Julien Neel, my favorite one-man quartet, has some fun with Mr. Berlin's "White Christmas," more or less Drifters-style…

Ed Alexander wrote me and said, "Geez, Mark, I don't mean to be intrusive (I am, however, obviously incapable of restraint) but I can't help noticing that there's a bit of an uncommonly grumpy tone to the last couple of your 12/22 posts. I hope everything's okay." Everything's fine, Ed.

Well, not everything. I have a couple of friends who are hospitalized and a couple more battling flu and other such ailments. I also have a few more who are worried — unrealistically so, I think — that Donald Trump's going to do something really, really desperate and destructive. But I'm fine, thanks. I think sometimes I sound grumpier than I am because I'm trying to amuse.

To my surprise, by the way, I got a call today from a senior exec with the Boston Market chain. On a Sunday morning (!), the guy called to apologize, offer me free meals, promise to look into my complaints, etc. I was impressed with that.

And here's how he got my number, in case you're wondering: On the receipt I got at Boston Market, they have the address of a website where one can send complaints, praise, suggestions, etc. I used the site to send them a link to my blog post and whoever monitors those submissions alerted the guy…and we had a very nice conversation. He promised to call me back when he can tell me something concrete that might get me to give Boston Market another try. Can't ask for more than that.

About Trump: The last few days, all the news-type coverage I've watched has featured folks telling us what Trump's going to do. I don't think anyone has a clue what this guy is going to do about anything…and that may include Trump himself. It wouldn't even surprise me now if he turned on his base in some way…which he almost did momentarily with the deal to fund the government. It wouldn't surprise me if he didn't, either. (Some of them are also pissed at the idea that we won't be as seriously in Syria and Afghanistan trying to kick butt.)

You know how I wrote the other day here that people who claim to be able to read your mind or contact the dead are all, without exception, frauds? I'm starting to feel that way about people who are telling us what Trump will do next.

There are many definitions of the word "friend." I just did an online search and found that the third one here is oddly applicable to my evening…

Who (besides anyone) could have thought the boulevards and airport roadways would be a bit crowded?  And who (besides everyone except me, apparently) wouldn't refuse to do that?  But I got her to curbside at the terminal and from what I heard folks saying out there, I'm guessing, she'll be getting through the TSA check-in around the time the government shutdown is settled.  I don't mean the current one.  I mean the next one or maybe the one after.

(We may be in for a lot of them.  If Trump's had three this year with his party in control of both the House and Senate, having one of those under Democratic control ain't gonna make things easier.)

But getting out of the airport wasn't as bad as getting into the airport…and neither of them was as annoying as what happened next.  I may be taking this too seriously but I was really rankled by a visit I made to the Boston Market outlet on Sepulveda near LAX.  I used to always like Boston Markets (see here) and it saddens me that I'll probably never set foot in one again.  The one I went to was pretty decent the last time I was there, a few years ago.

I placed my order — roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, side of corn — and waited. And waited. And waited and waited. None of these items had to be cooked. They were all ready in various compartments of the counter on which the crew assembles your meal…but I also noticed a lot of spilled food and crumbs all over, like a puddle of dried-and-hardened macaroni and cheese on the counter that no one had bothered to clean up. And little drops of splattered side dishes. It didn't seem very clean there.

And I continued to wait. Three people were assembling orders with all the speed of a Galapagos Tortoise. I checked the time-stamp on my receipt and clocked it from there…

After eighteen minutes, I said something to the main guy there, the one who adds the meat to your plate after others load the sides. He said, "We're getting to your order right now, sir." Four minutes later, I had it. That's twenty-two minutes — and remember, this is food that didn't require cooking. They weren't out of any of the items. It just took them twenty-two minutes to put two pieces of already-sliced turkey, a scoop of whipped potatoes, a serving of corn, a tiny disposable ramekin of gravy and a piece of corn bread onto a plastic plate.

It then took me one bite of each item to decide each was inedible and I needed to go somewhere else. Just awful. And I used to be such a fan of these places…

I'm sitting here today making the probable mistake of trying to figure out what's on Donald Trump's mind: Does he have an endgame strategy to this government shutdown? Why did he think this moment — when Democrats are about to take control of Congress — was a good time for this battle? It seems to me like a general saying, "No, let's not attack the enemy until they get stronger."

