A song from the Broadway show Gypsy as performed over the years by some pretty big stars…

Reports that we might soon see the infamous lost Jerry Lewis movie, The Day The Clown Cried, appear to have been somewhat erroneous. Apparently, no one knows who controls it or where an actual copy of it might be. There might not even be an actual copy of anything resembling an actual movie. Here's the latest.

Matt Yglesias has an interesting — and I suspect, correct — view of why our government is at such an impasse over Trump's Wall. Here's a summary if you don't have time to read the whole piece…

Republicans (excluding Trump) and Democrats both think The Wall is a stupid, useless expense that will do just about nothing Trump says it will do. The way most of these stalemates get unstalemated is that each side gives the other something they want. So Democrats would give Trump his Wall in exchange for something of real value to them. But since Republicans think the wall is of no real value to them, they don't want to give up something of value for it. Trump wants it but House and Senate Republicans, even if they pay lip service to the president's goals, don't really want it.

If that isn't clear, read the article. I may not have explained it well.

So Trump makes this surprise visit to visit troops in Iraq. Could he have made it look any less like he really wanted to do this? And he stands before our fighting men and women and tells them they're getting a 10% pay raise…

You haven't gotten one in more than 10 years — more than 10 years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one. They said: "You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3 percent. We could make it 2 percent. We could make it 4 percent." I said: "No, make it 10 percent. Make it more than 10 percent."

Now, of course, that's not true…none of it. Our troops have received a pay raise every year for decades. This year's is not 10%. It's 2.6%, which is just about what it takes to keep up with the rate of inflation. That means that it's not really a raise at all in that they won't be able to buy much more with it.

I've stopped wondering why he says things like that. He says them because something within him compels him to speak of darn near nothing else except what a fantastic president he is and we should all be so grateful we have him. Since he has nothing real to say to support that position, he makes shit up and doesn't bother to ask himself, "Won't they know this is a lie?" His more devout followers have made it quite clear to him they don't care…and he doesn't care that a military audience, composed of soldiers who were ordered to attend, is not an audience of his devout followers.

I've given up thinking it can be anything but pathological. If there's a logical thought process at all behind it, it's something like, "Hey, it works for me." What I still don't get is why anyone lets him get away with it.

I know I have devout Trump fans who read this site. Every day, I get one or two e-mails from someone who says they love everything here except the political stuff and it would be so nice if I'd knock that stuff off and stop spoiling my blog for them. Would a couple of you folks like to tell me you wouldn't be outraged if President Obama or any President Clinton had said one thing like that, let alone 7000+?

I try not to read reviews of movies I haven't seen but critiques of Vice — the new film about Dick Cheney — are somehow unavoidable. They make me think that the filmmakers made two completely different motion pictures under that name and released them simultaneously.

One is a brilliant, satirical slam at an evil Vice-President and his inhumanity and war profiteering. The other is a stupid, noxious look at our government that almost makes you feel sorry for that guy who left office with an approval rating of 13%. That's two points below projectile vomiting. Those of the former opinion think it deserves every Oscar in the book. Those of the latter want its makers banned from ever making another movie.

I just received a screener DVD. I can't wait to see which version I got.

Cookie Monster gets interviewed for some British TV show or podcast or something…

I'm in a kind of reduced blogging mode for the holidays, tending to this and that instead of posting as often as I usually do. I'm also not in the mood to follow the news avidly so that cuts down on what I have to write about.

Today, I went to the Costco in Inglewood for some needed supplies. I actually needed them the last two weeks but Costco in the two weeks before Christmas is not a place you want to be. I got some sense of how crowded the place must have been then by looking at the line of folks with items to return or exchange. I think the end of it was in the parking lot of the Costco in Marina Del Rey. As is usual for my trips to Costco, I found myself buying a few items not because I had any use for them but because they were so cheap it was impossible to resist. I'll bet Trump could build his stupid wall — all 900 miles of it, scaled back from his original insistence on 2,000 — for eighty bucks if only he had a Costco card. He could also pick up a rotisserie chicken while he was there.

