WEDNESDAY, Apr 12 – DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION

MORNING SIDEKICK DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION FOR WEDNESDAY, April 12, 2023
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COMEDY MP3s POSTED ON OUR PREP SITE FOR TODAY: A & M AUTOLAND – Second To Nunn; THE ONLY MORNING SHOW IN TOWN

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.)

EQUAL PAY DAY

GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH DAY

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT
Wikipedia says this:
“In 2011, April 12 was declared as the International Day of Human Space Flight in dedication of the first manned space flight made on April 12, 1961 by the 27-year-old Russian Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Gagarin circled the Earth for 1 hour and 48 minutes aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft.”

NATIONAL DROP EVERYTHING AND READ (D.E.A.R.) DAY
In honor of renowned children’s author Beverly Cleary’s birthday.

NATIONAL LICORICE DAY

WALK ON YOUR WILD SIDE DAY
The Holiday Insights website says this:
“Walk on Your Wild Side Day encourages us to take a chance. It’s a call to the inner strength within you, to do something out of your comfort zone. Do something wild and crazy, and perhaps a little daring. To participate in this special day, you don’t have to do something dangerous, like hang gliding, parachuting, or riding a zip line. And please don’t do something illegal. Rather, think of something that the normal and usual ‘you’ would not do. Then, kick your shoes off and go do it… just go wild. After you have performed this wild and crazy thing, don’t forget that you have Facebook bragging rights.”

April is:

Car Care Month
Celebrate Diversity Month
D.E.A.R Drop Everything and Read Month
International Guitar Month
Jazz Appreciation Month
Keep America Beautiful Month
National Card and Letter Writing Month
National Garden Month
National Greyhound Adoption Month
National Humor Month
National Poetry Month

ENTERTAINMENT & CELEBRITIES

ELVIS’ PRIVATE JET TO BE TURNED INTO AN RV, WILL CRUISE VEGAS

Elvis Presley’s 1962 Lockheed JetStar private jet made news earlier this year when it was bought at auction for $234,000, after languishing in the Roswell, New Mexico, desert for close to 40 years. The mystery buyer turned out to be an aviation buff, named Jimmy Webb, who has come up with a plan on what to do with the plane. Since it will never fly again, he’s going to mount the fuselage on an RV chassis and make it street-legal so it can be driven around Las Vegas, and tour the country to raise funds for charities. The interior has red plush carpet and red velvet seats (* classy!). His plan includes having the driver dress up as Elvis and have a flight attendant serve peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
* Actually, Elvis ate fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Could they put in a hotplate?
* (give it your best Elvis imitation) ♫♪ R-V-va, Las Vegas! ♪♪ uh-huh.
* There have been worse Elvis ideas. His movie “Clambake,” for example.
* “Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts. Elvis has left the parking lot!”

THE BUZZ

ANNOYING CO-WORKERS

Reddit asked, “What do you wish your co-worker would stop doing?” Some of the responses:
– “Slurping coffee.”
– “Burping.”
– “Being a snitch.”
– “Always one-upping any story I say.”
– “Understand that if all you’re getting from me is ‘uh huh’ and ‘yeah’ – take that as a cue to stop talking.”
– “Collecting money for everybody’s retirement/birthday/kid’s graduation/sick/in the hospital. I barely know these people.”
– “Spreading. Their stuff keeps spreading onto my work area.”
– “Eating smelly lunches.”
– “Telling personal problem stories. I don’t care.”
– “Grooming herself at her desk.”
– “Swearing quietly when frustrated.”
– “Commenting out loud every task that they are busy doing.”
* I’m so glad none of these have anything to do with the restrooms.
* Nine seasons of The Office, and this is all people could come up with?
* So when you see those surveys about 60% of workers being unhappy at their jobs, it’s not exactly the job that’s the problem.
* Remember “social distancing”? Good times!
* PHONE TOPIC: What do you wish your co-worker would stop doing?

U.S. NEWS

MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER LET KIDS FIGHT IN CLASS

A middle school teacher was arrested for letting 6th-grade students fight in her classroom. Angel Footman, a 23-year-old teacher at Griffin Middle School in Tallahassee, Florida, allowed girls to fight in her classroom. Videos of the incidents show Footman standing nearby or sitting at her desk while the fights occurred. Footman would even set rules like, “30 seconds, no screaming, no yelling, no phones.” She asked two of the girls whether they wanted to come back during her 6th period planning time to fight again. Two fights took place March 22 and one on March 23. They involved six girls who paired off. No one reported being injured. Footman did tell authorities that she knows she has “poor classroom management skills.”
* Sounds like there wasn’t even enough time for the other teachers to place bets.
* Are the kids fans of the new “Creed III” movie?
* Finally, a teacher who doesn’t treat her students like snowflakes, and THIS happens.
* Instead of fighting, she should have suggested a dance-off, filmed it, and she’d be a TikTok sensation.
* Now where would you rather have your kid fighting – in a controlled situation like a classroom, or out behind the school dumpsters?
* Those that can’t teach, referee.

