The Daily Dose/October 30, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…

LET’S GET OUR CRYSTAL BALLS OUT, SHALL WE?: We try not to do much prognosticating here. One, we’re lousy at it and, two, it’s more fun to make fun of things after they happen. But there’s a difference between predicting and taking a big-picture, long-term view of something(s), and that’s what we are going to do here.

Hut, Hut Hike: Regular readers of this crap are familiar with The Bottom Ten, our hilarious weekly columns chronicling the worst college and professional teams and if you are keeping track there is some lousy football out there. In the college ranks, there are three 0-8 teams, an inordinately high number, while in the NFL the Dolphins and the Bengals are winless and the only reason the Redskins aren’t winless is because they played the Dolphins. Including the Redskins, seven teams have won one or two games.

Thank You Joe Friday: There is a lot of bad football out there.

Work With Me Here: High school football participation rates have been going down for a few years now and we are on record in this space as saying there will come a time when there aren’t enough good players to keep college and pro football the billion-dollar industry it is now.

We would’ve thought that point would still be a few years, maybe even a generation, off, but Lord knows we’ve been wrong before and perhaps might be seeing the beginning of that now. Or maybe it’s an anomaly.

And Down The Stretch They Come: Horse Racing will be back in the news soon and this is another sport whose future is not exactly assured. 2019 has been a brutal year for the sport, horses dying at an alarming clip, even for a sport where horses die regularly. This has been especially true at Santa Anita, which will host the sports biggest two-day event, the Breeders Cup, this Friday and Saturday.

Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: We hope no horses die ever again at a race track. We ran into and killed three deer this past weekend and still feel bad about that. And one horse having to be put down at the Breeder’s Cup probably will be taken in stride.

But multiple deaths? Who knows? A lot more people are ignoring horse racing now than in generations past when, along with baseball and boxing, it was one of America’s big three sports, and multiple deaths at Santa Anita this weekend might just put the sport down for good.

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow reports he used to work with one of the murder suspects at the retailer. Today’s Diary. 

The kid’s name is Brooke, the only chick in the suspect triumvirate, and if any of you have worked for Mr Sam you know having a former retailer employee facing a murder rap probably isn’t the biggest surprise in the history of crime…They were formally charged Monday and the paper reported that their statements are conflicting, with each accusing the others of doing the stabbing while they innocently stood by and watched a fellow human get slashed to death. 

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

Editor’s Note: the Week 10 NFL Bottom Ten will move Thursday. 

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On This Date
In 1938 – Giving a clinic in fake news, Orson Welles’ radio presentation of The War of the Worlds causes a national panic when listeners believe Earth is being attacked by Martians. The show simulated a live radio broadcast interrupted by bulletins announcing an explosion on Mars. The invading Martians eventually die because they lacked immunity to Earth’s germs. Meeting with reporters after the show, Welles expressed surprise the show had been taken seriously. 

In 1974 – Muhammad Ali defeats George Foreman in an 8th-round knockout to regain the world’s heavyweight boxing championship. The fight was held in Kinshasa, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo,  and is known to history as the Rumble in the Jungle. Ali regained the title he had been stripped of in 1967 for his refusal to be drafted into the US Army. The began at 4am local time in order to begin at 10pm in the eastern time zone of the United States, was watched by a then-record one billion people and grossed roughly $100 million, about $510 million in today’s money.  

In 1977 – If You Leave Me Now by Chicago is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the second and final week. It was the group’s 19th Top 40 hit, their eleventh Top 10 hit and their first of three #1s and the song also went to #1 in six other countries, including Great Britain and the Netherlands. If You Leave Me Now also won Grammy Awards for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus, awards that are now issued under similar or different names. The song was written by Peter Cetera, who also provided lead vocals.

Quotebook
If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad of instances and applications?
Henry David Thoreau
Walden

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
OJ Simpson rushed for 2,003 yards for the Buffalo Bills in 1973, then an NFL record.

Today’s Stumper
Who wrote the novel The War of the Worlds? – Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/October 29, 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: Q has a funny line at the hotel. Today’s Diary. 

Somehow the subject of my age came up…I forget how, but the kid guessed I was 39…God bless this young man…I told Q, did you hear that, he thinks I’m 39, Q, what do you think of that???…Q said it was plain combat had taken its toll on the kid’s mind and I shot back my birthday is coming up, just file that away when you’re planning what presents you are going to buy me, as thanks for me showing up every night otherwise Q’s pulling some unwanted night audit shifts…The line from Q:

“What do you want me to get you, some prescriptions???”

That made all of us laff, and I probably violated the employee handbook by giving Q the finger, my turn to get a laff.

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

The Bottom Ten/NCAA Week 10: The race for the ESPNCup, symbolic of Bottom Ten supremacy, rolls on with three (3) 0-8 teams chasing Bottom Ten glory. 