On Thursday, I was coming out of a building in Beverly Hills and I witnessed an argument with a man getting out of an Uber car and its driver yelling at each other. Near as I could tell, the driver was telling the passenger what a great man Donald Trump is and the passenger was saying Trump wasn't fit to slop pigs, let alone be President of the United States and it reached the point where the passenger said, "Pull over and let me out" and the driver said, "With pleasure." I wonder what you tip for that kind of ride.

Eliot A. Cohen is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He has penned a good essay on the resignation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and I would imagine that its lesson also applies to Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy who also resigned the other day. The lesson is that you can serve the needs of the United States of America or you can serve the needs of Donald J. Trump…but no way can you do both at the same time.

I just saw a Grubhub commercial that tells me I can order from "over 85,000 restaurants nationwide" and they'll deliver. That's not true. I can order from any restaurant within about six miles from me. I can't get a hot, fresh pie from John's Pizza of Bleecker Street in New York delivered to my door in half an hour. Believe me. If I could, I would.

It is my solid belief that 100% of folks who claim to be able to read minds, contact the dead, sense the future via psychic powers or heal via such abilities are crooked and often dangerous frauds. And by "100%," I do not mean "almost 100%" or 99.9%." I mean every dishonest, lying one of 'em. This especially applies to John Of God, a much-heralded (and as criminal as any of them) faith healer in Brazil who scamming thousands of people…and raping the cuter ones. My pal Paul Harris can tell you about the guy better than I can.

Mary Poppins Returns has gotten mostly great reviews but a couple of wide-circulation critics have dumped on it, in some cases for being too much like the original and too unlike it, both at the same time. Don't believe 'em. Get a kid or become one for a while and go see it.

It wouldn't be Christmas Time here at newsfromme.com without this one…

So I'm channel-surfing newscasts about how the government may shut down in less than three hours unless Trump gets money for his wall. Folks on Trump's side keep arguing, "He was elected because he promised the American people this wall so he has to deliver." No one is pointing out that (a) he did not get elected by a majority of the American people or even the ones who voted in that election, nor are they noting (b) that what he promised was a free wall, one that Mexico would pay for. If you ask me if I want a free Ferrari 488 Pista, I'm going to say yes. If you tell me I've got to come up with a quarter of a million bucks for it, maybe I'm not as interested.

And as I recall, there were a lot of people — some of them, experts; some not — who were all for cracking down on illegal immigration but thought the "wall" thing was a waste of resources. There were better, wiser ways to do it. I don't know if they're right but where are they in this debate? The mud-wrestling before us seems to be about whether one sides with Trump about cracking down on Mexicans coming across our southern border or not. I see no discussion about whether this is the best way to achieve that…or even if the problem really is as outta-control as the "Build the wall!" people keep insisting. There's another point-of-view on that.

What bothers me about this kind of battle is that it stops being about what it's about. It becomes almost wholly about who gets the "win." Trump needs one badly. His opponents who think they have him on the ropes want to deny it to him. It sure doesn't feel to me like either side is being driven primarily by the question of what's better for the U.S. on this issue.

And the other thing that seems to be going unsaid on my TV this evening is this question: A G.O.P. Congressperson was just saying that we have to build The Wall because Trump promised it. I was hoping someone would say, "Trump also promised that there would be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, no one would lose their health insurance, those who didn't have it would get it at affordable rates including those with pre-existing conditions and under him, health insurance would be less expensive and more efficient. Shouldn't he be delivering on that, too?"

I'm a big fan of the late recording artist Ross Bagdasarian, better known to you as David Seville, a man who had three large singing chipmunks living with him. His chipmunk life began when he recorded "The Chipmunk Song," one of the biggest hit records in the history of big hit records. Actually, he had a pretty hefty hit before that with "The Witch Doctor" and he also recorded a number of novelty tunes that are deserving of attention.

In this sixties when I got my first tape recorder — this was in the reel-to-reel days — I of course began experimenting with speeding my voice up a la Alvin and the Chipmunks. What kid with a variable speed tape recorder didn't? I also recorded "The Chipmunk Song" onto tape at the higher of my machine's two speeds and tried playing it back at the slower. I felt like I'd unlocked the secret of the Aztec Gods when I was able to hear Mr. Bagdasarian speaking Alvin's voice in a slow, deliberate manner.

He later produced vast quantities of Chipmunk material and I'm not sure when he began simplifying the process by hiring others to sing for (and sometimes speak for) Alvin, Simon and Theodore. Stephen Cox reveals the identities of some of these anonymous vocalists.

