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I've done it again!
I've just hatched another life-changing plan. Sparks have been flying inside my seagull skull. My world-renowned entrepreneurial spirit is on the move, and I'm about to launch my latest venture: an all-news channel. I've been studying niche-market broadcasting, and I believe I've found an overlooked and underserved population. It's going to be the first all-news channel that's strictly for the birds. I'm calling it SEA-NN—The Seagull News Network. You have to enunciate each letter, to avoid pronouncing it the same as that other news channel. That's why I've brought in my friend the volunteer professional radio announcer to voice the SEA-NN sounder. Unlike that other channel, I can't afford James Earl Jones. So I've settled for a reasonable facsimile. Just click or tap the SEA-NN logo below, and you'll hear what I'm talking about. If the voice you hear seems to be saying "yanni" or "laurel," there's either something wrong with your equipment or you need to make an appointment with the nearest otolaryngologist. Let's look back to the Twentieth Century for a couple of major May 27 events.
On Memorial Day weekend, as part of the Harbor Festival in Kitsap County, Washington, the city of Port Orchard hosts its annual "World Famous" Seagull Calling Contest. A few dozen spectators gather each year at Waterfront Park along Sinclair Inlet to watch children and occasional dogs and adults who attempt to coax seagulls onshore with reasonable and unreasonable facsimiles of seagull squeaks and squawks or with fistfuls of breadcrumbs and such.
Apparently someone enjoys this event, because today's Seagull Calling Contest is the 30th annual, which means the very first one happened before I was born, and they haven't given up on it yet. I've personally been waiting every year to get a call from someone in Port Orchard, but I've yet to hear from anyone. Unless it was that weird anonymous screeching voice mail message I got a few weeks ago. Here in Bandon, Oregon, I suppose we just experienced our own version of seagull calling, earlier today. There was a nice-looking couple who drove into the South Jetty Beach parking lot a short time ago. They rolled down their windows and beckoned to all the assembled gulls, and we all flew, hopped, or waddled closer, anticipating popcorn, crackers, French fries, maybe even chicken nuggets. This nice-looking couple in their shiny new SUV rolled down their windows and tossed out generous handfuls of...… BIRDSEED!?!? Can you imagine the hurt, the frustration, the disappointment, the outright shock and dismay we felt? I think some of the contestants at Port Orchard even throw chocolates to lure the seagulls there. They at least know better than to toss birdseed at seagulls. There's a home video below from several years ago that captures some of flavor of this event. You really don't need to watch more than a minute or two to get the idea. The large bird-like costumed human in the video goes by the name Seemore Seagull. This festival also features a Seagull Wings Cook-off competition, where contestants don't really cook the wings of seagulls. And there's something they call the Seagull Splat 5K Run/Walk, where you're advise to avoid the seagull splat along the way. Does this sound like fun to you? It's happening today and tomorrow in Port Orchard, across the way from Bremerton, about 50 miles west of Seattle by ferry (as a seagull flies, you'd have to add a few more miles). That's it. That's the answer to yesterday's word puzzle. And it's the topic of this week's Fun Fact Friday post, which is actually a continuation of last week's answer to a reader's question about gull wings. Last week, we were introduced to gull-wing car doors, which lift upward instead of sideways, looking like wings when opened. This week, we'll take a quick look at the kind of gull wing that Merriam-Webster defines as "an airplane wing slanting upward from the fuselage for a short distance and then leveling out."
You could be the next reader to have Geo answer your question on Fun Fact Friday. Just click the Comments link at the top of this page. And don't forget to say "Please."
It's time for a balancing act word puzzle. Unscramble these words, and you'll know the topic of tomorrow's episode of Fun Fact Friday. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today's puzzle.
And if you happen to be in the Seattle area this weekend, head across Puget Sound for Port Orchard's 30th Annual Seagull Calling Festival. More about that coming up in Saturday's balancing act post. This is one corner of the internet where we don't care if you think it's "yanni" or "laurel." In fact, I won't even tell you which one it sounds like to me. But I do care about your opinion of the Lousy Music on Hold sample messages I offered for your evaluation a couple of days ago. I'm still accepting your votes. It's strictly anonymous, unless you wish to have a name associated with your selection. And I haven't figured out a way to limit the number of times you can vote.
