Fixing up your home? You might want to tell your insurance company about it.

8 of the 10 largest home insurers offer little-publicized discounts for certain renovations or upgrades.

Go to BankRate.com and type in "home insurance discounts" for more information.

Research indicates that vitamin C can reduce the risk of developing cataracts.

But don’t start popping pills. The study also should that this benefit only comes from dietary vitamin C. In others words, you need to consume citrus fruits and dark green vegetables!

Tapestry (1971)

Carole King was already one of rock’s most successful songwriters. But no one could have predicted that when she finally started singing her own songs, she would create one of the best selling albums of all-time by a female vocalist, especially when her only previous album had not climbed higher than #84 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Tapestry has sold more than 25 million copies and is considered one of the top 50 albums ever released by a rock artist.

Together with her then-husband, Gerry Goffin, King had already secured a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame co-writing such tunes as:

• Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
• Take Good Care of My Baby
• Some Kind of Wonderful
• The Loco-Motion
• Chains
• Go Away Little Girl
• Up on the Roof
• One Fine Day
• I’m into Something Good
• Just Once in My Life
• Pleasant Valley Sunday

And so many more.

While King often sang on the demo discs (records produced quickly and only intended to demonstrate the song to potential recording artists), she was reluctant to release an album of her own. Friends, including James Taylor, kept encouraging her. So in the spring of 1970, she released Writer. It stiffed.

Undeterred, the very next year she released Tapestry. It was like a dam bursting. Powered by a monster double-sided single “It’s Too Late” b/w “I Feel the Earth Move,” Tapestry roared up the album charts, becoming the first album by a solo female artist to ever rack up at least 10 million in sales.

She copped four Grammys that year for Album of the Year, Best Female Pop Performance, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. Tapestry remained on the Billboard charts for 313 weeks (second only to Dark Side of the Moon).

Her subsequent albums have been very well received, five of them landing in the Top 10.

There is no question that any essential album collection for a Baby Boomer has to include Tapestry. It’s not “too late” to include it in yours.

As we roll into cold and flu season, many of us will be guzzling those over-the-counter remedies we think will help us cope with the symptoms.

There is a potential downside. Actually, there are SEVERAL potential downsides.

Acetaminophen – Many over-the-counter pills and fluids contain this common pain reliever (the main ingredient in Tylenol). It’s also found in many cold medications. If you taking both pain relief pills and cold syrup, you may quickly find yourself consuming way more than the 3,000-4,000 milligram dosage recommended as the maximum safe dosage.

Too much acetaminophen can lead to nausea, stomach pain, loss of appetite, and ultimately to liver damage. (We don’t have to tell you that liver damage is something we want to avoid.)

Be a Romper Room Do-Bee: You should also stay away from alcohol when taking acetaminophen. And check the ingredients of all the medications you’re taking to keep yourself under that 3,000-4,000 milligram number.

Yes, you can get too many of some vitamins. Pay attention to your daily intake of:

Vitamin A: More than 10,000 IUs may cause nausea, headache, dizziness or blurry vision

Vitamin B6: A daily does in excess of 100 milligrams can lead to nerve damage

Vitamin C: A recent study found that high doses of this vitamin doubles men’s risk of developing kidney stones

Vitamin D: Over 10,000 IUs a day can cause frequent urination and poor appetite as well as kidney problems

Many of the classic movie comedy teams from Laurel & Hardy to The Three Stooges scampered across the TV screens of our youth, but only one actually appeared in a brand-new, made-for-TV series. That was Abbott and Costello.

Actually, to say the series featured brand new material is a bit misleading. What The Abbott and Costello Show accomplished is something far more significant. It preserved for future generations a portion of American theatrical history that might have been lost to the ages without them.

The Abbott and Costello Show went into production in 1952 when Bud Abbott and Lou Costello’s career and working relationship were at low ebb. In fact, things between the boys had reached a point where Lou made himself producer and owner of the series. Abbott was reduced to working strictly on salary.

To make the show as quickly and cheaply as possible, most episodes were built around classic routines from burlesque theater – the place where A&C had gotten their start. In so doing, A&C preserved classic comedy routines from live theater that might have been lost forever.

Burlesque was a lower rent version of vaudeville, filled mainly with strippers and baggy pants comics. As performers often would come and go from theater to theater quickly, a repertoire of sketches common to all “burly-q” houses developed. That way, any newly arriving comic or showgirl could be quickly integrated into set routines with which every performer on the circuit was familiar.

Both Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges had worked a few of these classic routines into their films. But The Abbott and Costello Show helped to preserve dozens more of them in their purest form. These sketches included names like “Crazy House,” “The Susquehanna Hat Company,” and, of course, “Niagara Falls, Slowly I Turn.” (Truth be told, even A&C’s signature bit “Who’s on First” was not originated by the team. It was a classic burlesque routine they simply perfected.)

