Watched a rather odd double feature over the weekend: Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim and Steven Okazaki’s White Light Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a random pairing, as I came across Okazaki’s film on HBO while channel-surfing, and the wife brought home Hartley’s sequel to Henry Fool from the library. Although these offerings are very different, I did notice a connection of sorts –

Fay Grim: A fictional concept of how the world really works.

White Light Black Rain: How the world really works.

Hartley’s film was the more baffling one, especially since, until quite recently, I didn’t even know it existed. I was introduced to Hartley’s work through a lefty cinephile I dated in the late-80s/early 90s, the robust dawn of “indie” features and the metro-hipsters who appreciated them. In this rarefied atmosphere, I met critics like J. Hoberman and Manohla Dargis, both of whom seemed to be at every premiere, no matter how tiny or fringe. And then there was Hartley and his crowd, in my direct experience the actors Martin Donovan and Adrienne Shelly, among several others. I didn’t know enough about Hartley’s work at the time to be wowed or overly-impressed; and Hartley himself was fairly distant, observing his surroundings rather than engaging those in front of him.

Then I saw Trust and Simple Men, and instantly connected to Hartley’s vision. Like Hartley in person, his films were distant, reserved, analytical. Passion, to the degree it was present, was muted, almost kabuki-ish when displayed. Hartley’s screened reality is antiseptic, filled with detached wordplay and some genuinely clever observations and one-liners. Normally, not my cup of Flavor Aid. But, back then, it spoke to me; and when Henry Fool was released, I thought, and still think, that Hartley finally put it all together in a single package. Henry Fool is as close as Hartley will let you come. Plus, any plotline that features a garbage man who writes mind-bending poetry has me hooked from the git-go.

Was there a sequel anywhere in Henry Fool? I suppose one can extend anything, but I didn’t see it. Yet, nearly a decade later, Hartley brings back the old gang to comment on, of all things, our post-9/11 world. Why he thought these characters were the best vehicles to make his cultural/political points about this savage age, I’ve no clue. Fay Grim does begin with some promise, humorously updating the lives of those touched by Henry Fool. But as the film slogs on, and it does begin to slog early on, you are left wondering how a Queens-based, former party girl like Fay adapts so readily to global espionage and the specter of jihad. It’s so absurd that I thought the whole thing was a sadistic joke thrown at Hartely’s fans. But I don’t think Hartley sees Fay Grim as a joke. It’s too self-involved to laugh at others, much less at itself. This is Hartley’s statement about Us and Them, complete with a scene where Henry argues with an Osama bin-Laden figure hiding in Turkey. Again, this scenario seemed ridiculous. How the hell did a drunken, self-destructive no-talent like Henry end up not only sharing a space with bin-Laden, but berating him in front of his minions without suffering any punishment? Is Henry Fool that magnetic and insightful a man? We are led to believe so, for even Fay, after all the bullshit she suffers via Henry, still loves him, wants to be with him, and is denied her wish at the end.

Jeff Goldblum’s turn as a nihilistic CIA operative has its moments. But I preferred the Israeli agent, a beautiful woman (played by Saffron Burrows) who justifies her violent actions as a defense of civilization. There are elements of American life she enjoys, even admires; but at bottom, as she informs Fay, Americans are too soft to deal with what the Israelis view as threatening. For her, it’s all or nothing. Masada in a mini-skirt.

The wife, who had her own personal (non-romantic) moment with Hartley, and who knew and had worked with some of his stable, sat with me for the last half-hour of Fay Grim. And oh, how she laughed! When the thing mercifully ended, I threw up my hands and yelled, “What the fuck was that?!” The wife kept laughing, only this time at me. When it comes to films, shows, or music she deems as awful, but that I might like or appreciate, the old lady does not show mercy, and really lets me have it. Even when I agree that I’ve wasted my time with something, she drives the point further home and does not let me forget it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Afterward, I was curious to see what some of the bigger critics thought of Fay Grim. The New York Times’ Stephen Holden did not like it, but for reasons I hadn’t really considered. He ended his review thus:

“But ‘Fay Grim’ gets so carried away with the intricacies of its plot that it gets lost in its own excessive cleverness. In the decade since ‘Henry Fool,’ it implies, fear has driven the United States stark raving mad.”

It does? Somehow, I missed that angle. It made me want to watch Fay Grim again — well, almost. The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane does a better job dissecting the film, and thanks to him, I can allow Fay, Henry, and the rest of the Fool crowd to fade from my mind.

There’s no chance that White Light Black Rain will fade from my mind anytime soon. It is one of the most gut-wrenching films I’ve ever seen. The newly-released color footage of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors showing their graphic wounds against the backdrop of rubble and ash is hard to stomach, especially the children, who are crying from the pain. But what is perhaps more unsettling is how unemotional many of the present-day witnesses appear. The Japanese survivors tell stories about the blasts with no real embellishment, and this sharpens the horror they suffered and saw, for we have to engage our own imagination to fully grasp what being nuked is like. (In Nagasaki, the winds were 1000 mph, and the ground temperature was 9000 degrees. Think about that when you’re having a rough day.) The Americans who helped to design the bombs, and who dropped them, seem to feel little guilt about their deeds, with the minor exception of one veteran, who appears to have done some serious thinking about his role in history. Yes, they were young men caught up in the war and the racist “Jap” propaganda of that time, so I’m sure incinerating a few hundred thousand buck-toothed animals didn’t mean all that much back then. Remember Pearl Harbor, and all that. Plus, they were told that the bombings would end the war, which indeed was true. But these guys didn’t come across as monsters, and I cannot believe that, at some point in time, they haven’t seriously meditated on the mass murder they helped to unleash. Yet, how deep can one go without hitting some kind of emotional snare? Only those who were in on it can really say; and in White Light Black Rain, they’re not talking, not on that front, anyway.

