OBAMA AND SEINFELD

President Obama will be a guest on Jerry Seinfeld’s Web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” which usually features the TV star making wisecracks in vintage automobiles with other comic performers. Seinfeld filmed the episode with Obama on the afternoon of Dec. 7, about 16 hours after the president delivered his prime-time television address on terrorism. Seinfeld and Obama took turns driving a 1963 Corvette Stingray on the circular road on the South Lawn of the White House grounds, then chatted casually over coffee about the mundane aspects of a president’s life.

“He’s done some really good work as a monologist at those correspondents dinners — that’s how he qualifies to be on the show,” Seinfeld told The Washington Post, referring to the annual black-tie gathering of White House reporters.   Obama has rarely driven a vehicle — other than a golf cart — in the nearly seven years of his presidency, though he has regularly collaborated with entertainers to tout his policies, burnish his public image, or nudge a national conversation. In 2014 he appeared on Zach Galifianakis’s talk-show parody “Between Two Ferns” to talk up healthcare.gov after its bungled roll-out. This summer he sat in Marc Maron’s garage in Los Angeles for a wide-ranging interview that touched on race and racism. Just last week he appeared on NBC’s “Running Wild,” a nature-adventure show with British survivalist Bear Grylls, to voice his concerns over climate change.

After Obama cited Seinfeld as one of his favorite comedians on Maron’s podcast, Seinfeld jokingly suggested that his production team should reach out to the White House. The executive producer of “Comedians in Cars” did just that.

“This was an opportunity to pull back the curtain for Americans on life in the White House,” the White House said in a statement. “The president and Jerry had a unique, candid conversation that focused largely on the lighter side of the presidency.”

After driving, Obama and Seinfeld walked through the Map, Diplomatic and China rooms, then sat down for coffee in a staff dining room in the basement of the White House. The 44th president is Seinfeld’s first guest from outside showbiz. Over its six previous seasons “Comedians in Cars” has featured Chris Rock, Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman, David Letterman and “Seinfeld” alumna Julia Louis-Dreyfus, among others. The full episode with Obama will be posted online Dec. 30.

“It was out-of-body for me,” Seinfeld says by phone afterward. “I’m not a guy who likes honor. In fact, I hate any kind of honoring. That I get to be a comedian — that’s the honor. But this was an honor: that [Obama] was okay with me, that he trusted me to do some comedy with him in the real White House.”

SPACE X

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully landed upright on solid ground at Cape Canaveral, Florida this evening, after traveling into space and back. It’s the first time SpaceX has been able to gently touch down the Falcon 9 post-launch — something the company has been trying to do for the past year. It’s a big first step toward reusable rockets.

This launch was also the first time SpaceX has flown since June, after one of its Falcon 9 rockets exploded en route to the International Space Station. Now this return-to-flight mission has made history — no one else has ever landed a rocket that has gone as deep into space as the Falcon 9.

As big as this is for SpaceX, it’s not the first time a vertical take-off rocket has landed upright after launching into space. In November, Jeff Bezos’ private spaceflight company Blue Origin announced that it had landed its rocket New Shepard post-launch. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is more complex than New Shepard: it’s designed to go higher in space, and much faster.

If SpaceX can routinely reuse rockets, that may force change in the whole private space industry. SpaceX CEO Musk noted that it costs $16 million to manufacture the Falcon 9, but only $200,000 to fuel. Eliminating a $16 million expense could drastically bring down launch costs.Competing launch providers may have to explore reusable rockets as well to compete with SpaceX on future contracts.

R. KELLY

R. Kelly sat down with HuffPost Live for a bizarre 20-minute interview Monday, in which he asked host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani if she drank, asked whether she knew what a deposition was, questioned her intelligence, and threatened to leave and go to McDonald’s before ultimately walking off set. The “Ignition” singer was angry after being asked how his sexual abuse allegations had impacted sales of his album, which is projected to sell 100,000 copies less than his 2013 album Black Panties. When asked how he would respond to fans who are hesitant to support the album due to his controversial history, Kelly’s message was simple: “F**k that.” “You can’t satisfy everybody,” he continued. “I will continue to do my job until I get fired, and the only people who can fire me are my fans.”