Densa

Famous members of Mensa:

  • Isaac Asimov, writer
  • Jean Auel, author
  • Scott Adams, cartoonist (Dilbert)
  • Richard Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute?
  • Asia Carrera, adult film star
  • Geena Davis, actress
  • Jodie Foster, actress
  • Mell Lazarus, cartoonist (Miss Peach, Momma)

An alternative society is open to the stupidest 2 percent of the population. It’s called Densa.

Bit Players

Short actors:

  • Sylvester Stallone: 5’7″
  • Tom Cruise: 5’7″
  • Al Pacino: 5’7″
  • Richard Dreyfus: 5’5″
  • Dustin Hoffman: 5’5″
  • Danny DeVito: 5’0″
  • Linda Hunt: 4’9″

Stature doesn’t equal talent. Asked for advice on acting, John Wayne (6’4″) said, “Talk low, talk slow, and don’t talk too much.”

A Player to Be Named Later

Some of the busiest people in show business don’t exist:

  • The name George Spelvin is traditionally used in American theater programs when an actor’s name would otherwise appear twice.
  • In the London theater, Walter Plinge gets the credit when a part has not been cast.
  • On BBC television dramas in the 1970s, David Agnew was credited when contractual reasons prevented a writer’s name from being used.
  • When a Hollywood director no longer wants credit for a film, the name Alan Smithee is used.

That last one is such an open secret — “Smithee” even directed a Whitney Houston video — that the Directors Guild finally abandoned it in favor of random pseudonyms, starting with the 2000 James Spader bomb Supernova, directed by “Thomas Lee” (Walter Hill).

The Shadow Knows

Some secret identities:

  • The Scarlet Pimpernel: Sir Percy Blakeney
  • Zorro: Don Diego De La Vega
  • The Lone Ranger: John Reid
  • The Phantom: Kit Walker
  • Captain Marvel: Billy Batson

It’s been pointed out that Superman pretends to be Clark Kent, but Peter Parker pretends to be Spider-Man. If you have two identities, either one can be “secret.”

Population: One

The U.S. population is growing, but there seems to be plenty of room. These places are occupied by a single person:

  • New Amsterdam, Ind.
  • Hibberts, Maine
  • Lost Springs, Wyo.
  • Monowi, Neb.

The 2000 census says the population of Ervings, N.H., is now zero. “The only taxable property in Erving’s location are telephone poles.”

Fear of Flying

Notable people who have had a fear of flying:

  • Isaac Asimov
  • Doris Day
  • Aretha Franklin
  • Jackie Gleason
  • Kim Jong-Il
  • Stanley Kubrick
  • Loretta Lynn
  • John Madden
  • Matthew Sweet
  • Billy Bob Thornton

Mr. Versatile

Whose resume is this?

  • Received four write-in votes in the mayoral election in Boise, Idaho, 1985
  • Spokesperson, the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout, 1987
  • Received the Presidential Sports Award from the President’s Council on Physical Fitness & Sports, 1992
  • Threw out first pitch at Wrigley Field, 2000
  • Named official ambassador for the Rhode Island State Tourism Board, 2000
  • Likeness rendered as 85-foot hot-air balloon, 2001
  • Rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, 2002

Answer: Mr. Potato Head.

Heady

http://www.doctormacro.com/index.htmlDoctor Macro has high-quality images of classic films and their stars, mostly from the 1940s and earlier. This one is a publicity still of Hedy Lamarr, the Austrian-born star of Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah.

Lamarr is an object lesson in the price of beauty. She had quite a good technical education, and actually patented a device that made radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect. But the world saw only her face: She had to drug her obsessive husband to escape to London, and then Hollywood saddled her with demeaning epithets like “the most beautiful girl in films” and “the Laurence Olivier of orgasm.” When she tried to join the National Inventors Council, she was told she could better help the war effort by selling war bonds.

In the end she went through five more husbands before she passed away in 2000; if she was bitter at her fame, it was certainly understandable. “Any girl can be glamorous,” she once said. “All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”

Intercourse the Penguin!

Films with the most prolific use of the word fuck:

  1. Tigerland (527)
  2. Nil By Mouth (470)
  3. Casino (422)
  4. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (399)
  5. Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat (347)
  6. Another Day in Paradise (327)
  7. Summer of Sam (326)
  8. Twin Town (320)
  9. Ken Loach’s Sweet Sixteen (313)
  10. Narc (298)

The winner, Joel Schumacher’s 2000 infantry-training drama Tigerland, packs 527 fucks into 100 minutes, for a fuck-per-minute ratio of 5.27, or one fuck every 12 seconds. (“Damn it, Cantwell! Shit, man. Shit! Fuck, I don’t even know you, man! You sittin’ there telling your fucking stories. You make me want to fuckin’ cry! What’s that about?”) Schumacher got a lump of coal that Christmas.

Harrison Ford, Call Your Agent

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Air_Force_One_over_Mt._Rushmore.jpgThe exact layout of Air Force One has always been classified, but How Stuff Works has figured it out and rather recklessly published it online.

When they retire the plane in 2010, I’m hoping they put it up on eBay. At 4,000 square feet, it’s twice the size of my house, and my house doesn’t have a pharmacy, an operating table, 85 telephones, 19 televisions, radar jammers, hand-crafted wooden furniture, and flares to confuse heat-seeking missiles.

Also, Air Force One holds 2,000 meals and feeds 100 people at a time, and it can carry 70 passengers halfway around the world without refueling. I think that would be handy on vacations. I can probably fit 10 people in my dining room if we set up an extra card table, but it doesn’t go anywhere.