There are those who, when faced with a film like this, dismiss any concept of Japanese suffering. What about the Rape of Nanking?! What about the inhuman treatment of Allied POWs?! Yeah, nuking civilians is rough, but hey, they had it coming. After all, they allowed their leaders to drag them into war. What did they expect after bombing Pearl Harbor? (Clint Eastwood’s Letters From Iwo Jima dramatizes what the average Japanese draftee actually endured and viewed the imperial higher-ups.)

You can read many of these and related sentiments at Salon, attached to an interview with Steven Okazaki. And I addressed this mentality in response to the late Steve Gilliard, who argued that nuking Japan was the right and just thing to do. Few pro-nukers are objective when it comes to collective punishment, for if they were, then we Americans would doubtless be atop the Must Nuke list. But that could never be, could it?

I confess that I couldn’t finish watching White Light Black Rain. I got about two-thirds in before being overwhelmed. It wasn’t so much the gruesome imagery, melted faces, charred figures of young children, and worse, but that such savagery is very much a part of us. This reality is getting to me more and more, even though it’s hardly news. I suspect that I’m becoming like those soft Americans that Hal Hartley’s Israeli agent disdains. How about you?

The one consistent element of The Simpsons that remains is the subtle — at times, not so subtle — Fuck You to American culture and Americans in general. I don’t know if this is clearly seen or understood by the majority of Simpsons’ fans, considering the popularity that Springfield family enjoys. The audience we saw the film with laughed loudest at the violence and slapstick. The political and cultural humor received a few titters here and there, a stray laugh, a snort. Then again, we watched this in the Midwest, not exactly a hotbed of satirical appreciation (to be fair, the same can be said of the more elite types on the coasts, as I’m reminded when submitting a particularly harsh piece to Huffington Post, say). Family Guy goes more for the throat than does The Simpsons; and should there ever be a Family Guy film, I suspect it will be a much darker effort. At least I hope so.

Hollywood has always sold shit to its audience, but after watching the previews of some upcoming comedies, I wonder if we’re in an especially shittier period. Alvin and the Chipmunks and Horton Hears A Who, the latter of which stars the voices of Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell, look witless and dreadful, more chum bait for addled parents to drag their bored kids through. The Game Plan with The Rock resembles those comedies that Schwarzenegger made in the late-80s/early-90s, and no doubt as hilarious. Good Luck Chuck is yet another Dane Cook vehicle, featuring Cook’s standard screaming and leaping shtick as he tries to avoid fucking a willing Jessica Alba (’coz, see, every straight guy wants to fuck Jessica Alba, and not wanting to is funny). The audience guffawed through much of these previews, which made sense, given that the gags are recycled tripe and predictable from the jump. In these troubled times, mechanized laughter helps to ease the tension between mouthfuls of artificially-buttered popcorn and loud slurps of soda. Something Homer Simpson would appreciate.

This was perhaps the most ambitious sketch ever done on Fridays — an 18-minute live musical/comedy take on the incoming Reagan administration. You’ll immediately recognize Michael Richards, and Larry David plays a biker Richard Nixon. But the whole cast does a great job (though Darrow Igus stumbles on one of his lines — too many “Ps” for live TV), and I always liked John Roarke’s transvestite Reagan.

Watching this again with older eyes, there are some politically naïve lines I didn’t catch when I was 21; but overall, the feel was right for the time, and I missed Nixon’s lyric about overthrowing Allende in Chile. That lesson, among many others, would soon be learned.

The sketch received a standing ovation, a rare thing in TV comedy. It brings back a moment when we who opposed Reagan were waiting to see what was coming down the road. “Ronnie Horror” helped to ease the tension, for a few weeks, anyway, before the Real Production got rolling.

Cluck ‘Til October by Devilshampoo.
Cymbals hit with ball peen hammers mesh with a bullet-riddled saxophone and a trio of dented fuzz guitars to create an unsettling wave of sound that can send chimps into murderous rages. Lead singer Lamont Means brings some texture to the mix, when he isn’t trying to swallow the mike or slamming it against a pile of gravel while yelling about the trilateral commotion in his brain. The three-minute echo chamber screamfest that closes the song could’ve been cut to a minute forty-five without any loss of resonance.

Jelly Ur Stain (Make It Quizzical) by Treb Gee Featuring Mrs. Random.
Recurring loops of sneezes and yodels provide the bass line for an accelerated rhyme duet that reaches a vocal apex of braggadocio and desperate pleading before crashing into charges and countercharges of petty theft and excessive fondling. Church bells add some depth, but are overwhelmed by Treb Gee’s porno grunts and Mrs. Random’s ostrich calls, which culminate in a flood of profanity and promises of retribution before the duo settle into a smooth “baby baby” groove.

