The Daily Dose
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Friends, your Daily Dose will return tomorrow. All the usual daily crap is running, though.

The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow hits the road for his day at the Veterans Service Office (VSO). Today’s Diary.

Like we did last time, we stopped at the deli counter at the supermarket in the next county so Mr D could get a couple of pieces of his treasured fried chicken…I did, tho, draw the line at eating in town because Mr D is the slowest eater in human history and I didn’t want to sit and wait…So I lied, a baldfaced one, something I rarely do, but OpSec (Operational Security) demanded it…I didn’t want to spend, literally, 45 minutes as Mr D ate two pieces of fried chicken…I told him I had some paperwork to catch up on at the VSO after I dropped him off and asked if he couldn’t eat in the car, a good call because again it took him 40 minutes to eat two pieces of fried chicken, Mr D not finishing until we were on the outskirts on town…

Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: Rich and Gaylon have a funny incident in the coffee shop.

“Uh oh,” one cowgirl said. “They called security.”

“Not only that,” I said. “There’s two of us.”

“You’re all in big trouble,” Rich announced.

“Do we have to put our shoes back on?”

I nodded solemnly.

“You gotta finish your vegetables, too,” Rich said.

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Criminals, Courtesans and Constables/Chapter 18 – Monica II: Monica returns.

I couldn’t believe where I was. In the witness room of the death chamber in the States. 

It was utterly surreal, as surreal as my first time being escorted into a palace bedroom to be seduced by a prince. As surreal as my first time walking the red carpet at the Awards. All of these were fairy tales, though, places you never thought you’d be and when you’re there it’s as if you’re in a song. 

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The Daily Dose/August 14, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience. 

BREAKING NEWS…FROM LAST WEEK: Now. we’re not any happier about the death last year of Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs than you are, but the recent arrest of one-time Angels employee Eric Kay in connection with Skaggs’ death brings up an interesting point:

If Kay hadn’t delivered the drugs to Skaggs, someone else would have. 

Dry, Technical Matter: Skaggs was found dead in his Southlake, Texas hotel room on July 1 last year. He had choked on his own vomit after getting both high and drunk, a death that was ruled an accident. 

More Dry, Technical Matter: Kay currently faces one federal count of distributing fentanyl, a schedule II controlled substance. A conviction carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. 

Back On Message: You know, if drugs were legal in this country, if adults were allowed to put in their bodies what they wanted, Skaggs’ death would still be a tragedy, of course, but it would not have resulted in any criminal charges. You can pass whatever judgment you want on drug dealers, but they are nothing more than vendors moving products there is a demand for. Kay did not force Skaggs to do anything he wasn’t of a mind to do: he brought the drugs to Skaggs because Skaggs and asked him to. You take drugs and drink heavily, you stand a good chance of going John Bonham and choking on your own ralph.

The Bottom Line: This cannot have been the first time Skaggs had gotten stoned and/or drunk. If Kay hadn’t been a supplier, someone else would have stepped in.  As long as we keep treating drug addiction as a criminal problem and not a health problem, America will continue to miss the points associated with drug use. 

Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually. 

The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow checks the status of his passport application. Today’s Diary. 

I checked on the status of my passport application, today…Recall I’d only sent it in a few weeks ago so even if the passport agency was running at full strength – and with particular alacrity  – it probably still wouldn’t have arrived yet, but ol’ Sparrow checked anyway. So I entered some information and the result was “In Progress” which was to be expected. This was better than “Unable To Find”  or “Declined” but hardly as good as “En Route”

Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: It’s a busy night at room 4-207. 

– Gaylon, did you say room 4-207? Jones?
– Yeah.
– Cause he just called asking for security.

Five seconds later Junior is on the horn dispatching all Henry units and the Fifth Marines back to 4-207.

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Criminals, Courtesans and Constables/Chapter 17 – The Colonel: The Colonel, a colleague of the late Abigail, spearheads a last-minute rush to save our hero from execution. 

I’d always found her intuition to be trusty, too, so after she died I remembered she had said he was a good sort and that she was certain he wasn’t a murderer. Pimp, yes. Extortionist, of course. Kidnapper, well, ransom collector, acknowledged. These things fell from him as leaves fell from a tree. 

But Abigail was adamant he was not a killer. 

Click here to read the first four chapters with our compliments. 

You’re probably thinking reading all three of these features will cost you an arm and a leg. Wrong-0. $4.99 gets you access to all three of these American classics. 

On This Date
History’s long march to today.

In 1980 – Lech Walesa, a former auto mechanic and shipyard electrician, leads a strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland after the government raised food prices. The strikes spread and at the end of the month the Solidarity Free Trade Union signed an agreement with the government earning the right to strike, the first labor union in a Communist country. Walesa would later become the first popularly-elected president of Poland, serving from 1990-95. Now 76, Walesa still remains active in world affairs. 

In 1936 – The United States wins the first Olympic basketball gold medal, defeating Canada in the championship game 19-8 in Berlin. It was the classic 21-team tournament, and the US was only obliged to play three games after their first-round opponent, Spain, withdrew. The US had defeated Mexico in the semifinals, who would later defeat Poland for the bronze medal. The entire tournament remains the only Olympic basketball competition to be played outdoors, and the final was played in a driving rain. 

In 1971 – Marvin Gaye is at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart – then known as the Hot Soul Singles chart – for the first of two consecutive weeks with Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology). It was the eighth of 13 #1 songs on Billboard’s soul chart for Gaye. The song also peaked at #4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and returned to the Hot 100 in 1991 when Robert Palmer took it to #16 as part of a medley with I Want You.

Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever. 

