Although it would get me through (or over) the 405 freeway more quickly.

One day later, the Obama presidency still seems hard to believe. As though I’m going to wake up any moment now and find the old quote-unquote president back on the tube stripping more varnish from the republic.

On the one hand, Obama certainly looks and acts like a president — the sort of idealized entertainment president we’ve been hankering for. Michael Douglas in “The American President,” or Kevin Kline in “Dave.” Someone decent and articulate who is glamorous without being pretty. Someone who wears the imprimatur well and speaks to the cause of the country and is going to get something done before the credits roll.
On the other hand, it’s precisely that movie-star nobility that’s making it hard to believe. If he resembles the presidency so many of us desired, he in no way resembles the presidents we’ve endured, who in the past forty years have generally been small-minded gut fighters, self-centered slobs, and incurious chimps with evil sidekicks. I don’t recall the quote-unquote feting the defeated John Kerry shortly thereafter (indeed, what I recall is his saying that he now had political capital he was looking forward to spending — and spend it he did). But there was Obama saying very nice and largely true things about John McCain at a tribute. Maybe that’s smart — it is — but maybe it’s also decent and heartfelt. And maybe it sets the tone that now we have a grown-up in this office. I’m glad to see him there.

A couple of years ago I went to see Brian Wilson perform “Pet Sounds” at the Hollywood Bowl. It wasn’t for the fainthearted. To this day, I can summon up the feeling of angst and dread that all of us in the audience had for probably the first third of the show, when it wasn’t clear that Wilson knew who he was or where he was or who we were or what this was all about. You know that guy we’ve all seen at one point or another, on a subway or a bus or a street corner, whose mouth moves wrong and whose body isn’t in sync with whatever his mind thinks is going on? That was Brian Wilson that night. At some point his brain and his body realized there was a band behind him playing his music and he clicked into gear. Thankfully. But I knew I couldn’t — and wouldn’t — go see him perform again, no matter how much I love all that music. In fact, precisely because of how much I love all that music.

Just now I happened to come across Wilson again, this time on the Tavis Smiley show, promoting the dvd of his recent album, “That Lucky Old Son.” I wish I hadn’t. While Smiley struggled to get a conversation going, there sat Wilson very much like someone who’s been hit in the head with a frying pan. I’m trying to think of when last I felt so sorry for an interviewer, and nothing is coming to mind. The segment was mercifully brief, but it didn’t feel that way. The early questions elicited responses far shorter than what the host was expecting, which left him paddling around looking for more things to ask. When Smiley asked Wilson, a musician with a career of more than 40 years who after all was there plugging a dvd, if he’d ever imagined there’d be so many new ways to promote music, Wilson’s response was something like, “No.” Although he did then bemoan the death of radio. Smiley followed up to ask if the success of the Beach Boys would have been possible at the time without radio; Wilson didn’t know. Neither does anyone else — but at least we might have speculated, for the purpose of polite conversation. This being a chat show and all. But then, we didn’t fry our brains four decades ago.

I haven’t bought “That Lucky Old Son,” cd or dvd. I thought “Smile” was terrific, but it was almost entirely terrific because it was the rescue and rehabilitation of 40-year-old material. Judging from the video clip that was screened from the new dvd, Wilson can’t even sing now. I don’t think I want to hear any more.

Could this have worked out differently for Brian Wilson? I don’t know, but I’ll venture a comparison. His competitor and contemporary, Paul McCartney, just put out what is certainly his best new disc in 25 years or more. “Electric Arguments,” released under the name of McCartney’s side project The Fireman, captures the sound and excitement of the Beatles without getting trapped in the past. “Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight” is the sort of howling blues vocal we haven’t heard from him since “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” circa 1968. Other tracks are reminiscent of “Abbey Road” or “Let It Be” — or nothing in the Beatles catalog. McCartney, recording under this pseudonym, sounds liberated from his own reputation, playing and singing with the freshness of youth. I only wish I could say the same for his friend Brian.

And not a moment too soon.

The current Newsweek tries to imagine how to rehabilitate George W. Bush’s reputation. They go for the obvious — admit the mistakes on Iraq and the economy; lay claim for improving education, and AIDS treatment in Africa; and blame everything else on how “the terrorists” changed the game and nobody had a playbook.

But I’ve got a better way to rehabilitate him, one that should be even more obvious: Send him to prison. That’s what it’s there for.

No, Virginia, music videos did not die out with the MTV we remember. They just went online. Here’s the one for “Ulysses,” the new single from Franz Ferdinand. The video’s okay — the song is great.

In the UK, a pet owner has put her neurotic and jealous parrot on anti-depressants. Here’s the story.

The story comes from a Chinese newspaper’s website. While I’m confident that Western papers would run this too, I can’t help wondering what the Chinese think about this.  Perhaps this:  “Is this where all our money went?” And then, “Who’s stupider? Them, for squandering it, or us for lending it?”

Me, while watching “Battlestar Galactica” tonight:

“Hm.  They’re giving this character a lot of play. Why? She’s got nothing to do with anything going on with this show any more. Why is she even in this scene? Here she is again. I guess she dies tonight.”

Five to ten minutes later:

“No wonder my kids think I’m psychic.”

I’ve talked here before about my love of the radio station Indie 103.1 FM. It’s the sort of radio station that you hear used to exist, one where deejays play what they like. In this particular case, that means shows run by people like Steve Jones, guitarist for the Sex Pistols. That alone says “indie.”

Indie was founded probably five years ago at this point, and sure enough, it was too good to last. They’re not dead, but they’ve moved online. Why? Because the powers-that-be wanted them to play Britney Spears or somesuch.

Here’s the station’s new internet URL, and here’s their farewell-to-broadcasting message.

Indie Activist:

This is an important message for the Indie 103.1 Radio Audience –

Indie 103.1 will cease broadcasting over this frequency effective immediately. Because of changes in the radio industry and the way radio audiences are measured, stations in this market are being forced to play too much Britney, Puffy and alternative music that is neither new nor cutting edge. Due to these challenges, Indie 103.1 was recently faced with only one option — to play the corporate radio game.

We have decided not to play that game any longer. Rather than changing the sound, spirit, and soul of what has made Indie 103.1 great Indie 103.1 will bid farewell to the terrestrial airwaves and take an alternative course.

This could only be done on the Internet, a place where rules do not apply and where new music thrives; be it grunge, punk, or alternative – simply put, only the best music.

For those of you with a computer at home or at work, log on to www.indie1031.com and listen to the new Indie 103.1 – which is really the old Indie 103.1, not the version of Indie 103.1 we are removing from the broadcast airwaves.

We thank our listeners and advertisers for their support of the greatest radio station ever conceived, and look forward to continuing to deliver the famed Indie 103.1 music and spirit over the Internet to passionate music listeners around the world.