Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy (24 page)

In May 1996, a tornado hit an Ontario, Canada, drive-in theater. Movie showing that night:
Twister
.

THE TRUTH:
In February 2008, a week before its official release,
Love and Consequences
received a rave review in
The New York Times
. Alongside the review ran a photo of Jones. A woman named Cyndi Hoffman saw it and called the publisher…and said the story was all fake. How did she know? She was Jones’s older sister. And the author’s name wasn’t Jones; it was Seltzer, and she grew up in an upper-middle-class home in Sherman Oaks, California (where she went to the same private school as the Olsen twins). The publisher questioned Jones/Seltzer, and she eventually admitted that the entire story was made up. She said she was doing a good deed. “I thought it was my opportunity,” she tearfully told the
Times
, “to put a voice to people who people don’t listen to.” The 19,000 copies of the book that had already gone out to stores were recalled, and full refunds were given to people who had pre-ordered it. Seltzer has not been published since (we think).

MEMOIR:
Angel at the Fence
, by Herman Rosenblat (scheduled for publication in February 2009)

WHAT HE WROTE:
During World War II, Rosenblat was interned at Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. One day in 1944 a young girl named Roma approached him from outside the fence—and threw him an apple. She was Jewish, but was posing as Christian with the help of a family that lived nearby. For the next seven months, the girl came to the spot regularly to sneak the boy food. Years later, in 1957, while living in Brooklyn, New York, Rosenblat went on a blind date…and his date turned out to be Roma. They fell in love and got married. The story appeared in numerous magazines over the years.
THE TRUTH:
Several Holocaust scholars and Buchenwald experts pointed out that the story couldn’t be true. For starters, there was no way anyone, much less a child, could have freely approached the fence surrounding the camp. And the spot where Roma supposedly waited outside would have been right next to an SS barracks. Also, Roma was supposedly being hidden by a Christian family near the camp. If that had been true, it’s unlikely that she would have left her hiding place…to stand outside of a concentration camp. The truth was that Rosenblat really did survive Buchenwald, and Roma really was hidden by a Christian family—200 miles from the camp; they never met in Germany. In late 2008, under pressure from the press and the publisher, Rosenblat admitted he made up the love story. “I wanted to bring happiness to people,” he said. “My motivation was to make good in this world.” The publication of
Angel at the Fence
was immediately cancelled.

President Obama is distantly related to both Brad Pitt and Wild Bill Hickok
.

Freyed
again:
Before the hoax was uncovered, the couple appeared on
The Oprah Winfrey Show
twice. Oprah called the book the “greatest love story ever told on this show.”

MEMOIR:
Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years
, by Misha DeFonseca (1997)

WHAT SHE WROTE:
When her parents were taken to Auschwitz by the Nazis in 1941, seven-year-old Misha left Brussels, Belgium, to search for them. Over the next four years, she traveled 1,900 miles, during which time she fought with resistance groups, wandered in and out of the Warsaw Ghetto, killed a Nazi soldier with a pocketknife, and, most amazingly, was fed and protected for a time by a pack of wolves. The book was first published in the U.S., didn’t do well, but later became a bestseller in Europe. It even inspired an Italian opera and a French film.
THE TRUTH:
Like
Angel at the Fence
, the book drew the suspicion of Holocaust historians from the start. In 2008, after an investigation by a Belgian newspaper, Misha DeFonseca finally confessed: Her name was Monique De Wael, and while her parents were in fact taken away by the Nazis, they were members of the Belgian Resistance—and not Jews, but Catholics. And she never went looking for them, but had spent the war years with her grandfather in Brussels. After admitting her deception, Defonseca said she had always “felt Jewish.” And, she added, “The story in the book is mine. It is not the actual reality—it was my reality. I had been telling my story for years and believed it to be true.”

Tip tip: Studies show that tips increase by 18% when a waitress draws a happy face on the check
.

THE HARSH REALITY OF
REALITY SHOWS

First, we found out that pro wrestling was fake, and now they tell us that reality shows are way more scripted than we realized. Why? Because entertainment (and ratings) can’t be left up to chance. Here are some behind-the-scenes stories
.

P
ROJECT RUNWAY
(Bravo, 2004–08; Lifetime, 2009-present)

Premise:
In this show hosted by model Heidi Klum, aspiring fashion designers compete to create the best new clothing line.
Story:
The judges send a contestant home at the end of each episode, but critics charge that it’s not the least talented one who gets booted, but the least entertaining. The proof, they say, is in the closing credits, which contain a disclaimer that says that the final decisions are made by the producers—although during the show, the judges make it sound like it’s their decision.
“Project Runway
has separated itself as the most shameless of all the reality shows in keeping around contestants who have no business being there just because they ‘make good TV,’” said
Entertainment Weekly’s
Dalton Ross.

