You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News - Writers of Cracked dot Com [11]
It was legendary Arista Records exec Clive Davis who pushed Manilow to cover “I Write the Songs.” So a more accurate chorus would be, “I sing the song that Clive Davis tells me to.”
Why didn’t you know that?
Quite simply, he’s ugly. Most people assume Manilow was a hit-writing machine because in the looks department, he’s a passable girlfriend for your bookish aunt who wears Sally Jessy Raphael glasses. At best.
1. ORSON WELLES DID NOT WRITE CITIZEN KANE
Citizen Kane, the fictionalized account of publisher William Randolph Hearst’s life, is often referred to as the greatest film ever made. To say it’s Orson Welles’s signature work is an understatement. It’s like the Citizen Kane of understatements. Film geeks speak of the film with biblical reverence, and non- film geeks know better than to question them. It’s one of the great achievements in American popular art, and most assume Welles conceived and birthed it whole after a night of hermaphroditic self-love.
Which is odd, since even according to the movie credits Welles is the secondary author to screenwriting veteran Herman Mankiewicz. In fact, the few people alive who still give a shit think that Welles’s contributions to the script were minimal. Rita Alexander, who took Mankiewicz’s dictation for the script, was quoted as saying that Welles did not write or dictate one line of the script. Furthermore, film critic David Thomson, author of a book about the film, has said that “no one can now deny Herman Mankiewicz credit for the germ, shape, and pointed language of the screenplay.”
Why didn’t you know that?
Because it turns out that Welles was kind of a dick. He wanted the world to think he was a one-stop, all-purpose, filmmaking wunderkind. The RKO-produced program handed out at the movie’s premiere read: “the one-man band, directing, acting, and writing.” Also, in an interview that occurred while writing credit disputes were ongoing, Welles was quoted as saying, “I wrote Citizen Kane.”
And although Welles claimed that he intended to credit Mankiewicz all along, Mankiewicz had to complain to the Screen Writers Guild, which then insisted that Mankiewicz be given top billing. Mankiewicz also claimed that Welles offered him ten thousand dollars to let him say he wrote it all himself. So if you didn’t know, it’s probably because Welles wanted it that way. And for those of you keeping score, we also have it on good authority that Welles did not write his own dialogue for his appearance in The Muppet Movie.
SIX TERRIFYING THINGS THEY DON’T TELL YOU ABOUT CHILDBIRTH
YOU know what’s scarier than death? Birth. Anyone considering procreation should know that there are some things about childbirth they’re not telling you. Disgusting, horrifying things.
6. THE CARNAGE
Many births involve a procedure called an episiotomy, which comes from the Greek word epison, meaning “pubic region,” and the suffix -tomy, which apparently means “to cut the living shit out of.”
In an episiotomy, a scalpel is used to artificially enlarge the vagina.
Why would the doctor want to do such a thing? Why, to keep it from tearing, of course. To the layman, this might seem like starting a knife fight to prevent a shoving match. But that’s only because the layman hasn’t seen the other option: Try to imagine Barney the dinosaur getting into his car by climbing in through the exhaust pipe. Well, without some controlled cutting, childbirth can be just like that but in reverse. And with blood. And instead of an exhaust pipe, it’s a vagina.
Yeah, just like that.
5. THE FECES
Not even the most terrifying clips of poo porn on the Internet could prepare you for childbirth. We’ll spare most of the smelly details, but rest assured that after the birth experience your view of poop will never be the