A Very Special Sept. 11 Post

All of us have a memory of that morning. We remember where we were, what we were doing, who we were with. It's just that some of us were in more important places doing more important things with more important people than others. And that's what makes America great.

Damn the terrorists. Damn them for what they've done to the world. Damn them for what they've done to our country. And damn them for ruining a day that by rights should have counted as a personal triumph for Yours Truly.

The sun was just beginning to rise on a clear So. Cal day, and so was I. Many of you are aware that I practice Transcendental Meditation. I was sitting on a beautiful straw mat monogrammed for me by the wonderfully tiny fingers of the renowned Tibetan mat weavers. Or maybe they were Indian. Or Chinese? Whatever, I mail-ordered it.

At any rate, I had already reached an advanced state of consciousness within 5 minutes (I still believe this is a record for any Western Hemisphere native) and began to levitate off my mat. Maybe something was in the air that day, because I was able to get about three feet in the air. If you've ever achieved Total Levitation, you know that after you get 8-10 inches off the ground it's hard to keep ascending vertically and you begin to drift. Well, I'm 3 feet in the fucking air, just meditating my ass off, and I start veering left a bit, then right. I'm trying not to blow it and I'm doing mantras double-time trying to get over to the chaise next to the pool, where the kitchen help leaves my decaf/biscotti. Sure enough, I get myself heading in that direction. Michael you magnificent bastard, you're really cookin' now! I say to myself. You better fucking believe "I Get Around!"

Fucking doorbell rings.

End of meditation.

I'm in a monogrammed silk kimono (that cost $850 by the way), lotus position, and I'd overshot the chaise. I drop ass-first on the edge of my swimming pool, one leg in, one out, bruise my ass, rack my balls, and get chlorine all over my custom kimono. No doubt the Jap rag is gonna bleach out. The silk is shot for sure. Well fuck me, huh?

Who, you may ask, in the living fuck is ringing my doorbell at 6 fucking AM on Tuesday?

John Ants-in-his-Pants Stamos. That's who.

I'm thinking Christ on a crutch...Can't he ever call at a civilized hour? I'm thinking If this fucking gyros monkey's wife wasn't so easy on the eyes I might have put Saget on the fucking congas and said the hell with it! So I'm just about to put my size 11 shoeless joe up his goofy greek ass, but I can tell he's got a bee in his bonnet abourt something. "Have you heard the news?"

"What happened?"

He stops antsing around and just gives me that patented sly shit-eating Stamos grin. Then it starts to sink in.

"Oh FUCK yeah!!"

Stamos puts his bongo whackers in the air and we connect for a thundering "high ten" so vigorous that for a second I'm hoping I didn't hurt those marvelous moneymaking manhandlers of his.

You see, Stamos and I had been bidding all summer on all the leftover Smile bootlegs online. Been a fucking cottage industry since the mid-90s when every piece of shit wannabe "indie" band and their press toadies were claiming to be "influenced" by The Worst Record The (Old) Beach Boys Ever Made. The same group of rabid dickweeds had been selling them to even bigger dickweeds for ridiculous prices. First of all, that's a lot of fucking dinero not making it into a certain Voice of a Generation's wallet. I'd been bitching about this to the new boys and Stamos says, "Check out eBay," and the rest is history. Or should have been. I mean we're still riding the lip of the Big Kahuna known as "Kokomo" and these fucknuts are swooning to some stupid "Parks Van Dykes" piece of garbage "album" from the old group that didn't get released for a damn good reason: it sucks.

At any rate it wasn't even making me any richer, that's for fucking sure.

On the morning of Sept. 11, with the help of a Voracious Group of Barracudas called "L.A. attorneys" and a Virtuoso Greek on Bongos called "La Stamos," Yours Truly, Mr. Love, had succeeded in acquiring the last extant copy of the Smile bootleg not already on some fat fuck's cheap-ass memorex cassette!

At last--I had won! Now the public clamoring for the Beach Boys would have to deal with the new Beach Boys, on my terms. Fuck that old shit, once and for all! Man, I was so psyched I almost huffed some loukaniko right then and there.