Even some of the “real” moments are faked. One morning, Season 2 contestant Diana Eng woke up to find a camera staring her in the face. “They scared me so bad I jumped and screamed. They said that it wasn’t good enough, so I had to pretend to wake up again.”

AMERICAN IDOL
(Fox, 2002-present)
Premise:
Hoping to land a recording contract, amateur singers compete before a panel of judges. Viewers call in to vote for their favorite performer; whoever gets the fewest votes is off the show.
Story:
After Season 8 contestant Ju’Not Joyner was voted off, he said of the show: “It’s a fixed thing if I ever saw one”—referring to how the producers had labeled him a troublemaker after he called the show’s contract a “slavetract.” He also wouldn’t let the show do a story on how he grew up in “the ’hood.” Ju’Not said, “They wanted me to put that out to the world and expose my personal business for ratings. I wouldn’t do it.”

World’s most famous people, according to a U.K. poll of kids: 1) Simon Cowell, 2) God, 3) the Queen
.

HELL’S KITCHEN
(Fox, 2005-present)

Premise:
Aspiring chefs compete against each other in a working restaurant; one contestant is eliminated at the end of each episode. The winner—chosen by chef Gordon Ramsay—receives a coveted job as head chef at one of Ramsay’s restaurants.

Story:
Part of the premise is that the participants work long days and are cut off from the outside world, but many of the show’s contestants have complained that they were treated like
prisoners
. “They locked me in a hotel room for four days,” said Jen Yemola, a 2007 competitor. “They took all my books, my CDs, my phone, any newspapers. I was allowed to leave the room only with an escort. I couldn’t talk to my family.” The production crew are also under strict orders not to interact with them. Contestant Jessica Cabo said, “The only person I ever felt close to was the sound guy, because he was sticking a microphone up my shirt every day.”

AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL
(CW, 2003–present)
Premise:
In this show created by supermodel Tyra Banks (who’s also the lead judge), young women compete for a modeling contract.
Story:
The rules make it clear that the contestants must not have previous experience as a model in a national campaign, and they can’t be friends of Banks. That’s why viewers complained in 2007 after Saleisha Stowers, 21, won the crown over fan favorite Chantal Jones, 19. For one thing, Stowers appeared in a Wendy’s commercial a year earlier (she says she was acting, not modeling). In addition, when she was 14, Stowers attended a “self-esteem camp” hosted by Tyra Banks. Then word got out that over the years, Stowers had modeled at several functions where Banks was present, including once on her talk show. Her rival, Jones, said, “I looked like an amateur because I am. Saleisha wasn’t exactly an amateur.”

Ever notice how reality-show contestants say, “I’m not here to make friends,” and then later they all talk about how they’ve become such good friends? Turn to
page 341
for more unreal reality stories
.

De fence budget: The U.S. spends about $203 million dollars per year on barbed wire
.

SEXY
FINDING NEMO

In recent years, it’s become popular for college-age women to wear “sexy” Halloween costumes like naughty nurses and French maids. Here are a few more costumes, proving that not everything can be sexed up (although somebody’s clearly trying)
.

• Sexy Freddy Krueger
. What’s sexier than a child killer back from the dead who haunts your dreams? This costume consists of Freddy’s striped sweater, lengthened into a short dress, along with a glove in the shape of the character’s signature knife-fingers.

• Sexy Cab Driver
. Since cab drivers don’t generally wear uniforms, this costume looks more like a “sexy cab”: a short, low-cut yellow jumpsuit with black-and-white checkered sides.

• Sexy Little Bo Beep
. A short blue-and-white dress. The weird part is that it comes with a matching costume for a small dog.

• Sexy Elvira
. The cable-TV and beer-commercial spokesperson (played by Cassandra Peterson) already wears a low-cut dress with a slit up the side. The “Sexy Elvira” costume has an even more plunging neckline and a higher leg slit, if that’s possible.

• Sexy Finding Nemo
. How did they make a child-age, lost, mildly disabled (one bad fin) clownfish into a sexy outfit? With a short orange-and-white dress and matching stockings.

• Sexy Dora the Explorer
. The cartoon character aimed at preschoolers is a preschooler herself, and she wears a purple shirt and orange shorts. This costume gives Dora a low-cut shirt and short skirt instead.

• Sexy Super Mario Bros
. The Nintendo video game characters Mario and Luigi are chubby, middle-aged, mustachioed, stereotypically Italian guys who work as plumbers in Brooklyn. But they can be “sexy”…if you put short skirts on them.

•
Sexy Nun
. Short skirt, lots of cleavage, and a nun’s habit. How sinful.

Surprise! 23% of all psychiatrists in the U.S. do business in the New York City metro area
.

MOUNTAIN
OF THE DEAD