The Daily Dose/July 9, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
We took this past Saturday off, something we don’t do too often. We enjoy writing for you and the nature of two of our features, The Diary of a Nobody and The Daily Dose, demand they be written every day, but sometimes this proves a bit much.
(It is almost interesting to note that taking Saturday off means you get Saturday off from reading our crap. Our actual day off is Friday, because Saturday’s stuff is written on Friday. Now you know.)
We don’t take days off on a whim. Some reading this pay good money to read The Diary of a Nobody on a daily basis and daily basis means every day not whenever the hell we want. But Friday, boy, nothing was clicking. Nothing was asserting itself for writing later that day and we did sit down to write every word was a Herculean effort.
Well, while writing is work, it should not be drudgery, and we’ve learned over the years it is best not to write when this happens because the results are not worth reading. We take a great deal of pleasure in ensuring every word means something – to us, at least – and if we’re just banging content out because we need something for tomorrow we’re not writing, we’re merely typing and you and I both deserve better than that.
So we appreciate your indulgence in our occasional days off. Two columns a day, every day, is a lot.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: This will surprise you, but Sparrow is whining. Today’s Diary.
Proof that ol’ Sparrow will whine about anything can be found in the fact yours truly is whining about sleeping too much…Regular readers of this know ol’ Sparrow prefers to wake up mid-to-late afternoons on Tuesdays, but this much Monday sleep might make that problematic.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
More drivel! Click on the button to read all of The Diary of a Nobody. $5.99 includes all entries, past, present, and future:
On This Date
In 1850 – President of the United States Zachary Taylor dies at the White House, five days after becoming ill at a 4th of July celebration. History suspects Taylor died of gastroenteritis, though History isn’t entirely sure of this. Taylor was the second president to die in office and was succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore, who maintains order by asking the entire Cabinet to resign. Fillmore ran for the Whig Party presidential nomination 1852 but was defeated by army General Winfield Scott, who in turn lost the general election to Franklin Pierce.
In 1877 – The first Wimbledon tennis championships get underway, with 22 men, who each paid one guinea to enter, competing. It was a fairly leisurely tournament, with Spencer Gore not winning the inaugural title until July 19. The tournament was organized as a fundraiser to pay for repairs to maintenance gear and, after paying Gore 12 guineas, the tournament showed a profit of ten guineas. The first ladies tournament was played in 1884.
In 1955 – The Rock Era in American popular begins when Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets is at #1 on Billboard’s Best Sellers in Stores chart – a predecessor of the Hot 100. It is the first rock & roll song to hit #1 and would spend eight weeks at the top. The song also peaked at #3 on Billboard’s soul chart, was Billboard’s second biggest hit of the year and remains Haley’s only #1 song. The song also went to #1 in Great Britain, where it’s charted several times, and returned to the Hot 100 in 1974, peaking at #39.
Quotebook
“The money is important,” he says. “But you don’t do it for the money.”
“What do you do it for?” I say.
“The beauty,” he says softly. “The beauty.”
Gus Caputo and Bobby Fallon
Flesh and Blood
By Pete Hamill
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Coca-Cola, IBM, and Proctor & Gamble are the components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average today that were also components on July 8, 1932.
Today’s Stumper
Who are the presidents of the United States who died in office? – Answer next time!
