Last year, I wrote a little about Brenda’s Lee’s Christmas classic, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and how, at 78, she had just made a music video to go with the song she recorded when she was 13. Whomever handles Brenda Lee’s business affairs knows how to keep the money coming. For 2024, there’s a new Spanish-language version of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and Brenda got to take it easy. Producers used AI to go back to 1958 and have “Brenda” sing en Español.
I got invited back on “Daily Flash” this week for my recurring segment, “What Did I Just Eat?” Mitch, Andrea, and Matt are my willing test subjects – letting me me try out new supermarket products on them. This time, the theme was Thanksgiving. We had the new Holiday Nog-flavored whipped dairy topping in a can from Target, the limited-time 7UP Shirley Temple in both Zero Sugar and “Full-on Sugar” varieties, the holiday sandwich from 7-Eleven with a stuffing-herbed hoagie roll, “Brie My Guest” ice cream from Baskin-Robbins, and both the chocolate and cheese advent calendars from Aldi.
I found these in the supermarket while hunting for a home dessert or sneaky snack that’s less bad for me than a frozen leftover Snickers from Halloween. I’ve already got the little plastic tubs of peach bits in an unbranded version of Jell-O. Those are pretty good, but these Dole Pineapple Tidbits In Coconut Water are really satisfying. Canned pineapple is never going to be as good as fresh, but the addition of the coconut gives it a sunny pina colada vibe. At 60 calories and no added sugar, that’s not too bad. If you try them, let me know if you get a little “cherry pie” sensation – not the overly almond taste you get in cheap pie filling, but an actual tart cherry flavor.
I was a weekend Smooth Jazz DJ for about three years in the early 2000s, right as the number of stations that could make the format work on commercial radio was getting smaller. I was never one of the main on-air talent at Orlando’s WLOQ, 103.1 FM, but you might hear me Saturday afternoons or Sunday mornings. I’d be playing – still on CDs – Euge Groove or Mindi Abair or Acoustic Alchemy. Smooth Jazz was never my personal favorite, but it can be nice while reading or studying – not a lot of lyrics to distract you.
Actor and “The Masked Singer” panelist Ken Jeong is the newest person to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. If you’ve walked the real neighborhood of Hollywood, it’s not as glamourous as you might expect. It’s a touristy strip with “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (not live) shooting at the old Hollywood Masonic Temple, but there’s also a lot of t-shirt shops, dirty bootleg characters charging for photos, and a long-time homeless encampment that LA dismantled in August before a big public event.