This is the most popular thing I've ever posted on this weblog. In fact, it's so popular that proprietors of other sites have thought nothing of just copying the whole thing and posting it on their pages, often with no mention of me and with the implication that they are the "I" in this tale. Please don't do that — to me or anyone. By all means, post a link to it but don't just appropriate it and especially don't let people think it's your work. This is the season for giving, not taking.

Yes, it's true…and I was very happy to learn from two of Mel Tormé's kids that their father had happily told them of the incident. Hearing that was my present…

I want to tell you a story…

The scene is Farmers Market — the famed tourist mecca of Los Angeles. It's located but yards from the facility they call, "CBS Television City in Hollywood"…which, of course, is not in Hollywood but at least is very close.

Farmers Market is a quaint collection of bungalow stores, produce stalls and little stands where one can buy darn near anything edible one wishes to devour. You buy your pizza slice or sandwich or Chinese food or whatever at one of umpteen counters, then carry it on a tray to an open-air table for consumption.

During the Summer or on weekends, the place is full of families and tourists and Japanese tour groups. But this was a winter weekday, not long before Christmas, and the crowd was mostly older folks, dawdling over coffee and danish. For most of them, it's a good place to get a donut or a taco, to sit and read the paper.

For me, it's a good place to get out of the house and grab something to eat. I arrived, headed for my favorite barbecue stand and, en route, noticed that Mel Tormé was seated at one of the tables.

Mel Tormé. My favorite singer. Just sitting there, sipping a cup of coffee, munching on an English Muffin, reading The New York Times. Mel Tormé.

I had never met Mel Tormé. Alas, I still haven't and now I never will. He looked like he was engrossed in the paper that day so I didn't stop and say, "Excuse me, I just wanted to tell you how much I've enjoyed all your records." I wish I had.

Instead, I continued over to the BBQ place, got myself a chicken sandwich and settled down at a table to consume it. I was about halfway through when four Christmas carolers strolled by, singing "Let It Snow," a cappella.

They were young adults with strong, fine voices and they were all clad in splendid Victorian garb. The Market had hired them (I assume) to stroll about and sing for the diners — a little touch of the holidays.

"Let It Snow" concluded not far from me to polite applause from all within earshot. I waved the leader of the chorale over and directed his attention to Mr. Tormé, seated about twenty yards from me.

"That's Mel Tormé down there. Do you know who he is?"

The singer was about 25 so it didn't horrify me that he said, "No."

I asked, "Do you know 'The Christmas Song?'"

Again, a "No."

I said, "That's the one that starts, 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…'"

"Oh, yes," the caroler chirped. "Is that what it's called? 'The Christmas Song?'"

"That's the name," I explained. "And that man wrote it." The singer thanked me, returned to his group for a brief huddle…and then they strolled down towards Mel Tormé. I ditched the rest of my sandwich and followed, a few steps behind. As they reached their quarry, they began singing, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…" directly to him.

A big smile formed on Mel Tormé's face — and it wasn't the only one around. Most of those sitting at nearby tables knew who he was and many seemed aware of the significance of singing that song to him. For those who didn't, there was a sudden flurry of whispers: "That's Mel Tormé…he wrote that…"

As the choir reached the last chorus or two of the song, Mel got to his feet and made a little gesture that meant, "Let me sing one chorus solo." The carolers — all still apparently unaware they were in the presence of one of the world's great singers — looked a bit uncomfortable. I'd bet at least a couple were thinking, "Oh, no…the little fat guy wants to sing."

But they stopped and the little fat guy started to sing…and, of course, out came this beautiful, melodic, perfectly-on-pitch voice. The look on the face of the singer I'd briefed was amazed at first…then properly impressed.

On Mr. Tormé's signal, they all joined in on the final lines: "Although it's been said, many times, many ways…Merry Christmas to you…" Big smiles all around.

And not just from them. I looked and at all the tables surrounding the impromptu performance, I saw huge grins of delight…which segued, as the song ended, into a huge burst of applause. The whole tune only lasted about two minutes but I doubt anyone who was there will ever forget it.

I have witnessed a number of thrilling "show business" moments — those incidents, far and few between, where all the little hairs on your epidermis snap to attention and tingle with joy. Usually, these occur on a screen or stage. I hadn't expected to experience one next to a falafel stand — but I did.

Tormé thanked the harmonizers for the serenade and one of the women said, "You really wrote that?"