Watch Out, Mr. Ahmadinejad by Hummer Perkins.
Patriotic country singer Perkins follows up his 2003 hit, Get A Runnin’, Saddam, with this “message” to the current president of Iran. Essentially, this is the same song, with a few changes in names and nations. Still, Perkins really sells it, and his fans will delight to lyrics like, “Shia, Sunni/Don’t know the difference, so sue me/You’re goin’ down real soon/Gonna turn Tehran into the moon” and “American bombs will find you/Ahmadinejerk, and fry you/And the other towelheads, too/Roasted Iranian beef stew/Goes fine with cold American brew.” Reportedly, Hummer Collins is back in the studio working on his next song, Chavez, Hugo Straight To Hell.

Clarion Kitchen Mice by Towers Of Bile.
A novelty song of sorts, in which mutant rodents commandeer a rural kitchen using LSD-laced Ding Dongs and subliminal suggestion. The lead guitar at times sounds lost and off tempo, as though Ric Carve is walking into an atonal dimension. But lead singer Jass Lorde holds it all together with her signature siren sound, and thanks to her, the mice become sympathetic characters, until their kitchen scheme falls apart due to vehement tactical differences, which gives the humans enough of an opening to capture and subject them to hours of pro-Scientology rants and occasional electric shocks.

Route 14 Ain’t Sizzlin’ No More by Charley Rufus III.
The folk-rock wunderkind returns with another tribute to two-lane highways of the southwest, as a steel guitar played with welder’s gloves guides the melody along with sudden bass bursts, an acoustic guitar solo that sporadically jumps from flamenco to raw honky tonk, incredibly slow drumming that sounds as if the kit is being shoved through pus-soaked gauze, an electric fiddle/harmonica fusion which conjures mental images of drunken cowpokes gang banging a dying mule, topped with Rufus’ craggy baritone that, as always, gives off a I’ve-been-dragged-through-the-gutter-so-many-times-that-I’m-starting-to-feel-as-if-sanity-is-a-drug-induced-illusion-that-must-be-shattered-by-a-spree-of-mindless-violence-that-would-make-Richard-Ramirez-retch-in-horror feel.

Recall That Anomaly, Candice? by The Floating Bee Delusion.
Cut-rate, warmed-over psychedelic retro-noise from this Scottsdale quartet that seems so obsessed with late-60s acid music, they never really learned to play their instruments or develop any semblance of lyrical cohesion. The result is a mish-mash of stolen sound effects from old science fiction movies, an out of control metronome, maniacal laughter, what sounds like a rake being shoved into an electric fan, doors slamming amid a child’s screams, and the line “Thrust thy brick henceforth to the ‘morrow” electronically distorted and repeated at various sound levels. While the name “Candice” is in the title, the actual song makes no mention of her, referring only to a “lady grasshopper” as glass breaks and a goose hisses over a poorly-played piano.

Loving You To Death (This Time I Mean It) by Luci Kyle.
A soft pop ballad about emotional instability and disturbed romantic obsession by one of the true masters of the form. When Kyle whispers “If I can’t have you, then I’ll have you stuffed in my attic,” she is very believable — so believable, in fact, that several concertgoers have taken out restraining orders against Kyle after seeing her perform live. Kyle’s no less intense here, and when she sobs about the cruelty of unrequited love, then giggles about how she’ll slowly “teach you the meaning of tough love” with the shades drawn, the phone disconnected, and electrical tape across her would-be lover’s mouth, you feel like locking yourself in a closet for several hours until Kyle’s melodic threats fade in your mind.

(Been working on various things, and since most of you haven’t read my earlier criticism, I thought I’d post some of it here. The following was written in ‘05, and still stays crunchy in milk. Enjoy.)

The local public library and HBO conspired in the same month to grant me a chance to compare the two versions of Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven — the 1978 BBC miniseries with Bob Hoskins and Cheryl Campbell, and the 1981 Herbert Ross film with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters.

The library (a wonderful place) carries a growing selection of BBC DVDs, and how happy I was to find the original Pennies in stock. I hadn’t seen it in probably 20 years, but I always remembered it, for it had a solid emotional impact on me when I first viewed it. So hungry was I to experience Pennies again that I watched it several times, focusing on specific scenes in order to really understand the main characters. I never got bored with it. As before, Pennies grabbed my mind and soul and pulled me right into its world.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it concerns a Depression-era sheet music salesman, Arthur Parker, whose life consists of professional and sexual frustration. His prim wife, Joan, rebuffs his advances, and he has a tough time convincing stodgy merchants to buy the latest pop tunes that he’s convinced will become hits. And it’s in those pop tunes where Arthur sees his utopia — a grand place where people dress elegantly, dance gracefully, drink champagne and make love without a care in the world. A world where there is no hatred, violence, theft, madness, nor deceit. A musical heaven on Earth.

Arthur’s fears and desires, as well as the inner feelings of the other characters, are amplified through lip-synching the pop tunes of the period. Pennies was Dennis Potter’s first production to use this device: an incredibly dark and depressing scene is suddenly transformed into a bright musical number, the characters mouthing the words of a song while dancing with one another before dark reality throws them back in their place. Potter streamlined this device in later productions like The Singing Detective and Lipstick On Your Collar, but for me, Pennies remains the model.

