Here we have a magical interlude from my friend Jon Armstrong, who's one of the best in his biz. Stay with him 'til the ending because you won't see it coming…

2017 was a year of record weather-related disasters. Gee, I wonder what could be causing so many of them.

Daniel Larison on the Trump administration's belief that we can bully other nations into doing what we want. The motto seems to be something like "Diplomacy is for pussies."

Trump claims he made good on his promise to repeal Obamacare and a lot of his supporters believe he has. But as Jordan Weissmann notes, it lives on.

Conservative writer Rod Dreher is dismayed (and for some reason, surprised) that right-wing news source Brietbart thinks it's right to slant its coverage in ways that help Donald Trump.

Kevin Drum notes that some staunch Republicans are getting real uncomfy as it becomes more and more undeniable that the current modus operandi of their party involves appealing to (and exacerbating) the worst racist tendencies in their base.

Donald Trump used to criticize Barack Obama for playing too much golf. Donald Trump promised that if elected president, he would not go out and play golf a lot. Donald Trump now plays way more golf than Obama ever did…and on courses that cost taxpayers a lot more money. And as Kevin Drum also notes, Donald Trump now plays golf and tries to stop us from finding out he's playing golf. The maddening thing about all that, of course, is that his supporters see nothing wrong with any of this. Their guy can do whatever he wants.

Speaking of "fake news" as we all must do these days, it's interesting to me how fact-checking sites like Politifact are now debunking different kinds of reports. They used to just do stories where someone got a statistic wrong or took a true story and spun it to mean something else…and there are still plenty of stories like that. But there are now a lot of stories like "Sasha Obama just crashed her expensive new car into a lake" or "Roy Moore takes the military vote, pulls ahead by 5,000 votes" where someone, probably to get clicks on a website, just made up something from the whole cloth. It's becoming very profitable in today's world to knowingly lie.

Finally: As I write this, an Alabama Judge has just rejected a court filing by Alabama Judge Roy Moore to stay the certification of the election he lost. Moore's insistence on embracing every nutcase theory that he didn't really lose shows why it's a good thing he lost his Senate bid. His judicial career before that was a shameful display of "the law is whatever I want it to be" masked in claims he was doing God's work. The head of Doug Jones' campaign that beat him thinks Moore would have lost — maybe by an even wider margin — if all that stuff about him dating and molesting teenagers had not surfaced. I'd like to think that's so.

Baby penguins are cuter than you. Unless you're a baby panda…

Early this AM around 2:15, I was in my friendly neighborhood 24-hour CVS Pharmacy waiting for the pharmacist to fill a prescription that a text message had informed me was filled and ready for pick-up. I found myself sitting next to a gentleman who was waiting for a refill on a medication he seems to need desperately. Without it, he said, he has wild mood swings and rages and, as he put it, "If I don't have that, you wouldn't want to come within six blocks of me." We then had a little conversation about where each of us lives because, I said, I want to make sure we're at least seven blocks apart.

He told me he is not out of this medication. He actually has a few months' supply stashed away at home but he was eligible for another refill and he wanted to not wait until after the first of the year. He has no idea, he told me, what happens to his insurance or his deductibles after 1/1/18. "I may be fine," he said. "But it's so damn confusing, I can't be sure."

His fears are short-range and long: He doesn't understand how his current plan, which he got under Obamacare, may be changing. He also doesn't know how it may be changing in the future. The uncertainty, he said, is bad for his health. "The problem," he said, "is not what will the Republicans do or what will the Democrats do? It's that it's so f'ing partisan that all they want to do is undo what the other did. We're living in a world where every time someone wins an election by five votes, my health care changes, my taxes change, all sorts of laws change…"

I told him I didn't think it was as bad as all that and he replied, "Well, it's sure heading in that direction" and I agreed and then my prescription was ready and I got up to get it and we said a friendly good-bye and I left and that was the end of it except that I sure hope he has a supply of those pills he needs because he might live within six blocks of me.

Since then, I've been thinking about uncertainty. A week or two ago, I heard an economist guy express an interesting view on the Republican tax cut for corporations and wealthy folks. He's for it but he thinks it would have a better effect on the economy if it were much smaller. This is me trying to reconstruct what he said: "A tax cut can spur investment in new businesses and new jobs but only if it's permanent. This one is so lopsided that you just know it's going to get whittled down and rolled-back somewhat just as soon as the Democrats get back into power. Ergo, less long-term investment."