RESTAURANT BRINGS BACK $214 GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH

Today (Wednesday 4/12) is National Grilled Cheese Day. Want to waste some money? Serendipity 3, a New York restaurant famous for its creatively expensive food, is bringing back their Quintessential Grilled Cheese sandwich today only. It costs $214. The sandwich, which has to be ordered 48 hours in advance (* Dang! Missed it!) features French pullman champagne bread, made with Dom Perignon Champagne (* Nice and soggy!). The bread is covered in grass-fed white truffle butter before being filled with slices of Caciocavallo Podolico cheese. The sandwich is then toasted until golden and the edges are then gilded in 23-karat edible gold. The sammich is served with a side of South African Lobster Tomato Bisque.
* Hey – for $214, I want fries with that.
* It’s expensive because they take extra care getting all the plastic wrap off of the cheese slices.
* Of course, just like shrinking bags of potato chips and bottles of Gatorade, the Quintessential Grilled Cheese sandwich now fits in the palm of your hand.
* I dare anyone to order it, but leave the crusts on the plate, like kids do.

PRICE OF STAMPS GOING UP AGAIN

The United States Postal Service is seeking approval to hike the price of first-class mail stamps again. The price is currently 63 cents, and they want to raise it to 66 cents, which the USPS says is needed to offset the rise in inflation. If the rate hike is approved, it would take effect July 9. Just four years ago, in 2019, a stamp cost 50 cents.
* Are you telling me they want a whole 66 cents to take my greeting card, truck it out to the airport, fly it clear across the country, and hand-deliver it to my granny’s mailbox? Outrageous.
* Outrageous, I say! I’m going to email my congressman.
* Pretty soon you’ll be able to just glue a dollar bill to the front of the envelope.
* I’ll pay the extra 3 cents, but for my money I want to see an espresso bar in the post office lobby, to enjoy while I’m waiting in line.
* For you younger listeners who don’t understand this story – just Google what a “stamp” is.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

WEALTHY PERSON PAYS $15 MILLION FOR A LICENSE PLATE

In the United Arab Emirates, a wealthy anonymous bidder paid 55 million Emirati dirhams, roughly $15 million, for a license plate at an auction in Dubai. The plate had the single number “7” on it. Low license plate numbers have long been considered a status symbol in the United Arab Emirates and have been auctioned off to the Gulf state’s ultra-wealthy. The previous record was set in 2008 when a businessman paid $14 million for the “1” license plate. On the bright side, the proceeds from these license plate auctions are donated to the One Billion Meals Endowment, a global food aid fund. Low license plate numbers are important to the rich in the United Arab Emirates. One local businessman, Balvinder Singh Sahni, claimed that he was refused entry to the Burj Al Arab luxury hotel in 2006 because his car license plate had too many numbers.
* That’s what they told him, anyway. They didn’t want to tell him he was a dork to his face.
* Good thing the buyer’s anonymous, with THE NUMBER 7 ON THE FRONT OF HIS EXPENSIVE CAR. No one will know it’s him.
* To make it an even lower number, he took a marker and put a “minus” sign in front of the 7. Negative 7!
* After buying the license plate, he celebrated with a couple of those $214 grilled cheese sandwiches. (* See story in U.S. News.)
* Then there’s the billionaire geek in Dubai who paid $10 million for a license plate with the π symbol for pi.

TRENDING

GRANGER SMITH DROPPING MUSIC CAREER, GOING RELIGIOUS

Country singer Granger Smith revealed on Facebook that he is stepping back from music to “grow and serve his local church” outside of Austin, Texas. The Texas-based country singer has been touring and making music for more than two decades. Smith’s 3-year-old son, River, drowned in the family swimming pool in the summer of 2019. The tragedy greatly impacted Smith, his wife Amber, and their other two children. They welcomed another little boy, Maverick, in 2021. In a video posted Monday to Facebook, Smith said, “This summer is my last ever tour. I have felt a strong desire to pursue ministry. This doesn’t mean I’m going to start a church or a crusade, or a revival. This means me and my family are going to serve our local church. I can’t go to seminary and be poured in by my pastors and elders and then go out on the weekends and try to be exhausting myself. I think that’s a contradiction. I want to be able to sacrifice through that sanctification and through that layer coming off me, and as I learn and grow and glorify God, this is the next move I’m making.”