I suppose that’s because Bob Hoskins, who plays Arthur, is fantastic. Pennies is one of his best performances. His Arthur is a liar, an adulterer and a cheat, but there’s something incredibly fragile about him. In one scene he attempts to explain to some other salesmen what he sees in the songs he sells. He fumbles and sputters, admits that he’s no good with words, but soon you get the idea. Arthur is very frightened. A veteran of the First World War, he’s seen death and destruction up-close. Having survived that, he claws at whatever paradise he can find. And for him, paradise is fully explained in songs like “(Yes, Yes) My Baby Said Yes” and “Roll Along Prairie Moon.” To Arthur, pennies from heaven are dropping all around us at all times, and we’re too blind and ignorant to recognize this.

Arthur finds his human key to paradise in a rural schoolteacher named Eileen. Everything he’s ever dreamed about exists in her, and of course he lies his head off in order to have her. Played beautifully by Cheryl Campbell, Eileen begins as a socially repressed country mouse who, once seduced and impregnated by Arthur, unleashes a sexual and emotional will that cannot be contained. And no matter what Arthur does to her, she stays loyal to him. Even when reduced to prostitution in order to eat, Eileen still thanks Arthur for rescuing her from a dead life.

Like everything else, paradise exacts a price, and for Arthur it’s being charged and convicted for a crime he didn’t commit. Despite all his petty behavior and personal deceit, you have to feel for Arthur, and by extension for Eileen. Their happiness together is short-lived and compromised by poverty and the hypocrisy of those who are enriched by poverty. Soul mates to the bloody end, their love transcends this horrible world and lives forever in song.

Steve Martin was moved enough by this production of Pennies that he pushed to remake it for the American screen. Give him credit — Martin was coming off the huge film hit The Jerk and could’ve easily scored big with another comedy. Instead, he wanted to play Arthur Parker. Teamed with Jerk co-star (and then girlfriend) Bernadette Peters, director Herbert Ross, and Dennis Potter, who compressed his BBC miniseries into a screenplay (Hollywood money and exposure — who can blame the guy?), Martin stripped his wild & crazy persona down to a dramatic monotone. Well, in most scenes, anyway. In the musical fantasy sequences, we get a measured dose of Martin’s comedic side as he mugs, grins, struts and dances across the screen. You can tell that this role meant a lot to him. Martin put serious work into creating his Arthur. But no matter how hard he tries, Martin cannot compete with Hoskins’s performance.

A major part of this is that Martin is simply too good looking for Arthur. He’s too sleek, too polished in the dramatic scenes, so when he leaps into song and dance, there’s no real difference. Hoskins, on the other hand, is short, broad, barrel-chested. His dramatic Arthur rings true. You’ve seen this guy a thousand times in real life. So when he jumps on a table to tap out a tune, the fantasy comes alive. There’s no way the real-world Arthur could move like this. Plus, Hoskins is simply a better actor. He can be charming, disgusting, heart-wrenching, funny. Martin looks like he’s marking time between musical numbers.

Peters’s Eileen is a bit more inspired: there are quiet dramatic moments where she accurately hits Potter’s darker notes. And, being a Broadway vet, she’s no stranger to singing and dancing. But due to the brevity of the film version, Peters must transform quickly, whereas Cheryl Campbell had several hours to flesh out her Eileen. Some projects are just not meant for film, and Pennies is one of them.

It’s always worth hearing Potter talk about what shaped him as a writer. The man endured a lot of physical pain and ailments throughout his life, which ended in 1995 when he finally fell to cancer (he named his tumor “Rupert” after Murdoch). In his final interview with Melvyn Bragg, given just over a month before he died, Potter openly explored what moved and inspired him. Frail, weak, chain smoking cigs, drinking white wine supplemented by sips from a morphine flask, Potter poetically bid adieu to a world whose horrors he creatively documented. The only thing missing was for him to jump out of his chair and dance around Bragg while lip-synching to Lew Stone’s “Pick Yourself Up.” (”Dust yourself off/start all over again!”) A deeper truth found in fantasy. For Potter, the proper final gesture.

The longer a TV series runs, the tougher it is to end. I can’t think of a Last Show that was at all satisfying, that tied together loose ends, that left me feeling wistful or wanting more. M*A*S*H, Cheers, thirtysomething, Seinfeld — none of these shows ended artfully or even memorably. Each in its own way was overstuffed with references and characters from earlier periods, and at times looked like pre-emptive cast reunions. And with syndication, you really wonder what’s the point of a Last Show, since endless reruns keep a show’s characters and familiar plotlines alive.

I prefer a show to end without warning, leaving everything up in the air. My So-Called Life did that, against the wishes of the producers, of course, as they clearly thought that a second season was coming. But ABC canned So-Called without ceremony, and we’re left forever wondering if Brian Krakow and Angela Chase ever hook up, or if Angela’s father Graham has an affair with his business partner, Hallie Lowenthal, among other unresolved storylines. We’ll never know, and that’s a good thing. It’s as if we moved away from that neighborhood and never looked back.

