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The Daily Dose/April 14, 2011
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...
WHILE WE WERE OUT: Without the steadying hand of The Daily Dose to keep the planet in line for the past three months, Japan was almost destroyed, they're throwing the rascals out, or trying to, all over the Middle East and our government almost shut down.
We're back though, after another one of our famous, reader-depleting hiatuses, so everything should calm down in fairly short order.
DRUMMING UP TRADE: We didn't waste our time off, either, as we have new two (2) books for your enjoyment.
Swords In The Narthex is our latest novel. It's about a man named Neil who finds Jesus Christ sitting in the passenger seat of his car. Over the course of the next three months they have numerous chats, sometimes about Neil - and his girlfriend Sara - violating the terms of the Sixth Commandment with their friends Jennifer and Nicholas, but also about other aspects of the human experience. Satan makes two appearances, as a golfer and then as an attorney and Jesus enjoys his first White Castles. Swords In The Narthex is funny, thoughtful and provocative (re: racy). It's available on both Kindle and Nook for $3.95, a bargain, and you can read a sample chapter, too, by clicking on the books links at the top of the page.
Dry, Rehashed Matter: We also drummed a collection of 2010's Daily Dose columns. Titled The Daily Dose, 2010 In Review: Holy Dry, Technical Matter, it's available on Kindle and Nook for a .99 cents. We were going to offer it for nothing - the columns are available free of charge, after all - but we figured, probably incorrectly, that you have too much self-respect to accept a book without paying for it.
Oh Yeah: All books are available as ebooks which you can download to your laptop, PC or even your phone, as well, for those to cheap to buy a Kindle or Nook.
CAPSULE RESTAURANT REVIEW: That Creepy Chinese Place On The Corner That You Never See Anyone Go Into And The Blinds Are Always Drawn, But Where The Open Sign Is Always On: This is one of those restaurants you pass almost everyday, never making a mental note to go in, mainly because it looks creepy, but decide to stop in on the spur of the moment because you are too lazy to either cook or think of someplace better to go.
Seat Of The Pants: This spur-of-the-moment thinking, by The Woman, of course, because I am incapable of spur-of-the-moment thinking, is what led us to our historic breakthrough of the Strip Mall Mexican Seafood Joint barrier in December, and what led her to suggest the corner Chinese joint, even though neither of us had ever expressed a desire to go there.
Leading Off: Since we've never seen anyone walk in or out of the place, it wasn't a complete surprise to discover we were the only customers, though it should be noted we were having an early dinner. We would also like to note, however, that it is good for morale to discover others had the same good sense you did to pick the same place to have dinner at, so being the only diners in the place does leave you wondering.
Dry, Technical Matter: The Woman had some sort of vegetable/shrimp stir fry deal. I had the sweet-and-sour pork and we started with the fried wontons.
Ancient Chinese Secret: The food was good, but we've never really had bad Chinese food. This reinforces our belief that the Chinese in town have a central kitchen, probably in Chinatown, where the day's Chinese food is cooked and then distributed, with typical Chinese efficiency, throughout town.
Oh Yeah: Our fortune cookies, as usual, broke into ten zillion pieces when we opened them, rendering them uneatable to everyone except a starving refugee. This always happens, no matter which Chinese restaurant you are at, lending even more credence to the Central Kitchen Theory.
Standard Internet Disclaimer: Gaylon is not a professional restaurant critic. He doesn't even have a particularly discriminating palate, though he can tell the difference between foie gras and chicken fried steak and has been known to appreciate a wine pairing.
We Interrupt This Column For A Word From The Ratings Department: Following is the Official Writer's Shack rating scale:
EX - Excellent; the very best the Human Experience can produce in every respect.
VG - Very Good. Well worth your time.
GD - Good. Worth your time.
AR - All Right. Not completely without merit.
SP - Nothing of substance; a steaming pile, utterly without merit.
Final Ranking: GD. The actual name of the place is the King's Garden Chinese Restaurant, which we had to look up because we couldn't remember it, mainly because we've always thought of it as the creepy place on the corner. If you happen to be in Las Vegas, near the intersection of Tropicana and Mountain Vista, and have no other food options, then, all right, stop in. The food was good, the service was good, the prices were reasonable, so Good is a fair rating. They deliver, too! The Mexican guy, whose purpose we were wondering about, is the delivery guy.
OTHER THAN THAT MRS. LINCOLN, HOW DID YOU LIKE THE PLAY: President Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. on this date in 1864. Lincoln, his wife and two guests were taking in the play Our American Cousin. Lincoln would die the following morning.
Fly In The Ointment: Killing Lincoln was not Booth's original plan. Initially, he wanted to kidnap Lincoln, which would not have been all that difficult, frankly, and hold him hostage. That plan fell through in mid-March, though, and Booth milled around grouusing as the South finished losing the Civil War. He decided to kill Lincoln on April 11, after hearing Lincoln give a speech at the White House where he had the nerve to suggest freed slaves be given the right to vote.
Killing Lincoln was surprisingly easy to do. Booth, an actor, got his mail at Ford's Theater and while collecting it on the afternoon of the 14th, heard that Lincoln would be attending that night. Not only that, the Presidential Box at Ford's was unguarded because the assigned guard, John Frederick Parker, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department, had left his post, although him being there might have just meant one more death, because it's possible Parker would not have stopped Booth.
Didn't They Have Dunkin Donuts Back Then? Having John Frederick Parker guard your president was kind of like having, well, John Frederick Parker guard your president. In the years preceding his night's assignment, Parker had been charged with both drinking and sleeping on duty - charges that were dismissed - and would later be fired from the force for sleeping on duty.
This time though, he was drinking on duty. While evidence suggest Parker was on duty when the show began, he soon snuck out to see parts of the play, before heading out for a couple of brewskies during the intermission.
Fly In The Ointment II: Lincoln's assassination was part of a broader plot to assassinate vice-president Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward and General Ulysses S. Grant. Johnson's attacker got cold feet and fled Washington, the attack on Grant, who was actually on a train to Philadelphia, failed, though Seward was seriously injured when attacked at his home.
High On Life: Exactly what Booth was smoking at the time still isn't clear. Recall that not only was the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia already in Union hands, but General Robert E. Lee had already surrendered to Grant at Appomatox. The Civil War was all but over.
FunFact: John Ford, owner of Ford's Theater, was actually a suspect in the assassination, and spent a few weeks in jail before convincing everyone he was innocent. He tried to open the theater a couple of months later, but public reception was cold, and later the theater was sold to the US government for $100,000, about $1.4 million in today's dollars. The government converted the theater to an office building, and the inner structure collapsed in the 1890's. It would see service as a warehouse, before lying empty until being refurbished to its 1865 appearance in the 1960's.
Play Ball: President William Howard Taft becomes the first president to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day, doing so at a Washington Senators home game on this date in 1910. The Senators would beat the Philadelphia Athletics 3-0, as Walter Johnson defeated Eddie Plank. The Senators would go on to lose 85 of their next 150 games and finish 36-and-a-half games behind the A's, who would go on to beat the Chicago Cubs four games to one in the World Series.
Yeah, Your Books Are Good, Too, Gaylon: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, is published on this date in 1939.
Thought For The Day: America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. - Abraham Lincoln
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: This is the first column in three months. If there was a question last time, and we suspect there wasn't, we have forgotten it.
Today's Stumper: How many future Hall of Fame players were on the rosters of the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics and the Washington Senators? - Answer next time!
Comments? Recipes? Complaints? Email the Writer's Shack here!
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