The Daily Dose/December 5, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…

Leading Off will return.

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow has a couple of days off coming up. Today’s Diary. 

Today’s VSO shift is my last shift until Saturday night at the hotel…I’m taking Friday off from both the VSO and the hotel, giving me consecutive calendar days off for the first time in a couple of years…The Wife and I are making tentative plans for a road trip on Saturday. 

It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.

The Bottom Ten/NFL Week 15: The Bengals win and the race for The Dan Henning Trophy – symbolic of NFL Bottom Ten supremacy – is thrown into even more chaos than usual. 

Here are some funny lines from this week’s NFL Bottom Ten: 

NFL looking into ways to have Lions play all 16 games on consecutive days at start of season so they don’t have to televise their games after Veterans Day…

Though entire league at respectable .500 for season, eleven (11) teams have four (4) or fewer victories, three teams have lost at least five (5) straight and 16 teams have lost at least one (1) straight. 

Recent capacity crowds at small soccer stadium attributed to fans who took advantage  2-for-1 ticket offer, receiving Charger ticket after buying seat to recent high school football playoff game there…

Click here to get in on the laffs: Sparrow, The Bottom Ten, the funniest books you’ve ever read. We offer 4Ever and Ever access, or cheapskates can purchase books and columns individually. 

On This Date
In 1955 – The Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the seminal events of the Civil Rights Movement, begins in Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott had actually started informally a couple of days earlier, and came four days after Rosa Parks had been arrested for declining to relinquish her seat on a city bus to a white man. The boycott lasted for over a year, until Dec. 20, 1956, until Browder v. Gale, a federal circuit court ruling bus segregation was unconstitutional, a ruling that was later upheld by the US Supreme Court. 

In 1996 – Jermaine O’Neal of the Portland Trail Blazers, at 18 years, 53 days, becomes the youngest player in NBA history, scoring two points in three minutes of action in a 115-104 win over the Denver Nuggets. O’Neal broke the record of 18 years, 72 days Kobe Bryant had established two months earlier and the record is now held by Andrew Bynum, who was 18 years, 6 days old when he made his NBA debut in 2005. 

In 1964 – Lorne Greene is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for his only week with Ringo, a song featuring a spoken-word part by Greene with a chorus singing “Ringo” in the background. The song also went to #1 in Canada and peaked at #24 on Billboard’s country chart. Greene followed Ringo up with two other chart singles, but Ringo remains his only Top 40 hit. The song is one of 40 #1 songs played on by drummer Hal Blaine. 

Quotebook
Michelangelo insisted the purpose of art, at least when practiced at the highest levels, was to channel the most profound aspirations of the human spirit. – Miles Unger, Michelangelo: A Life In Six Masterpieces

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The two songs besides Please Mr Postman by the Marvelettes to spend at least seven weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart in 1961 were Shop Around by the Miracles (eight weeks) and Tossin’ and Turnin’ Bobby Lewis (ten weeks). 

Today’s Stumper
What TV show was Lorne Greene starring in at the time Ringo was at #1? – Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/December 4, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…

Leading Off is in time out.

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow does the wake-up call greeting. Today’s Diary. 

The big news is I did the wakeup call!!!…I am not making that up…Neither Amy nor Q could be bothered…You’d think Amy would have taken care of it…She’s new to the wakeup call racket and could use the practice, but no…Lord knows they weren’t busy, so maybe they just forgot…Or maybe they wanted ol’ Sparrow to keep his skills sharp. 

Key here is not to try and reinvent the wheel…Remember, your audience is people who are just waking up and you don’t want to annoy them by being too goddamned cheery…Good morning, your name, the weather, have a good day, thank you for staying with us and if this takes more than ten seconds you’re blabbing.

It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.

Click here to get in on the laffs: Sparrow, The Bottom Ten, the funniest books you’ve ever read. We offer 4Ever and Ever access, or cheapskates can purchase books and columns individually. 

On This Date
In 1872 – The American merchant ship Mary Celeste is found adrift off the Azore Islands by a Canadian ship. The ship was disheveled but seaworthy and the lifeboat was missing. The Mary Celeste had sailed from New York on Nov. 7 bound for Italy and the ship’s last deck log entry was ten days earlier, noting its position, about 400 miles southwest from where she was actually found. No substantive theories exist as to why the ship was abandoned and no one from the crew was ever heard from again. 

In 1987 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s NBA record of 787 consecutive games scoring at least ten points comes to an end, as he scores seven points in an 85-83 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, a streak that had started in December 1977. Abdul-Jabbar’s record was broken in 1997 by Michael Jordan and is now held by LeBron James, who broke Jordan’s record of 866 consecutive games last year. James scored 25 points on Tuesday night to bring his streak to 949 consecutive games. 

