FRIDAY, Sept 1 – DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION

MORNING SIDEKICK DAILY PREP EMAIL AND TEXT VERSION FOR FRIDAY, September 1, 2017
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NOTE: MORNING SIDEKICK WILL BE OFF ON MONDAY, SEPT. 4 FOR THE U.S. LABOR DAY HOLIDAY. WE WILL RETURN WITH PREP FOR TUESDAY, SEPT. 5

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, or the hundreds of disease awareness listings which occur each year.)

EMMA M. NUTT DAY
http://holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/September/emmanuttday.htm says this:
“Emma M. Nutt Day celebrates the first woman telephone operator in America. Emma Nutt became the first woman telephone operator on September 1, 1878. She loved the job, and worked at it for 33 years. This special day celebrates the world of telephone operators. It was a very important job for many decades. Today, the position has been eliminated being replaced by automation in telephone systems.”

NATIONAL CHERRY POPOVER DAY

NATIONAL CHICKEN BOY DAY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Boy says this:
“Chicken Boy is a landmark statue on the historic U.S. Route 66 (North Figueroa Street) in the Highland Park, California area of Los Angeles. The colorful 22-foot tall fiberglass statue was recognized by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with the Governor’s Historic Preservation Award in 2010.”

NATIONAL NO RHYME (NOR REASON) DAY
http://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-no-rhyme-nor-reason-day-september-1/ says this:
“National No Rhyme (Nor Reason) Day, observed annually on September 1, celebrates words in the English language which do not rhyme with any other words. Also known as refractory rhymes, these are words that poets try to avoid using in verse. Some unrhymable words in the English language include: Orange, Month, Silver, Spirit, Chimney, Purple, Woman.”

September is:

Baby Safety Month
Better Breakfast Month
Chicken Month
Classical Music Month
Fall Hat Month
Hispanic Heritage Month
Honey Month
International Square Dancing Month
Little League Month
National Blueberry Popsicle Month
National Courtesy Month
National Piano Month
Self Improvement Month
Full list is here:
http://www.holidays-and-observances.com/september-holidays.html

CELEBRITIES

DAD SITS NEXT TO NICK JONAS

The father of University of South Florida student Deanna Hall was flying First Class with Delta Airlines when there was a lot of fuss surrounding the passenger sitting next to him. So, Dad texted his daughter, asking “Who is Nick Jonas?” Deanna texted back: “A famous singer. I love him. He was a part of the Jonas Brothers.” Dad texted her back: “He is sitting beside me on the plane.” Deanna, who was a fan of the Jonas Brothers growing up texted back, in all caps: “TAKE A PIC WITH HIM. TELL HIM I LOVE HIM. GET AN AUTOGRAPH.” Instead, Dad took a selfie with Nick Jonas, and Deanna posted it on Twitter.
* OMG, not THE Deanna Hall’s father!!!!
* Poor Nick. He was probably thankful for the break, and then the guy’s daughter had to ruin it.
* Then Dad said, “You know, Nick, my daughter’s about your age, and she’s not seeing anybody at the moment …”
* Maybe Dad will come home with a cute “Nick Jonas farted” story.
* It sure beats flying with Gerard Depardieu when he pees on the floor.
* PHONE TOPIC: “My Parent’s Celebrity Encounter.” Have a contest to see whose parent has had an encounter with the best celebrity.

ENTERTAINMENT

SPRINGSTEEN SELLS OUT BROADWAY, RUN EXTENDED TEN WEEKS

Tickets to Bruce Springsteen’s solo Broadway show went on sale Wednesday, and they immediately sold out through November 26th. The run has been extended by ten weeks through February 3rd. Bruce will be all by himself in the show, playing songs and telling stories.
* Too cheap to hire a band, eh Boss?
* Remember, the more Taylor Swift merchandise you buy, the better your chances of getting tickets to Bruce Springsteen. That’s how Ticketmaster works.
* Maybe someone in the audience will Skype it.
* Or we could get MacGyver to install secret cameras.
* I hear he’s working up a little tap dance number to “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day”.

NFL TO AIR SIX-SECOND ADS

Fox Networks will begin showing six-second TV ads for NFL games on September 10, right before kickoff on opening weekend of the regular season. The ads will be placed inside the usual commercial blocks of standard 15- to 30-second ads, but also during shorter breaks between plays. Fox is hoping that the new strategy will keep football fans on their couches with their eyes glued to their TV screens instead of checking their phones or heading to the fridge during the ad block.
* Challenge accepted!
* I’m gonna have to up my mute button skills.
* I’m also gonna need a faster microwave.
* Thank you, Max Headroom. Ahead of your time. (“Blipverts”)
* Good luck getting the Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company to run a six-second ad. It takes 10 seconds just to say the name.

