I think this story says a lot about just how cavalier people were in the 1950s about atomic bombs and radioactivity. ‘The Conqueror’ was a big-budget Hollywood movie. It was made in 1956. John Wayne played Genghis Khan. (Try to picture John Wayne playing a Mongolian warlord.) Most of the movie was filmed near the town of St. George, Utah. The U.S. army had conducted 11 above-ground atomic bomb tests in the area shortly before the movie was made. The ground was radioactive, and the cast and crew knew. They had Geiger counters there. In addition, huge wind machines blew radioactive dust over the cast and crew and their food every day. Strangely, none of the people working on this movie expressed any concerns about this at the time – but they should have. Of the 220 people who worked on ‘The Conqueror’ at the St. George location, 95 died of cancer, including John Wayne and his co-star Susan Hayward. Half the production staff also died of cancer, including Dick Powell who directed the movie. Plus, over half of the local Paiute Indians who worked as extras on the film also died of cancer. The Indians played Mongolian cavalrymen. The movie was produced by Howard Hughes, who at the time, was the richest man in the world. Hughes felt so embarrassed by all these deaths (and also by how bad the movie was) that he paid $12 million to buy up all known copies of the film and had them locked up; however, after his death, Universal Pictures bought the film rights, so you can see ‘The Conqueror’ online now if you want. I’ve seen ‘The Conqueror.’ It is a terrible movie! Hollywood was still making yellowface movies, movies in which white actors were made up to look like East Asians, and like a lot of other movies, the yellowface actors speak in pidgin English. John Wayne says things like: “I greet you, my mother.”
U.C. BERKELEY CHEMISTRY LAB.
Many of my current tenants work at the U.C. Berkeley chemistry lab. I hope that they handle radioactive materials at the lab with a somewhat higher level of care than people did in the 1950s or at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant right now.
ATOMIC BOMB TOURISM.
In the 1950s, Las Vegas hotels promoted atom bomb parties. Tourists came from all over the country and spent a lot of money to attend these parties. The army’s atomic bomb test site was just north of the city. Atomic bomb tests were always conducted at dawn and announced in advance. On the night before an atomic bomb test, hotels in Las Vegas had rooftop a-bomb parties. They started at midnight and included gambling, ‘atomic cocktails’, food, and big-name entertainment. The parties ended with the atomic bomb blast at dawn. The hotels gave partygoers disposable sunglasses to wear when the bomb went off, but that was the only precaution they took. Buildings shook, and radioactive dust fell on everything, depending on which way the wind was blowing. To allay public concerns, the government hired a public relations firm to convince the local population and tourists that atom bomb tests were ‘safe’ and ‘fun.’ Over 200 atomic bombs were detonated at the site until the 1963 test ban treaty put an end to above-ground nuclear bomb tests. Below is a photo promoting an atomic bomb party. The second photo is of the Sands Hotel ‘Miss Atomic Bomb’ of 1957. The third photo is a framed piece of trinitite. These were given as gifts to ‘high rollers’ who came to atomic bomb parties. Trinitite was formed by the first atomic bomb test called ‘Trinity.’ It is now illegal to collect and sell pieces of trinitite as it is still radioactive. What a gift! I wonder what we are doing today that future generations will look back on and think are just as foolish as atomic bomb parties.
A LITTLE BERKELEY TRIVIA.
When John Wayne made the movie ‘The Cowboys’, he told Bruce Dern that his character was going to shoot John Wayne in the back, something that nobody had ever done before in a movie. Bruce Dern was an actor who was famous for playing vicious, mentally unstable villains. The movie was made in 1972, at the height of the Vietnam War. Wayne told Dern: “America will hate you for this.” Dern thought that John Wayne was joking and responded by saying, “Yeah, but they’ll love me in Berkeley.” Shortly after the film’s release, John Wayne’s prediction came true. Bruce Dern received numerous death threats. People walked up to him on the street and said things like: “I hate you. You killed John Wayne.” One passer-by punched him in the nose. Bruce Dern ‘s career suffered for a while but recovered. He appeared in several Quentin Tarantino movies in his later years, still playing nasty characters. For example, in ‘Django Unchained’, he played an old sadistic slave owner.
WHY ARE THE SCRAMBLED EGGS IN RESTAURANTS FLUFFIER THAN THE ONES YOU MAKE AT HOME?
The answer is usually that you cooked the eggs too fast or too long. Heat an 8-inch frying pan to a very low temperature. Add butter. Cook the eggs very slowly while constantly moving them around. Once the eggs look fluffy, get them out of the pan immediately or they will continue to cook from the residual heat in the pan. The difference between fluffy scrambled eggs and hard eggs can be just a few extra seconds in the pan. Here are some common problems people have.
Eggs sticking to the pan. If you put eggs in a pan just after the butter is melted, the eggs are likely to stick to the pan. Butter contains a lot of water; however, it is the fat in butter that prevents food from sticking to a pan. Wait until the butter has almost stopped foaming. That shows that the water has evaporated away. This same advice applies when pan-frying anything with butter.Weak flavor. Don’t add water or milk to scrambled eggs. A lot of recipes recommend this, but that just dilutes the flavor of the eggs.
Streaks of white. If there are streaks of white in your scrambled eggs, that just means that you didn’t scramble the eggs enough. You should beat the eggs for at least 30 seconds.
Eggs taste dry. Add salt after the eggs are cooked. Salt extracts moisture from food.
Eggs taste watery. It’s OK to add things to scrambled eggs like chives or diced scallions, but if you add watery ingredients, your eggs will be watery too. Watery condiments like salsa should be served on the side.
THE WORST MAJOR TOURIST ATTRACTION IN MASSACHUSETTS. In August, I covered the Seattle Gum Wall, my choice for the worst major tourist attraction in Washington state.
PLYMOUTH ROCK. There are a lot of interesting things to see in Plymouth, Massachusetts. There are excellent restaurants and beautiful historic homes and museums. They also have a full-size reproduction of the Mayflower in the harbor. However, Plymouth Rock is not one of the interesting things to see in Plymouth. Although it is widely believed that when the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts, they stepped off their ship and onto Plymouth Rock, but there is no evidence that this rock had anything to do with the Pilgrims or the Mayflower. None of the Pilgrims made any reference to a rock in any of their writings. The first documented claim that Plymouth Rock was the place where the Pilgrims landed was made in 1741 by a church elder, but he provided no evidence. The date 1620 was carved into the rock in 1880. And perhaps most importantly- the Pilgrims didn’t land in Plymouth. They landed at Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod. A month later, they moved to Plymouth.
Over 1 million people visit Plymouth Rock every year, so it certainly qualifies as a major tourist attraction. Most people stay less than 5 minutes because there is nothing to do there once you have seen the rock. Plymouth Rock is a shapeless rock in a hole in the ground. It is about the size of a twin mattress. The hole has an iron fence around it, so you can’t touch the rock or be photographed next to it. Many tourists look down into the hole at the rock and say things like: “We drove 3 hours to see THIS?!” I once visited Plymouth Rock, but I only saw a piece of it. The rest of the rock was covered with trash that people had thrown into the hole. Parking is a problem. In the summer tourist season, you may have to walk 1/2 mile or more to see the rock. So what do you think? Is this the worst major tourist attraction in Massachusetts?
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