And then the terrorists came and pissed all over my parade. So much for my little celebration!

What have we learned since that day, as a people, as a nation?

Obviously, as far as I'm concerned, not a fucking thing.

FUCK does the New Shit beat the Old Shit!

So I was listening to some of our new shit the other day--even before it had undergone the analog conversion process. Yep, that's right--did the old fucking Beach Boys ever even THINK about recording at a bit rate depth of more than .0000000000000000001/khz? No fucking way. Not a fucking chance in hell. Totally "caveman" back in those days. Which is one reason that old stuff sounds like shit.

Anyway, I'm listening to this primo new track, still pristine in its digital domain, with me singing and Stamos doing this killer bongo overdub, and I'm wetting myself. Weeping. Shitting myself. I'm fucking leaking out of every fucking organ's orifice I've still got--it's THAT good.

And I says to myself, Mikey old boy, let's have a little contest, shall we? Let's put this New Shit back-to-back, mano y mano, face-to-face with some of the old shit. Let's "A/B" this shit right the fuck now and be done with it. Hmmm, let's see, what does EVERYBODY fucking LOVE SOOOO MUCH? Oooooh, I don't know--howzabout a little "God Only Knows" from the Superlative Pet Droppings Fucking Whoopdedoo Masterpiece?

Heh heh.

So I fucking have to go to the garage, get out the step ladder--nearly break my back doing this--climb up into the garage "attic," step gingerly around the fiberglass between the joists to a pile of old boxes where I keep all the shit I should have thrown out, oh, say, 40 years ago? After some digging I finally find it. Ah, here it is! The Holy Grail. Music As it Had Never Been Heard Before. The Unparalleled Aural Phenomenon of Sonic Ecstacy.The Greatest Album Ever Made. The Teenage Symphonies to God!

I almost faint. Not because I'm so overwhelmed by the "auditory majesty" on the Brian-Wilson-Shit-on-a-Shingle in my hand but because, hello, it's fucking hot as fuck in a garage crawl space in So Cal in late August. Plus I shouldn't have stood up so fast but I was in a hurry big time to get this little old vs. new "shoot-out" happening.

Ah, Pet Droppings , you don't even know what's coming, do you? Helpless as the little lamb on the cover (cha, that nearly fucking gave me rabies when I tried to shoo it away from my new candystriped shirt). It felt a little like flying over Hiroshima in early August 1945. (No, asshole, I did not do that (I wish!); I'm old but not that old! It's a fucking metaphor. Turn off the fucking Smile reissue for a second, crack a book, and be somebody for once in your life.)

Did I call this a "contest?" More like an "ambush."

I head back to my media room, put on the fucking song, and let me just say this: God Only Knows why anyone listens to this shit. At all. Hell, God only knows why He allows shit like this to exist in the first place. Part of His "plan," and all that? OK, whatever (I say this as a Christian .)

After about 2 seconds of boring myself to tears with "God Only Knows" my shoe involuntarily lifts from the floor, and faster than I can move to stop it, kicks the CD player right off the component shelf. Fucking Jap piece-of-shit breaks into like 100 pieces. Back in the 50s I used to have an old U.S.-made turntable that kept playing during some 7.4 on-the-Richter, city-levelling shit. This namby pamby rice burner can't even handle a little "tapshoe?"

Oh well. I'm rich.*

Anyway I have to go to another room to find a working CD player. There is none. Yes, I, multi-gazillionaire musician and voice of a generation, only have one CD player in my house. Fuck.

So, I'm sulking in the kitchen for a bit, since I can't continue the contest, when I suddenly remember: DVD players can play CDs, too! (actually Stamos showed me this. That guy's always up on all the latest "gadgets.") So I charge back into my media room, open the DVD player, take out whatever was in there and pop in The New Shit.

Guess what?

The New Shit beat the Old Shit, hands-motherfucking-down. No question. Nolo contendre, amigo. And guess what else? I sat there and listened to it 50 more times, just to be sure. I only stopped for bathroom breaks and to eat an energy bar.

*Also my stock response when some asshole/nobody/"fan" tells me he "liked our set but really loved us back in the day."