On Today’s Show

➢ There’s a guy named Johnny Perri in Washington Township, Michigan, and he owns a jewelry store.  He got it from his dad, and he’s run it his whole life, but when he shut down for the pandemic, it forced him to re-evaluate the entire business.

So he closed his business, took the entire inventory of his store . . . and buried it as TREASURE around Michigan.

And now he’s launching a TREASURE QUEST to find each of the stashes of buried gold, diamonds, silver, and more.  People can buy tickets to the quests, and they’ll get clues where the treasure is buried . . . from there, it’s a race.

The tickets will cost $49 per quest, and each treasure is worth about $4,000.  The first one starts on August 1st.

➢ A man in Cornwall, England, was arrested after biting a seagull who tried to steal his Big Mac.

The 26-year-old man “claimed he was being attacked for his meal and in response, he grabbed the bird and bit it. Officers had seen the incident and immediately went over and detained him.” The man told police officers he was “under the influence of drugs” and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. “The seagull was clearly injured by the incident but flew off before we were able to check on its welfare,” the rep said. “We don’t know what happened to it afterward.” Seagulls are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act. The man is reportedly facing up to six months in prison or a fine of about $9,000

➢ A guy in Wisconsin tried to shoot a groundhog, but the bullet ricocheted off a tree and hit a golfer on a course next to his house.  Luckily, the golfer survived.

➢ No one can accuse NBA player Jimmy Butler of not putting in the work.

He showed up at 3:30am for his first practice with the Heat in October but being asleep in the middle of the night is a totally valid reason to not be working on your game, Butler, though, apparently couldn’t stand the idea of letting his mandatory quarantine period inside the Disney bubble get in the way of his preparation for the Heat’s playoff push.

According to reports hotel security responded to a complaint of a “loud bumping” in the Heat’s hotel. “The security guard went over to investigate, found the room, knocked on the room,” Haynes said. “And who opened the door? It was Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler, drenched in sweat, with practice gear on from head to toe. He was dribbling a basketball throughout his room the whole time”

➢ Mike Tyson will star in the Shark Week special “Tyson vs. Jaws: Rumble on the Reef” on August 9th.  They say Tyson will “square off” with a shark . . . but they didn’t explain exactly what that means.  In the promo video, Mike promises that “someone’s gonna get bit!”

TODAY IS……………….

• “World Snake Day”, an annual celebration by wildlife enthusiasts

1969 [51] Apollo 11 is launched, carrying the first men to land on the Moon (July 20)

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COUNTRY MUSIC NOTE

Alabama charted a #1 with “The Closer You Get” in 1983

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POLITICAL SPEECH:
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered 81 national addresses during the first four months of the COVID-19 crisis. According studies here are his most commonly-used words and phrases…

• Most repeated phrases:
  ⇒ “Make sure” – 392 times
  ⇒ “Move forward” – 189 times
  ⇒ “Wage subsidy” – 161 times
  ⇒ “Right across the country” – 132 times
  ⇒ “Keep Canadians safe” – 126 times
  ⇒ “Public health – 116 times

⇒ Other popular phrases: “Long term care”, “Continue to work”, Social distancing”, “People need”, “Staying home” and “Coming weeks”.

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FOUR RANDOM FACTS

1. Roller skates were invented in Belgium and patented in 1760.

2. The city of Whitehorse in the Yukon has the least air pollution of any city in the world.

3. Every single year has at least one Friday the 13th, and about 11% of years have three of them.  2026 is one of those triple years.  Our current year has two, March and November.

4. “Kokomo”by the Beach Boys is about a fictional place.  There’s no island “off the Florida Keys” or in the Caribbean with that name.

GOOD NEWS

A six-year-old Wyoming boy is being hailed as a hero by his family after he protected his little sister from a dog attack and ended up needing 90 stitches to his face.

Bridger Walker’s aunt, Nikki Walker, shared details of the attack on Instagram. She wrote  that Bridger saw the dog approach his sister and deliberately stood in front of her. The dog attacked Bridger instead, biting the side of the boy’s face and head, the aunt said.

Despite being injured, Nikki said Bridger grabbed his sister’s hand and ran with her “to keep her safe.” Nikki said that when she asked Bridger why he stepped in front of the dog, he told her that “If someone was going to die, I thought it should be me.”

Nikki said Bridger was treated by a “skilled plastic surgeon” following the attack and is now recovering at home. Nikki also updated concerned users with information regarding the dog involved in the attack. “The dog’s owners are really great people who have been nothing but kind to Bridger and his family. We feel no resentment toward them at all”.

Nikki asked social media users to share Bridger’s story in hopes of receiving a shout out from a Marvel superhero actor so they can hear about “this latest hero who joined their ranks.”

Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, and other celebrities reached out to a young boy who was injured saving his little sister from a dog attack.

Here, Chris promises to send him a Captain America shield.

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BIRTHDAYS

[77] Jimmy Johnson, sports analyst (“Fox NFL Sunday”)/former NFL coach

[57] Phoebe Cates, actress (“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, “Gremlins”)

[53] Will Ferrell, actor

[49] Corey Feldman, actor (“Goonies”, “The Lost Boys”, “Stand By Me”)

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MAN SPOTS HIS LONG-LOST ICE SKATE HANGING FROM SIGNPOST

It seems you never know where a lost shoe might end up.

A man from Quebec was recently preparing to throw out his orphaned left hockey skate seven years after losing its mate, but he then discovered the right skate hanging from a sign.

