PoopReport: So first, tell me how you got started. My guess is that the idea came to you while sitting on the toilet.
Burt: Good guess, yes, sitting on the can was part of the inspiration. The Toilet Museum [2] started out in 1982 as an idea that my old roommate had to add a little personality to the water closet in our small New York City apartment. We decided it would be fun to collect postcards and greeting cards of pictures of toilets, and display them in the WC.
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[5]Fast forward to 1998: my roommate had long since moved out, but I kept adding to the collection of pictures in my WC, aided by friends who sent me toilet pictures from around the world. I've always imposed the following rule on my friends: Once you've seen the Toilet Museum, it is your duty to seek out new toilet pictures in your daily travels, and to send them to me.
In 1998, my two brothers were heavy into web design, and they asked me to hop on board. I wanted to start a web site just to try my hand at web design, but I didn't want to do some dull personal page or blog. While I was sitting on the toilet in the museum, mulling over what my web site would be about, surrounded by pictures of toilets, it occurred to me that it would be fun to make a virtual museum using the pictures in my WC. So, you see, the idea did, in fact, come to me while I was on the toilet.
What did you begin with?
The first pictures that my old roommate and I found were a series of four postcards [7] taken
from a book called 'Private Moments in Public Places,' by Phyllis Prinz and Stephanie
Saia. We found them in a card shop on Price Street in Soho. Living in a hub of culture
like New York City, our collection grew quickly.
For the sake of a laugh, yes, I call myself a toilet guru. The fact is, I really don't
know that much about toilets, but I have picked up a few facts from research I've
conducted to answer some of the inquisitive visitors to the Toilet Museum.
What? You don't believe that Jenny invited me to her place to let me take the picture?
OK, I confess, I didn't take the picture and I never met Jenny McCarthy. I found the
picture in a fan site devoted to Jenny. I'm still on the lookout for a hard copy original
of the ad to hang in my water closet, but it's been out of print for years, and I don't
have much hope of finding it.
I couldn't tell you. Just like the Jenny McCarthy picture, I didn't take the one of
Martin, Hope, and Lewis either. I doubt that I was even born when it was taken. I got
the picture at Jerry's Batcave on 14th Street in NYC. They have all sorts of
movie-related photos and posters. I went in there and told the staff that I collect
pictures of toilets. The staff had fun helping me find some, even one of the customers
got in on it, suggesting that we look at pictures from The Conversation, which proved to
be a nice find. I left with five or six toilet pictures that day, a nice haul.
Would you call yourself a toilet guru?
How were you able to locate the Jenny McCarthy/Candies pic [8]?
What's the story with the pic of Dean Martin, Bob Hope, and Jerry Lewis [9]? Is it real? Or
did they pose for it, or what?
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Would you consider the toilet museum a hobby, or an addiction?
It's a hobby. Since I started the web site just to get my feet wet with web design, the theme wasn't particularly important to me at first, but after receiving many friendly emails from hundreds of visitors to the site, I was encouraged to keep expanding on the site. I don't want to get too 'Britney Spears' on you, but I owe it all to the fans.
Do you have any interesting things that you know about toilets that we might find
interesting? Things few people know?
One thing that people seem to find interesting has to do with water in the toilet swirling in a different direction depending on what side of the equator you happen to be on -- it turns out that this is just a myth. Apparently large swirling things, like tornados, are subject to the pull created by the rotation of the Earth, referred to as the "Coriolis Effect," and they do spin in different directions on either side of the equator. However, the spinning water in a toilet is too small for the Coriolis Effect to have, well, an effect. The direction of the spinning water is actually determined by the direction of the spigots that dump the water from the tank into the toilet.
Another thing I've been told was that Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was the first movie to show a toilet. I haven't been able to substantiate that, and I can swear I saw a movie where a young Mickey Rooney, as Andy Hardy, takes a dump. But I may have dreamed that.
What kind of toilet do you yourself use?
It's white porcelain, with no brand name on it, and a cheap wooden seat. Pretty normal, really. I'll bet you're disappointed. You'll get over it.
Do you think porcelain is the best material for making toilets? It is, after all, the
same material used in fine china. Some folks prefer wood or plastic seats, for example.
I think that plastic might retain stains over time, and wood might retain stains and odor. Porcelain is easy to clean, and it's fun to say, so I vote for porcelain.
Do you have any type of 'official toilet prerequisites?' Like a plumbing trade school, or
a Porcelain Casting Guild?
A meal, a beverage, and a little time to digest: that's all the prerequisites that one needs to take the throne.
Do you ever get letters from people who are offended by your site?
Only once. I received an angry e-mail from a gentleman from Malta who took great offense at my references to The Pope. I like to refer to his note as the 'Maltese hate mail.' I forget what it said, something about how I should be ashamed of myself, or some such nonsense.
By the way, I used to use a web tracker that recorded the countries and web domains from which visitors to the site came, and through it, I learned that I had one visitor from The Vatican. I suppose they scour the web looking to see what kind of press the Pope is getting. I'd have to guess that they block access to sites like mine from their domain, to keep the Holy See holy.
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On PoopReport, we talk about Shameless vs. Shameful Shitting [18]. As a member of the
Shiterati, we'd be curious to know your Shitting Status.