In the competition for favorite voice, it's a real dogfight at the moment, so every vote counts. Some readers have also chosen to include comments with their votes, which I encourage. However, I was puzzled by those who remarked that some of the music is really annoying. That was the whole idea! The music is intentionally annoying. Hence the name of my latest brainchild—Lousy Music on Hold. Maybe they meant their comments to be taken as compliments.
G is for Gull E is for Entrepreneur O is for Omnivorous Right now, I'm focused on the E. I am overwhelmed by my inner entrepreneurial spirit. It's like a volcanic eruption has just occurred inside my brain, triggering a lava flow of scalding hot ideas. And here's the latest: You know, I got to thinking—which tends to give me a headache—there has to be a market out there for an honest purveyor of fresh lousy music on hold. So I did some due diligence. I researched online and found that "music on hold" is a widely acknowledged term for the annoying sounds you are forced to listen to if you believe the next available representative will be with you shortly. And there is already a business specializing in this kind of audio torment that has registered the url musiconhold.com. It has, by the way, one of the most off-putting home pages I have encountered in years. There are many dozens of other businesses that provide similar services. It's a dirty job, but I guess somebody has to do it. None of them, however, have the integrity, the common decency, the transparency to tell their customers that what they are selling is a truly lousy product. Until now. Now that I've hatched my latest brilliant business concept. With a brand name that says it all: Lousy Music on Hold. And guess what? You're going to help me launch my start-up. You're my crowd source. Here's how it works: My cracked professional staff has assembled six prototypes of very lousy music on hold messages, and you get to vote on your favorite. Click each button below to listen to a sample message. Then mark your favorite on the ballot below. Be sure to click Submit if you want your vote to count. Yesterday marked six months of balancing act blogging. Who knows if I'll be around for another six months. I am a seagull after all. I have a short attention span and a lifespan to match. Therefore, even though the following was prepared in advance for 4/20/2019, I'm turning it loose on 5/20/2018. We can all pretend we set our clocks ahead eleven months. Time to clear the cache, anyway. The mind can lead you to some funny places. I overheard some folks talking about how it's 4-20 today, and all I could think of was an old nursery rhyme, which, according to snopes.com, began as a coded message used by pirates to enlist new crew members. I'm not buying it.
To add insult to injury, a number of humans have purposefully chosen the name Four and Twenty Blackbirds for their commercial endeavors—some of them are even successful. For example, a couple of sisters have opened a handful of popular bakeries in Brooklyn, New York that specialize in—you guessed it—pies. They ship pies nationwide. I hope they have the decency to leave the birds behind. There's also a Four and Twenty Blackbirds Bakery in Ashland, Oregon. And a diner named Four and Twenty Blackbirds in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A gourmet food truck operates on the streets of Hood River, Oregon under the same name. But another traveling canteen bearing that name has closed up shop and no longer peddles poutine and grilled cheese sandwiches in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. In Windsor, Colorado, there's an artsy Four and Twenty gift shop. At Four & Twenty Blackbirds in Manhattan, Kansas, specialty goods such as home furnishings, jewelry, and toys are what you'll find. Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolates in Santa Barbara, California sells single-origin, handmade artisan bars, caramels, and truffles online and in its retail shop. Guilford, Connecticut is home to 4 & Twenty Blackbirds Bakeshop. Halfway around the world, Four and Twenty Café and Pantry serves breakfast all day in the Chelsea Village area of Wynberg, Cape Town, South Africa.
I say shame on all of these humans for their anti-blackbird prejudice. I will look the other way if they all get stoned today.
By the way, I've got the munchies. What've you got for me? I am so out of the loop when it comes to this iconic pop culture stuff. Take movies, for example. I can't sit still long enough to even watch half of a trailer. I did have a part-time janitorial job in my youth at a local cinema. They'd let me come in and clean up after a matinée, and I got to keep all the popcorn and Milk Duds I could pick up. I quit after I learned that chewing gum gets stuck in my gullet. Yesterday's post might have generated the most feedback I've ever received. It was almost as if Marty McFly himself showed up at the South Jetty Beach and signed autographs. I guess a lot of you are fans of the Back to the Future trilogy. Or you have a thing about crazy, tricked-out cars.
