a pretty epic meltdown that took place on the set on one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I Heart Huckabees was one of the stupidest pieces of pseudo-intellectual drivel I have ever witnessed, and a little over halfway through I was so bored I went out in the lobby and read the paper. I’m still bitter about the hour plus I wasted on this garbage, and hope the director and the stars were all miserable the whole time they made it. That would give me a small bit of satisfaction.

The Controversial History of the Jacuzzi

old-pink-jacuzzi-adEarlier this week I asked: “True or False, the jacuzzi is named after one of its inventors, Roy Jacuzzi”. The “one of” was important, because Roy actually came into the game late. His uncle Candido did most of the heavy lifting, but Roy put all of the pieces together to make what we today consider the jacuzzi. That is, however, disputed, as someone (apparently a Candido supporter) blasts Roy on wikipedia:

The patent for the first portable Jacuzzi was filed in 1963, Patent # 3,159,849 and also for the first self-contain Jacuzzi Whirlpool filed in 1964 and marketed in 1968 as the first Hydrotherapy Tub patente4d #3,297,025 inventor Candido Jacuzzi yet Roy is getting this credibility. However, after Jacuzzi was bought out in the late 1970’s by Kiddie, they hired Roy (young in his 20’s to remain with the last name Jacuzzi and in time he became President). During this time, the Jacuzzi’s company website and history of who invented the whirlpool was modified, changed and Roy Jacuzzi started to earn this creditability as the inventor. After 30 years, and new President in charge, the original patent #3,297,025 was sent (certified) to Jacuzzi Corporation in Chino CA. However, Jacuzzi Corporation would not discuss this issue,(return calls) correct the website history that the inventor for the Jacuzzi Whirlpool was in truth, Candido Jacuzzi.

Some inconsistencies are in that write up (I doubt that Roy modified the company website in the 1970s). But it leads to the question: Did the jacuzzi lead to a falling out among the Jacuzzis? It is interesting to note that Candido’s name is not used in the history section on the official jacuzzi website, though he is seen by many as being the inventor. I also discovered that it was pretty much a family operated business, employing 100 Jacuzzis, until it was sold to Kiddie Inc in 1979, at which point  all of the Jacuzzis got out of the business except Roy, who was later was named President and CEO of the company.

Happy Birthday Yahoo Serious


Yahoo was born on this date in 1953. I haven’t seen Young Einstein since it came out. Has anyone seen it recently? Does it hold up? In case you were wondering, Yahoo is still doing movies, and he hates Yahoo! because he claims they stole his name.
Plagiarism is a form of flattery some say. Well maybe in some cases, if carried out by other artists. But a bunch of marketeers have destroyed the uniqueness of a name. They’ve blanded it, McDonaldised it! Worse actually. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the world called McDonald. There is only one person called Yahoo. There is only one real Yahoo and no amount of mass marketing can ever change the facts or the history.