ALMANAC

NOTABLE DATES, UPCOMING U.S. OBSERVANCES

April 18, Tuesday – U.S. Tax Day
May 14, Sunday – Mother’s Day
May 29, Monday – Memorial Day
June 14, Wednesday – Flag Day
June 18, Sunday – Father’s Day
June 21, Wednesday – Summer begins (The June solstice occurs at 10:58 a.m. EDT)

BIRTHDAYS

Matt McGorry (actor, “How To Get Away with Murder,” “Orange Is the New Black”) … 37
Claire Danes (actress, “Homeland,” “Terminator 3,” “My So-Called Life”) … 44
Jennifer Morrison (actress, “This Is Us,” “Once Upon a Time”, “House”) … 44
Guy Berryman (bassist with Coldplay) … 45
Nicholas Brendon (actor, “Criminal Minds,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) … 52
Shannen Doherty (actress, “Beverly Hills 90210” versions, “Charmed”) … 52
Vince Gill (country singer) … 66
Andy Garcia (actor, “Rebel,” “The Mule”) … 67
David Letterman (retired comedian, talk-show host) … 76
Ed O’Neill (actor, “Modern Family,” “Married … With Children”) … 77

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

“I can get a dance party started pretty much anywhere and anytime.”

(A) Pope Francis
(B) Lester Holt
(C) Claire Danes

ANSWER: (C) Claire Danes

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

2009 – American cargo ship captain Richard Phillips was rescued from Somali pirates by U.S. Navy snipers who shot and killed three of the hostage-takers.
* “I want Tom Hanks to play me in the movie!”

1992 – Euro Disney opened in France.
* It had the longest lines the French had seen since World War Two rationing.

1985 – Federal inspectors declared that four animals of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were not unicorns. They were goats with horns that had been surgically implanted.
* Your tax dollars at work.

1981 – The first space shuttle, Columbia, was launched.
* What a wonderful achievement in space! Well, next to putting up all those satellites that deliver porn around the world.

1961 – Russia’s Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth.
* There he was, in a cold, inhospitable void … then he blasted off from Russia into space.

1955 – The Salk polio vaccine was introduced.
* Today’s generation doesn’t even know what polio is. And that was the point!

1877 – A catcher’s mask was first used in a baseball game.
* By Bob “Black Eye” Jones.

1861 – America’s Civil War began.
* And no, it wasn’t very civil at all.

1844 – Texas became part of the United States.
* Although, in Texas, they feel THEY agreed to add the United States.

1833 – Charles Gaylor patented the fireproof safe.
* Though it was hard to sign the patent forms with those bandages on his hands.

THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY

2015 – Grammy Award-winning rapper Nelly was arrested on drugs charges after police stopped the bus in which he was traveling in Tennessee. Officers found “five colored crystal-type rocks that tested positive for methamphetamine, as well as a small amount of marijuana and other drug paraphernalia” and handguns on board the tour bus.

2010 – The Vatican’s official newspaper L’Osservatore Ramano published a story praising The Beatles and saying that it forgave John Lennon for his 1966 comment that the group was “bigger than Jesus.” Lennon told a British newspaper in 1966 – at the height of Beatlemania – that he did not know which would die out first, Christianity or rock and roll.

2005 – Mariah Carey released “The Emancipation of Mimi.” The album entered the U.S. chart at number one, going six times platinum in less than a year, and subsequently became the most successful album of 2005.

2000 – The members of Metallica filed a suit against Napster, Yale University, The University of Southern California and Indiana University for copyright infringement after they discovered that their entire back catalogue of studio material was available on the Napster network.

1990 – Four asteroids were named after each member of the Beatles.

1993 – Actress Lisa Bonet filed for divorce from Lenny Kravitz.

1988 – Ex-music star Sonny Bono was elected Mayor of Palm Springs.

1986 – The Go-Go’s lead singer Belinda Carlisle married actor Morgan Mason.

1978 – Aretha Franklin married actor Glynn Turman.

1975 – British rock icon David Bowie announced his second retirement, saying: “I’ve rocked my roll. It’s a boring dead end, there will be no more rock ‘n’ roll records from me.”

1975 – Elton John started a two-week run at No.1 on the U.S. singles chart with “Philadelphia Freedom,” his fourth U.S. No.1.

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. A recent survey found that men are four times more likely than women to do THIS to avoid cleaning the bathroom. What is it?
Spray air freshener

2. Before deciding on one, most women need to see 5 of THESE, while most men only need to see 2. What is it?
A selfie

3. 50 years ago, men almost exclusively did THIS. Nowadays women do it 3 times as much as men. What is it?
Mow the lawn

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