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Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear BEE: Only in certain people. The condition is known as hyperexophthalmia, and, depending on the stimulus, can cause the eyeballs of the succeptible to swell from ten to one hundred times their normal size. One noted sufferer was Pope Humbert the Second, whose eyes would swell immensely whenever a new altar boy joined the Vatican harem. Another was King Ugo of Wrlxia, whom Elzie Segar used in 1929 as the model for his cartoon character Popeye. King Ugo's left eye would depart from its orbit with a loud POP! ("PAP!" in the original Italian) whenever he saw a new horse, mistress or automobile he wished to acquire. The most famous of those afflicted by hyperexophthalmia is, of course, the English Baron Eustace de Wheatzle, who was mortified to discover that street urchins had composed a ditty mocking his condition. Even to this day, three hundred and sixteen years after his death from complications of the ailment ("hyperexplosophthalmia"), you can hear urchins in schoolyards singing "Pop Goes de Wheatzle."  |
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9-8-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Bipolar: Yehudi Menuhin, the great violinist, is the answer to the first. It was his only line, and it became a stock piece in movies of the time to have Menuhin appear in a cameo to deliver it. If you have a chance, look for the alternative ending to "Gone With the Wind, where Menuhin appears in a cameo to deliver the line in place of Rhett Butler's "Frankly, my dear...." The cameo was owned by Lady Priscilla Dowager, the dowager empress of Illinois, who rented it out to Hollywood moguls whenever Yehudi's presence was required. The Hollywood Mogul is a skiing technique for dealing with lumps of ice. Lumps of ice are all that remain at the end of the James Cagney/Blythe Danner diamond theft movie, "The Big Heist." The heist in the movie was provided by James Otis, who in 1859 patented his "safety" heist to enable robbers to move easily within large buildings. The first practical application of robber was as an eraser on the ends of pencils similar to those manufactured by Henry "David" Thoreau's company. Thoreau's company often included Ralph "Waldo" Emerson, inventor of the puzzle game named after him. The puzzle was, of course, why such a highly-rated violinist would stoop to appearing in lowbrow movies like "Dizzy Dishes." The dishes in question were later referred to as "flying saucers," then as "UFOs." The United Federation of Optometrists is the largest organization of its kind, and once produced a training movie, "Seeing Double," written by Max Fleischer and featuring a cameo in which Yehudi Menuhin appears, to speak his signature line, "We could have made beautiful music together," to budding porn star Betty Boob, who later went on to invent the "Dizzy Dishes" ride at the Alice in Wonderland section of Disneyland, all of which is the answer to the second question. |
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9-10-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Slugger: Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday. The baseball great was LaVerne "Slimeball" Gruntlefrastz, spitball ace of the wartime One Lung League. Gruntlefrastz, unlike other pitchers in baseball, did not chew tobacco, but used okra instead, allowing him to coat a baseball with sufficient slime that he was called "Hagfish the Horrible" behind his back. His slimeballs were impossible to hit, as the bat skidded off the slippery spheroid in wildly unpredictable directions. In the rare event of a dead-on blow, the slime envelope would vaporize, clinging to the batter's face while shutting off his wind, making it impossible for him to find first base before passing out. And pity the catchers, who often had to keep a stack of clean mitts with them when Gruntlefrastz was on the mound. Later in his career "Slimeball" improved on his technique, developing a ropy, adhesive expectoration with which he could cause the ball to stop dead in the air, or actually return to him. In one case it looped around the throat of Lefty Akkwimple of the Pittsburgh Paraplegics, and it was only fast action by an umpire with a gasoline blowtorch that saved Lefty's life. Reagan always claimed that he did not clearly recollect playing the role, and often confused it with the movie in which he traded Bonzo to Iran to raise bananas for the Santa Dinas Midget 'n Dwarf League, another wartime favorite. |
