It's almost not enough to say, "Let's hope this year is better than the last one."  Let's hope this year isn't any worse.  None of the indicators that have to do with peace and prosperity are inspiring much optimism today, and the TV pundits seem to have their fingers crossed — maybe for luck, maybe because they think they're fibbing — when they say, "2003 will be a whole lot better."  I'll be delighted to have my cynicism prove unfounded.  It may be that if we can get through '03 without going to war, that will make the year look pretty good.

If you're up in time to catch the Rose Parade, watch for the float from the city of West Covina, California.  A fellow named Raul Rodriguez designed a display that will feature Bob Clampett's immortal cartoon show, Beany and Cecil.  The float will depict the sea-sick sea serpent swimming alongside Beany's ship.  If anyone spots any photos I can link to, please let me know.

If you've ever thought of purchasing any of the wonderful comic book fonts from Comicraft, today's the day.  For 24 hours, every font in the place is $20.03.  But hurry.  The clock is ticking.

Fred Hembeck's clever cartoons have been gracing fanzines and various comic-related magazines for years.  He has a sincere sense of humor and a distinctive art style that more than does it justice.  As of this new year, he is despoiling gracing the Internet with his personal brand of silliness.  You'll want to drop by his newly-erected site at www.hembeck.com now and also later as he gets more and more of his drawings up there.  I don't believe Fred and I have ever been in the same room together but we're interested in so many of the same things that I feel like an old friend.  Go visit my old friend's new website.

Two fine folks — Nat Gertler and Elayne Riggs — independently of one another — sent me this link to a page with photos of the building of the Beany and Cecil float.  We're still on the lookout for pics of the finished product.

Another fine folk — and a masterful voiceover talent — is Bob Bergen.  As a youth, Bob dreamed of growing up to be Porky Pig and, following the passing of the great Mel Blanc, achieved his dream.  He also does tons of other characters and jobs, and teaches one of the most-respected v.o. workshops in the business.  Why am I telling you this now?  Because he just launched his own website where you can read more about him and hear him in action.  It is, of course, www.bobbergen.com.  Start the year right with a visit.

Tonight's installment of Up Close (the Ted Koppel-hosted interview show that follows Nightline on ABC) features inventor Dean Kamen.  Perhaps some mention will be made of his father, Jack Kamen, one of the great EC comic book artists.  And perhaps not.

A reader of this site named Jamie writes to ask, "I noticed that Jay Leno did a live show last night with a remote from Times Square, whereas Letterman (who's in NEW YORK, for God's sake) had on a rerun.  Why is this?"  Answer: It's precisely because Dave is in New York, only blocks from Times Square.  He elects not to subject his staff, his audience, and himself to having to fight the crowd and drunken revelers that turn out there on the last night of the year.

In the past, they tried taping a show earlier in the day.  Then, they would insert live cut-ins to Times Square around the midnight hour.  One year, they had stage manager Biff Henderson atop one of the big buildings down there.  Another year, they just had cameras.  Either way, cutting between tape and live seemed awkward, and it meant that some of Dave's crew had to be in the midst of it all and work that late.  So they finally decided it wasn't worth it, and they were probably right.

This reminds me of a story I didn't tell relating to this article I posted here about a time when I was in Las Vegas for New Year's Eve, watching (among other marvels) the demolition of the Hacienda Hotel.  A few weeks later, back in Vegas, I was introduced to a gent who worked for some committee that had been involved with the event.  I asked him why, even though the sheer fact that it was New Year's Eve already packed the Strip to capacity, they had chosen that evening to stage a big, crowd-attracting spectacle.  He explained to me that it was part of a five-year-plan they'd formulated to do something spectacular each New Year's Eve — something TV cameras would want to capture live.

He went on: "People associate New Year's Eve with Times Square.  Times Square gets all that publicity and attention.  Well, when we're done, people will associate New Year's Eve with Las Vegas.  Everyone around the world will want to tune in and see how we're ringing in the new year here on the Strip.  We're going to take that away from New York."

Interesting, I thought.  But I had to ask: "How are you going to deal with the fact that the new year arrives three hours earlier on the East Coast?  By the time it's the new year here in Vegas, two-thirds of the country has already celebrated and gone to bed."

The man didn't answer me.  He just stood there, as if no one had raised that point before.  And I got the idea that he was thinking, "There has to be a way to get that changed…"

I'm taking a day or three off — from this, not from writing.  But if you really need something to peruse, here are some fun links.  And I'll see you next year…

• Shipping Out Name of NY by Jimmy Breslin, Newsday
• Bush's Bushwa by Daniel Gross, Slate
• A Spoon Full of Sugar by Joshua Micah Marshall, Tom Paine
• Happy New Year by William F. Buckley, Jr.

