Rant #1,774: I Do Have To Paint You a Picture

Not much doing out in the world, certainly not much doing that I want to talk about here at any great length.

Yes, there are new allegations against both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as we get down to the last days of this most heinous Presidential race.

Ho hum. There have been allegations throughout, and there will probably be new ones even up to Election Day.

Boring!

We have the resumption of the World Series tonight, and once again, the Cleveland Indians have a chance to become baseball's 2016 season champs with a win this evening. If that happens, the Chicago Cubs will go home again without the crown, one that they haven't won since 1908.

To demonstrate how long ago that was, World War I hadn't even started yet when the Cubs last won the World Series!

There really is nothing more to say about it--win or you go home once again.

So what can I talk about today?

I am all talked out about Halloween.

And to prove the point I have brought up in recent columns, my son said that we had one--yes one--group of kids come to our house for treats.

When I got home yesterday, just about all the candy we had taken out to give out to kids trick or treating was still there, and when I was home, we didn't get one doorbell ring or knock at the door.

Nothing.

This is Halloween?

Not in my day.

Case closed.

So what can I pontificate about today?

Let's see ... how about music?

We all know that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--certainly thought of by many as the bastion of the music world, but the place that revolts most real music fans--recently made its latest choices for enshrinement, and once again, it made pretty much the wrong choices.

So let's shy away from the Hall of Fame, because quite honestly, it does not deserve any more ink--or virtual ink, at least--in this column until it rights its wrongs, which won't be this year for sure.

But I would like to focus on the collecting aspect of music, and yes, once again go back to my vault of 45s and picture sleeves.

I have been on an Elvis Presley kick lately, and I have decided that I would like to get together all of his hit singles into one package for me to listen to in the car.

Elvis had well more than 100 hit singles--including 18 No. 1 records--so amassing these will be a task that will take me years and years--and yes, I mean the original singles.

So rather than try to do that, I have decided to use what I have, and what I can readily get, and put together as comprehensive an Elvis hit list as possible.

I have all his hits in one form or another--whether on record (45s, LPs) and CD, so the task at hand shouldn't be that hard. The difficulty is on getting them all in one place.

That will take some time, but I think I can do it.

And I was happy to see that I did have a lot of the original singles, and their picture sleeves, which I have peppered through this post.

I have digitized a lot of these singles, still have a lot to go, but it should be fun to do.

I love a lot of his stuff, hate a lot of other things he recorded, and am fair to middling with much of his other material, so it will be eye- and ear-opening when I have everything together in one place.

And just as an aside, if you are wondering where I got the title of this Rant from, it has nothing to do with Elvis.

It is a play on words of the title of a Gary Lewis and the Playboys hit of yore, "You Don't Have To Paint Me a Picture," a single that I have and have with a picture sleeve, as seen right here.

I simply thought it was appropriate as the title of this Rant.

Yes, there really is nothing much happening out there that I wanted to talk about, and even with that in hand, I have reached the end of this column.

So, in fact, there was plenty to talk about after all.

And where else can you find a single column mentioning Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, the World Series, Elvis Presley and Gary Lewis and the Playboys all in one fell swoop?

Nowhere--and that is what makes this column unique.

I thank you for visiting, and I will speak to you again tomorrow.

"Don't Be Cruel," c'mon back for more!