“LORD OF THE FLIES” REMAKE – WITH CHICKS

Hollywood is working on a version of the classic story “Lord of the Flies,” the famous William Golding novel from 1954 about tween-age boys stranded on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. This time, it’s going to be all girls. It’s been pointed out that the people behind the all-girl remake are men: Scott McGehee and David Siegel, who collaborated on “The Deep End,” “Bee Season” and “What Maisie Knew”.
* Three of my favorites!
* Substituting girls for boys? So – triple the dialog, then?
* Easy remake. The tween girls are now going to be college co-eds, all the luggage with their clothes was lost in the plane crash, and there’s a serial killer on the island.
* In this version, instead of two tribes the girls divide themselves into four cliques: The hotties, the jocks, the nerds and the goths.
* Instead of the head of a pig, they use a big plastic Barbie Makeup Head.
* Disaster strikes when the girls try to build a fire and they can’t even.

THE SONGS OF SUMMER

What were the songs of summer? Spotify released its list of most streamed songs:
#1: Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito (Remix)” featuring Justin Bieber with 786 million plays so far globally.
#2: DJ Khaled’s “Wild Thoughts” featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller
#3: French Montana’s “Unforgettable” with Swae Lee
#4: DJ Khaled’s “I’m the One”
#5: Willy William, J Balvin’s “Mi Gente”
#6: Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You”
#7: Calvin Harris’s “Feels”
#8: Charlie Puth’s “Attention”
#9: Liam Payne’s “Strip That Down”
#10: Imagine Dragons’ “Thunder”
* This is a great list, ’cause otherwise how would we know what we’ve been playing all summer?
* Spotify also revealed that a lot of people watched the season-ending episode of “Game of Thrones”.
* Those Despacito guys really lucked out getting someone to remix their song with Bieber.
* Apparently, it really helps a song if you feature somebody, even if it’s only the cleaning lady at the studio.
* Imagine Dragons would have done better if it had been “Thunder” by Imagine Dragons, featuring Denny the plumber who was down the hall snaking a toilet that day.

THE BUZZ

NEW DADS ARE GETTING OLDER

Stanford University researchers analyzed nearly 169 million births dating back to the 1970s. Back then, the average age of a first-time American father was 27.4 years old. Today, the average first-time father is 30.9. Researchers also found fathers who were older than 40 jumped from 4.1 percent in 1972 to 8.9 percent in 2015.
* Blame George Clooney.
* And video games. “Honey, come to bed!” “As soon as I finish level 28 of Grand Theft Auto!”
* Plus, new Dads are warning their childless friends to wait as long as possible before putting an end to all their fun.
* If Dads keep getting older, they’re going to be yelling at their OWN kids to “Get off my lawn!”
* Wait – aren’t ALL Dads getting older?

U.S. NEWS

GUY JUMPS INTO OCEAN TO ELUDE POLICE, IS CHASED BY SHARK

In Surf City, North Carolina, Zachary Kingsbury, 20, was pulled over for a traffic stop just before 5 p.m. He took off when officers spotted illegal contraband inside the vehicle and asked him to exit the car. Kingsbury jumped into the ocean and began swimming away, leading to an hours-long standoff (* swimoff?), officials said. Within an hour, Kingsbury was about 4,000 feet from the shore, and the police launched a drone to track him. But as police were trying to recover Kingsbury, they noticed a shark swimming near the man. Police were eventually able to nab Kingsbury about 7:45 p.m. He was charged with resisting arrest, obstructing an officer, possession of drug paraphernalia, methamphetamine, and possession of marijuana.
* Nature has a way of sorting things out, if you let it.
* Being on meth, he easily outswam the shark.
* Where’s Aquaman when you need him?
* Dude, “Swimming with the sharks” is just an expression!
* Surf City, Shark City, same thing, right?