In each episode of the show, there was never a lot of character development. The cast was small. Bud and Lou were two guys, usually out of work, living in an apartment building owned by fellow burlesque veteran Sid Fields (who also helped write the scripts). Hillary Brooke played their neighbor and occasional girlfriend for Lou. Gordon Jones was Mike the Cop, Joe Kirk (Lou’s brother-in-law) appeared as Mr. Bacciagalupe. And Joe Besser, who went on to become a member of the Stooges, dressed in a Lord Fauntleroy suit as a neighborhood kid named Stinky. Obviously, they never expected us to buy this middle age man as a child. That was one of the jokes.

The shows had just enough plot to get the cast into a classic burlesque routine. We never cared about plot anyway. The whole point was to laugh at Abbott & Costello. And we did!

The team shot a total of 52 episodes over 2 years. That’s not a lot by TV standards, but like “the Classic 39” episodes of The Honeymooners, the quality was so good, the show kept running in syndication for decades, earning Abbott and Costello new generations of fans. Like Jerry Seinfeld, who said he patterned his popular sitcom after A&C, focusing strictly on getting laughs, not teaching people lessons.

The Abbott and Costello Show never had a first run on network television. It was produced (like Superman) purely for local syndication. Reruns did pop up on CBS for one season as part of that network's Saturday morning line-up. But its enduring popularity earned the series a place on Time Magazine’s list of “The 100 Best TV Shows of All Time.”

All 52 episodes are currently available on home video. Should you ever really want to know, “Who’s on first?” The answer is Bud Abbott and Lou Costello!

Many of us, for reasons both environmental as well as financial, are contemplating “going off the grid” and installing solar panels on our homes.

Before you take the plunge, you should be aware of a potential scam that has popped in this field. It involves companies that offer to install solar panels on your home for free. The deal is, they own the panels and they will bill you every month, just like the power company.

Now, these companies promise that your bill will be substantially less than what you’re currently paying, but there have been reports of people actually paying more.

So before agreeing to anything, do your homework. Find out if other friends or family members have done business with the company. Research them online with the Better Business Bureau and things like Google and Yahoo reviews. Finally, read your contract carefully and make sure you understand what you’re getting yourself into.

Reputable businesses are always glad to do business in the sunshine.

2016's simultaneous release of Eight Days a Week and Live at the Hollywood Bowl reignited interest in the Beatles live shows. But these are not the only places you can find Liverpool’s favorite sons performing live.

Here’s an overview of all the other ways you can experience the Beatles in concert:

Live! at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany – It was in Hamburg that the Beatles said they really came together and honed their live sound. Fortunately, during their final stint at the Star Club (after Ringo had joined but before Beatlemania hit), the club’s stage manager recorded the group on a reel-to-reel tape deck with a single microphone.

The tapes then went missing for a number of years before resurfacing in the early 1970’s. The Beatles passed on buying the tapes themselves and also were not successful in trying to keep them off the market through legal means.

While the resulting audio is of poor quality, it does give you an accurate picture of what the group sounded like just before they hit it big. The recordings also feature a good number of songs the group never recorded any place else. These tracks have been released multiple times on vinyl and CD. As no one is exactly sure when the tapes were recorded (some time in late December is the best guess), there is no way to say which songs belong in which order. This, combined with the overall low fidelity, make Live! At the Star Club an item for hard-core Beatles fans only.

The Beatles Live at the BBC and On Air: Live at the BBC Volume 2 – In those heady days of the 1960’s, the Beeb (as it was called) would regularly host pop stars who performed live in the studio. As Britain’s most popular band by far, the Beatles were frequent guests. These sets (both double discs) capture the lion’s share of those performances. Not only do you get the Beatles performing a raft of great rock ‘n’ roll cover songs, the boys are playing without having to fight hordes of screaming fans to be heard. These are a must-have item for any serious fan of the Beatles music.

The Four Complete Ed Sullivan Shows Starring the Beatles – For American Baby Boomers, we marked our young lives as before and after the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. In February of 1964, they made 3 consecutive Sunday night appearances (Feb. 9^th, Feb. 16^th and Feb 23^rd) although the 3^rd appearance had been taped at an earlier date. They made a return appearance on September 12, 1965.

These shows are available in their entirety on DVD and come highly recommended. Not only were the Beatles in fine form, but you can also experience the way TV of that era was still aimed at a mass audience, instead of a smaller demographic slice. So you’ll also see vintage live performances from Frank Gorshin, Cab Calloway, Tessie O’Shea, Mitzi Gaynor, Myron Cohen, Gordon McRae, Allen & Rossi and even Soupy Sales. Sullivan’s “really big shew” was definitely vaudeville’s last stand.

