I hope to be home

Day 5 of Christmas music:

Home is the sailor, home from the sea
Posted by linkmeister on 3 December 2019, 6:00 am

“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” was written in 1942 or 1943 by lyricist Kim Gannon and composer Walter Kent. An additional writing credit was given to The Platters’ Buck Ram after a lawsuit. Bing Crosby recorded and released it in 1943 and the US War Department also released a live version Crosby recorded on the Kraft Music Hall variety show. The version below was recorded by Pentatonix on their 2016 album A Pentatonix Christmas.

The song’s “home” theme has been used by a lot of advertisers, none better than Folgers Coffee in their long-running commercial showing college boy Peter surprising his family with a pot of coffee at the crack of dawn.

Home for Christmas

Christmas music, day four.

Originally posted by linkmeister on 4 December 2014, 8:54 pm. Added to in 2023.

This is a pretty plaintive request: “Please Come Home for Christmas.” It was written in 1960 by Charles Brown, who sings it here, and Gene Redd. It’s a seasonal favorite and has been covered by a whole lot of people from a whole lot of genres, including The Eagles, Jon Bon Jovi, Southside Johnny, B.B. King, Lady Antebellum, and Kelly Clarkson.

His brand of smooth blues had fallen out of favor after the 1960s. His career was resurrected in the 1980s, and he recorded an album that was heard by Bonnie Raitt. During the 1980s he often toured with her as an opening act.

Dino sees Christmas ahead

Day 3 of Christmas music.

Posted by linkmeister on 18 December 2015, 8:38 pm

Remember how Perry Como’s ambition was to own a barber shop? Dean Martin was the son of a barber from Steubenville, Ohio.

The drunken womanizer act he showed on TV and on the stage in Las Vegas was just that, an act. He borrowed it from comedian Joe E. Lewis. In fact, his second wife said once that “he was home every night for dinner.”

Martin recorded 33 studio albums and acted in over 40 films. Here he is singing “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” from a compilation album.

What time of year is it on Dec 1?

Christmas music. I published a song a day during December on my blog for about ten years.

Posted by linkmeister on 10 December 2017, 7:36 pm

I’m starting to feel the Christmas Spirit now

Mr. Andy Williams was too. Here’s “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” recorded for his first Christmas album “The Andy Williams Christmas Album,” released in 1963. The song was written specifically for his TV variety show’s Christmas episode that year by its vocal director George Wyle and co-composer Edward Pola. As of November 2016 it was the seventh most-played holiday song of the last fifty years.

A little progress

In the center of the room are books, CDs and vinyl records in boxes awaiting more shelving. On the right is another pair of containers on the wall awaiting paint and shelves. The back wall will have more shelves added to fit paperbacks and CDs; I think the DVDs will go out to the living room bookshelf; that’s where the larger TV is. It’s a 32″ Roku TV; I wonder if I should get a larger one. I guess I’ll wait and see.

Festina lente

One side of shelves filling up

I didn’t have enough shelves built. There are three book series there: Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden Universe® (24 books); J.A. Jance’s J.P. Beaumont books (25 books); she’s got two more series of 19 and 16 books respectively, and they need to fit on there too; and J.D. Robb’s In Death series (55 books and counting).

I’ll add more and take another picture. The carpenter’s supposed to be here tomorrow to discuss next steps.

Moving Day!

Finally! After moving into this condo in downtown Honolulu in May of 2022 and camping since then, tomorrow I move out to my new-to-me townhouse two hills west of where I lived for 45 years. Everything is out of storage units and in the garage or in the rooms at the new residence. I’ll have counter space for slicing and dicing, a well-lit kitchen in which to cook, books to shelve, a living room and dining room, a lanai with chairs and my own washer and dryer. I’ll have one room for a library, one for an office and one to sleep in.

There’s a ton of work ahead, but at least I’ll have my own space to do it in.

Yippee!

Day Four of Kevin McCarthy’s humiliation

He deserves every bit of it, but it’s still a heck of a thing to watch. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield, CA) has wanted to be Speaker his entire career, and I think he thought he’d be voted in the minute the Republicans took control of the House. He didn’t expect the farthest-right loonies in his party would block his election. For the past three days he’s been on the wrong end of thirteen votes to name a new Speaker of the House and the Republican party looks like a bunch of fools. Meanwhile, the Democrats are solidly behind their new leader Hakeem Jeffries (who was elected to replace Nancy Pelosi when she stepped down as leader of the Democrats), giving him all 212 of their votes each time.

McCarthy has had to make so many concessions to the likes of Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert and Bob Good that the office of Speaker is going to be worth as much as a bucket of warm s*it, as John Nance Garner once said of the Vice Presidency of the US.

Christmas 2022

Mele Kalikimaka!

Several items this Christmas morning:

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs “Joy to the World” from “The Wonder of Christmas” album performed at Temple Square in Salt Lake City in 2006.

I have posted two of these nearly every year for the past ten:

“Yes Virginia”, the story of Francis P. Church’s New York Sun newspaper editorial responding to Virginia O’Hanlon’s question about Santa Claus’s existence.

Jo Walton’s wonderfully imaginative story of Joseph, faced with a newly-pregnant girlfriend and a sudden requirement to travel to Bethlehem.

The third story is John Scalzi’s interview with Marta Pittman, Santa Claus’s lawyer.