GUYS TRY TO ROB A BAR FULL OF COPS

Two guys walked into a Woodlawn, Maryland, bar Tuesday night with the intent to rob it. They didn’t know Monaghan’s Pub was filled with dozens of off-duty officers there for a cop retirement party. The two men held up an employee at gunpoint before running off with an undisclosed amount of cash. The employee quickly went over to the cops and alerted them to the robbery. Off-duty officers at the party ran out and took the men – Joseph McInnis III, 21, and Tyree McCoy, 23 – into custody.
* The retiring cop is going, “Two perps? For me? Aww, guys, you shouldn’t have!”
* The cops poured out of there like clowns from a clown car.
* Wow, you don’t often see synchronicity and serendipity happening at the same time.
* Plus irony and maybe also a little karma.
* Is it possible to do a forehead-slap wearing handcuffs?

HOUSTON FLOOD: TRAPPED BAKERS SPEND TIME MAKING BREAD FOR COMMUNITY

It’s always nice to hear these stories in the middle of a disaster: the staff at a Mexican bakery chain in Houston, Texas, were stuck at their store for two days because of the flooding. While they were waiting for the eventual rescue that came Monday morning, the four workers at El Bolillo Bakery decided to make as many loaves of bread as possible for their community. The store still had power, so they used more than 4,200 pounds of flour to create hundreds of loaves of bread and sheets of Mexican patries (called pan dulce). After the streets had opened and they were able to leave, they took the loaves to emergency centers across the city.
* Where they were promptly met by ICE agents asking for their papers. No, just kidding!!!
* So instead of loafing, they spent their time loafing.
* Baked for two days. Or as Willie Nelson calls it, “a mellow weekend”.
(NOTE: The El Bolillo workers have lost homes, cars and valuables, and the owner has set up a gofundme site for them here: https://www.gofundme.com/el-bolillo-bakery-bakers)

AUDIO: SCIENTISTS RECORD MYSTERIOUS RADIO WAVES FROM DEEP SPACE

Scientists who search for signs of intelligent life in the universe have detected a series of mysterious radio signals from a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light years away. The group called Breakthrough Listen say they’ve found 15 fast radio bursts, or FRBs, from a deep space “repeater” called FRB 121102. The first signal was heard on Nov. 2, 2012. While a few other FRBs have been detected, what makes this one unique is that it was heard again in 2015, and its location pinpointed a year later. Instruments at the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia last Saturday detected 15 bursts over the entire 4 to 8 gigahertz frequency band. Individual bursts of radio waves can pop up anywhere in this wide range of frequencies. While scientists don’t know what is causing the fast radio bursts, they don’t think it’s anything to do with aliens.
* Ask Jodie Foster. She’d know.
* Looking for intelligent life via radio? I hope no aliens are listening to this show.
* 3 billion light years away, so that means their radio is still playing Taylor Swift country songs, before she switched.
* Please don’t call them dwarf galaxies. They’re little people galaxies.
* (After playing clip below) Oh my god – Space Birds!
* They’re shooting lasers at us! Pew pew pew!!
* One scientist claims to have decoded the radio waves. He says it translates into “Eat … your … Ovaltine”.
CLIP: No joke – this is what the scientists heard, although they have been edited closer together.
CLIP URL: http://morningsidekick.com/prep/wp-content/uploads/09-01-RadioWavesFromSpace.mp3

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

AUDIO: MAN COVERED IN BEES FOR AN HOUR, ON PURPOSE

A Canadian beekeeper set a Guinness World Record by being covered in thousands of live bees for more than an hour. Juan Carlos Noguez Ortiz let thousands of bees rest on his face and head for 61 minutes Wednesday in Toronto, for the record-breaking performance to promote the release of the horror film “Blood Honey”. Ortiz is an employee at Dickey Bee Honey Farm in Cookstown, which provided the bees for the skin crawling stunt. “I wanted to show people that they don’t have to be scared of the bees,” he said.
* I’m not scared of the bees. I’m scared of their stingers.
* Unfortunately, he still has the queen up his nose.
* He set a record for having bees on his face. Everybody watching him set a record for Most People With a Case of the Willies.
* Then the hornets attacked.
* “Bee Movie” would have done a lot better if Jerry Seinfeld had done this stunt.
CLIP: Nicolas Cage screams, “Not the bees!”
CLIP URL: http://morningsidekick.com/prep/wp-content/uploads/Bees-NicCage.mp3

