Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   3

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from
HUMPTY DUMPTY
GREATEST HUNGER STRIKERS
TRIALS OF THE CENTURY
to
HAVING A GREAT FALL
ICE, ICE, BABY—DIA MONDS
GREAT PSEUDONYMS
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PERIODIC TABLE
THE WORLD WIDE WEB
TATTOO TIMELINE
to
GETTING PUT BACK
TOGETHER AGAIN

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85
01
Humpty Dumptys:
Victims of Precipitous Falls
While enormously popular in the 1920s and ’30s, movie legend 
Charlie Chaplin’s lefty politics and racy personal life (he had a 
habit of marrying teenagers) began to catch up with him during 
the increasingly conservative 
Cold War era. Accused of being 
a Communist, he found his 
visa revoked after a trip abroad 
in 1952 and vowed never to re-
turn, saying “I have no further 
use for America. I wouldn’t go 
back there if Jesus Christ was 
president.” In fact, he waited 
until Richard Nixon was presi-
dent. Chaz made his trium-
phant return at the 1972 
Academy Awards, where he 
was presented with a lifetime 
achievement Oscar.
✖  ✖  ✖
America’s popular diet guru, 
Robert Atkins, and his 
Under Fire Indeed
Former cocktail waitress Brett 
Butler makes herself out to be 
a down home girl, but she had 
high-falutin’ roots: Brett’s moth-
er named her after the peren-
nially tipsy Lady Brett Ashley 
in Hemingway’s 
The Sun Also 
Rises.
 Like Hemingway’s Brett, 
Butler’s met with some trouble: 
Since her hit sitcom 
Grace Un-
der Fire
 was canceled in 
1998, she hasn’t had great 
work. See, for instance, the 
2005 TV movie 
Vampire Bats.
 
Actually, don’t see it.

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86
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
 
eponymous weight-loss pro-
gram have suff ered both fi gu-
rative and literal falls from 
grace. Figurative: the diet’s 
popularity waned once ex-
perts (like the American Heart 
Association) began pointing 
out that eating nothing but 
burgers-sans-bun can kill you. 
Not surprisingly, Atkins Nu-
tritionals  went  belly-up  in 
2003. Literal: that same year, 
Atkins himself died from a 
fall on a slippery sidewalk. But 
if that hadn’t gotten him, the 
low-carb king’s cardiologist 
has since revealed, the 40 per-
cent blockages in his coronary 
arteries eventually would’ve.
✖  ✖  ✖
When the English monarchy 
was restored to power in 1660, 
Cromwell crony and propa-
gandist John Milton was ar-
rested and fi ned heavily and 
lost his fortune. Th
  e only reason he escaped with his head was 
that he was going blind, which Charles II kindly looked upon as 
divine retribution. It was only then, poor, sightless, and ob-
scure, that Milton wrote—or rather dictated—his blank verse 
epic 
Paradise Lost.
 (Talk about a fall from grace.) In 1667, he 
sold his masterwork to a fl inty London bookseller for just ten 
pounds.
Grape Expectations
Ah, the vicissitudes of pop cul-
ture trendiness. America’s fa-
vorite red wine in the ’90s was 
famously name-checked by 
Cosmo Kramer on a 1997 
Seinfeld 
episode: “I live for 
merlot.” Riding high, merlot let 
fame go to its head—and its 
price tag. Overexposed and 
overpriced at an average $10/
bottle, merlot’s consumers start-
ed reaching for cheaper bot-
tles imported from Argentina 
and Australia, and, when they 
realized those didn’t taste so 
good, for Pinot Noirs and Cab-
ernets. Sales dropped, reach-
ing their nadir after 2004 Os-
car winner 
Sideways
 kicked 
merlot while it was down. 
Humbled after its fall from 
grace, merlot is now a relative 
bargain—and as tasty as it 
ever was.

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87
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Nowadays, Oscar Wilde is as remembered for his spectacular 
downfall as for his spectacular writing. Publicly harassed as a 
“sodomite” by the enraged father of a young lover, the famously 
fl amboyant playwright sued the old man for libel. Rather than 
pay, he produced a few of Wilde’s former bedfellows in court, 
and Wilde not only lost the case, but was charged with “gross 
indecency” for his troubles. Th
  e result was heartbreaking. Sen-
tenced to two years’ hard labor, he found himself waiting in a 
heavy rain, handcuff ed, for transport to prison. “If this is the 
way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners,” he quipped, “she 
doesn’t deserve to have any.” But it’s not like Wilde was angry 
enough to start a hunger strike or anything. . . .
02
  Just Water, Thanks:
Th
  e Greatest Hunger Strikers Ever
When  it  came  to  abstaining  from  things,  Mohandas  (Ma-
hatma) Gandhi gave your average monk a run for his money: 
Th
  e Indian leader was a vegetarian, became celibate at age 36, 
and spent one day of each week in silence. But he was the Babe 
Ruth of hunger strikes. Not because of their length—his lon-
gest was 21 days—but due to their extreme, guilt-inducing 
eff ectiveness. In 1947, his fasting shamed the rioting city of 
Calcutta into peace, and in 1948 warring Muslims and Hindus 
in Delhi declared a truce to end his hunger strike.
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In his lifelong struggle against the giant grape growers of Cali-
fornia, a favorite protest of labor rights hero Cesar Chavez was 
to stop eating. Ironic, perhaps, but he got results: Boycotts,