WEDNESDAY, Jan 22 – DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION

MORNING SIDEKICK DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION FOR WEDNESDAY, January 22, 2025
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COMEDY MP3s POSTED ON OUR PREP SITE FOR TODAY: A & M AUTOLAND – Warehouse Sale

TODAY IS …
(All days repeat annually on today’s date unless otherwise noted; days may or may not be called “National”/”International”/”World” depending on source; sources listed often have additional info. We generally do not list special days which were created by commercial companies for the purpose of marketing – including “holidays” created by the National Day Calendar and Wellcat websites to drive traffic to their websites – or the hundreds of disease awareness listings which occur each year.)

CELEBRATION OF LIFE DAY
The National Today website says this:
“Though Celebration of Life Day, which lands on January 22, was originally instituted to celebrate the children in our lives, it has come to signify all that’s good about being alive. It’s easy to forget sometimes, but we are all fortunate to be here. Take time to celebrate that the good far outweighs the bad in this life. It all starts with gratitude and appreciation for where you are right now, and wherever you hope your dreams take you. Every life is precious, individual, and a huge gift, so take a little extra time today to celebrate it.”

NATIONAL ANSWER YOUR CAT’S QUESTION DAY
The Days of the Year website says this:
“This day is all about paying closer attention to your cat and trying to understand their motives, movements and attitude. Whether it’s the volume of their meowing or their incessant scratching of certain objects, taking the time to sit down and try to imagine yourself in your cat’s body can help you bond with your feline friend. By putting yourself in your cat’s shoes for a day, you can try to understand what they do, why they do it and how you can improve your bond.”

NATIONAL BLONDE BROWNIE DAY

NATIONAL HOT SAUCE DAY

January is:

Adopt a Rescued Bird Month
Be Kind to Food Servers Month
Family Fit Lifestyle Month
Financial Wellness Month
Get Organized Month
National Candy Month
National Clean Up Your Computer Month
National Hobby Month
National Skating Month
National Train Your Dog Month
Walk Your Pet Month

ENTERTAINMENT & CELEBRITIES

JERRY SEINFELD REFUSES $25 MILLION FOR ONE OF HIS CARS

Comedian and famous car collector Jerry Seinfeld has refused to sell a 1969 Porsche 917K that he owns. The car was formerly owned by actor Steve McQueen. Seinfeld reportedly turned down a $25 million bid during Mecum Auctions’s Kissimmee, Florida event on Saturday. The car is one of just 25 built for the 1969 film “LeMans.”
* So he only put it in the auction to jerk rich people around? That’s just mean.
* Here’s the thing: Many people don’t know what LeMans is, most people don’t remember who Steve McQueen is, and in another two years we’ll all wonder who Jerry Seinfeld was.
* I can pretty much guarantee that a $25 million car doesn’t even come with cup holders.
* $25 million. Or as Elon Musk calls it, “lunch money.”
* A $25 million car that sits in a warehouse. Another piece of junk for his kids to have to deal with when he dies. Thanks, dad.

RAZZIE AWARD NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED

The annual Razzie Awards, given out to the year’s worst movies, has announced its nominations for last year’s movies:
Worst Picture
– “Borderlands”
– “Joker: Folie a Deux”
– “Madame Web”
– “Megalopolis”
– “Reagan”
* Not gonna see a lot of bar fights over this list.

Worst Actor
– Jack Black, “Dear Santa”
– Zachary Levi, “Harold and the Purple Crayon”
– Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker: Folie a Deux”
– Dennis Quaid, “Reagan”
– Jerry Seinfeld, “Unfrosted”
* I’m sure Jerry is devastated. So much that he refused $25 million for one of his cars. (see Seinfeld car story)

Worst Actress
– Cate Blanchett, “Borderlands”
– Lady Gaga, “Joker: Folie a Deux”
– Bryce Dallas Howard, “Argylle”
– Dakota Johnson, “Madame Web”
– Jennifer Lopez, “Atlas”

Supporting Actor
– Jack Black (Voice Only), “Borderlands”
– Kevin Hart, “Borderlands”
– Shia LaBeouf (in drag), “Megalopolis”
– Tahar Rahim, “Madame Web”
– Jon Voight, “Megalopolis,” “Reagan,” “Shadow Land” and “Strangers”
* And it’s Jon Voight for the quadfecta!

