So Mick Jagger sat down with Larry King last night to discuss the 30th-something-anniversary reissue (or is it a re-reissue?) of Exile On Main Street. Mick was the one on the left.

I’m not bitter. Like most Stones fans, I love Exile and I’m always happy when a track like “Loving Cup” or “Ventilator Blues” comes up on shuffle. And the extra tracks, alternate takes, overdubs and even the postcards are something I’d like to listen to (or look at) at least once. (The inevitable DVD about the making of comes out next month.)

But can we stop with the endless rehash, even if actual hash was involved in the making of the album? One of the things that made the music on Exile so great was that kind of murky, funky, tossed-off quality of the songs. (Lines like “Judge and jury walk out hand in hand,” or “The sunshine bores the daylights out of me” still bubble up out of the gumbo, some discernible for the first time.) In fact Mick, twit that he sometimes is, used to complain that the album could have been better if they’d polished it more.

By going back and enshrining all of rock’s sloppy first drafts (the Sun Sessions, London Calling et al) we run the risk of losing the flavor, and certainly the fun, of the originals. Part of the Exile myth is that the Stones were exiled from England, dodging the tax man in the south of France, making music for themselves. Like the story of the Basement Tapes, this idea of a band making music for art’s sake is endearing, and enduring. (Albert Grossman was actually eagerly awaiting new Dylan songs to sell to artists anxious to cover them.) Getting all nostalgic about that supposed spontaneity kind of kills the myth, no?

But maybe that’s what rock is spozed to do.

One day you’re listening to media pundits exchange pointed pleasantries, the next thing you know there’s Michael Woolf saying Jonathan Alter killed journalism and calling him “a condescending prick.” This after an email spat (leaked to Gawker) in which the Newsweek scribe said the Newser hound had a “barren and ugly mind” which was why no one read his site.

Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! this is the war room!

Whatever you think of Alter who is also one of the usual suspects on MSNBC (which was one of Wolff’s points) or Wolff  (who shoots from the hip but is sometimes on target) it’s depressing that two people who went to better schools than me are reduced to such mud-slinging. Rappers, at least, have the common decency to shoot at each other. The biggest insult Wolff could muster was comparing Alter (who has a new book on Obama) to Theodore “Teddy” White. If you prick them do they not bleed?

The real context here is this thing called journalism and who is responsible for its ailing health. MW is trying to make the rather over-simplified case that talking heads like Alter (who, to his credit, seems far less windy to me than some of Keith Olbermann’s other regular guests) brought down the beast. While I suspect behind Alter’s snide-as-a-sixteen-year-old sign off — “You, Michael Wolff, will be the savior of journalism, redefining the form for the new age. Good luck with that” — is a belief that people like Wolff who profit off of other’s content are the real cancer on the news.

The question is, though, would you pay to see them go at it? Cage Fighting journalists — synergy at last for the WEC and C-Span!

After all the outpouring of support and qualified grief engendered by my last post, it is my happy duty to report that Riley has returned from the hospital, alive no less. (He seemed stuffed last week, but I don’t think I would have brought him back that way. Too Ringo Starr.)

The cause of his ailments is still under investigation. Seems West Highland Terriers are subject to liver disease, including one that involves an accumulation of copper. Really. But after ten days (and much more than ten dollars) and a non-stop IV drip, he is back among the living. Tail a-waggin’ even.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” one of the concerned vets said, and though she didn’t use the word miracle, I think the secret ingredient may have been the golden light I was trying to project onto him. I’m working on a book with a “clairvoyant counselor” who teaches people how to, among other things, project golden healing light. I’m not sure I was doing it right when I held him last week — I couldn’t actually visualize it — but I don’t think I hurt.

Then again it might have just been the promise of chicken if he got better.

My wife and I just went to visit our dog Riley at the vet hospital and the news was rather bleak. It was when the doctor used the word “kidney failure” that we both kind of lost it. I only know that term from conversations I’ve had with medical people about humans, and the outcome has never been good.

Riley’s not that old — eleven in March, which for a Westie is still middle-aged. And he had been fine… mostly. Until he wasn’t. And there is no indication that what ails him is about anything we did or he did — the hand of fate, I suppose. Terriers are prone to liver problems it seems. “You don’t ask why when a person gets cancer,” said the vet.

Some of us don’t. And we do, we don’t really expect an answer. People who don’t have pets don’t really get it. As Riley has gone through his travails over the last week, a number of people have said to me, “That must be costing you a fortune.” I guess if you use money as a yardstick for everything, yeah. But my dog has been a companion and a family member for eleven years now. And a better companion and family member than some who have gone before.

Last night the Grateful Dead’s “Box of Rain” came up on my shuffle, and I was overcome. I don’t have a lot of Dead in my iTunes — I grew up California, and saw them a few times about the time that song was recorded, in the early seventies. I had friends who were Dead Heads (though they didn’t call them that yet) but I was sort of agnostic. I knew there was something different about that song, though; even at age 16 it seemed to be about something — unlike, say, “China Cat Sunflower” which made a lot more sense when you were high. Turns out Phil Lesh’s father was dying of cancer, and Robert Hunter wrote him those words to sing. “What do you want me to do/To do for you to see you through?”