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9-12-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Buff: In her definitive book "God and Vitamins," Marjorie Holmes reveals the truth behind the "tablets" that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai, claiming that the ancient Hebrew text actually describes the "Ten Medicaments" as follows: 1. I am the Lord thy licensed drug purveyor; thou shalt not buy vitamins from Canada, regardless of the cost. 2. Thou shalt not attempt to make thy own vitamins from herbs, for this is the cut-rate path to Wicca, an abomination. 3. Thou shalt not take the products of the 'hood in vein, nor shalt thou huff OxyContin; Vitamin B12 is a sufficient rush. 4. Remember the Sabbath Day, and keep it holy by ordering online from Supplement Warehouse. 5. Honor thy father and thy mother, and reflect on how long they would have lived had glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate been available unto them. 6. Thou shalt not megadose; nor shalt thou recommend megadoses to thy neighbor, with the exception of Vitamin C. 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery, even if thou mixeth up thy Viagra with thy Vitamin E. 8. Thou shalt not steal from Walgreens, neither shall you shoplift from Nutriceuticals-R-Us. Honor thy discount card and clip thy coupons instead. 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour, even if he achieveth ripped abs by exercise alone. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy rich neighbour's Human Growth Hormone, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife's Botox, nor his manservant's organ extender nor his ox-length, nor his maidservant's SuperBoob! synthetic hormones nor her ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's, although a call to the IRS at tax time may give thee comfort if they are audited. |
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9-14-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Easterner: As you can tell from his name, Grey was trained as an interior decorator, and for a while "Zane Grey" was THE color choice for fin-de siecle drawing rooms, although he didn't come into his own as an international design superstar until his "Purple Sage" period, which was the hallmark of the Edwardian era in England. The eponymous King Edward VII himself had the Crumpet Room in Buckminster Palace done in Purple Sage motif, and even affected a purple sage kilt when paying official visits to Scotland. Although he became quite wealthy as a result of his talents, Grey admitted in later years that what he had really wanted to be was a cowboy, "but with a name like Zane Grey, I'd of gotten beat up in every saloon west of the Pecos." |
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9-16-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Mystified: It was a typo. In the original it's "Murder Cheroot," and concerns a serial killer who uses poisoned cigars to kill off a convent of nuns inconveniently located in the path of a developer's plans for a freelance interstate highway system. Agatha Christie was posthumously sued by Waldo Lagnaippe of New South Wales, who claimed that she had stolen the title from his comic mystery novel trilogy, "Uurp, She Belched," "Waddle, She Walked," and "Phumpf, She Uttered," about the adventures of the 800-pound female detective, Miss Marbledwithfat. Agatha Christie won the case by demonstrating beyond the shadow of a doubt that Waldo Lagnaippe was a cartoon character and without standing in an American court, after which she was returned in triumph to her crypt and the tanna leaves which had resurrected her removed. |
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9-18-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Cineaste: Quite true. Al really wanted to be a steamfitter, but was forced by family pressures into cinematography. Some of his greatest films, like "Vertigo,"¹ "North by Northwest,"² and "Psycho,"³ have steamfitter themes that reveal his frustration. --- ¹ Note the presence of the steam pipes to the left of every image where James Stewart experiences his fear of heights. ² Behind the opening credits is the director running for a bus which has a big HITCHCOCK BROS. PLUMBING & STEAM FITTING advertising banner on its side. Hitchcock is also dressed in a boilerman's suit and carries a Stilson wrench in his left hand. ³ Norman Bates is always reading from a copy of "The Journeyman Steamfitter's Licensing Guide and Test Preparation Manual (1955). He also refers to his deceased mother as "Smitty," the occupational nickname for an oakum-packed compression gland on a 1200 psi knuckle joint. A dead giveaway, you should excuse the pun, for Hitchcock's true calling. |
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9-20-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Fan: That would be Lyle "Filthy' Slumboggin, often described as "the abomination of the NBA." It was customary to issue warnings to women attendees on the nights Lyle was playing, as his nonstop cursing, obscene gestures and suggestive leering made the arena intolerable for all but the most hardened of female fans. The October 17, 1988 "Tank-top Incident" saw him banned from league play, although he was immediately snapped up by the Los Angeles Crips farm team as a spokesman for inner-city intragang drive-by basketball games. He was shot dead during a game with the LA Bloods in November of 1992, when a member of that team took umbrage at Lyle's description of his mother as "a gangbangin' ho'," although the team member later confessed that he had misunderstood Mr Slumboggin to say "hohos," a Hostess® snack the player particularly detested. |
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9-23-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Granny: Remember Sea Monkeys, advertised on the back of every comic book printed in the 1950s? Well, iPods are the contemporary genetically-engineered version. The name means i(ntelligent) (octo)pod, and iPods are vastly more useful than their predecessors, capable of answering e-mail, minding the baby, cruising chat rooms looking for chicks and hunks, limited shopping at 7-Eleven and removing the lids from stubborn jars. If your grandson is over 17 and has not signed the National Abstinence Oath, he can download the Erot-iPod module from the "Grand Theft Auto" Web site and stop wasting money on dates hoping to get lucky.... |
