Renaissance man Steve Martin premieres the first hymn for atheists. It has none of the soaring beauty of “Amazing Grace,” but a lot more comedy.

Here’s Jonathan Franzen on what’s wrong with the modern world. You’ll have to read this twice, or, at least, I will have to (and intend to).

I’m wary of what a playwright friend calls “old poopism,” and Franzen, a novelist I admire tremendously, does come across here as an old poop. Whether or not we have the time to read impenetrable writers like Karl Kraus (of whom I’d never heard, even after reading I think five biographies of Franz Kafka), we have little or no access to his writing or his ideas. Or, at least, we never did — until the Internet, which is one of those pesky new-world developments Franzen seems to be deploring.

(Full disclosure: I make my living almost entirely via these newfangled things associated with the Internet. But whether or not that contributes to my bias, I’ve always been more interested in the future than the past.)

Culturally, here’s where I most often hear old poopism, and no, it isn’t with regard to technology. Most of the people I come across all over the country embrace technology; those who don’t, want to but don’t know how to. I have a friend who is 84 and exceedingly interesting (he went from the CIA into real estate, and then Democratic politics; there is some joke waiting to be made there); another friend and I were trying to teach him how to text when we were all out of town together, and then discovered his shortfall: an ancient cellphone with all the computing power of an Etch-a-Sketch that turned texting into a hard-fought endeavor. He hasn’t gotten a smartphone yet (Ken, are you listening?), but he’s a regular on Facebook and email. My mother, at age 88, wishes she could understand some of these things, because she sees the benefits — long-distance interaction with relatives that includes more than just a phone call. So, again, whether it’s with clients or friends or relatives or colleagues, I don’t see any resistance to technology.

No, it’s music where I see it.

If I hear one more person proclaim the musical superiority of the ’60s or ’70s, I’m going to throw up. Because never before in the history of humankind have we had so much access to so much music, a lot of it really really good.

I could point you to some current musical favorites — and, in fact, I will. TV on the Radio is a terrific rock n’ roll band, one that acknowledges the past of straight-ahead rock n’ roll while bringing into play harmonic inventiveness and studio wizardry and the sort of oddball sounds and buzzes that to my ear always lend an extra dimension. Danger Mouse, whether recording with Gnarls Barkley or Broken Bells or on any of his innumerable other projects, is perhaps the foremost production talent since Brian Eno. Like Eno, Danger Mouse brings a distinctive sound and a sharp intelligence to everything he touches; unlike Eno, he can also play guitar, and drums, and keyboard, and bass — as I witnessed when I saw Broken Bells in concert two years ago. Gnarls Barkley especially shows that he, partnered with Cee-lo Green, can effortlessly summon up the best of Motown and make it fresh and danceable. Finally, I’m smitten with Of Mountains and Men, a merry alt-folk group from Iceland. Their sound is cheery and pours out of the radio like a perfect poolside cocktail.

I could go on — I like AWOL Nation and Polica as well, to name just two more — but I take the time to make this point because I guarantee you most people you run into over 35 are expressing their belief that music was somehow “better” as recently as… their early 20s. And it wasn’t. It just had a different emotional impact for them because they were in their early 20s. It is that way with technology (see Franzen, above, who seems to be extolling the virtues of the 19th century equivalent of a German literary fanzine) and it is that way with politics, and it is that way with culture.

Here’s my feeling: The past is past, and it isn’t coming back. One thing we know for sure about the past is this: No one lives there any more. If you’d like to shape the future, in your daily life or in the world, it’s better to make a clear-eyed assessment of its potential rather than to knee-jerk reject it for a prior era you’re romanticizing.

Here’s a brief current events test you can take to see how much you know, compared against the rest of the population. To my own surprise, I scored 100%. (It was surprising because someone I know, who seems to read and know everything, somehow missed two of these. I think I did even better because I read business newspapers too.) Here you go.