Some folks have sent me lists of people they think were wrongly snubbed by the TCM obit reel I posted earlier today. Apparently, there's another version of it out that includes Penny Marshall. No, I don't think it was wrong to omit Steve Ditko. Yes, Stan Lee was in it but Stan was actually in many movies and had executive producer credits on many of the most-popular films of the last decade or two. The glaring omission for me was Chuck McCann.

I'm going back to a script. May the rest of your Boxing Day be joyous and filled with many happy returns.

Here's the annual super-stylish "obit reel" from Turner Classic Movies. I was struck this year by how many folks in it I met or even worked with, including Rose Marie, Harlan Ellison and Stan Lee. I doubt I have ever known anyone who was as happy at the thought that he might be included in a montage like this as Stan…

I've read a few articles like this one and this one trying to explain that Kevin Spacey video. Nice to see that I'm not the only one who doesn't know what the hell he's thinking. The only way this man could be in worse trouble would be if he hired Rudy Giuliani to defend him.

• Donald Trump is sitting home alone waiting for Democrats to come offer him a deal to fund his wall. I can sympathize. I'm sitting home alone waiting for Kate Upton to come offer me a lap dance.

I've posted this before. As my Christmas gift to myself, I'm posting it again…

The kid in the above photo is me and I don't care that you don't believe it. It's me. I'm not sure where it was taken — some department store, probably May Company — or how old I was. Seven? Eight? Beats me. But it's me. And is it my imagination or does Santa look like he's telling me not to tell my parents about something he said or did?

I don't have a lot of great Christmas memories left to share here. In fifteen years of blogging and telling tales of my past, I may have exhausted my supply. There weren't that many to begin with.

I do not remember ever seriously believing in Santa or of Christmas being that big a deal around our house. It was a time of love and joy and gifts but with my family, it was always a time of love and joy and gifts. The main features unique to Christmas time were a tree in the living room, a lot of TV specials I had to watch and a certain synchronization of presents.

Our family consisted of me, my mother, my father, my Uncle Nathan, my Aunt Dot and my Uncle Aaron. Nathan and Dot were my father's brother and sister. Aaron was Dot's husband. Nathan never married. One year, my mother's parents came out from Hartford and stayed with us for the holiday season. Then after Grandpa passed away, it was just Grandma one year. After Aaron died, we'd invite Aunt Dot's best friend Sally to join us for Christmas Dinner if she didn't travel out of town to be with other members of her family.

Since Sally was going to bring me a present, I felt I should get her one…and I never knew what to get for her. All she seemed to want was that I address her as "Aunt Sally" and you couldn't wrap that and put it beneath the tree. I think I usually gave her candy but the real gift was that I'd make the card out to "Aunt Sally." The rest of us were real good at taking the gift-selecting burden off each other by hinting with a minimum of subtlety as to what we wanted.

So we usually had six or less people at the table…and then as people died, it went down to five and then four…and at some point, it seemed a bit depressing to have much of a celebration at Christmas. It just reminded those of us who were left of those of us who were not.

At any given assemblage around the table, at least one person was Jewish and one was Catholic — and then you had me who had never been Bar Mitzvahed but identified as more-or-less Jewish but really had a foot in both camps. Early in my childhood, there had been a bit of polite, respectful debate about the co-existence of the two faiths in one family and then there had been that ghastly mistake of enrolling me in a Sunday Hebrew school. But the religious situation was never that serious nor was it divisive. There didn't seem to be any point to it.

One reason I find the whole current "War on Christmas" thing so phony is that each year I intermingled with people of different religions and there was never an issue. Not for one second did anyone attach any significance to wishing someone "Season's Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah" instead of some other preferred form.

Not just in our house but throughout the neighborhood and at school, one good wish was as innocent and friendly as another. No hidden meanings or schemes to demean any faith were inferred or assumed. "Happy Holidays" meant "I hope your holidays (whatever they may be) are happy for you." It's amazing that some people have become convinced that that innocent little pleasantry could ever mean something menacing.

I've always felt that way about religious preference or even bigotry. Just let everyone be whatever they want to be and respect it. I feel the same way about racial prejudice or about prejudice over sexual orientation. If you just respect that others are what they are, it works out fine. It only becomes a war if you somehow feel threatened and choose to start one.