Here's a much better recommendation, even if I won't make a nickel off this one.  A few years ago, DC Comics put out two fancy boxed volumes — The Superman Masterpiece Edition and The Batman Masterpiece Edition.  These are both large, thick boxes that include a statue of the hero, a terrific book of history and memorabilia, and a facsimile of his first issue.  They sold for $65 each and were a steal at that price.

Many outlets are now selling them for $35, which is a bigger steal…and the Barnes & Noble chain now has them for twenty bucks each.  Further compounding this bargain, if you order both, you'll probably qualify for free shipping.

If you want to get them that way, go to www.barnesandnoble.com, do a search for "Superman Masterpiece" or "Batman Masterpiece" and make sure you find the $19.95 listings but pay attention.  They also seem to have pages on which these items are available at their original prices and you don't want to pay them.  You can also scurry over to your nearby Barnes & Noble.  This afternoon, they had a bunch of both at the one near me.  (By the way, there's also a Wonder Woman collection but so far, it's only been reduced to $40.)

This is not one of those deals where this website gets a cut so I'll post one of these banners.  This is just in case any of you are feeling uncommonly grateful…

Here's a faint recommendation: The late, great comic book artist Pat Boyette was also a filmmaker.  His biggie was a low-low-budget horror film called Dungeon of Harrow, which he shot in 1962 on a budget of (it seemed) around eight dollars.  That happens to also be the price of the new DVD that has just been issued of what — I assure you — is not a film that had Hitchcock worrying about the competition.  But if you like cheapo horror films, you might admire Pat's ingenuity in this one.  You can order it from Amazon by clicking here — but shop around and add something else to your order to get it up to $25 so the postage will be free.  You don't want to pay three bucks in shipping fees for an eight dollar DVD.  Especially this one.

A little more than four days ago, I told you that my book, Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life was at sales ranking #1,242,840 at Amazon, and that they said they had four copies left.  At the moment, they say they have two copies left…but I am somehow still in 1,242,840th place.  I do not understand this.  Shouldn't the number be changing because other books are entering their catalog and being sold?  Oh, well.  If you want to order either or both of the two copies they currently have in stock, click here.

I just took down a news item I posted earlier today with a link to an online copy of a book.  Two folks informed me simultaneously that the book is copyrighted and its posting to the web was unauthorized by the estate of the book's author.  I don't want to encourage that kind of thing…so no link.  Sorry.

One of the reasons I love the Game Show Network's Black and White Overnight show is that I often find myself remembering moments from programs I haven't seen in over 35 years, and revisiting matters that puzzled my young brow.  The other night, they ran an I've Got A Secret from 3/7/1966 on which a poem was read.  In those prehistoric, pre-VCR days, you only got to hear many things once on television, and I recall liking the poem and wishing I had a copy of it.  But I didn't, and there seemed to be no way to get one, so I wrote up my own clumsy, not-as-good recollection of it and performed it one day in class when called upon to recite.

I no longer have a copy of my version but now, thanks to Game Show Network and TiVo, I was able to get it.  A poet named Willits (or maybe Willets) Frost was its author and here is what he wrote…

That one should leave no stone unturned
Is something I quite early learned
But with so many stones around
I could not turn them all, I found
I spotted terns over the sea
One turned around and spotted me
For spotting the best suit I owned
I tried to leave no tern unstoned.

Not much to add, except that in watching these old game shows, I'm amazed at how much I remember.  I can't recall what happened three nights ago on Leno or Letterman but somehow, I can remember moments from a 1966 game show.  I don't know if that says more about the shows or about me or about the way TV impacts us when we're young.  I'm guessing it's All of the Above.

Al Feldstein, the great editor-writer of Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear and other EC comics and MAD sends me (and others) links to wonderful webpages he encounters about what's going on in the world today. He just sent out this link, which is to a fascinating short video about world population.

If you grew up in Los Angeles like I did, you will enjoy this site, which features vintage postcards of L.A. past.  I especially love the pics of the old Ontra cafeterias — which served the best hot turkey sandwiches in the world — and the Miracle Mile, which was then a boulevard lined with great clothing stores like Desmonds and Orbachs.  There are also a couple of shots over there of Westwood Village as I remember it from my childhood — a lot of quaint, one-story buildings.  Great stuff.