Those without animal companions (and now I understand that phrase that I used to make fun of) will complain: But it’s your dog, not your dad! Your dog never took you to a ballgame and had a long conversation with you about life. Actually, neither did my dad. But my dog showed me the meaning of love, that the giving is the getting, in a way few people ever have and he encompasses what little I know about the subject, from his dry black nose to the tip of his tail.

“Such a long long time to be gone/And a short time to be there.”

When my Paris friend Randall wrote to say he would not be coming to visit us after all due to the plume of soot from the Iceland volcano, he added, “Can hardly believe all this is the doing of some stupid with a flare gun.” What follows are the memos relating to the film Flaregun we’ve concocted. Yes, it’s in development.

To: RK
From: SE
Re: Flaregun!

Great meeting about Flaregun project yesterday! So excited to see this finally underway. It’s come a long way since that first meeting with Sony, when we still thought of this as Revolutionary War story, though I still think we should copyright the title Messin’ with the Hessians.

To review, Flick Armstrong is a bipolar crosswalk attendant who works nights as a special op for the CIA or Delta Force. We’ll work that out later. I see Shia in this  one, or that guy from Glee. Character name and background negotiable though the eye-patch is a must! (Note to self: eye-patch should be over same eye, from one scene to the next. Start interviewing continuity girls, stat!) His second cousin, Desdemona or Trixie, who’s really his ex-girlfriend in a former life, in a circus acrobat with a degree in string theory. (Note to self: find out what is, what kind of string used.) Agreed, Scarlett would be perfect for this, especially if she’ll wear a wet suit. Let’s get some egghead scientist in to talk about if flaregun could really set off nuclear catastrophe, and if so how it could be put back in the bottle in under two hours. If not we can work around. Still love the final lines:

Her: I told you that you should keep that thing in your pants.
Flick: Wait ‘til you see the fire next time.

(This last line will resonate more if he has black sidekick, Don Cheadle or Tracey Morgan, esp if he doesn’t die in last scene.)

I’ve attached the theme song, composed by my five year old, who wants a piece of the gross.

Sammy

PS Sorry again for mistaking your daughter for your wife and your housekeeper for your daughter. I gotta get new glasses!

To: SE
From: RK

Greetings from the Lake Geneva Shoreline! I arrived at the Grand Hotel this morning and — guess what? — my room wasn’t ready! (So 1970s, right?) At least the sauna was working so I could work up a sweat while they were stocking the mini bar and preparing the mobile studio for me.

Anyway, you’re really not going to believe this, but I think I found our Funky Claude! Yes, there I was at a restaurant down by the lake and I see this guy, running in and out. I called him over and — are you ready? — he starts saying something in French! What are the chances of that? In Switzerland! He kept trying to talk to me but I was just crazy at this point, laughing and hugging him really tight like I’m Isaac Mizrahi and he’s Elton John. People at the restaurant were looking at us like they can’t imagine what’s going on (you know how they are in Switzerland, so uptight) so I just said to them (in English), “This man is going to pull children out of the ground, goddammit!” Then “Funky Claude” tells me (in broken English), “Sir, if you are not going to order, I must ask you to leave.” So we may have to find another Funky Claude because the guy says he wants to keep his job in that shithole restaurant — go figure.

Re: “Messin’ with the Hessians”. I still love it (love it!) but I’m not sure it will play in Peoria, if you get my drift. Roger and I kicked around a few ideas during our layover in Pattaya last week and came up with, “No Gravlax for Polacks”, which spells b-o-x-o-f-f-i-c-e  in any language, right? Let’s run it by the Texaco people when I get back to LA in the fall.

Did you hear about the gambling house? They burned it down, the fuckers.

Peace out.
Ritchie

To: RK
From: SE
Re: Flaregun!

I’m thinking with an exclamation point now. Though that makes the kicker hard. Save that for the sequel?

Avril, my new GF, just graduated from one of these girls’ schools I can’t even afford to pronounce, and she says that in Switzerland they speak Italian, German AND French. I’m like, choose a lane! Turns out her name means “April” in English. I just thought her keyboard was broken.

Funny about FC. Try whispering “Who feels like a trip to the Andes?” See if that jogs his memory.

Re the Hessians thing, Russell’s in if we work Thomas Jefferson back up to the front. Harder now with the time travel aspect but I suppose one more won’t hurt! I still like “Pimp My Bill of Rights!” Good in an election year, if we can work that fast.

O, and it turns out a flaregun could set the sky on fire, if the sky was laced with something. Rocket fuel, Vicks vap-o-rub. First thing is we got to make people care. So the polar bear stays in.

Sammy

To: SE
From: RK
Re: FlareGun

As I was saying, I just got off the phone with corporate. I was ready to fight for your exclamation point but then I got to thinking. Would Tom have been as good in Topgun! Would Ernie have been as irrepressible in Mythreesons! So let’s run it back up the flagpole, Jeremiah. I’m thinking intercaps: FlareGun. Simple, powerful, on-message.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to extend my stay in Europe, kick back, get my hands on some of this volcanic hash they’re all talking about over here. Load up the bong and ride the snake to the lake. Smoke on the water. 30 days in the hole.

Bradley