Jeff Meldrum, age 47, says the last time he saw the right skate was about seven years ago, when he had to leave an ice rink in a hurry after his son, then age four, fell and injured his chin.

He says he had only worn the skates a few times, and held out hope he’d find the missing one eventually. He says recently he was driving on a road with his now 11-year-old son, when he spotted a familiar-looking skate hanging from a signpost at the end of a driveway. Upon investigating, he found it was his missing skate.

The owner of the house said they had found the skate seven years ago, and tried to find the owner in various ways before forgetting about the skate in the garage. Recently she had a garage sale and realized the skate was the only item she hadn’t sold, and Meldrum happened to drive by and see it.

THURSDAY JULY 16^TH  

1. U.S. COVID cases are continuing to soar, with several states continuing to post record or near-record daily numbers, and the four hot-spot states of California, Arizona, Texas and Florida on Wednesday (July 15th) reporting a combined number of some 36,000 new cases and more than 450 deaths. The U.S. overall has had more than 140,000 deaths as of early this morning.

Walmart announced Wednesday that it will start requiring customers to wear face masks at all Walmart and Sam’s Club stores starting Monday, becoming the largest U.S. retailer to do so. Within hours, Kohl’s and supermarket chain Kroger also said they will require face masks, Kohl’s as of Monday and Kroger starting next Wednesday.

A Nashville R&B singer named Heidi Burson recorded a song urging everyone to wear a mask, so people in the music business can get back to work quicker.  She sings a cappella and all the voices are hers.  It sounds like a full choir.

2. Happy birthday to Will Ferrell!  He’s 53 today.  To celebrate, here’s a montage of some of his best characters in less than 60 seconds.

3. • “The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/CTV): Jim Carrey, Jenny Slate, Luke Combs
   • “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (CBS/Global): The Chicks
   • “30 Rock: A One-Time Special” (NBC): Liz Lemon, Tracy Jordan, Jack Donaghy, Jenna Maroney and all of the TGS team reunite to help their old friend Kenneth Parcell — now chairman of the company — and while doing so, they rediscover their love of television.
4. Comedian Kevin Pollak says he wakes up every day and just can’t stop doing his Christopher Walken impression.  (And wondering about Trader Joe’s.)

TWITTER HACK

A lot of high-profile Twitter accounts were hacked yesterday to perpetuate cryptocurrency fraud.  So people like Bill Gates and Kim Kardashian were Tweeting to ask YOU to send them Bitcoin.  A lot of people fell for it . . . and Twitter temporarily suspended a lot of “verified” accounts.

For example, Bill Gates’ account Tweeted, quote, “Everyone is asking me to give back, and now is the time.  I am doubling all payments sent to my Bitcoin address for the next 30 minutes.  You send $1,000, I send you back $2,000.”

There’s no word who’s behind the hack, but the FBI is looking into it.

SAM HUNT RELEASES ‘SOUTHSIDE’ ON VINYL ON FRIDAY

The vinyl version of Sam Hunt‘s latest album, Southside, will be released on Friday (July 17th). The collection, which includes a free poster, features 12 songs including his chart-topping hits “Body Like A Backroad” and “Kinfolks,” as well as “Hard to Forget,” which is poised to hit the top of the country charts next week.

Sam tells us the title of Southside seemed very appropriate for the songs on the album. [The album title came well after all the songs were finished. I essentially sat down and made a list of potential titles and just off the top of my head, I just sort of started writing down words or phrases that felt like the songs or felt like the record. Southside was the one that just kept standing out. I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into why that was the case. Southside just for me is a phrase that just feels like my rural and urban roots, you know, where I’m from, I kind of feel like I’m from the Southside of that place, and obviously, the word south is in the title so there’s association with being from the South. More than having a really good backstory for the title, it just felt – when I looked at it on the page – it felt like the record]

Southside was originally released in April.

REBA McENTIRE TO RELEASE ‘REBA: LIVE’ CONCERT THIS WEEKEND ON YOUTUBE

Reba McEntire will re-launch her Reba: Live special exclusively on YouTube this Friday (July 17th), marking the first time the concert has been available digitally. The show was filmed in 1994 at the Omaha Civic Center. The hour-long special includes 12 performances, and will premiere at 8 p.m. ET along with a fan chat with Reba.

She said, “This was one of my first big tours with all the dancers and costume changes, and it was my very first network television special. It’s so much fun to get to revisit it and share it with my fans all these years later! I hope they enjoy it and I can’t wait to share some stories from the behind the scenes during the chat.”

Reba will join fellow Country Music Hall of Fame member Vince Gill for the Grand Ole Opry’s Saturday night broadcast on July 18th. The performance will be available to watch on Circle TV, wsmonline.com and SiriusXM.

Tim McGraw on the Significance of an Album’s Third Song

TIM MCGRAW was talking about his new album, “Here On Earth”, which is coming out August 24th.  And he brought up something interesting about “song placement” on his albums.

Quote, “I always like the third song on the album to sort of have a feel that draws you in.

“After you’ve listened to the first and second song, when you get to the third song you want something that sort of keeps everybody interested, and I think [“Here On Earth”] does that.  I hope it does that, anyway.”

Speaking of Tim.  Pandora recently gave him a “Billionaire Plaque.”  He earned it by having over seven billion lifetime spins . . . and being one of the Top 25 most-streamed artists of all time on Pandora. He also gets more than 12 million streams per week.

Categorised in: Mornings

This post was written by Dave Palmer