Getting back to the photo up top: I've been staring at it, trying to figure out what was on my mind when it was taken. This is a guess but I think it's a good one.

I never really believed in Santa…or if I did, I didn't believe the guy in the red suit at the May Company was the real Santa because — you know — he'd be too busy just before Christmas to sit around a department store all day. Besides, I was well aware there was a Santa down the street at Bullock's Department Store and another one over in Beverly Hills at Robinson's and what about that Santa outside on Wilshire Boulevard near Rodeo Drive who was out there all day ringing a bell for some charity and posing for photos?

So if I did ever believe there was a real Santa Claus — and I don't recall that I did — I'd figured out that I couldn't meet him or sit on his lap. The guy at May Company was some outta-work actor or someone they'd hire to impersonate The Man Himself to draw customers into their store. At that age, thinking like that is not cynicism. It's figuring out the world around you and all the fibs — some of them, no doubt well meant — that you need to overcome if you're ever going to grow up.

By the time this photo was taken, I knew there was no Santa. So I'm thinking I was pressured by some relative with the camera to get in the line to sit on the impostor's lap…and what was on my mind was probably something like this: "What am I supposed to do here? Pretend this guy is the real Santa, meaning that I go along with a fraud? Tell him my list of stuff I want this year? Or maybe I should rip that fake beard off him and expose him as the fake he is?"

I'm pretty sure I didn't do that last thing. I probably went along with the hoax just to get it over with.

Or knowing me, I may have climbed up on his knee and whispered to him, "I'll make a deal with you, fella. If you'll pull some strings to get me that Sneaky Pete Magic Set I want, I won't blow the whistle and tell all the kids in line that you're just an office temp in a fake beard!"

And history does show that one year, I did get my own Sneaky Pete Magic Set. So maybe this is the year that I learned that while racial or religious prejudice doesn't work, blackmail sometimes does. Have a Merry Whatever.

Christmas Eve with — you guessed it! — Cookie Monster…

I was at a party this evening and the main topic seemed to be the Kevin Spacey video. The prevailing theory at the party was that Mr. Spacey woke up one morning and thought, "Gee, just in case there are some people in this world who don't think I'm creepy and crazy, I'd better make a YouTube video that will convince those people."

Second most discussed topic was the new Spider-Man animated feature. Everyone at the party who'd seen it seemed to think it was sensational and a couple called it the best feature made out of a comic book ever. I have not seen it. I have a "screener" DVD here but I'm thinking this is the kind of film that oughta be seen in a theater, preferably one that makes good popcorn.

In third place was Trump — how he's going to get out of this government shutdown impasse and why he thinks he can say he's proud to shutdown the government over the wall and then try to blame Democrats for shutting down the government over the wall. Also, we discussed how pissed he'd be to know he was only the third most talked-out topic at our party.

Fourth was Mary Poppins Returns. Everyone there who'd seen it loved it or at least liked it. The consensus seemed to be that if you're going to make a sequel to a classic picture like that, you can't do much better than they did.

And in fifth place: What's the deal with the Dow Jones? Oh, yes — and Merry Christmas!

• Someone, anyone…take that weird video Kevin Spacey just released and edit it to replace him with Christopher Plummer.

John Swansburg makes the case that the original animated special of the Dr. Seuss classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas is superior to the good doctor's original book. I don't quite buy that but I do think it's a wonderful adaptation, perhaps the last of any great animated films that director Chuck Jones helmed. In his later years, he relied on a steadily-narrowing bag o' tricks and every character had twitching noses and long, Wile E. Coyote-style camera looks…but it all kinda fit this particular story. Jones co-creating with Walt Kelly didn't work on a Pogo special but Jones and Ted (Dr. Seuss) Geisel produced something that, to me, combined what each man did best.

I know a lot of people didn't like it…and there are rumors that Geisel didn't, either. I consider it one of the three great animated Xmas specials, the other two being A Charlie Brown Christmas and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. I can't decide which of the three I like best, nor do I see any reason why I have to decide. I also liked Frosty the Snowman (I'm on the commentary track for its latest video release) and A Garfield Christmas (no, I didn't work on it) and a few others.