Supporting Actress
– Ariana DeBose, “Argylle” and “Kraven the Hunter”
– Leslie Anne Down (as Margaret Thatcher), “Reagan”
– Emma Roberts, “Madame Web”
– Amy Schumer, “Unfrosted”
– FKA twigs, “The Crow”

Director
– S.J. Clarkson, “Madame Web”
– Francis Ford Coppola, “Megalopolis”
– Todd Phillips, “Joker: Folie a Deux”
– Eli Roth, “Borderlands”
– Jerry Seinfeld, “Unfrosted”
* PHONE TOPIC: What movie would you add to the list of Razzie Awards?

THE BUZZ

GO AHEAD, MAKE MY DAY

Reddit asked, “What’s something, which doesn’t seem like much, that makes your day?” Some of the responses:
– “My kids when they say ‘hi’ to me in the morning.”
– “Putting on a nice shirt.”
– “Hearing my wife or daughters laughing in the house while I’m working in my studio”
– “Not having to cook dinner.”
– “The trash being collected. General waste AND recycling.” (* It’s good not to set the bar too high.)
– “Getting a compliment out of nowhere. It just boosts the whole vibe of the day.”
– “Getting my dog to wag his tail. Seeing him happy makes me happy.”
– “When someone lets me merge in traffic without me having to fight for it. It restores a bit of my faith in humanity.”
– “My husband knows I am not a morning person, work starts at 7, so he wakes me up with a bunch of kisses all over my head. Such a great way to start the day and so much better than my parents banging pots and pans or throwing ice on me like they used to.”
– “I watched my hamster cleaning his face this morning and I just can’t stop smiling!”
– “A good song on the radio.”
* PHONE TOPIC: What simple little thing has made your day today?

U.S. NEWS

AUDIO: PHILLY MAYOR FLUBS “EAGLES” CHANT

Before last weekend’s Philadelphia Eagles/Los Angeles Rams NFL playoff game in the snow – which the Eagles won – Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker held a short pep rally press conference. In all the excitement, she finished by leading everybody in a chant – “E-L-G-S-E-S, Eagles!”
* Dyslexic?
* Too cheap for a teleprompter?
* For what it’s worth, no one can spell Philadelphia, either.
* I’ll bet this never happens with the Rams. Just four letters!
* Then she got into the wrong car and ended up in Trenton.
CLIP: Mayor Parker misspells the Eagles chant.
CLIP URL: morningsidekick(dot)com/prep/wp-content/uploads/PhillyMayorFlubsEaglesChant(dot)mp3

COMPANY FIRES WORKERS BY SENDING PICTURE OF A DUCK

A tech company called Stripe, a payment processing platform, laid off 300 people this week. All the employees who were being laid off woke up to an email from the company containing a picture of a duck in their email – a cute little cartoon duck, as well as a termination date. The company said that the picture of the duck was a mistake. The termination dates were not.
* This is daffy.
* Do you realize the steps involved to compile a list of 300 specific people, group them into an email and send it out? At what point does the picture of a duck accidentally get into the process?
* That was no mistake. In this era of emojis, they were telling everybody that they’re ducked. Royally ducked.
* “Sorry you’re fired, here’s a duck to tell you your next paycheck will be one big goose egg.”
* I hope they’re better at the electronic transfer of huge amounts of money than they are at firing people.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