That makes a certain amount of sense to me. So does the concern my friend in the drugstore has about too much instability in his life. I'd like to see the uncertainty end but I'm uncertain as to how and when that might happen.

It's time someone did an exposé on Left-Wing Billionaire George Soros…

Note to self: If you go out for dinner on any future Christmas Day in the future, don't go late. Amber and I journeyed to one of our favorite restaurants last night for an 8:45 reservation. The gentleman who led us to our table informed us that service was running slow because "One of our chefs walked out on us" — he did not explain why — and whatever entree we ordered might take as long as an hour to get to us.

I felt sorry for our server who then had to apologize over and over for things that were not his fault…mostly the fact that they were out of so many items including bread. I have never before been in a restaurant that ran out of bread. I was on my cell phone at one point when he came by our table and I told him, "I'm having a pizza delivered." He said, "Good idea. Could you save me a slice?"

A nice part of Christmas being over is that we don't have to hear any more nonsense about a "War on Christmas," though Trump will probably be congratulating himself on winning it until half past April Fool's Day. I do understand people who are deeply religious and who think the holiday should be written out as CHRISTmas but I think they're misdirecting their ire when they bitch about salespeople saying "Happy Holidays!" They should be complaining about the outfits that employ those salespeople doing everything possible to commercialize and profit off You-Know-Who's birthday.

As you may know, I was raised in a family that was half-Jewish and half-Catholic. We celebrated Christmas, we celebrated Hanukkah in all its many spellings…and we would have celebrated Kwanzaa if it had been around back then. Any reason to exchange presents. We even exchanged presents sometimes when there was no holiday in play.

No one attached any devious meaning to "Merry Christmas" or "Seasons Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" or any phrase meant as benevolent and things worked out fine. The best way to deal with religious differences is simply to ignore them. But some people won't because there's no money to be made by doing that.

Todd VanDerWerff doesn't think the political humor on Saturday Night Live is particularly pungent. Neither do I. There's a difference between saying something of substance about a political figure and just portraying him or her as a clown. There have been exceptions but too often, all we get out of SNL is the latter. I agree that The President Show on Comedy Central does a much better job of going after D.T. than S.N.L. So does Seth Meyers…and so does Jordan Klepper's show.

As my Christmas present to myself, I'm going to skip blogging today and finish a script that's been sitting on this computer half-finished while I went to Christmas parties and discussed with people whether "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a song about date rape. Also, we talked a lot about how Donald Trump has won The War Against Christmas, proving he's the guy to lead us in all wars that exist only in the imagination. That's so comforting.

You might remember how last year on 12/26/16, I described how I spent the evening before…

Last night around 7 PM, I found myself in a restaurant ordering a "to go" order to take to a sick friend. The restaurant was packed and if I'd asked for a table, I might be getting seated right about now. It was so crowded in there that when the hostess said my order would take at least 30 minutes, I told her I'd be back in twenty and was going for a walk.

This was not in the nicest part of town but I felt safe. There were people on the street who looked like they'd be a lot easier and more lucrative to mug than me. One of them approached me and asked if I could spare a buck or two for food. As I fished around in my pocket for some cash, the gentleman said "I hope next year is better," which of course everyone hopes. I said, "It can't help but be," which of course is not true but you say it anyway. I was just handing the guy a few singles when suddenly, one firework exploded in the sky.

Only one. You've all seen those big displays where they fire off dozens and dozens, one right after another, the pace quickening until at last they start overlapping. Well, from some location a mile or so away, someone set off just one of those, followed by no others.

We waited about a minute to see if more would follow and when none did, I said to him, "Guess we'll have to settle for that." He said, "Don't worry. There'll be more fireworks in 2017." I said something about how we could count on that, one way or the other and —

I was interrupted in mid-post so I never finished that story. The "sick friend," of course, was my beloved Carolyn who was in that Assisted Living facility, experiencing what I knew and she sort-of knew would be her last Christmas. They served a nice dinner spread in that place that evening but it did not correspond with what she thought she should be eating. With the aid of Yelp!, I located a Thai restaurant in a crummy part of Hollywood and went over to get her some chow.

As I wrote last year, the place was mobbed and though they told me the order would take 30 minutes to prepare, it was more like 50. As we pick up our story, I'm waiting outside, about to hand some cash to a homeless guy when we see one (and only one) big, glorious, full-color firework explosion in the sky a mile or three from us. We waited and waited for more but there was only the one.