From the reaction I’ve seen so far, it seems that most fans of The Sopranos feel cheated or let down by last night’s abrupt ending. I was simply confused, and thought, for a moment, that my cable went out, which was a clever ploy by David Chase — fuck with the transmission at what seems to be the key moment, then silently run the credits. It took me an hour to fully appreciate Chase’s choice, for as others have observed, there was no real or satisfying way to end The Sopranos, so just end it, and toss in a little technical joke for added effect. To me, this was the best Last Show I’ve seen.

Now, I must confess that I’m a relative newcomer to The Sopranos. I didn’t really start watching the show until the middle of last season, found myself hooked, and haven’t missed an episode since. But I did miss a lot of plot exposition and character development, as well as many characters killed before I came into the narrative. So, over the weekend, the wife snagged from the library the first season of The Sopranos, which I’m currently watching, and I’m simply floored by the thing. I cannot believe it took me this long to watch the beginning of Tony’s slow and inevitable loss of power; his early, angry, clumsy efforts to discover who he is within, and how he honestly relates to those close to him. The framing of shots, the lighting, the cinematography — all are simply fantastic. But it’s the writing, and most especially, the acting that blows me away. I know this isn’t news to the millions of “Sopranos” fans across the world, and you’ll excuse my late appreciation, but James Gandolfini and Edie Falco are perhaps the best leads I’ve ever seen in a series, dramatic or comedic. And of course, “The Sopranos” blends these forms as well as, if not better than, any American show before or since.

In a way, I’m glad I’m just now watching the first season. I know the main characters well enough from the past two years, so it’s nice to see them in an earlier time. And unlike all you “Sopranos” regulars left with no new episodes, I’ve got some 70-plus fresh chapters ahead of me, so this will be my personal “Sopranos” summer. Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to it.

My teen daughter bet me five bucks that Tony would get whacked last night. I refused her wager, since I knew that David Chase could not and would not kill Tony, “Too easy,” I told her. “Too predictable.” I also thought that Chase would leave Carmela untouched as well. How on earth could he erase his two greatest characters? Better to let them face an unknown future together, along with Meadow and A.J., and allow the fates take them as they are.

What fate does the Soprano family face? There’s talk of a feature film, which would make sense, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars. But even if we never see the Sopranos again, that’s okay. It’s like leaving behind another fictional neighborhood, albeit one filled with hidden graves and unresolved relationships. In reality, you’d be happy to get out of there alive. In “The Sopranos’” world, you’d keep looking back, hoping to see one more plot twist, a family argument, a fist fight, a hit. Or maybe you’d look to see if the ducks had returned. But that would be too neat a framing device, and as David Chase showed us last night, such narrative symmetry was not part of the plan. That’s one of the reasons why The Sopranos will remain a unique and an indelible piece of Americana. Let’s see if the floating surfer show can match that.

Note: here’s the ending:

Last weekend, various online elders celebrated the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper, recalling their youthful joy upon first hearing the Mop Tops’ conceptual break-through. Very nice, I thought. Music is as good a marker as any, and Lord knows I have my own faves from Back When, though my Sgt. Pepper was Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols. Not exactly flower power time. But then, I was a child when The Beatles were dropping acid and wowing their audience. The Cowsills were more my speed.

All the tributes and remembrances inspired me to dig through my CD stacks, as my copy of Pepper has been buried for at least a year. The wonderful Aimee Mann said recently in the New York Times that there’s no need to listen to Pepper ever again, not if you’ve heard it four million times over numerous phases of your life. Besides, I prefer Revolver and The Beatles (White Album). To me, that’s the seminal Beatles sound. Sgt. Pepper was more show than substance — a strong melodic show, to be sure, an entertaining spectacle, but not the end-all, be-all that its fanciers claim.

After a ten-minute search, I found the dusty Pepper and took it with me as I ran various errands. I cranked up the volume with all the car windows down, not only to soak in the warm breeze and catchy hooks, but also to keep the Michigan drivers as far from my mind as possible without causing a wreck. (Maybe it’s me, but the local drivers seem to be getting worse.) It took all of 30 seconds to be locked back into the Peppery groove, the rest of the album played out in my head before I got through Billy Shears. That’s the problem with “Pepper”: I can’t hear it with fresh ears anymore. It immediately flattens out and quickly becomes boring. “Yeah, yeah — you get high with a little help from your friends. Tell me something I don’t know.” Halfway through “Getting Better,” I ejected the disc and replaced it with a home-burned compilation that kicks off with Sonic Youth’s “Drunken Butterfly.”

So went my brief Summer of Indifference.

Still, I couldn’t get The Beatles out of my mind, so I phoned my pal Mike Gerber, whose knowledge of the Four surpasses anyone I’ve ever met, including my longtime friend, former writing partner, and brother-in-arms Jim Buck, who can talk for days about Beatles’ minutiae. But Mike takes it to an even deeper level, and I sought not only his thoughts about “Pepper,” but also to challenge him with my notion that Brian Wilson’s “Smile” is a superior effort.

Mike appreciated my position, helped by his love for The Beach Boys; but needless to say, he wasn’t buying the “Smile” comparison. Not that Mike dislikes “Smile” — far from it. It’s just that he believes “Pepper” is the better album, and he gave me a serious tutorial to support his argument.

