I still remember mine. It was 1986 or so, and I had just moved in with my husband. We were having an awesome weekend in Santa Barbara, and I picked up SB’s local alternative paper. Towards the back of the magazine, my attention was drawn to a fantastically funny cartoon of a bizarre couple in a bathroom, and the woman in the cartoon was shaving her very hairy legs with a razor – Slug Signorino’s work, and I started laughing before even reading the column. The column, of course, was “The Straight Dope,” and the topic was “Why does my razor wear out so fast after my wife shaves her legs?” I have been a total addict ever since.
At least, that’s the first one I remember. I was thinking, Damn, this Adams guy will sure research weird stuff: why big black hairs grow out of moles. And he does it for a living! How cool!
So it looks like body hair is quite the draw for new Straight Dope readers.
My first time was actually reading an article in the first book (roughly 2X the size of any SD book to come out since). I was sitting somewhere and the book was lying on the floor open to the article/response/hullabaloo regarding the caloric content of sperm. I think I was 16 at the time. That makes me a doper as of 1997.
As I recall, the first Straight Dope I read was probably the first article in the first book, which I ran across in a bookstore in Juneau, AK in 1989. I thought Cecil was incredibly cool for looking up all this stuff and writing a column about it. Then I ran across him in the back of the Washington City Paper in 1993, tho’ I don’t remember which column it was, exactly - probably in September of that year as I was just starting out in Georgetown.
Gawd, this takes me back. Way, way back, before most of you were born, there was this column that would give answers about, among other things, dope. Then all of the dope questions got answered and the rest is history.
I don’t pay that much attention to what is going on anywhere, but could you folks answer something? Is Ed Zotti still Cecil’s, um, spokesman? And who was it before him? My memory is getting fuzzy from age, not dope.
First one I read was when I discovered the first book in a Barnes & Noble. I believe it was the “Jesus H. Christ” article.
I’m pretty sure that the first one I actually saw in a newspaper (the NY Press) was the one about the value of the $24 that the Dutch paid for Manhattan, with inflation factored in.
In 1987, a friend showed me a cool book that answered the question, “Why Is Shit Brown?”. Cecil was, of course, astute enough to catch on to the fact that the submitter was one Billy Rubin.
I’m a serious newbie when it comes to SD and Cecil. I’d never even heard of either one until last November when I was looking for data on what is the largest city park in the US? Someone insisted it was New York’s Central Park and I knew that was a bogus claim. I knew for sure that St. Louis’s Forest park had it beat by almost double and needed the evidence to back me up. The article didn’t mention FP (which has just over 1200 acres, which, according to the ones Cecil did list would put it somewhere between 7th and 11th largest), but it listed Central park at a mere 840 acres. I clicked all the links to see what else was on this site and landed quite comfortably on the message boards. I’ve never read a SD column in an actual newspaper.
This site is great for me because, until recently, The (Chicago) Reader was only available in the Chi city limits (like I was going to subscribe and PAY for a free newspaper!) so when I had a job that kept me out of the city (I’m a suburbanite) I didn’t get much chance to read Cecil’s column, except in the books. Ed shows up on the local NPR sometimes, or he did when I still listened during the day, but that was it. Now the Reader has a truncated, entertainment-oriented suburban edition. Cecil’s in it but not the whacky personals, Life in Hell, nor Zippy. But I buy the Zippy collections (it is/was a daily some places!) and come here for my Dope dose.
Discovered the Dope because you wanted to prove somebody wrong? God, you’re a natural!
I forget. It was during the Fall of '98. There’s a link here at http://www.sexualrecords.com (or something like that), and I found THAT website after doing a Yahoo search for sexual humor. I’ve been reading the 'Dope ever since (and only recently have I become a true 'Doper).
Northern Thailand, used bookstore, one shelf of english language books.
There sat ‘The Straight Dope’, I’d never been to Chicago, or heard of Cecil.
Bought the book, read it over night, traded it in for half back at the bookstore, the next day.
I think I bought the second SD book under very similar circumstances in Kathmandu some years later. But I was hooked from the very first book.
Enjoyed the short lived Tv show.
Can’t imagine why it took me so long to figure out it was on the web.
I actually own a copy of the most current book, the only one, of all I’ve read.
Started watching it on tv on Sunday nites on A&E.
We became addicted! I started going to book stores and buying books off the rack.
I just couldn’t get enuff so I looked it up on line and lurked for about six months before admitting to my fetish.
My husband just looks at me with amusement in his eyes. He doesn’t even ask me what I am doing anymore, I think he knows.
The first step is admitting you have an addiction. I can quit anytime really. And those rumors about the Cult of Dopers, well I will leave that to you to decide.
Thank you, Imthecowgodmoo,
I don’t feel so bad. I still haven’t read anything that isn’t on the web…
I was beginning to think I was the only one…
learae
I think my first straight dope article was the one explaining the origin of the term g-string. my local paper doesn’t carry srtaight dope, so the web is my resource.
I found a copy of the first book in the gym at my high school in 1989. Having no idea what it was, I picked it up and started reading. By the end of class I was hooked. I took the book with me. The person who lost it, if they have any taste at all, was probably pissed. Since then I’ve worn out four copies of it.
I think Cecil’s column ran in one of our local newspapers (whichever one we subscribed to at the time). I don’t think I’d graduated from HS, but I don’t remember the specific article. I just remember that I liked it.
A friend had the first book. He read me the questions on “Is a pig’s penis corkscrewed shaped?” and “How much calories are there in an average ejaculation?”. I’m sure he read me others, too, but these are two that I remember.
No, it wasn’t the prurient interest that…ahem…grabbed me. I was very impressed with Cecil’s writing style—his destroying the assertion that the calorie question was made up because someone called him on the fact that he couldn’t recall who wrote him the letter was absolutely hilarious. (Paraphrased, it was: “Yeah, like I’d really make up a letter writing and tip off the fact that I’m making him or her up by claiming I lost the letter. Why wouldn’t I simply make up a name and city?”)
The writing style was hilarious–my friend read me these over the phone and we were laughing so hard it hurt. This was somewhere between 1990 and 1993, and I went out and got the books within weeks (maybe the next day). Only the first two books were out at the time.
I first learned of the website in one of the books (I believe it was the third or fourth). However, at the time the website was on AOL, which I didn’t have access to. I did find the website sometime last year, but didn’t access the message boards until the “Nazi Groundhog” thread appeared in threadspotting in March or April.