The man and I exchanged pleasantries…and it was pleasant. He told me nothing about how he'd wound up there but he definitely seemed to need the money I was giving him and he was not of bad spirit. He didn't say this but the thought struck me that he was probably satisfied with the one burst of fireworks — maybe I should say firework (single) — because when you're that bad off, one firework is still better than none.

As I gave the fellow all the small bills I had on me, I was aware there were others around who could surely have used some dollars, especially that evening. I wondered if they would then hit me up and I'd have to tell them I was tapped-out…but no. They all seemed to respect the concept that that one of them was getting all the spare cash I could spare and that, well, maybe it would be their turn if/when someone else came by.

The guy thanked me, then went into the Thai restaurant to get something to eat. Ten minutes later, he came out with his "to go" order and I had to wait another half-hour or so for mine. That might not seem fair but I think he just got Pad Thai, whereas Carolyn wanted something more complicated. Soon, it was ready and on my way back to the Assisted Living facility with it, I drove through a Tommy's and got a burger and fries so Carolyn and I could eat together. My food allergies make Thai food way too dangerous for me.

Food service at the Assisted Living Home was over so I got Carolyn into a wheelchair and rolled her down to the little dining room there, which we had all to ourselves…at first. A few other patients soon straggled in, just to be with someone. And the someone they wanted to be with was the same someone I wanted to be with: Carolyn, who even in a place like that and with her health failing, still had most of the same sense of inner joy she'd always had.

A few months later, it would not be so warm and reassuring to be with her. It would just be sad. But that night — the evening of Christmas Day, 2016 — she still had that wonderful, wonderful smile and I miss it. It was like a single explosion of fireworks against the night sky.

Here's our favorite Christmas video on this site. I'll see you all back here tomorrow…

As Kevin Drum points out…

Under the new Republican tax law, big corporations will get a permanent tax cut of 14 percentage points. You will get a tax cut of about 1 percentage point — until it expires, that is, at which point your taxes will be higher than they are today.

Merry Christmas.

I assume you've read my Mel Tormé story. If not, go do it and then come back here. I'll wait.

Okay then. Last year around this time, I dined with a friend of mine at the Lawry's on "Restaurant Row" (i.e., La Cienega Blvd.) here in Los Angeles. Along with the usual unmatched Prime Rib, they had Christmas decorations to the max and a strolling quartet of young people in Victorian dress, wandering about and singing holiday tunes, a cappella. They went table to table taking requests.

Before we requested a carol, my dining companion requested that I tell them the Mel Tormé tale. I did and then we asked for and enjoyed their rendition of "The Christmas Song," the tune that was the focus of my oft-linked anecdote. They sang it very well, we tipped and off they went.

Last Tuesday evening, a different friend and I were in the same Lawry's in what I think may have been the same booth. That night, they had two teams of minstrels working the room. The one that strolled to our table consisted of two men and two women with the women each carrying a four-inch thick three-ring binder crammed full of lyric sheets. Their leader asked what we'd like to hear and I asked him, "What's the silliest song in your repertoire?"

They had a brief discussion and he told us, "There are two. One is 'Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey' and the other is 'I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.'" I chose the latter and he said, "Okay, but they ask us to sing it quickly and get it over with." The two ladies quickly thumbed to the appropriate page in their binders and then the four of them performed a brilliantly-arranged version of that tune. Absolutely wonderful.

I have been unable to find an online version of anyone singing that same arrangement but here's Gayla Peevey who was ten years old when she recorded this hit record in 1953. She lip-syncs it here for some TV show of the day and then that's followed by a video of her singing it live last year at the age of 73…

Neat, huh? Yes, but I still wish I could show you what those four singers did with it last Tuesday evening at Lawry's.

Everyone around us applauded mightily. I thanked them and tipped them and then they moved to the next table where the folks there said, "We'd like to hear that Italian Donkey song!" The quartet obligingly launched into that and it was pretty good, too. I can't link to anything like their version but here's Lou Monte, who used to record funny songs with an Italian flavor, with his semi-hit version of "Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey." Not as good as the hippo tune but still appropriate for the season. And by the way, the Prime Rib at Lawry's was great. It always is.