Democracy had fallen by Plato’s formula: liberty had become license, and chaos begged an end to liberty. – Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol III: Caesar and Christ

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know. 

According to a variety of sources, there are about 100,000 payphones left in the US, about a fifth of them in New York City. 

Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar. 

Who was the first team to defeat the United States in Olympic basketball? – Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/August 13, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience. 

HUT, HUT HIKE: Well, this is a fine mess: some college football conferences have decided not to play, while some are forging ahead with plans for a fall season.  Like virtually everything else, there are a couple of ways to look at this. 

Leading Off: On the one hand, kudos to those who are still planning to play. The coronavirus still affects a small number of people and college football can probably be played with a minimum number of infections and probably even zero fatalities. Most of those who die are over 45 and most of those were otherwise sick to begin with. College kids in first-class shape who are virtually quarantined are likely to be OK. 

Fly In The Ointment: On the other hand, kudos to those conferences that have killed their season. COVID can kill and have other long term, negative effects. And be honest, do you really want to be running a conference that has to defend the inevitable lawsuits that will come from playing and having a player get sick? 

Yeah, This Will Work: Some are making noises about playing their season in the spring. That seems fair, make kids play two football seasons in one calendar year. They play the spring season then have only a couple of months to recover from the mental grind and physical beating before strapping it on again. Colleges can plan this all they want, but don’t bet on too many athletes wanting to put themselves through this, especially with those eyeing professional careers. 

Yeah, Right: It would be nice if the NCAA was showing some leadership here, though in fairness to them the way they are structured doesn’t really give them a whole lot of authority in this matter. Still, though, we’ve had leaders taking unprecedented actions during this time, and the NCAA could have, too. 

The Bottom Line: We have only ourselves to blame for this. Paced by a government that denied and ignored the coronavirus for weeks, America has been reduced to providing knee-jerk reactions to it Had we not, had we provided an immediate and credible response, we’d all be looking forward to kickoff here in a few weeks. 

More Bottom Line: We did not get a timely and credible response, of course, but still, had we Americans decided to transcend our government and take some precautions starting in January, everyone would be playing football in a few weeks.  But we are as fractured and bickering as our government and we didn’t. 

Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually. 

The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow has the latest mpg figures for the new ride. Today’s Diary.  

I think I’m thru whining about narrowly missing the 40 mpg mark…Well, no I’m not, but it’s on hiatus, for this week, at least….38+ is fine gas mileage, more than I’ve ever gotten and I am grateful for it…My schedule is so predictable the yellow gas light in the new ride always comes on the drive into the hotel on Tuesday night, at least it has the past few weeks. 

Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: X-Ray and Gaylon – the International Henry Units – to the rescue. 

Being International Henry Units we knew immediately, of course, that water coming through the overhead isn’t normal, so we spring into action. I go up to five and there is water spewing out of a hose that is connected to some sort of device maids use to mix cleaning solvents. It’s coming out at a pretty good clip, too, so I grab a fuzzy bathroom mat, use it as a shield because I can’t be bothered to get wet, put it on top of the spigot and turn the water off at the main connection. We get engineering and housekeeping up there to deal with it and all us International Henry Units have to do is stand around and look official, which is our only real talent anyway. 

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Criminals, Courtesans and Constables/Chapter 16 – The Row: From Supermax to appeals to the gurney, our hero’s on death row. 

I was told to remove me clothes. I was strip-searched for the last time, on the off-chance Pastor Rob had given me an Uzi to stick up me arse. I was given a diaper to put on in case, when, I crapped me pants…Then the warden took a sheet of paper out of a breast pocket, unfolded it, took a deep breath and began reading… It was the order to kill me.  

I was led from the cell, the warden in front, Pastor Rob behind me with a hand on me shoulder and screws everywhere else. It was the first time I’d left a cell unbuckled. Immediately we made a right and a couple of steps later we made another right and there it was, the room I would die in. 

From throne rooms to this. 

Click here to read the first four chapters with our compliments. 

You’re probably thinking reading all three of these features will cost you an arm and a leg. Wrong-0. $4.99 gets you access to all three of these American classics. Click on the button to dive in. 

On This Date
History’s long march to today.

In 1889 – Inventor William Gray of Hartford is granted a US patent for a “coin controlled apparatus for telephones”. The first payphone was installed on the corner of Main Street and Central Row in Hartford, and a blue sign on the side of a building commemorates the spot. Earlier in his career, Gray had invented an inflatable chest protector for baseball catchers.

In 1948 – The Philadelphia Phillies establish a new major league record for most runs scored in the first inning with nobody out in a 12-7 victory over the New York Giants. The Phillies score nine runs before the first out was recorded, getting nine hits and a walk with the Giants tossing in an error before the first out was made on a sacrifice. The Phillies would get ten runs in the inning off of three Giants pitchers. The mark is still the National League record, and the major league record is now ten, done by the Boston Red Sox in 2003.

In 1968 – Summer in the City by the Lovin’ Spoonful is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the first of three consecutive weeks. The song was only in its fourth week in the Top 40 and would spend seven weeks in the Top 10, six of those weeks in the Top 5. It was the fifth of seven consecutive Top 10 hits for the group to start their chart career and remains their only #1 song. The song also went to #1 in Canada, peaked at #8 in Great Britain and was Billboard’s 11th biggest song of the year. 

Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever. 

It doesn’t matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop. – Confucious 

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know. 

The major league record for most hitters getting base hits in one game by both teams is 24, by the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sept 19, 1998. That is the extra-innings record, too, done twice. 

Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar. 

Approximately how many payphones remain in the US? – Answer next time!

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