You trolls out there who have been on my case about what you consider to be my obsession with seagull sports mascots have been needling me needlessly about what you think is my sudden lack of interest in the topic.
Well, it's not that I've been playing possum. Can you imagine a gull playing possum, anyway? In any conceivable sense of the expression? But I digress. Did you bring me any Cheez-Its® today? There, I digressed again. I'm in a mood to take out my digressions here today. To make something less than a short story out of this, what it comes down to is, like, I mean to say, the gist of the matter is, well, just let me make my point. Which was what? It looks like you'll have to find something else to troll me about. I'm done with it. I've lost my faith in the goodness and decency of humans who pretend to be fluffy bloated seabirds. Here's what did it: This British bloke was performing as Gilbert the Gull, mascot for the Torquay United soccer club. He was probably half-snockered and overheated inside his ridiculous costume, so he started cursing his own team's fans and trying to provoke a brawl. For a grown man pretending to be a seagull, he hit a little too close to home for my liking. I was humiliated and offended at the same time. Why couldn't this guy just stick to hugging little kids, wobbling around awkwardly, leading cheers and such. Instead, he started behaving like he thought he was a real seagull. Or like he thought a real gull would behave. It's speciesism and cultural appropriation at its worst. Besides, he looks more like a giant canary. To borrow a phrase from Howie Carr, "I didn't come here to be made sport of." Here's how skysports.com reported it:
Click the image of the movie poster to hear today's musical link, "Tin Man," the 1974 hit by America.
Wear a smile wherever you go. Wear a smile, even if it’s a size too big. Wear a smile. It'll brighten someone's day. But I’m a seagull. You can’t tell by looking at me whether I’m smiling or frowning, whether I'm happy or sad.
*This musical link is to "Happy Talk," performed by Juanita Hall from the original 1958 motion picture soundtrack recording of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.
Look. I have never been to Russia. I don't read or speak Russian. I don't think I've ever met a Russian. I don't even think I've ever taken food from a Russian, although I certainly would if the opportunity arose. But I do promote everything seagull. Well, almost everything. As I have mentioned previously, I occasionally encounter references to seagulls that are less than flattering, if not downright inflammatory. And I've posted a whole series of reports on worldwide seagull hate.
Some scientists also believe birds were lizards before they evolved into birds.
Some scientists are more gullible than others. We birds typically have versatile sharp pointed beaks for pecking, snatching, and chomping. And we have long, rough, boney tongues and Velcro-like lining inside our mouths, with fleshy things that work like car wash scrubbers to help us hold on to what our beaks collect, and to easily swallow our food whole. Not a single tooth—but we can work around that. We never need to worry if our insurance will cover the cost of a root canal. No teeth. No roots. No dental bills. Life is great when you're a gull! Here's this week's Fun Fact Friday question, contributed by D.D.E. of Abilene, Kansas: "A few days ago, you said someday you'd tell us about wartime heroics of seagulls. As a military history buff, this piqued my curiosity. Can today be that someday, and can you please tell us more, Geo?" First of all, D.D.E., thank you for actually reading every word of this past Tuesday's post, and I'm glad to make your day today. To broaden the topic slightly, I'll give you a few examples of how seagulls have made a contribution in wartime and peacetime defense, in today's world as well as in past world wars.
Wanna have Geo answer your question in the next Fun Fact Friday? Simply click the Comments link in the top right corner of today's post, and remember to say "please!"
But Geo, don't you think you're going to run out of seagull sports team names and mascots to talk about? No, not at all. The idea here is for me to keep talking about these athletes and mascots and encouraging others to take on seagull names, too. Never underestimate this blog's powerful influence. After all, it is spread far and wide over the World Wide Web. When Geo squawks, people listen. And with so many teams these days being shamed into tossing out their embarrassing politically incorrect traditional names, I feel like I'm showing them the way. Who could object to the sight of a player wearing a jersey or a helmet with a seagull on it?
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Meet the AuthorHi. I'm Geo the Seagull.
I'm the distinguished Park Host on South Jetty Beach at Bandon, Oregon, USA. I'm a firm believer in First Principles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Your Lunch. Archives
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