Here’s what happens when you deny some people their Chicken McNuggets — at 6:30 a.m., when they aren’t ever available. What you get instead is a pretty big unhappy meal: 60 days in a Toledo jail (where they don’t serve Chicken McNuggets).

Here’s a petition I fully endorse, partly because it links two sorts of disasters in exactly the way they should be linked.

On behalf of my theatre company, Moving Arts, I just called our insurance broker for some information. Here’s the actual conversation I had with some phone-answering woman:

Me: Hi. Is Bobbie there? This is Lee Wochner, from Moving Arts.
Her: No, sorry. She’s on the phone. Do you want to hold, or can I take your information?
Me: How long will she be?
Her: I don’t know.
Me: Then I’ll leave my information. It’s Lee Wochner, from Moving Arts, and my number is (xxx-xxx-xxxx). [Those “x’s” are, obviously, where I gave her my real phone number.]
Her: OK. You said Mike?
Me: No, I said Lee. Lee Wochner. W-o-c-h-n-e-r.
Her: OK. Lee Walker.
Me: No, Wochner. That’s why I spelled it.
Her: What?
Me: Wochner. Lee Wochner. W-o-c-h-n-e-r.
Her: OK. Where are you calling from?
Me: Moving Arts. She can call me at (xxx-xxx-xxxx).
Her: OK. And you’re calling from Moving Arts.
Me: Yes.
Her: And what’s your number?

It went on this way for at least another minute. Remember the guy who would slap his hand over his own face in exasperation? That was me.

By the way, it’s hours later, and Bobbie hasn’t called me back. My theory: She didn’t get the message.

Looks like San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is going to step down.

There’s not much that’s funny about this: Dick van Dyke’s car caught on fire today on the 101 freeway, with him in it. If not for the assistance of a passing motorist who rescued him, you’d be reading his obit right now.

Here’s a Vine video van Dyke’s wife posted. You know it’s real, ’cause there’s Dick van Dyke talking highway patrol.

Val Kilmer’s one-man show about Twain is now playing at the Pasadena Playhouse, and I’ve been thinking about seeing it. Check out his transformation into Mark Twain.

It’s not like the old days — as when, at the curtain call for “Tru,” Robert Morse would rip off his false face, eviscerating the illusion that he had been Truman Capote.

As C. Northcote Parkinson noted last century, expenditures rise to meet income. Today, I’m wondering if the same could be said about advancements that theoretically free us up to do more of what we’d like to, but that wind up encumbering us.

Here’s the context of this question: I just spend six hours clearing out my email.

It was like a digital Bataan Death March. Six hours later, I’m down from 110 “real” emails to 29. That’s progress, but it was hard-fought. I definitely have a small, slight feeling of satisfaction — of being a little less burdened. But am I evaluating what I really accomplished in those six hours, and asking why, at 9:22 on a Saturday night, I’m still at my office? (Other than because I don’t want to take this work home with me?) You bet.

This afternoon while driving over here from my workshop — many hours and many deleted emails ago — I heard someone on the radio proclaiming that our electronic devices own us. That’s true. It’s hard to pull yourself away from your iPhone when you have the nagging suspicion that someone is on there trying to reach you — via text or email or Facebook message or Skype or push message.

It’s not like I haven’t been aware of this situation for some time. Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of unsubscribing. I’ve also been responding to some emails in an efficient but rude-sounding way. Here’s one of my responses of that type: “Yes.” Another one is: “No.” I’ve even taken to this stratagem, picked up at a conference: a subject line that says everything. (Example of one I sent: “confirming lunch today at noon at Octopus EOM.”) In response to a three-paragraph email, “no” really says a lot, especially compared against too much time indulging in email niceties versus working on my play. Now that I’m down to 29 emails (and who knows how or when — or if! — I’ll ever get to zero), my plan is to keep that number low. If I have to behave like a Visigoth, maybe that’s just what it takes.

If you email me, and you get one of those terse replies, it is personal. But it’s not personal against you — it’s me taking better personal command of my time.