In October, Amber and I flew to and from New York on JetBlue and I was impressed enough to write here, "This trip was the first time I've flown on JetBlue. It is not the last time I will fly on JetBlue. I am considering never flying to any city in the future if I cannot fly there on JetBlue." Well, maybe not.

According to Tim Wu, JetBlue decided in November "…that it would follow United, Delta, and the other major carriers by cramming more seats into economy, shrinking leg room, and charging a range of new fees for things like bags and WiFi."

That's quite distressing, especially to a guy like me who's 6'3" and needs to stretch out and be able to flex the knee he had replaced a few years ago. In November, I flew to Miami where, alas, JetBlue does not venture. I flew American and had to pay $80 extra each way to get enough leg room for my leg. My publisher is reimbursing me for expenses but that won't be the case with every flight I take in the future. (And if I take Amber and we want to sit together, I'll have to pay the extra dough for her so she can sit in the same section even though she doesn't need the extra inches of leg space.)

As Mr. Wu points out, the airlines are making bazillions by charging for extra legroom, early boarding and other "extras" to make flying less of a miserable experience. Thus, they have every incentive to make flying a miserable experience. You won't pay for extras if you can be happy without them.

The day's going to come when you'll have to pay an additional fee to sit in the section where the flight attendants don't come by, slap you silly, pour the hot coffee in your lap and make snide remarks about your appearance. They may even start charging for those seat cushions which in the case of a water landing can be used as flotation devices and at some point, your ticket seller may ask you, "Now, would you like to upgrade to a plane with two wings and a trained pilot?"

UPDATE: It has since been pointed out to me that the Tim Wu article to which I linked above is from 2014…so JetBlue hasn't started doing all those bad things yet. But they might. It certainly is the way other airlines operate.

I awoke this morning with a burning need to know more about Vic Lockman so I did a little detective work and tracked down a phone number for his son, David. David was delighted to hear that I had written a blog post about his dad and is going to work with me to build a complete history of his father's career. This will include stuff I didn't know about like Vic's work with Hank Ketcham on the Dennis the Menace comic books and his work on commercial comic books. We won't be doing this right away but we will be doing it.

I'll also try to pick up info on Vic's father. David informed me that his grandfather was the great magician Earl Lockman, a contemporary and cohort of Harry Houdini. I probably should have made the connection. Look at Vic's logo above and compare it to Earl Lockman's calling card…

When I get the time (ha!) I'll hit up the library at the Magic Castle and learn what I can about Grandpa Earl but I already know he invented many tricks that others later performed. I also recall that he was a technical advisor and supplier-of-magic-props for the 1953 movie Houdini which starred Tony Curtis…and I believe he was an artist himself.

David says that orders are being filled for the Christian books on www.viclockman.com so you can order from them with confidence. And watch this space for more information on the greatest comic book writer that you probably didn't hear about until this morning, Vic Lockman. Just don't start watching immediately for it. Might be a few months before we can do the man justice.

I am informed that cartoonist and comic book writer Vic Lockman died last June 1 at the age of 90. This may be the first obit published on the 'net of the man who just might have been the most prolific comic book writer of all time and the least well-known. A great many folks who consider themselves expert comic book historians who will read this and say, "Who the heck was that?" I'm afraid I can't tell you much about the man other than what little follows.

He wrote thousands of comic book stories for Western Publishing Company beginning around 1950. These were for their Dell and Gold Key comics. For an explanation of the relationship between Dell Comics and Western Publishing, click here.

Mr. Lockman was also an artist who occasionally penciled what he wrote, usually puzzle pages or one-page gags. More often, he would letter and/or ink a story that someone else had penciled. Most often, he just wrote.

For which comics did he write? Lockman stories ran among scripts by others in all the Disney comics, all the Warner Brothers comics, all the Walter Lantz comics, all the Hanna-Barbera comics and any other "funny" comics produced out of Western's Los Angeles office. He was the main guy behind a seventies comic called The Wacky Adventures of Cracky and he has been credited with creating the Disney character, Moby Duck. For years, a division of the Walt Disney company in Burbank was also producing comic book material for European publishers who needed more pages than they got by translating all the Gold Key books. Lockman also did hundreds of scripts for them.