I was nearly swayed, for Mike speaks gently but with authority, and it’s always a pleasure to talk at length with him about creative matters. Still, I held my ground. Had “Smile” been released as planned in 1967, it’s my belief that it would’ve blown “Pepper” out of the water. But Brian Wilson was practically alone in his increasingly-fractured world, facing the anti-”Smile” hostility of his bandmates. The Beatles had each other, believed in the “Pepper” concept, and were helped along by producer George Martin, who did as the band members asked. Had Wilson received any serious support from the other Boys, musical history would be quite different. But he had to wait until 2004 to finally finish his pop masterpiece.

After talking to Mike, I decided to perform an intense, comparative taste test. I would listen to “Pepper,” then to “Smile,” uninterrupted, on headphones, alone in the dark of late night/early morning, assisted by chemical romance. When my mind plugged-in, I slipped on the headphones, hit Play, sunk into my chair and let the music swim over me.

This time, “Pepper” was a lot more interesting to listen to. Indeed, I hadn’t heard it this way since I don’t know when. Instead of mentally racing to the end of the album, I slowed down and inhabited each song, focusing on melody, transition, construction, pace. I moved beyond the pat familiarity and was rewarded with sounds I’ve long ignored.

“Fixing A Hole” was especially nice; “When I’m Sixty-Four” deceptively simple; “Within You Without You” perhaps one of the more experimental Beatles tracks (coming off “Tomorrow Never Knows”), given the time it was recorded and what Beatle fans doubtless expected; “Lovely Rita” and “Good Morning Good Morning” blended beautifully together. Then came “A Day In The Life,” the one “Pepper” song I’ve never grown tired of, simply because it’s the best cut on the album, and remains among the band’s strongest work. Overall, I enjoyed “Sgt. Pepper” more than I had in decades. Had “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” been included as originally planned, I would agree that “Pepper” is The Beatles greatest album.

But better than “Smile”? Tough to say. Perhaps equal to Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks’ collaboration, but that’s open to personal interpretation. As it stands, “Pepper” is several steps behind “Smile,” and this was reinforced when I listened to it again. Unlike “Pepper,” “Smile” truly is an interwoven tapestry, not just some period concept held loosely together at the front and back end. “Smile” is deeper, richer, wilder, and riskier than “Pepper,” meshing sounds that have no inherent musical purpose (chomping celery, belch-like noises, hammering nails and sawing wood), but make perfect sense when arranged by Wilson, whose mind has seen and heard notes and melodies where most others would see static. It is easily one of the most magnificent and inspiring pop compositions I’ve heard in my life.

“Smile” does share one trait with “Pepper”: both albums close with a very strong number, in Wilson’s case, “Good Vibrations.” Only this isn’t the version that was a hit single in the 60s and became an orange soda theme. This is the original song co-written with Tony Asher, who penned the lyrics for “Pet Sounds.” This version is longer and much more majestic, so when you come to the closing mix of cello and Theremin, you’ve been taken to the mountaintop and back. It’s fruitless to compare “Good Vibrations” to “A Day In The Life” — both are brilliant. But “Good Vibrations” is more organically tied to “Smile” than “A Day In The Life” is to “Pepper,” which is why the latter stands out more on its album. I suppose that difference is what truly separates these two efforts, which is why I maintain that “Smile” is the better record.

After a couple hours of pleasurable listening, I floated to the front room to watch some old comedy on DVD. But when I turned on my set, the image of Hillary Clinton flashed on-screen, and while the sound was muted, her well-rehearsed facial expressions spoke volumes, for here is a true authoritarian personality just itching for more state power. It didn’t help that I was still being romanced chemically, and I shuddered to think that she might well be the next president.

I turned off the set, went outside in the cool of early morning, walked barefoot in the grass under a bright night sky of stars, let go of Hillary and the other monsters competing to rule us, hummed about good vibrations, and smiled.

Time travel, by its very delicate and potentially destructive nature, can never be a democratic practice. If everyone had access to the space/time continuim, the world would be destroyed within seconds, or at best, our “reality” would be in constant flux, fates instantly changing, lives enhanced, broken down, or wiped out, though none of us would really know any of this in conscious time — or would we?

That’s the time travel rub, and I’m not about to explore all of its potential meanings, as they tend to become contradictory and self-negating, when not simply confusing. Suffice it to say, only a select few would be allowed to fly back or leap forward in time, and only after extensive training and world historical education.

But who?

First thing, we’d have to keep the technology out of the hands of the state, though this presents a problem as any time travel mechanism would most likely be a product of the corporate military complex. This would mean that a lone, eccentric billionaire, or a collection of eccentric billionaires, would serve as the only reasonable alternative, and that could get dicey as well, for eccentric billionaires, whether alone or grouped, tend to be megalomaniacs, and may very well use privatized timer travelers as personal tools to further strengthen their present power.

“I want you to help crush that labor uprising in 1887.”

“But it was crushed, by federal troops.”

“Yes, but not with particle beams!”

You see the dilemma.

I’d volunteer as a potential time-naut, but I’d have no stomach to see the future — not on this timeline, anyway — and the past would serve as a historical/cultural sightseeing tour, with U.S. history taking up most of my past-time, as I’m much more familiar with that than with other global periods. And even there I’d focus more on 20th century events than I should, but hell, can you blame me for wanting to see Josh Gibson play in his prime? Watch the young Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet jam live? Smoke dope with Kerouac and Burroughs? See just how smart Noam Chomsky was at 17? Hang out with Mabel Normand at the Keystone Studios in 1913? Visit the National Lampoon offices in 1972? Get in on the free love scenes of pre-First World War Greenwich Village and late-60s San Francisco?

