24. Here Comes Santa Claus – Elvis Presley

24. Here Comes Santa Claus – Elvis Presley

With all due respect to Gene Autry, my favorite version of this song is the one sung by Elvis. He just gives it that extra bluesy and rock n’ roll feel that the original lacks. I do like the rendition with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra but nothing beats the Elvis 1957 version. Not that the original Autry version isn’t great in its own right. It is.

The song was written by Autry, Oakley Haldeman and Harriet Melka and when Autry originally sang it, he pronounced Santa Claus as “Santy Claus”.

The song idea came about when Autry, one of those original cowboys, was riding his horse in the 1946 Santa Claus Lane Parade (now the Hollywood Christmas Parade) in Los Angeles. Spectators chanted, “Here comes Santa Claus” and a light bulb went on.

“Here Comes Santa Claus” (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)”, which is what the song is originally known as, has been covered by many since Autry, most recently in 2023 by Seth MacFarlane and Elizabeth Gillies and was even played in National Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation” near the end of the movie when all hell breaks loose. Yeah, Griswolds!

25. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love

25. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love

When it comes to iconic Christmas classics, the song “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” comes to mind.

Although the 1963 song, written by Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry and Phil Spector, has been covered by many artists—U2, Mariah Carey and Michael Buble, to name a few—nothing compares to the original sung by Darlene Love.

In 1986 Love sang the song live on the NBC broadcast of Late Night with David Letterman. Then in 1994 she most notably began a tradition of singing the song on the show every year right before Christmas. She did that for twenty years. Since 2015 she has been performing the song on The View.

What I like about it is the simpleness of the song. It exudes that old girl group sound that so many of the songs in the sixties were made of. Love sings the song with a true passion, like she really is begging for her baby to please come home for Christmas.

This Year’s Christmas Countdown

This Year’s Christmas Countdown

As has become a tradition on here for the past few years, I’ve “counted down” the days leading up to Christmas. One year it was Christmas shirts, last year it was movies. This year it’s music!

Stay tuned starting tomorrow for the first write-up of my favorite versions of 25 Christmas songs!

Because there’s more than one artist who has sung “Jingle Bells”…but which one is my favorite and why?

Tariff Time

Tariff Time

So SHITHOLE has just announced that as soon as he takes “office”, he’s going to enforce a 25% tariff on products from Mexico, Canada and China. It wouldn’t surprise me if more countries ended up in the mix eventually. You think prices are high now for everything from food to gas, just wait.

Here’s a little experiment I did recently, and you can and should do it too. Take a look at products around your house. How many things do you have in your home that were actually made in the USA? In one hundred items I looked at in my own home, I found one item that was manufactured in the USA with “essential ingredients from Canada” and Kleenex, fully made in the USA. So we’re good for toilet paper and tissues, I guess!

Go to any Walmart and look at the clothes and other textiles such as bedding and linens. You’ll be searching for a long time to find any textile item sold there that was made in the USA. The next time you do the laundry, look at the clothing tags. We could take a trip around the world in just washing our clothes!

Wrangler jeans made in Mexico. A Christmas t-shirt made in Haiti. Towels made in India and Indonesia. You name it. Even underwear and socks. It wasn’t made here. It was made everywhere BUT here.

Then there’s everything else: this laptop I’m typing on–made in China. Most of your housewares–made in China. A lot of your health and beauty products–made in Canada. Candy made in Mexico. In fact, cereal aside, I was hard-pressed to find many food items fully made in the United States. Many items were manufactured here but with imported ingredients. Imported from where, who knows! Shit, my Great Value oatmeal is a product of Canada AND the United States! How do I know which oats are Canadian and which are American? No wonder I feel partially Canadian when I eat breakfast every day!

In doing your Christmas shopping this year, it may be wise to stock up for next year and the years after because the prices you pay this year for everything from Wrangler jeans to electronics won’t be seen again for quite a while. And in going forward, it will probably be a good idea to stock up on certain foods, such as produce, much of which is imported, especially this time of year. Because those avocados you need for your guacamole or avocado toast? They come from Mexico and Guatemala.

Brach’s cherry candy canes – made in Mexico

deodorant – made (fabricated) in Canada with imported materials. From where? Maybe China? Double tariff!

lancets – product of China

McCormick storage containers – made in China

Great Value oatmeal from Walmart-product of Canada AND United States!

Something as American as “The Peanuts” – a coffee mug made in China

my favorite pie plate – made in China

Great Value multi-vitamins – made in Canada

Wrangler jeans – made in Mexico – Ole!

