Free Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader® by Michael Brunsfeld Page B

“Here’s
champagne
for our
real
friends and
real pain
for our
sham
friends.”
    Finally, consider the chiasmus contest held by
The Washington Post
some years ago. The winning entry read:
    Bill Clinton before: “I don’t know how I can make this any clearer.”
    Bill Clinton after: “I don’t know how I can clear this with my Maker.”

GETTING THE LEAD OUT
    Plumbing pipe was originally made from wood or earthenware. Eventually lead was used. The Latin word for “lead” is
plumbum
from which we get the word “plumber.”
    Marlon Brando owns a remote controlled whoopie cushion.

A (BAD) NIGHT AT THE OPERA
    One of Uncle John’s favorite movies is the Marx Brothers’ classic
A Night at the Opera.
The Marxes perform some unbelievable
—
and hilarious
—
antics on opening night…but are they so far-fetched? Here are some real-life examples of what can happen at the opera. Honk-honk!
C ARMEN GET IT
    A performance of
Carmen
was being staged in a bull ring in Mexico City. The singer playing the part of Don José had a long wait between acts 3 and 4, so he decided to dash out for a beer in a local tavern. No sooner had he entered than he was arrested by a couple of cops who saw his scruffy costume, thought he was a bum, and dragged him off to jail. When he insisted he was a tenor singing in the opera, they accused him of being drunk. He could only convince them…by singing. (They let him go.)
DUMB GIOVANNI
    In 1958 Cesare Siepi was playing the part of Don Giovanni in the Vienna State Opera. The script called for him to descend into Hell using a stagelift. So Cesare said good-bye to the world, and stepped into the netherworld. But the lift got stuck halfway down, leaving his head and shoulders visible to the audience. Stage technicians brought the lift back up and tried to lower it again, but it got stuck a second time and was raised back to stage level. Cesare sang in Italian, “Oh my God, how wonderful—Hell is full!”
NOISE POLLUTION
    When
The Wreckers
opened in England in 1901, King Edward VII came to the opening. Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham later asked the king’s private secretary if the king had liked the music. “I don’t know,” was the reply. “But you were sitting right next to him—surely he must have said something!” “Oh, yes—he did. He woke up three-quarters of the way through and said, ‘That’s the fourth time that infernal noise has roused me!’”
    What were they thinking? In 1915 someone made a silent movie version of the opera
Carmen.
JUST LIKE LEMMINGS
    In the opera
Tosca,
two soldiers are to execute the character Cavaradossi while the heroine, Tosca, watches in horror. Prior to the performance in San Francisco in 1961, the director had too little time to instruct the firing squad. He told them, “When I cue you, march on stage, wait until the officer lowers his sword, then shoot.” When they asked how to exit the stage, he said, “Exit with the principal characters.” The soldiers marched on stage and were amazed to see two people against the execution wall: Tosca and Cavaradossi. They hadn’t been told which one to shoot—so when the officer dropped his sword, they had to choose—and they shot Tosca. Wrong. Cavaradossi dropped dead 20 yards away, while the person they had just shot ran over to him weeping and wailing in Italian. Tosca then climbed to the top of the castle battlement to commit suicide. The firing squad, having been instructed to exit with the principal characters, followed her, leaping to their deaths as the curtains closed.
DEADPAN PERFORMANCE
    In 1849
Charles
VI premiered in Paris. At the beginning of the aria called “Oh God, Kill Him!”, a member of the opera company fell dead. The next night at the same point in the production, a member of the audience died. When the orchestra leader fell dead at the third performance, Napoléon III banned the opera for good.
SLAPSTICK OOPERA
    In 1960 the diva playing the role of Donna Elvira in Don
Giovanni
in New