After Western shut down its comic book division in 1984, he wrote a few scripts for later American publishers of Disney comics but he seems to have redirected most of his efforts to his other endeavor — comics for the Christian marketplace. More on them in a moment. First, let's discuss how many stories Lockman might have done for non-religious comics…

I can't give you a precise total but I'm sure it was a staggering number. In a self-promotional piece Mr. Lockman issued in the mid-seventies, he claimed he wrote one script a day, Monday through Friday, for a total at that point of around 7000. We don't have a clear idea of what time period he was basing that on but if you figure five scripts a week and 52 weeks per year, that's 260 scripts annually. As noted, he started around 1950 so if he'd adhered to that schedule, he would have written 7000 scripts by 1977 — and he was actively producing scripts for Western and the Disney foreign comics program in 1977. At that rate, he might have hit 8000 by the time he stopped writing.

I'm skeptical anyone could keep up that pace but it's not impossible. He was probably counting the Christian comics and also scripts that his editors at Western and Disney didn't accept. When I was writing for Western, they rejected about 15% of what I wrote and my editor there, Chase Craig, used to tell me, "Don't feel bad. You should see how many of Vic Lockman's scripts I turn down." Lockman might have sold some of his rejected Disney scripts for Western to the Disney foreign comic program (or his rejects from them to Chase) but some of them probably went unpublished. And since he had no other place to sell his rejected non-Disney scripts for Western, they were presumably never published. Those all would be impossible to count.

Further complicating that count is that in the fifties and sixties, so much of what Lockman did for Western was one-page puzzle and gag features. He did hundreds upon hundreds of them. Was he counting each of those as a "story?" Probably.

That's important to consider if we weigh his output against that of Paul S. Newman, who was recognized by The Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific comic book writer of all time. They credit Paul with more than 4,100 published stories totaling approximately 36,000 pages. If each of Lockman's one-pagers is to be considered a story than he might have topped Newman in total stories but lost to him in total page count. It's kind of an Electoral College situation.

Newman was able to present sufficient documentation to get the Guinness people to accept his claim. I doubt that kind of proof could be assembled for Vic Lockman — or for that matter, for two other contenders for the title: Charlton Comics writer Joe Gill or Archie writer Frank Doyle. I would not doubt for a second though that Lockman was one of the five most prolific comic book writers of all time, probably one of the three most prolific…and possibly Numero Uno.

And I could not begin to estimate his productivity for the Christian marketplace. His vast catalogue of books, many of which he published himself, included titles such as Biblical Economics in Comics, a multi-volume series called Catechism For Young Children With Cartoons, God's Law for Modern Man, How Shall We Worship God?, Psalm Singing for Kids, The Big Book of Cartooning (In Christian Perspective) and hundreds of self-published tracts. I have — shall we say? — problems with some of his lessons but it's obvious Mr. Lockman was a very sincere and talented cartoonist.

He sold many of these through his website and you can still see them there, though I have no idea if anyone is still filling orders. In some of them, he argues, a la Judge Roy Moore, that his interpretation of God's word is the only true one and that it outranks any law made by Man. In my brief contacts with Mr. Lockman — two phone calls almost 30 years apart, nothing in person — he was cordial to me until he began to proselytize and I declined to convert on the spot.

The second of these conversations was a few years ago when I called to sound him out as a potential recipient of the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, which I administer and which goes to writers who have not received sufficient recognition and/or reward. Since Lockman certainly qualifies for lack of recognition, I wanted to see if he'd consider accepting it should the judging committee select him some year. I am not sure I completely understood his response but it was unmistakably negative about the award and the whole concept of celebrating comic books that do not celebrate God's covenants.

Each year, the Finger Award goes to one recipient who is alive and to one posthumously. I decided not to propose Mr. Lockman for the "alive" one until such time as a few nominators did. Since we started the award, we've received over a thousand nominations for around 250 different writers. We have received one or less for Vic Lockman…which kind of proves he has not received the attention he deserves. Maybe we can do something about that with the posthumous award one of these years. A career like he had is absolutely deserving of attention.

Two of the actual puppets used in the 1964 TV Christmas special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And this of course is the perfect time of year to be selling Santa Claus.

Asking price? Ten million dollars…which is probably like fifteen times what the original special cost to produce. Or make an offer.

A bunch of talented folks are raising the dough to produce a pilot/presentation for an animated version of the popular web-comic Goblins. They're almost there but they have less than 24 hours to raise the last few bucks via IndieGoGo. Take a look at what they have to say and then go to this page to get behind the effort!