Here are some funny lines from The Bottom Ten. 

Coaching staff committed to teaching players life skills, giving lessons on stubbornness, going 1-for-6 on fourth down conversions. 

Loss to fellow New England school earns UMess John Adams Spitoon – issued to worst team in original 13 colonies.

Fourth-straight loss blamed on multiple unsportsmanlike conduct penalties due to pregame Army Secretary ruling requiring defense – to better prepare for future battles against ISIS – to shoot down all opponents passes with surface-to-air missiles…

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On This Date
In 1969 – A message is sent on a computer-to-computer link for the first time when a message sent by geeks at UCLA was sent for and received by some eggheads at Stanford. The first message sent was login and this was actually the second attempt to send a message on the network; the first attempt crashed the system. The system would grow to include the east coast of the United States by the following March and by summer there were 57 computers online. Today hundreds of people use what has since evolved into the “Internet”. 

In 1973 – O.J. Simpson of the Buffalo Bills establishes a new NFL record when he carried the ball 39 times in a 23-14 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. Simpson also slashed his way for 157-yards and two touchdowns. The record was broken the following season by Lydell Mitchell of the Baltimore Colts with 40 carries and the current record is 45 carries by Jamie Morris of the Washington Redskins in 1988. In this game Simpson also tied Jim Brown’s NFL mark of rushing for 1,000 yards in the first seven games of a season. This record still stands with Simpson accomplishing the feat again in 1975 and it was equaled by Terrell Davis in 1998. 

In 1966 – ? and the Mysterians are at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for their only week with 96 Tears. The group had three more chart singles but only one made the Top 40 and 96 Tears remains their biggest chart single. The song has been covered many times, with some versions making the soul or dance chart, but only Big Maybelle’s version hit the Hot 100, peaking at #96 in 1967. 

Quotebook
It appeared almost as though he hoped the beverage was poisoned, and that he sought death to deliver him from a duty which demanded of him something which was more difficult of accomplishment than it would be to die.
Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Hank Snow had seven #1 songs on Billboard country charts.

Today’s Stumper
How many rushing yards did OJ Simpson have during the 1973 season? – Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/October 28, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…

GOP! GOP! One of the more interesting elements of the end of the second decade of the 21st-century is the continued existence of the Republican Party. Founded in 1854 in Wisconsin by citizens opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, their first elected president was Abraham Lincoln in 1860. 

Fly In The Ointment: The GOP peaked right there. They have not produced a decent elected president since Eisenhower, who left office almost six decades ago.

Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: Nixon was a crook. Reagan presided over a scandal-ridden administration and was the most managed president in history, a precedent we have yet to recover from. George Bush was gracious but was unable to earn a second term. George W Bush lied to get us into war. President Trump disdains protocol, manners, good sense. He believes Colorado borders Mexico, that the moon is part of Mars and that the Continental Army won the Revolution by securing British airports, fallacies most of us were disabused of in middle school if we ever believed them in the first place. His only real talent is drawing attention to himself. 

Dry, Technical Matter: Gerald Ford, of course, wasn’t elected president. A good, decent man, he did well in his two-and-a-half years in the Oval Office, under circumstances the Son of Man would have found challenging. 

Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: The GOP has nothing of substance to offer America, either regarding actual policy or in defending their president against impeachment. Their recent stampede of a House impeachment hearing was childish and petulant, a witless act that merely showed blind followers defending an indefensible president. An impeachment, a Senate trial that tears the party apart regardless of its verdict, more mindless blather from our president, and it is not entirely unreasonable to foresee and America without the Republican Party. 

USA! USA! Good riddance. The GOP would be doing us a favor by disappearing. The only thing they have to offer America right now is playing on white America’s fears. 

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow kills three deer on his way to rescue abandoned kittens. Today’s Diary. 

I have no time to do anything but hit them…

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

Click here to get in on the laffs. We offer 4Ever and Ever access, or cheapskates can purchase books and columns individually. 

On This Date
In 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis comes to an end when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announces the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. The crisis had begun on Oct. 16 when President Kennedy was shown aerial photographs of the weapons. After some discussion, the US enacted a naval blockade that would last until Nov. 20. The only death during the ordeal was of US Air Force Major Rudolf Anderson, whose U-2 spy plane had been shot down by a Soviet missile the day before. 

In 2001 – Matt Williams of the Arizona Diamondbacks becomes the first player in World Series history to hit home runs with three different teams in 4-0 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 2. Previously, Williams had hit World Series home runs for Cleveland in 1997 and San Francisco in 1989. The win gave Arizona a 2-games to zero lead in the series, which they eventually won in seven games. 