Pretty pathetic, I know. And don’t think I wouldn’t go back to earlier parts of my own life, not necessarily to change anything, as that would alter future/present time, but to see with aging adult eyes just how I got to this place, and recall those events I’ve long ago forgotten or otherwise suppressed. Okay — maybe I’d tell my young, in-over-their-heads parents to take it a bit slower and lighter and not allow their fears and dark emotions to define them. And then there was that dickhead tormentor of mine whose ass I’d probably kick. But that’s it.

The reason for this rant is that my friend Juan Cole writes about the political message of NBC’s hit series Heroes in Salon today, making points that I’ve considered, but have been too busy/lazy to tap out. Juan does a fine job of cultural analysis, which doesn’t surprise me: Juan’s a serious sci-fi buff, and talking with him about various scenarios and themes over pints is always fun.

If you haven’t seen Heroes, the first season of which just ended, then you’re missing some entertaining television. Yes, the show’s a bit of an X-Men knock-off, but unlike that Marvel narrative, “Heroes” deals more with the world we currently inhabit, albeit through the lives and tragedies of its mutant characters.

I ignored Heroes during the first half of its initial run, focusing instead on the now-canceled “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (boy, can I pick ‘em!). But over the Christmas/New Year period when I suffered from insomnia, I watched every Heroes episode then available at NBC’s web site, became instantly hooked, and didn’t miss an installment after that.

As Juan points out, the main story arc for the first season is the prevention of a nuclear-type blast in Manhattan. Thing is, it’s not a bomb, but a human mutant who explodes, and throughout the season we were given several glimpses and clues as to which character might be responsible. In one of the final episodes, Hiro Nakamura, who can bend and stop time, and his best friend Ando Masahashi, who has no powers but is loyal to Hiro, travel five years into the future to see that the bomb did go off and that half of Manhattan is in ruins. This is my favorite episode by far, with Hiro running into his future self, a grim, cutthroat samurai who’s trying desperately to go back and change the past, but thus far has failed. Meantime, a police state is in high gear, as the U.S. President (himself a hidden mutant) commemorates the five year anniversary of the blast at the ruins of ground zero, gigantic American flag draped behind him. That image alone, set against the larger storyline, reminds us that in these savage days, fiction isn’t all that far-fetched, and that is what gives “Heroes” its prime time edge.

Anyway, Juan goes into greater detail, so weather the brief Salon ad and read his piece. And if you haven’t seen Heroes, every episode is still up at NBC’s site.

Save the cheerleader, get renewed for a second season.

Several people of my acquaintance were thrilled to see Jerry Falwell die, spitting out “Good riddance!” and hoping that his passing was a painful one.

While I understand the anger, even hatred, for this dreadful man, I cannot join the celebration, partly for karmic reasons, but also because it’s pointless. Falwell was a tent revivalist clown who gained political power on the wave of the Reagan upsurge beginning in 1979. Right place at the rightwing time. That he was taken seriously as a political, at times moralistic, commentator by the Liberal Media showed that you can say the craziest, hateful shit, and if you claim to be speaking for God, it will not seriously hurt your career. But Falwell didn’t create the environment he so ably exploited — a significant chunk of Americans share the apocalyptic belief system that Falwell personified on a grander stage, and just because he’s now gone doesn’t mean that this mindset is weakened in any way.

Though he remained one of the top American religious celebrities to the end, Falwell’s real political influence faded long ago. It was easy to mock him and his poisonous reasoning, for everytime he popped off about the latest national sin, he looked merely old and ridiculous, just like his still-living pal, Pat Robertson. But go back to the early years, say from 1980-84, and you’d see Falwell at full strength, his organization, the Moral Majority, wielding serious political and cultural clout. People were actually afraid of the man and what he might do, and brother, did Falwell seize on that. I’ve written before that many comedians wouldn’t go after Falwell and the religious right back then, especially at the broadcast level, where the wrong joke or premise might scare off advertisers pressured by Falwell’s group. It was, in many ways, a timid time.

“SNL” did very little to mock Falwell, and when it did, the parody was broad and de-politicized. “Fridays”, on the other hand, went straight for Falwell’s throat and trashed the religious right on a pretty regular basis. The show lost sponsors and affiliates due to this and other outrages, but it appeared that the “Fridays” crew didn’t really care about that, because if they did, they wouldn’t have showcased the harsh attacks to begin with. (However, ABC cared, for obvious reasons, and this played a part in “Fridays” being cancelled.)

“Fridays” portrayed evangelists as closeted queers, racists, nazis, and raving lunatics. In one direct assault, “The Moral Majority Comedy/Variety Hour”, Falwell, played by Bruce Mahler, hosted a show celebrating attacks on gays, feminists, and the Bill of Rights, while promoting book burnings, beating up liberal figures like Jane Fonda and George McGovern, showing “typical” liberal parents zonked out on drugs while letting their baby die from neglect, a white supremacist magician who makes black people disappear forever, and a Plasmatics-type band who become Christian rockers playing a punk version of “God Bless America.” Nobody else on American TV performed this kind of material back then, and you had to be there to fully appreciate its effect. “Fridays” nailed Falwell when he was at his most powerful. Problem was, they were practically alone.