PLASTIC SURGEON PERFORMS VASECTOMY ON HIMSELF

Taiwanese plastic surgeon Chen Weinong gave himself a vasectomy. And, of course, he put it all on Instagram. Labeled “for educational purposes,” the tutorial shows the surgeon in his chair performing the operation on himself as he casually talks viewers through the process. After applying anesthetic cream to numb the genitals, the fully conscious Dr. Chen carries out the self-surgery using a scalpel and surgical clamp. “I am really brave,” he says. “It was a strange feeling to touch and suture my own urethra.” Dr. Chen said a urologist was standing by, who would’ve taken over if anything went wrong.
* Like every video tutorial, it starts with a boring 20-minute story about his grandmother.
* Through the whole thing, he kept joking, “Don’t get snippy with me.”
* What a cut-up!
* I can barely clip my own toenails, much less this.
* Just a weird thing to do, any way you slice it.

ZULU KING’S FIRST WIFE TRIES TO BLOCK HIM FROM TAKING A THIRD WIFE

The first wife of the king of South Africa’s Zulu Kingdom failed in an effort to legally block her husband’s attempt to take a third wife. King Misuzulu kaZwelithini married first wife Queen Ntokozo in 2021, the year before he ascended to the throne. He took a second wife in 2022. There is no reason given as to why that wedding wasn’t blocked. Now, wanting to marry a third time, Ntokozo sued to stop it. A judge ruled Monday that the king’s wedding to wife #3, Nomzamo Myeni, could proceed. Despite the ruling, though, that third marriage has been put on hold.
* I bet the problem is figuring out the seating arrangements at the head table.
* Not enough bathrooms in the palace?
* The first wife gave the third wife a lovely wedding gift: a zebra-print jacket and a ticket to Lion Country Safari.
* If you want to send a gift, the couple is registered at Bed, Bath and Bwana.
* That King should never have been allowed to watch “Sister Wives.”

TRENDING

OSCARS NOMINATIONS TO BE ANNOUNCED THURSDAY

After a one week delay, the Oscars nominations will be announced on Thursday (1/23). Comedian Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live) and Rachel Sennott (who?) will read off the names starting at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time. Final voting by Academy members will begin on Feb. 11 through Feb. 18. Conan O’Brien will then host the show on March 2.

TREVOR NOAH HOSTING THE GRAMMY AWARDS

Trevor Noah is back to host the 67th annual Grammy Awards, marking his fifth consecutive year as master of ceremonies. The 2025 ceremony will return to Los Angeles’ Crypto(dot)com Arena on Sunday, Feb. 2. The telecast will “carry a renewed sense of purpose” by raising additional funds to support wildfire relief efforts in Los Angeles and honoring the bravery and dedication of first responders who risk their lives to protect others.

ALMANAC

NOTABLE DATES, UPCOMING U.S. OBSERVANCES

January 27, Monday – Int’l Holocaust Remembrance Day (UN)
January 29, Wednesday – Chinese New Year (The Year of the Wood Snake)
February 2, Sunday – Groundhog Day
February 12, Wednesday – Lincoln’s Birthday
February 14, Friday – Valentine’s Day
February 17, Monday – Presidents Day / Washington’s Birthday
March 9, Tuesday – Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras
March 9, Sunday – Daylight Saving Time Begins
March 17, Monday – St. Patrick’s Day
March 20, Thursday – Spring begins, Spring Equinox is 5:01 a.m. EDT

BIRTHDAYS

Sami Gayle (actress, “Blue Bloods”) … 29
Guy Fieri (celebrity chef) … 57
Diane Lane (actress) … 60
Linda Blair (actress, “The Exorcist”) … 66
Steve Perry (rock singer, “Journey”) … 76

Today’s Birthdays grade: Steve Perry led Journey to a series of hit songs in the 80s – Wikipedia says in 2009, “Don’t Stop Believin'” (released in 1981) became the top-selling track in iTunes history among songs not released in the 21st century. And in 1973, Linda Blair’s “The Exorcist” (the first movie in the franchise) raised the bar for shockingly scary scenes in horror movies. Meanwhile, here in the present, Guy Fieri’s marketed himself into an Emmy-winning TV chef. Not a shabby list. Grade: B-minus.