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9-25-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Thrifty: That depended a lot on the horses. Few people realize that the earliest Models T were designed for equine traction, there being almost no paved roads at the time. The 22 required to pull the car, its passengers and its four cylinders-- plus the contents of the cylinders as calculated by the standard formula (L×π×r²) -- would consume about 4 gallons every 2 hours per each. The drought of 1909 convinced "Henry" Ford to experiment with the new Otto-cycle engine. Otto cycled around advertising the concept and handing out sparkplugs as tchotchkes. A man named Barney Google later sued Otto for copyright horse infringement, and, after a lengthy courtroom battle, was permitted to change his name to "Ford." This caused confusion in the marketplace as the erstwhile Barney Google did not manufacture cars, and was so harassed by potential buyers that he petitioned the courts to get his old name back, distributing "Ransom Old" bumper stickers far and whee to promote his cause. Ransom Olds, a competitor, sued Google/Ford for trademark infringement. He lost the case when it was proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that when you Google "Ford" you get the older carmaker, not the younger Olds. Olds appealed the decision but lost 11-7 in overtime. He commemorated his loss by opening a chain of convenience stores of the same name, but was sued by the owner of a similarly-named franchise, "Seven Come Eleven Down in the Boy's Gym," a purveyor of sweat socks. Olds was then sued by his son for misuse of familial inheritance. The younger Olds beat the older Olds in court and used his award monies to purchase "Monkeyboy's Sparkplug," a racehorse (Sire: Lancelot; Dam: the Torpedoes) who went on to win the 1911 Kentucky Bourbon Sweepstakes sponsored by Publisher's Clearing House. Alas, the next day when the younger Olds went to the stables he found the winner missing, and in his stall only a tattered copy of the works of a Roman lyric poet. The younger Olds sued the stable for misprision of horseflesh, but lost the case when the opposing attorney forced him to admit under oath that "a Horace was a horse, of course, of course." The younger Olds returned in disgrace to the older Olds and together they decided to manufacture motorcars. They were immediately sued by a used hanging sculpture dealer, who claimed infringement of trademark, there being almost no difference between "Old Mobiles" and "Oldsmobiles." Defeated again, the father and son decided to abandon the auto trade altogether and become restaurant suppliers, the older Olds supplying sliced pickled cucumbers and the younger Olds offering pickled condiments and garnishes. However their slogan, "Olds: the Pickles, Olds: the Relish" got them sued by King Burger of Bavaria, who pointed out that the selfsame slogan was on his family coat of arms in Bavarian German ("Olts die Pichtel, Olts die Relitch," roughly translated as "Neither Honor nor Glory.") By this time the Olds family was destitute, and father and son were reduced to taking jobs on the Ford assembly line, the father bolting on wheels and the son loading each completed vehicle with the four complimentary cylinders. The older Olds died of phthisis in 1921; the younger Olds wooed the heiress to the Ford fordtune (The tune, "See the USA in your Ford Today," sold a million copies in the first 3 weeks after its release). Their children, the Oldsfords, lost everything in the panic of 1929, thereby proving the old adage that "there's no fool like an oldsford." |
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9-28-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear Thinking: Astrodomides. It was a lucky guess. He later went on to "prove" that a solar eclipse is the shadow of a giant space duck on the moon, and that the transit of Venus is actually a giant Venusian streetcar crossing the sun. |
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9-30-2005 Dear Aunt Nettie: |
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Dear TuneSmith: That was Edward John Smith, in his capacity as captain of the Titanic. The elaborate Southampton sendoff of the new White Star Line's masterpiece included many attention-getters, but all were put in the shade by British Telephone & Telegraph's chorus line of singing telegram delivery boys as they broke out with: "Bon voyage, Titanic You're the greatest ship on the sea Bon voyage Titanic Say hello to the Statue of Liberty To wish you a safe crossing's unthinkable We know that you're unsinkable! So bon voyage to you new Titanic You're the greatest ship on the blue Bon voyage to you new Titanic We're so lucky to be sailing with you!" This was followed by an elaborate tap-dance number where the delivery boys delivered the same message in Morse code. Alas, the tradition of sending off new ships with singing telegrams did not catch on for some reason.... |
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