But for sheer satirical viciousness, not even “Fridays” could match Larry Flynt, who ran a very nasty, and funny, attack on Falwell in a 1983 issue of Hustler. This was nothing new — Hustler was always filled with political and cultural satire, much of it in bad taste, but some of it incredibly sharp and intelligently written. (The Realist’s Paul Krassner was a Hustler editor/writer for a time.) Flynt’s trashing of Falwell was squarely in this tradition, and Flynt made sure that Falwell felt the sting, which the Rev. intimately did.

In a parody of the then-print ads for Campari, which interviewed celebrities about their “first time” (wink wink), Flynt went immediately over the edge and didn’t look back.

FALWELL: My first time was in an outhouse outside Lynchburg, Virginia.

INTERVIEWER: Wasn’t it a little cramped?

FALWELL: Not after I kicked the goat out.

INTERVIEWER: I see. You must tell me all about it.

FALWELL: I never really expected to make it with Mom, but then after she showed all the other guys in town such a good time, I figured “What the hell!”

INTERVIEWER: But your mom? Isn’t that a bit odd?

FALWELL: I don’t think so. Looks don’t mean much to me in a woman.

INTERVIEWER: Go on.

FALWELL: Well, we were drunk off our God-fearing asses on Campari, ginger ale and soda — that’s called a Fire and Brimstone — at the time. And Mom looked better than a Baptist whore with a $100 donation.

INTERVIEWER: Campari in the crapper with Mom . . . how interesting. Well, how was it?

FALWELL: The Campari was great, but Mom passed out before I could come.

INTERVIEWER: Did you every try it again?

FALWELL: Sure . . . lots of times. But not in the outhouse. Between Mom and the shit, the flies were too much to bear.

INTERVIEWER: We meant the Campari.

FALWELL: Oh, yeah. I always get sloshed before I go out to the pulpit. You don’t think I could lay down all that bullshit sober, do you?

Falwell sued Flynt for libel and “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” While jurors in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia did not buy the libel charge, they did believe that Flynt meant to hurt Falwell, and awarded the offended Rev. $150 grand in damages. Flynt appealed on free speech grounds, and the case went to the Supreme Court, which agreed with Flynt and overturned the lower court’s decision.

Humorists and satirists owe Larry Flynt big-time for that. And in a way, they owe Jerry Falwell a debt as well. They don’t make ‘em like the old Lynchburg bigot anymore. I mean, Mitt Romney?

Like you, I enjoy all manner of creative expression. By way of introduction, allow me to recommend a few films I’ve recently watched, via Netflix. As you can tell, I’m a bit of a cinemaphile, though not the stuffy, art house type. Gimme a solid plot, a few catchy tunes, running gags, horrific, inexplicable violence, transparent political metaphors, and I’m good.

Deterrence Leakers (1961) — Unemployed pool cleaner Jake Longhorn (Kyle Sweet) hits the road in search of non-chlorinated kicks, when he comes across mute Hopi puppeteers in the Arizona desert. Through pantomime and peyote, Longhorn develops strange mental powers, can carve canyons with a nod, and is soon transformed into the Cactus King as the National Guard is put on high alert. With Sidney Feldman and Luce Frantz.

Mako Dines At Four (1953) — Crank scientist Dr. Leroy von Smortzberg (Ed Mellon) plots revenge upon his former colleagues at the Jedidiah Institute, who rejected his radical theories about pine sniffing and sent him into exile. Von Smortzberg’s plan is stymied when a wayward zeppelin crashes into the Institute, releasing millions of atomic mites from their glowing terrariums, changing the demographics of the area and wreaking havoc that only the crank scientist can quell. With Sandi Kellems, Pete Kase, and Zandar Qomm.

Felonious Is One Way Of Putting It (1969) — Go-go dancers Patty Noone (Nell Sinder) and Jace Feller (Ida Hansel) discover a pair of oversized gila monster masks, and are mysteriously transformed into Mormon missionaries who can predict hail storms and tidal waves with unerring accuracy. Local ostrich farmers become concerned with the dancers’ growing influence, and unite with a gang of disheveled Civil War buffs to stave off certain assimilation. With Carlo Muste, Tim Pradd, and Mallomar.

Count To Ten In German (1975) — Bumbling teen violin prodigy Luke Canner (Jetsen Trille) befriends a stuttering black hooker, Jasmine Touch (Norah Foreman), and the pair bond over a two-week arson spree that leaves LA’s top chefs homeless and without proper cooking utensils. Krishna booksellers take advantage of this opening, and before long most of Los Angeles is awash in pleather seat covers and coconut air fresheners. Luke and Jasmine consult a dead rabbi for help, but are lulled into a trance by vegan hypno-terrorists, and are sent on a suicide mission armed only with pear juice-filled balloons. With Koko Waxman, Zed Planer, and Chazz Gillespie.

IN THE QUEUE: Cassie The Coughing Condor (1972); Memo To Mummyphobes (1990); Will You Please Put Down That Hammer? (1968); Crankcase Elves (1986); The Wind Owes Me Fifty Bucks (1979); Return Of The Cheddar Cars (1993).