In 1950 – I’m Movin’ On by Hank Snow is at #1 on Billboard’s Best-Selling Retail Folk Records chart – one of several predecessors of today’s country chart – for the ninth of a 21 non-consecutive weeks. The song had first hit #1 on Aug. 19 and had four separate stays at the top, starting its final week on Feb. 10. The 21 weeks at #1 tied the all-time country chart record established in 1947 by Eddy Arnold (I’ll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms), tied in 1955 by Webb Pierce (In The Jailhouse Now), broken in 2012-13 by Florida Georgia Line (Cruise, 24 weeks) and now held by Bebe Rexa and Florida Georgia Line (Meant To Be, 50 weeks). Snow had written the song the previous year but his producer had turned it down and only recorded it after the producer seemed to have forgotten about.

Quotebook
Unlike most politicians, he was not driven by an insecure need to be loved and recognized. He possessed an inner confidence born of experience.
Evan Thomas
Ike’s Bluff
Regards President Dwight Eisenhower

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Besides Philadelphia, the following cities served as US capitals before Washington, D.C.: Baltimore (1776-77), Lancaster, Pennsylvania (1777), York, Pennsylvania (1777-78), Princeton, New Jersey (1783), Annapolis, Maryland (1783-84), Trenton, New Jersey (1784), New York City (1785-90).

Today’s Stumper
How many #1 country hits did Hank Snow have? – Answer next time!

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The Daily Dose/October 27, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

The Sunday Bottom 5
The very best of the very worst of the week that was…

1. GOP I – Unable to refute anything, GOP spends time blathering and blustering, culminating in childish, petulant blitzkrieg on closed-door impeachment hearing, showing they have absolutely nothing to offer our country. 

2. GOP II – Clock should be ticking for American political party that hasn’t produced a decent elected president for six (6) decades – Ford was good in supremely challenging circumstances – but Republicans currently giving clinic in how to play white America’s fears like a violin. 

3. President Trump – That his presidency is a loud, insulting, unsubstantive mess, hardly a bulletin because that merely mirrors his entire life…Adds to his legacy of idiocy – which already includes thinking the moon is part of Mars and the Continental Army won the Revolution by securing British airports – by finally acknowledging Colorado borders Mexico. 

4. NFL – Hey guys, whether they’re tanking or just suck, 18 of your 32 teams  – 56 percent – do not have winning records, including twelve (12) stalwarts that have two (2), one (1) or zero (0) wins…America doesn’t seem to care, though, as more people tune in for your pregame shows than watch the World Series.  

5. President Trump Fact Check – Click here for the latest from the  Ministry of Misinformation.  

Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: The Wife makes a dinner they might actually have again. Today’s Diary. 

The Wife made a really good dinner tonight: some pork ribs, which she boiled and had some plum sauce added at some point, and a potato soup that was really good…She made a point of showing the recipe card she used because the running joke in the eleven or so years we’ve known each other is we never have anything twice because she never utilizes recipes, preferring to follow her inspiration…Like some things, this is neither entirely true nor entirely false…There are some things we will never have again, but this won’t be one of them…After waving the recipe card in front of my face she returned it to the file box. 

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

Click here to get in on the laffs. We offer 4Ever and Ever access, or cheapskates can purchase books and columns individually. 

On This Date
In 1682 – The city of Philadelphia is founded in what was then the Colony of Pennsylvania. It was founded by William Penn, who had hoped for a small, rural town that was home to religious tolerance. The town quickly grew though, thanks to its place on the Delaware River and Philadelphia became the colony’s largest city in the 1750s, a distinction it held until the first census in 1790, when it was replaced by New York City. Philadelphia served as the capital of the colonies and the United States five times between 1774- and 1800. 

In 2015 – Michael Conforto of the New York Mets becomes the third player to appear in the World Series, the College World Series and the Little League World Series, going 0-2 with an RBI in a 5-5, 11-inning loss to the Kansas City Royals in Game 1. Conforto also played for Oregon State in the 2013 College World Series and for the Redmond, Washington, Little League in the 2004 Little League World Series. The other two to do it were Jason Varitek and Ed Vosberg. 

In 1973 – Midnight Train To Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first of two consecutive weeks. The song was also in its second of four weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart and won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus. The song remains the group’s only Hot 100 #1 and was one of their eight #1s on the soul chart. The song was written by Jim Weatherly, who was inspired to write it when actress Farrah Fawcett told him she was taking a midnight plane to Houston. Fawcett was dating Weatherly’s friend Lee Majors at the time. 

Quotebook
No man ever followed his genius till it misled him.
Henry David Thoreau
Walden

Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The Grand Canal in China is the longest canal in the world, 1,104 miles, connecting the cities Beijing and Hangzhou. It is also the oldest canal in the world, with the oldest sections dating to before Christ.

Today’s Stumper
Besides Philadelphia, what other cities served as US capitals before Washington, D.C.? – Answer next time!

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