[Want to try something different with the daily birthdays? Try grading them! Some days have “good” celebs, some have “great” celebs, some have “lousy” celebs. For fun, give the group an arbitrary grade: A-plus through F-minus. Sidekick will give you our take on it; you can to take the concept and run with it.]

“What you see is what you get with me. There’s no show.”

(A) Madonna
(B) Britney Spears
(C) Guy Fieri

ANSWER: (C) Guy Fieri

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

2020 – China locked down the city of Wuhan and its 11 million people, in an effort to control COVID-19 with a then official death toll of 17 and over 500 people ill.
* Kinda think they could have tried a little harder.

2010 – Conan O’Brien ended his brief tenure on “The Tonight Show” after accepting a $45 million buyout from NBC to leave the show after only seven months.
* Don’t feel bad for NBC – they make that much in one week of “Tonight Show” commercials.

1998 – Theodore Kaczynski pleaded guilty in Sacramento, Calif., to being the Unabomber in return for a sentence of life in prison without parole.
* Why not? It beat that wooden shack he’d been living in.

1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its famous “Roe versus Wade” decision, ruling that the Constitution of the United States protected the right to have an abortion. The ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.
(Not appropriate for jokes.)

1964 – The world’s largest hunk of cheese, 34,663 pounds, was manufactured in Wisconsin.
* They were trying to catch a fifty-ton mouse.

1959 – The United States Air Force concluded that less than 1% of UFO’s are unknown objects.
* But they didn’t say what percent are secret experimental aircraft.

1946 – U.S. president Harry Truman set up the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency.
* But don’t tell anybody.

1939 – A scientific breakthrough was made at Columbia University when the uranium atom was first split.
* Were college kids smarter then? These days, the biggest breakthroughs being made on college campuses are for the high scores playing Grand Theft Auto.

THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY

2012 – Adele broke an American chart record that had stood for years after being set by The Beatles and Pink Floyd. The singer’s second album “21” clocked up 16 weeks at No. 1 on the U.S. chart matching the success of the “Titanic” original soundtrack. “21” beat The Beatles’ “Sgt Pepper’s” and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” which had previously held the record with runs of 15 weeks at No. 1.

1998 – Singer Toni Braxton filed for bankruptcy, listing liabilities of more than $1 million.

1998 – Rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg filed suit for $10 million in Los Angeles Superior Court against Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, its parent Coopers & Lybrand and former Gelfand accountant Steven Cantrock, charging they mismanaged his money.

1989 – Madonna started divorce proceedings for the second time from Sean Penn at Los Angeles County Court and moved into a new three-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills.

1989 – Bobby Brown was arrested for an overtly sexually suggestive performance after a show in Columbus; he was fined $652 under the anti-lewdness ordinance law.

1983 – The new 24-hour music video network MTV started broadcasting to the West Coast of America after being picked up by Group W Cable, Los Angeles.

1972 – David Bowie “came out” as bisexual during an interview in the British music weekly Melody Maker.

1972 – Don McLean’s album “American Pie” started a seven week run at No.1 in the U.S. album chart.

X-TREME TRIVIA CHALLENGE

Every installment of X-Treme Trivia Challenge includes three mystery factoids. Create your own “Impossible Question” contest – great for listener giveaways and phone interaction starters! Also a perfect sponsorship opportunity!

1. About 50 years ago THIS was named the favorite game of kids. Today, 80% of kids have never played it. What is it?
Hopscotch

2. Over 80% of school kids will do THIS during the school year. What is it?
Swap lunch items

3. Over 50% of kids have had THIS problem. What is it?
Getting gum stuck in their hair

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