Pay particular attention to the Beatles’ very first appearance on February 3^rd. Right after their opening segment, the next act is the Broadway cast of Oliver! singing “I’ll Do Anything for You.” Playing the Artful Dodger and singing lead on the song is a young Davy Jones, who would find his lasting fame in the Beatles’ knock-off group, the Monkees!

The Beatles on Ready, Steady, Go – Ready, Steady, Go was to British teenagers as American Bandstand was to kids in the U.S.A., except the acts usually performed live instead of lip-synching.

 In the early days of home video, a VHS set of the Beatles’ live performances on the show was available. Unfortunately, a DVD version has never been made available. However, you may still find an old VHS copy at a thrift store on an internet auction site.

The Beatles in Washington, D.C. – After playing the first Sullivan show, the Beatles hopped down to Washington, D.C. for their first American concert at the Washington Coliseum on February 11, 1964.

This show was also broadcast live via closed circuit to American movie theaters. After the event, it was re-packaged with performances by Leslie Gore and the Beach Boys (from the T.A.M.I. Show event) and sent around to theaters.

This concert is available on DVD. It provides a great documentary of Beatlemania in the U.S. and also the low regard for rock musicians at that time. The concert is held “in the round” and the Beatles themselves (no stage hands available) actually have to move their own equipment every couple of numbers so they give everyone in the audience a chance to see them from the front!

Live in Paris – When the Beatles played two shows at 3 and 9 pm on June 20^th, 1965 at the Palais de Sports to kick off their final European tour, both shows were broadcast by the French radio station Europe 1. As a result, complete recordings on these shows have been available on the “unofficial” market (did somebody say bootleg?) for many years. The audio quality is good and you can actually compare song performances from one show to the next.

Live at Budokan 1966 – The Beatles were actually the first musical act to play Budokan (which had been built for martial arts exhibitions). There was a great deal of controversy surrounding their appearance. Of course, once the Beatles played there, other rock acts (most famously, Cheap Trick) would follow in their footsteps.

The Fab Four’s first two shows in Japan were video-taped and then edited into a single show that was broadcast throughout Japan. As a result pirated versions of both the audio and video from these shows are widely available.

Anthology – Produced in 1995, this is both a 6-disc CD set and a 5-disc DVD set. The CDs presented rare outtakes and unreleased material while the DVDs chronicle the history of the group. You can find smatterings of live material on both

Get Back - Because the Beatles' final film, Let It Be, was unavailable for many years, director Peter Jackson was brought in to create a new version of the Fabs' final days. The result was a marathon 3-part, 7.75 hour documentary miniseries originally broadcast on Disney+ and then made available in several packages (some wildly overpriced) on home video. Watching the boys sit around a sound stage and then a recording studio, noodling, bickering and occasionally recording something worthwile can be a bit of a slog, but it does include the complete "Rooftop Concert," which turned out to be the last time the four ever performed live.

Let It Be – Following up on the Get Back project, director Peter Jackson then turned to refurbishing the original documentary That film was diected by Michael Lindey-Hogg and some felt the film was editted to make Paul McCartney look like the villain in the Beatles' break-up (the film originally hit theaters a short time after the break-up had been announced). Of course, subsequent years have revealed that the guys were all pretty much ready to go their separate ways; and after a brief period of public acrimony, all remained friends through the eyars.

This version of the feature film also played on Disney+ starting in the spring of 2024, but has yet to see any release on home video.

Some rare, yet to be released, gems: 

Around the Beatles – This was a one-hour TV special made in Britain by ITV and broadcast in countries around the world in 1964. In America, it was shown on ABC-TV. The Beatles performed 7 numbers by themselves (including the only version of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout” they ever recorded) and they also sang back-up for some of their musical guests (which included Cilla Black, P.J. Proby, and Long John Baldry). One of the highlights of the show was the Beatles performing in a send-up of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

While small portions of this show were included in Anthology, the complete show has never been re-broadcast nor has it ever been officially available on home video.

The Beatles at Shea Stadium - Footage of this show has been used in many retrospectives (including Howard's Eight Days a Week), but there was a one-hour TV special produced that captures the entire concert.

Just as we eat foods that can help keep our bodies healthy, there are foods that can improve brain activity.

Here are 5 “smart” things to eat:

1. Orange Juice – Helps improve memory
2. Split Peas – Helps mental processing speed
3. Walnuts – Helps the heart as well as the brain
4. Asparagus – Help the brain create new neural pathways
5. Shrimp – Helps maintain the brain’s signaling system