For the last couple of years, I’ve actively avoided listening to The Beatles. I have to do that every so often, because the sounds are so familiar, so thoroughly blended into my brain chemistry, that they can turn into sonic wallpaper unless I deliberately put some distance between myself and the music.

Every time I go back to the *oeuvre*, as I have recently, it surprises me which songs exert the strongest attraction. This round, it’s the older, scruffier work — the sheer exuberance of “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, Ringo’s cow bell and Lennon’s menacing lead vocal on “You Can’t Do That”, the cheesy but endearing sentimentalism of “P.S. I Love You”, and the group’s astonishing leap in sophistication — lyrically, musically, thematically, technically, even vocally – between those early recordings and, say, “Ticket to Ride”, only a year or so later.

The Fabs were inspirational to me as more than just music. The way they approached their art — as a living, growing, ever-evolving, ever-changing endeavor — has been the way I’ve chosen to approach my work as a writer. (Not that I’ve ever created anything nearly as memorable as “Ticket to Ride”, let alone the walruses, racoons, and warm, happy guns that were soon to follow.)

No big point here, or anything. I just wanted to jot down a few words on the subject because listening again made me smile.

Mary and I turned in the last pages of Hard Time: Season 2 #7 just a few minutes ago.

We were both, unexpectedly, a little choked up.

…

Okay, then.

On to something new.

It occurs to me that the Bush administration’s “If the president does it, it’s legal” philosophy regarding the extent and exercise of executive power was, once upon a Golden Dawn, expressed another way: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”

You know, if you squint really hard, it’s not impossible to see a resemblance between Cheney and Crowley.

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Seymour Hersch on the prospects for war in Iran.

Thanks to Mark Evanier for posting the link.

Happened to catch a rerun of a 2001 episode of This American Life entitled Superpowers on the local NPR station last Friday. It makes an interesting jumping-off point for a discussion I’m determined to have with myself on this blog, regardless of whether any of you are especially interested. (Yes, it’s the latest in a series of ongoing bouts of narcissistic self-obsession. It’ll be fun.)

Anyway, the show includes an intriguing segment called “Hawkman vs. Invisible Man” in which interviewees are asked to choose which one superpower they would rather have, flight or invisibility, and then explain the choice and how they would use the power once they acquired it.

Very funny. Very smart. Very much worth a listen.

WB Censors Its Own Drama for Fear of F.C.C. Fines – New York Times

(Registration on the New York Times site is required to read this article. It’s free.)

President Prissy-Poo and his FCC — I’ll refer to them collectively as “Friends of Jesus’s Loin Cloth” in the future — have now taken the chilling effect to depths approaching subzero.

I’m beginning to think God really did want Bush to be president. Because He knows, in His wisdom, that humans only learn to recognize the smell of their own shit once they’ve had to eat it.

Just finished the dialogue script for Hard Time: Season 2 #6. It’s a deadly serious turning point for Ethan — his last such, I guess — and one of the funniest stories I’ve worked on in years. I think Mary feels the same way.

We loved this issue.  Here’s hoping you folks can deal with it.

If you’ve seen the latest Previews, you already know Hard Time: Season 2 has been cancelled.

Mary and I are currently finishing work on issues 6 and 7.

I’ll have a lot more to say on the subject in the next couple of days, but I want to make one thing absolutely clear right now: I do not in any way blame DC for the book’s failure, and neither should you. In fact, shortly after getting the unhappy news, I called both Paul Levitz and Dan DiDio to thank them for supporting the series as long as they did. They were proud of the book and wanted it to succeed.

More to follow in a day or two, as we wind up the final scripts.

I’ve spent the last few weeks settling into new surroundings and appraising new realities.

I’m almost ready to turn communicative again.

Bret and I went back to the old place, gathered up the stray items, and then I asked him to do me a weird favor: go back to the car and leave me alone in the empty apartment for five minutes. He did, and, to my astonishment, I found myself actually *weeping*.

I didn’t take the whole five minutes, though. It was all over in three. (Yes, I checked my watch.)

So that’s that.

And now, *onward* to, you know, like…wherever.