AUDIO: MAN SITS BARE-ASSED ON BEEHIVE ON A BET

A New Zealand beekeeper accepted a bet to sit on a beehive bare-bottomed. Jamie Grainger, 27, from Tauranga, performed the crazy feat at a farm in Matamata earlier this month. Footage shows him dropping his pants to press his bare bottom on the hive. The 27-year-old lasted 30 seconds before jumping off in agony. He got $1,000 for his efforts.
* And that is how Jamie Grainger got the nickname “Honey Buns”.
* He should be able to sit down by next Tuesday.
* It gets lonely out on the bee farm, I guess.
* So him and the bees were bumpin’ bottoms.
* There are Japanese men who will PAY $1,000 to do that.
* Who pulls the stingers out?
* Next challenge: Fire ants.
CLIP: Man sits on beehive.
CLIP URL: http://morningsidekick.com/prep/wp-content/uploads/09-01-ManSitsOnBeehive.mp3

TV TONIGHT

ABC – “What Would You Do?” – I wouldn’t spy on people in awkward situations.

CBS – “MacGyver” – MacGyver tries to divert Houston’s floodwaters using a blowdryer and a package of Portobello mushrooms.

NBC – “Diana, 7 Days” – I’ve invented a new term: “Deathsploitation”.

FOX – “MasterChef” – The top nine must create a breakfast dish using Nutella as the key ingredient. How can you mess this up?

ANIMAL PLANET – “Treehouse Masters” – A treehouse with an art studio, an office, a lounge, a screened-in porch, and a deck overlooking a stable of alpacas. What – no bowling alley?

DISCOVERY – “American Made Inventors” – The Discovery channel invents a ripoff of “Shark Tank”.

FOOD – “Guy’s Family Road Trip” – Guy Fieri fries some fish. Hey, give the guy a break – it’s Friday.

ALMANAC

NOTABLE DATES, UPCOMING U.S. OBSERVANCES

Sept. 4, Monday – Labor Day
Sept. 10, Sunday – National Grandparent’s Day (First Sunday After Labor Day)
Sept. 11, Monday – Patriot Day
Sept. 15, Friday – POW/MIA Recognition Day
Sept. 22, Friday – The First Day of Autumn
(Fall Equinox is 4:02 P.M. EDT)

BIRTHDAYS

J. D. Fortune (singer, INXS) … 44
Ricardo Antonio Chavira (actor, “Welcome to the Family,” “Desperate Housewives”) … 46
Gloria Estefan (singer) … 60
Phil McGraw (talk show host, “Dr. Phil”) … 67
Barry Gibb (singer, The Bee Gees) … 71
Lily Tomlin (comedian, actress, “Grace and Frankie”) … 78

BIRTHDAY QUOTE QUIZ – Ask your listeners “Who said it?” HINT: Today’s their birthday!

“Failure is no accident.”

(A) Jared Fogle
(B) Ryan Lochte
(C) Phil McGraw

ANSWER: (C) Phil McGraw

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

2007 – Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, announced that he would resign in the wake of fallout over his guilty plea in a Minnesota airport bathroom gay sex sting. (Craig later reversed his decision, saying he would serve out the rest of his term.)
* ‘Cause slinking away just wouldn’t be manly.

1998 – J.K. Rowling’s book “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first book in the Harry Potter series, was released in the U.S.
* The money poured in like magic!

1939 – World War II began when Germany invaded Poland.
* It was starting to look like this Hitler person might not be very nice.

THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY

2011 – Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong was thrown off a Southwest flight because the singer was wearing his pants too low. A flight attendant had approached Armstrong and told him, “Pull your pants up or you get off the plane.”

2005 – Barry Cowsill, bass guitarist for The Cowsills, died from injuries caused by Hurricane Katrina. His body was not recovered until December 28th, 2005, from the Chartres Street Wharf, New Orleans. He was 51.

1984 – After a 25-year career, Tina Turner had her first solo No.1 single in the U.S. with “What’s Love Got To Do With It”. The song was offered to Donna Summer, who stated she sat with it for a couple of years but never recorded it.

1983 – The other three members of The Clash, who claimed he’d “drifted apart” from the original idea of the group, fired Mick Jones, their lead guitarist.

1977 – Blondie, featuring former Playboy Bunny Debra Harry, signed their first major record company contract with Chrysalis Records.

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!

1. 10% of women surveyed said they commonly do THIS before going on a first date. What is it?
They buy new underwear

2. 24% of women surveyed said they’ve done THIS before a big date. What is it?
Waxed their legs

3. 28% of women surveyed said they do THIS on a first date to impress a man. What is it?
Wear a bust-enhancing bra

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