He nodded. "A wonderful songwriter named Bob Wells and I wrote that…and, get this — we did it on the hottest day of the year in July. It was a way to cool down."

Then the gent I'd briefed said, "You know, you're not a bad singer." He actually said that to Mel Tormé.

Mel chuckled. He realized that these four young folks hadn't the velvet-foggiest notion who he was, above and beyond the fact that he'd worked on that classic carol. "Well," he said. "I've actually made a few records in my day…"

"Really?" the other man asked. "How many?"

Tormé smiled and said, "Ninety."

I probably own about half of them on vinyl and/or CD. For some reason, they sound better on vinyl. (My favorite was the album he made with Buddy Rich. Go ahead. Find me a better parlay of singer and drummer. I'll wait.)

Today, as I'm reading obits, I'm reminded of that moment. And I'm impressed to remember that Mel Tormé was also an accomplished author and actor. Mostly though, I'm recalling that pre-Christmas afternoon.

I love people who do something so well that you can't conceive of it being done better. Doesn't even have to be something important: Singing, dancing, plate-spinning, mooning your neighbor's cat, whatever. There is a certain beauty to doing almost anything to perfection.

No recording exists of that chorus that Mel Tormé sang for the other diners at Farmers Market but if you never believe another word I write, trust me on this. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Happy and sad are explained by Kermit the Frog and You-Know-Who…

Two hours ago, I was with some friends in a restaurant where four Christmas carolers were making the rounds, stopping at each table and asking, "Do you have a favorite holiday song we could sing for you?" When they got to ours, I asked if they knew "Be a Santa" and was not surprised that they didn't. Their repertoire was formidable — two of them were clutching 4"-thick binders crammed with lyric sheets — but they were unfamiliar with the tune by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne from the not-too-successful 1961 Broadway show, Subways Are For Sleeping. If you never heard it, you can hear it here.

(And if it sounds a little familiar to you maybe you're recalling it from this recent post on this blog.)

Subways Are for Sleeping, by the way, is the musical that the infamous producer David Merrick kept running longer than it might have thanks to a sneaky trick. I wrote about it on this blog sixteen (gulp!) years ago.

Getting back to the carolers: Someone else in our party then requested a more conventional song and they favored us with that. But when they got to the next table, do you know what the diners there requested? "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

Later, I ran into one of the carolers in a line for the men's room and we got to talking. I asked him if that song was enjoying a new boom in requests. He said, "I guess you could say it is. Since we began doing this this year, it's been requested about three times a night. That's an increase from the last four years when I did this and nobody asked for it at all." He also told me a couple of people objected to being asked "Do you have a favorite holiday song we could sing for you?" That's what they were told to say but it draws the occasional reply of "Why can't you ask if we have a favorite CHRISTMAS CAROL?"

I asked him what the reply to that was. He said he told them, "We have Hanukkah songs. We have New Year's songs. We have a lot that just say 'Enjoy the holiday season!'" Then he added, "That doesn't seem to satisfy any of them."

I'm weary of these people who are battling the War on Christmas that exists only in their tiny minds and as a ginned-up controversy on Fox News. They seem to think that roaming bands of Thought Police are arresting and/or beating up people who say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays." Personally, I always thought "Happy Holidays" was like "Seasons Greetings" or "Joy to the World" or "Glad Tidings" — a shorthand way of saying "Whatever you celebrate, I hope it's good for you." What an awful thing to say to someone.

Seems to me that some (note I did not write "all") people believe this is a Christian Nation and Christianity is the one true religion in the world, and saying anything else but "Merry Christmas" is an insidious plot by all those faux religions to deny that fundamental truth. If anything is harming Christianity these days, it's people who claim to be Christians and then do unChristlike deeds. There are a lot of them in the news lately.

Here's a memory from my childhood…though what I remember is somewhat different from the various reminiscers in this video…

My folks and I didn't live in Beverly Hills but we were not far from it and we often patronized businesses in the vicinity of Uncle Bernie's Toy Menagerie on Rodeo Drive. There was a great Ontra Cafeteria about a block away.

The folks in the video recall it as a magical place full of wonderful things they wanted…and it had this amazing Lemonade Tree and another which grew lollipops. I recall it as, first of all, a store full of off-brand, generic toys that I didn't particularly crave. They didn't have the stuff advertised on my favorite cartoon shows. They had very little made by Mattel or Hasbro or Wham-O or Remco or even Milton Bradley. It was a lot of dolls and toy soldiers from overseas but nothing with Huckleberry Hound or Bugs Bunny or Popeye.