Mort Sahl did a 6-minute set last night on Mr. Letterman's show.  Health-wise, he seemed older and slower.  At the outset, I had the fear it would be another of those Bob Dylan moments when a one-time great embarrasses himself by trying to do what he can no longer do.  But Sahl's material was sharp, and it went well.  He closed with a great bit about how Jack Welch (of General Electric) and Rupert Murdoch (of News Corp) decided to direct their efforts to solving the "gang" problem in Los Angeles.  One corporation went in and purchased the Crips.  The other corporation acquired the Bloods.  And then they both sent their accountants in to begin laying everyone off…

Eighty years ago today, the Lieber family increased by one.  The newcomer was destined to bisect his surname to become Stan Lee, one of the most important figures in the world of comic books.  Charming and clever, Stan developed the power of super-endurance, hanging in through the lean times until, along with my friend Kirby, he kickstarted a failing field.  You know, when Stan Lee ran the business, we cheered for him.  We're proud of it.  And if the rest of the industry had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

Here's an item from this morning's Los Angeles Times, purloined right off their website…

A water main break sent more than 15,000 gallons of water flowing down Laurel Canyon Boulevard on Thursday night, prompting authorities to close the street from Canton Place to Mulholland Drive.  The broken pipe in the 3200 block of Laurel Canyon was reported at 5:41 PM, said Gail Harris of the Department of Water and Power.

So guess who was driving North on Laurel Canyon Boulevard last night at 5:41 PM?  Actually, I think it was a bit earlier than that…but Carolyn and I were en route to a party and it was like cruising the Nile for a few blocks there.  Still, we made it.  The great composer Richard Sherman arrived an hour later at the party and from what we could figure, he and his wife couldn't have been more than five minutes behind us entering Laurel Canyon.  They were sent off by the fire department in a winding maze of detours through side streets, before finally being routed back to Laurel Canyon, heading back the way they came to find an alternate route to the valley.

Richard has a new hit musical in England — soon to alight on Broadway — based on a movie for which he and his brother wrote the music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  He could sure have used that flying car last night.

Slow news day:  The Associated Press has, for some reason, circulated a story that says — well here, I'll let you read the lede for yourself…

Wrestler Lawler: Kaufman feud was hoax

Pro wrestler Jerry "The King" Lawler has finally confessed: His famous feud with comedian Andy Kaufman was all set up.  The feud included a segment on the David Letterman show in 1982 when Lawler slapped the comedian and Kaufman later threw coffee at him — all while Letterman watched aghast.

Does this come as news to anyone?  Anywhere?  What with various books, documentaries and even a major motion picture about Andy Kaufman, this is about the eighth time it's been "revealed" that these guys — each of whom made his living putting people on — were putting people on.  Lawler even played himself in the movie and was shown discussing the scam.  Even assuming anyone thought it might be legit in the first place, the ruse has been pretty thoroughly nuked by now.  (And if you look at the tape, Letterman sure didn't look "aghast."  He was obviously so sure it was a bit that he sat there and made no move to stop one of his guests from slapping the hell out of another of his guests.)

I've always had mixed feelings on the topic of Andy Kaufman, a man I knew best as the bus boy at a delicatessen I used to frequent called The Posh Bagel.  Seeing him performing elsewhere, he made me laugh about as often as he did when I saw him bussing tables, which is to say, "a little" — but for a time there, I admired his courage and innovation.  Since he passed away, some of those biographies have suggested that it was neither courage nor innovation; that the guy was merely indulging various childhood and adolescent fantasies.  Harry Shearer wrote in a piece one time that Kaufman was less interested in performing actual comedy than he was in "infantilizing" his audiences.  I think I agree, though there was also something very sweet about the guy that made that less offensive than it might have been.  He was also a much better actor than a lot of other "stunt" comedians.

A friend of mine who knew Kaufman well and wrote for him differs with me on this.  He believes Andy was a genius, and we've kind of agreed to disagree on the topic, especially since I don't feel that strongly about it and my friend does.  But we concur that it's unfortunate that so much (i.e., all) of the posthumous talk about the guy is about the hoaxes and "Is he really dead?"  I don't think any of the famed Kaufman psycho-dramas should have fooled anyone over the age of about nine or ten, or whatever year of his own childhood Andy was asking us to join him in.  But if they did, that's testimony to some kind of talent, and I wish his friends had honored that talent and kept those who were wondering wondering.

That's Rob and Laura Petrie of New Rochelle celebrating Christmas.  And has anyone else ever noticed that, on the Christmas episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, most of the songs performed had nothing to do with Christmas?  Sally Rogers sings, "Santa, Send a Fella Into My Life," and Ritchie Petrie sings an awful rendition of "The Little Drummer Boy," which is often cut when the show runs in a tight time slot.  But the other three songs — including the one they did in the Santa suits at left — aren't Christmas songs.  This is another one of those things I probably shouldn't waste time thinking about.

Anyway, Merry Whatever You Celebrate to all my friends, including the ones I haven't met yet.  Hope your holidays are relatively stress-free and that it sets the pattern from here on.