The Daily Dose/May 27, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
BLACKS ARE BEING KILLED BY WHITE COPS AGAIN, BUT LET’S ROLL WITH THIS: The NHL has announced plans for resuming their season, the first major North American sport to do so, satisfying the world’s demand that the Stanley Cup be awarded this year.
Dry, Technical Matter: The plan ends the regular season right now and 12 teams from each conference will advance to the playoffs, which would be held in one city in each conference and if everything goes as planned training camps will open in early June and a champion crowned in early autumn, which is when the 2020-21 regular season would normally begin.
Further Dry, Technical Matter: Each team would be allowed 50 employees, including players, coaches, trainers and whatnot. All would be tested regularly. Other minor details, like when and where the games are going to be played, are still to be worked out. The games would be televised, but it’s not known if fans would be allowed to attend.
Heck, it’s not even known if this will work. 1,200 people will have to be tested regularly during the early days of the playoffs and what happens when, if, someone turns up positive for COVID-19? Do you shut the whole thing down? Do you take the positive cases out back and shoot them? Really, all the NHL has is a wish list.
Fly In The Ointment: One thing we are still wondering is whether major league sports being played in empty stadiums and arenas will take hold with American TV watchers. Who the heck knows? A live crowd is such an integral part of the game that fans may not find it watchable. On the other hand, the average American watches over five hours of TV every day, so maybe it will, on the theory they have to watch something.
Do You Wonder Why You Don’t Get Invited To More Parties?: This brings up something else: if it does draw viewers, it if turns out America doesn’t care if there’s a crowd or not, maybe the time will come when they won’t care if the results are predetermined or not, either. Maybe the time has come when entertainment will trump competition. I don’t think the athletes will go for it, but we’re still watching professional wrestling decades after it was established as a fraud and those athletes don’t seem to have any qualms about how they’re earning their livings. Sports has merely been TV programming for a couple of generations now and doing away with actual competition could be the next step in its evolution.
The Bottom Line: Good luck with this NHL because it will be needed. The details will as tedious as they are difficult and we’re on record here as saying there may not be any college or professional sports until after the first year and we’re putting it at 50/50 the Stanley Cup gets awarded at all this year.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody: The cat gets some fresh litter. Today’s Diary.
I changed the litter in the cat box when I got home…It had been a while since the cat’s had a full change of litter and it’s really easy because there’s a bag in the litter box designed for this purpose and it’s a simple matter to remove it, but a fresh bag in and then pour the fresh litter in.
What’s more or less is funny is last night before I left for the hotel I opened the container of litter – it’s kept next to the litter box – to verify there was enuff for a full change and when I got home this morning the cat had used it to go #1 in…The litter clumps, so it was easy to remove.
Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: Friends, it gives us a great deal of pleasure to report that coming June 1 we will be offering a new way to read this classic: it will run as daily posts, just like it reads in the ebook and just like the daily entries in The Diary of a Nobody.
The fun starts this Monday with the first entry and the memoir covers approximately 15 months in the life of a graveyard security officer on the Vegas Strip. It is, honestly, as funny a book as you will ever read. If you’ve already purchased The Diary of a Nobody – or if you do so before June 7 – you’ll get access to Backstairs at the Monte Carlo, too. After June 7, you’ll have to purchase it separately, so act now.
Click here 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
History’s long march to today.
In 1703 – The city of St Petersburg is founded by Russian Tsar Peter the Great to give Russia a year-round seaport. The city is located at the mouth of the Neva River, about halfway between Finland and Estonia. The city served as Russia’s capital from 1713-1728 and again from 1730-1918, when it was moved to Moscow and today has a population of roughly 5.3 million, the northernmost European city with more than one million people. The site had originally been the site of a fortress built by Swedes in 1611.
In 1873 – The first Preakness Stakes is held at Pimlico race track in Baltimore. Survivor won the 1.5-mile race by ten lengths in 2 minutes, 43 seconds, and earned $3,000, about $58,000 in today’s money. The race was run on assorted dates and distances for many years and has been run two weeks after the Kentucky Derby since 1932 and at a mile and three-sixteenths (9.5 furlongs) since 1925. The race was held in New York City – in the Bronx and Coney Island – between 1890 and 1908 and the 2020 Preakness Stakes is scheduled for October 20.
In 1972 – The Chi-Lites are at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the only week with Oh Girl. It was the third of five Top 40 hits for the group, their second Top 10 hit and remains their only #1 song. The song peaked at #14 in Great Britain and in June spent two weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart, their second and final #1 soul song (Have You Seen Her, two weeks, 1971). The song returned to the Hot 100 in 1990 when a version by Paul Young peaked at #8.
Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
…the virtuoso performance is the tip of a lifetime of struggle, and the gem of meaning is set in the metal of long perseverance. – Deng-Ming Dao, 365 Tao
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
Albert Pujols is the active major league player with the most extra-base hits, with 1,333
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
What song spent the most weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart in 1972? – Answer next time!