In 1961 – Please Mr. Postman by the Marvelettes is at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart – then known as the Hot R&B Sides chart – for the fourth of seven consecutive weeks. It was the first chart single for the group and remains their only #1 song on either chart. The following week the song also went to #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and Please Mr. Postman returned to the top of the Hot 100 when a version by the Carpenters spent a week at #1 in 1975. 

Quotebook
So nigh is grandeur to our dust/So near is God to man/When duty whispers low, Thou must/The youth replies, I can – Emerson

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Besides the election of 1800, one other presidential election, 1824, has been decided by the House of Representatives. That year John Quincy Adams defeated Andrew Jackson and William C Crawford. 

Today’s Stumper
What were the other two songs to spend at least seven weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart in 1961? – Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/December 3, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…

YOU WERE GONE?: Sometimes when we take a couple of days off it’s because the brain needs a break from producing two, sometimes three, columns a day. We have a knack for it and Lord knows we enjoy it, but the brain is no different from the body: sometimes you need to do something else. 

Fly In The Ointment: Not this time, though. Our latest reader-depleting break was due to some website changes we were making that were going to take a few days if we continued writing. We didn’t want to wait that long, though. One of the things we’ve learned in the writer’s racket is to trust your instincts, so when we sat down to write The Diary of a Nobody one day last week and every word was like pulling teeth, well, that’s not writing that’s typing and that doesn’t do you or me any good. It was our instincts tell us to get busy with the changes. 

USA! USA! And change we did, redesigning the homepage to this website and the Gaylon For US Senate site and another one we take care of for a fellow writer and I am pleased to report everything went splendidly. We were afraid it might take longer than the weekend but no, we finished it right on schedule. 

Dry, Technical Matter: We think the new homepage here will give newcomers a better idea of what the site is about. We were actually rather pleased with the layout of the old homepage, which had the latest content in reverse-chronological order, but we got some feedback that the side menus where the books were could be confusing. Well, we don’t want confusing we want easy, so now our books are right there, front and center, on Column 2 of the homepage.  

It’s good to be back. Two days off for Sparrow is the longest he’s been away in well over three years and you can bet The Bottom Ten will run as scheduled this week. We hope you like the new layout. 

 Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow finds someone in the can at 0300. Today’s Diary. 

Right after that, I go to use the restroom and I am surprised to see two feet under the door to a crapper…(To make this somewhat embarrassing, I was talking to myself, a common enuff occurrence, when I walked in.)…Christ, it’s 0300, who in the hell besides ol’ Sparrow is using the facilities at a nearly deserted hotel???

It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.

The Bottom Ten/NCAA Week 15 – The Interregnum Poll: Featuring the usual witless social commentary America has grown to know and tolerate. 

Click here to get in on the laffs: Sparrow, The Bottom Ten, the funniest books you’ve ever read. We offer 4Ever and Ever access, or cheapskates can purchase books and columns individually. 

On This Date
In 1800 – Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each receive 73 votes in the Electoral College for president, the first such tie in an American presidential election. Jefferson’s opponent in the election was actually President John Adams and Burr was Jefferson’s running mate, however, at the time ballots did not differentiate between a ballot cast for president and one cast for vice president. Jefferson would defeat Burr in the contingent election in the House of Representatives on February 17 on the 36th ballot. 

In 1976 – Fred Brown of the Seattle SuperSonics ties the NBA record for most steals in a game with ten in a 121-112 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers. Brown tied the record that had been established by Jerry West of the Los Angeles Lakers in 1973 and later tied by Larry Steele of the Portland Trail Blazers in 1974. The record was broken 13 days later by Larry Kenon of the San Antonio Spurs who had eleven steals and this mark was tied in 1999 by Kendall Gill of the New Jersey Nets. 

In 1966 – The New Vaudeville Band is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first of three non-consecutive weeks with Winchester Cathedral. The New Vaudeville Band was a studio group and when the song became a hit a touring group was formed with drummer Henri Harrison the only original member to tour with the group. The group had other hits and Winchester Cathedral remains their only #1 song. The song also went to #1 in Canada and peaked at #4 in the group’s native Great Britain and Winchester Cathedral won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary (R&R) Recording, later known as Best Contemporary Song, an award that is no longer issued. 

Quotebook
…the only absolute attainment is absolute abandonment. – Buddha

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Franklin Field in Philadelphia has held the Army/Navy the most times of any stadium that is still standing, 18 times between 1899-1935. 

Today’s Stumper
How many other presidential elections have been decided by the House of Representatives? – Answer next time!

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