About Autism and Vaccines

About Autism and Vaccines

As we all know (unless you’ve been hiding under a rock), this week SHITHOLE planted his pending “administration” with a myriad of who’s-who of SHIT: Congressional sex offenders so afraid to face the music, they resign, probably to never work in Washington DC again (SHITHOLE actually wants this one to be AG), druggies, a “governor” who’s banned from 20% of the state she “governs” and kills dogs, billionaires who don’t know an iota about “governing” and my favorite, a conspiracy theorist/addict/creep from one of the most politically prominent families in America.

Yes, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (such a disgrace to the Kennedy name and his own father), was picked to be in charge of the health of America as “Secretary of Health and Human Services”. He is not a doctor and never was. He was barely a lawyer, and an “environmental” lawyer at that. Among his conspiracy theories is that vaccines cause autism.

Newsflash: they don’t.

But unlike Kennedy who cannot prove that vaccines cause autism, through my personal experience I can assure you, they don’t.

First of all, let’s discuss logic. For someone who is so against vaccines, Kennedy is a hypocrite right from the start. Why? Because he himself is vaccinated. I can fucking guarantee it. You know how I know? He was born in 1954 and he’s a Kennedy. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he gets a flu vaccine every year and has been vaccinated for Covid. Oh, and as far as we know, although he may be mentally incompetent in some manner, he’s not autistic.

Secondly, consider ALL the people in America who have been vaccinated. From many different generations: Boomers, Gen X, Millenials, etc. Especially Boomers and Gen X. Because vaccines were HUGE in our day. Shit, once Elvis got his Polio vaccine, people lined up in droves to get theirs. And that was in the 50’s. Don’t you think if vaccines caused autism that EVERYONE would have autism? Because of the number of people who have been vaccinated. Now you can argue that there was a certain chemical in vaccines (which was removed in 2001) which many felt allegedly caused autism. But that has been disproven. And that wouldn’t explain why so many children are still being diagnosed with autism.

I get it. Parents who have autistic kids want to know why. They want to blame it on something. Because nobody has an explanation as to what causes autism. And they certainly don’t want to blame it on themselves.

But I have my own theories. And I do believe that autism is caused by genetics. And here’s why I believe that.

First, I will use the story of a family I know from a town I used to live in. They had one son who was autistic. Then they had another son who was also autistic but on a more severe level. They were warned by their physician that if they had another baby and it was a boy, he would be autistic on an even more severe level than one and two. So of course they had a third child. And it was a boy. And he was autistic to the point he was non-verbal, whereas his siblings could at least speak. Now the parents were not autistic but in doing some family research, they discovered an uncle on the father’s side who had been institutionalized his entire life for “mental incapacities”. Because that’s what they did with kids back in the 30’s who were autistic. For the record, I don’t know if any of these people were vaccinated. But I’m assuming, given the era, they were. And that would include the parents. Who were not autistic.

Next I’ll share my own personal story. I am one of six children. One of us was born in the late sixties, two of us were born in the early seventies and my three younger siblings were born in the early 80’s. In 1984 the youngest two (twins) were born. Both were premature. They both survived but one suffered brain damage and lives with a hydrocephalus shunt. And autism. Yet her twin does not have autism. And neither do the other four siblings. And we were all vaccinated. So why don’t we ALL have autism? In this case I not only feel autism was caused by genetics (and I do feel it is genetic-tell you why in a minute), but also by the brain damage caused by a medical tech’s mistake (which was discovered through a lawsuit…long story for another time).

So in my personal case, why I feel autism is genetic? Because my own daughter is autistic. I’m grateful her level of autism is not as great as her aunt’s, but we’ve certainly had our struggles over the years. And yes, we’ve all been vaccinated. Yet amazingly we ALL AREN’T AUTISTIC! Isn’t that something? And my daughter embraces her autism.

Lastly, I’d like to share the story of a woman I work with who has an autistic son, born in 2000. I have worked with her since 1999 and even went to her baby shower. She was one of those anti-vaxers for a long time. In fact, she refused to get her son vaccinated because of all the hype at the time about vaccines causing autism. Guess what? Although her son was never vaccinated, HE HAS FUCKING AUTISM! In fact, in 2010 she was forced to get her son vaccinated because she had to place him in a residential school, as her public school system could not integrate him. She’s been a believer in vaccines ever since.

I could go on about many of the other “theories” that brain-worm man has but they are just that: theories. They are not truth and just because he believes them, doesn’t mean we have to.

In fact, if he is going to be “in charge” of our health, we’d better all take measures to care for ourselves the way we want to, whether SHITHOLE, this asshole and the whole “administration” wants us to or not. Our lives depend upon it.