So we stopped in once in a while because it was supposed to be this enchanted place that thrilled little children…especially little children from very wealthy families because things were not cheap at Uncle Bernie's. How could they be? Rodeo Drive then wasn't what it is today but it was still damned expensive real estate, and that Lemonade Tree must have cost a few bucks to build and maintain.

As I recall, the lemonade was not self-serve. A salesperson would dispense a tiny cup of it to each child while asking them what kind of wonderful toy they'd love to have their parents buy for them today. I'd, of course, name something from TV that was not on their shelves. I think I once said I wanted a Kenner Give-a-Show Projector with Yogi Bear and the saleslady tried to tout me on a teddy bear more suitable for a kid half my age. We got out of there so fast I didn't even finish my thimble of lemonade.

So I didn't think it was The Best Toy Store in the World as this video claims. I didn't even think it was The Best Toy Store in a Three-Block Radius. Over on Beverly, a few doors south of where Nate 'n Al's Delicatessen still is, there was a larger toy shop that stocked merchandise with Hanna-Barbera and Warner Brothers characters, and toys seen on television and my father could buy them for me without taking out a second mortgage on our house. Still, I'm glad Uncle Bernie's is a precious memory for some folks around my age. We need all we can get.

In the interest of not linking only to stories that show Donald Trump in a bad light, here are two that might (note the "might") suggest he's on the right side of two issues…

Matthew Yglesias explains why Trump might be right that The Fed is erring with today's hike in the interest rate. And Fred Kaplan explains why Trump might be right to be getting U.S. troops out of Syria. That's two possible times out of a total of what? Four hundred or so?

William Saletan thinks that the worst thing anyone can do that will enrage Donald Trump is not to accuse him of lying but to provide evidence that he's lying. It's an interesting distinction and it explains a lot about his hatred of the press and his campaign to get people to disbelieve what reporters say simply because it was said by reporters.

It's him again…

SmilerG has a follow-up question to our piece here about cue cards on variety shows…

I'm wondering why physical cue cards are still used these days. I'd think hand-printing them with the required big markers on card stock is "old school."

Electronic prompters have been around for a while and surely could be more quickly created (loaded), with less labor and cost. Newscasters use the version of prompters that are attached to each camera, but aren't there also stand-alone versions? These wouldn't require sketch actors to look right into a camera, as the stand-alones would be positioned differently, more like the traditional cue cards.

I think the main reason we still have cue cards is that some performers simply prefer them…and that alone is reason enough. They find them easier to read than any prompter device they've tried so that's that.

But I can think of other reasons, one being that you don't have to worry about the prompter going down or tech problems. There's a guy standing there with all the lines written on big cards. That's pretty foolproof. On those news shows where someone's reading off the prompter, they nearly always have a printed-out script right in front of them because prompters do fail. A lot of shows think of the cue cards as the back-up for the prompters.

Also, that guy (or gal, I should note) with the big cards can move around easily to just the right position, holding them higher or lower in an instant, more or less moving with the performer who's reading from them. There are stand-alone prompter devices but they're not as rapidly moved…yet.

And sometimes, they want more than one line of dialogue displayed at a time. The cue cards Johnny Carson used for his monologues were not held by anyone. They were laid out side-by-side in front of them so he could decide to jump from the third joke to the fifth or skip one and come back to it. If you watch his old monologues, you can catch him peeking to the right (on your screen) for his first jokes and to the left for his last ones. There are other comics who when they read from cards, want two or more displayed at a time and the cue card holding person knows how to instantly do that.

There's a bit of personal rapport that exists between a performer and his/her cue card person that you don't get when it's coming off a TelePrompter operated by someone who's not right there on his or her feet on the edge of the stage, just three feet away. That may factor into it at times. I remember watching Bob Hope taping a sketch with his eternal cue card guy, Barney McNulty. Barney was to cue cards what Alexander Fleming was to penicillin. He held Bob's cards for something like half a century and every time Bob read a line wrong, he'd blame Barney, and Barney would apologize even though everyone knew it was Bob's fault.

Their relationship was a significant part of the atmosphere on those stages. I'm not sure I can explain why but it wouldn't have been the same without a cue card person there. When it wasn't Barney and Hope fumbled a line, Bob would blame whoever it was and say, "Hey, how come we couldn't get Barney today? He wouldn't have made that mistake."