A couple of times in the past few weeks I've heard the Monkees' rendition of the immortal Goffin and King's "Pleasant Valley Sunday". It's got a brilliantly shimmering pop melody, but aside from that it's also a sharp criticism of life in suburbia, an indictment of shallow materialism, a warning about succumbing to a numbing life in Status Symbol Land where you're surrounded by the smell of burning charcoal from all the backyard cookouts.

I'm nearly forty now. I don't consider that I've acquired wisdom for the ages but I have picked up the wisdom of a forty-year-old, for what that's worth. And I was thinking about this today. I once again found myself somehow, after seeing television commercials for miracle cleaning products since 1971, on all fours on my bathroom floor scrubbing with a brush.

When I was younger I agreed with the Monkees wholeheartedly. This was no simple adolescent revolt against one's elders, either. In fact my parents weren't all that interested in Pleasant Valley. They never collected status symbols: No fancy new cars, big beautiful house, expensive TVs. At one point my father drove a tow truck, not professionally, but as his regular commuting vehicle. No, my parents didn't care about appearances. They always looked -- they still do -- to just getting by. Making their way, day by day, climbing over whatever obstacles arose, occasionally grabbing what happiness they could: That was, and is, their way.

So I wasn't rejecting my parents when I turned away from Pleasant Valley. I'd made a definite decision to avoid what I saw as so much worthless and mirthless junk. For me, true value lay in the things I'd pursue all my life: Science and philosophy and art. I spent my time reading Kant, Hume, and Buckminster Fuller. Learning to play chess and studying engineering. Painting.

Well, I managed to avoid Pleasant Valley, yes I did. I don't have a status symbol to my name. I live in the suburbs, sure, but the one I live in is nothing like Gerry Goffin's lyrics, even if he wrote them about a place less than 20 miles from my house.

What I realize now is that a Sunday in Pleasant Valley looks pretty good. All those things I've invested in my whole life thus far -- all the thinking and the understanding -- haven't gotten me anything. I don't need philosophy. I need something to clean my goddamn bathroom floor.

I love film music. Love it. One of the first LPs I ever bought with my own money was a John Williams soundtrack (although I'm embarrassed to admit which one.) I'll often buy soundtracks to movies I haven't seen or have no plans of seeing anytime soon. Carter Burwell's score to Twilight, for example. 

So it was only a matter of time, I suppose, before my collaborator Joel Mathis and I did a podcast about movies and their soundtracks. We had a lively and wide-ranging discussion this weekend with Washington Times critic/Denver film maven Christian Toto and Fistful of Soundtracks host, blogger and fledgling comics writer Jimmy J. Aquino. I read Toto's reviews religiously and I've been a fan of Aquino's Internet radio show for years, and so it was a real treat to talk to them both. Among the topics we discussed:

• Whether Drag Me to Hell is suitable for toddlers and why Sam Raimi should be admitted to the Overrated Artiste Club;
• How the symphonic tradition up and moved to Hollywood and whether soundtracks deserve more respect than they get;
• Why Ed Asner should be made into an action figure and Walter Matthau was a great if unlikely action hero;
• Who deserved to get the Matthau role in the upcoming Taking of Pelham One Two Three remake;
• "And much, much more!"

Alas, none of us had seen UP when we recorded this episode, but if we had, I might have confessed to bawling through half the movie. Because I'm a sap. But I would also have made the point -- as if it really needed to be made -- that much of what makes UP so memorable and poignant, especially in the film's opening scenes, is Michael Giacchino's score. Giacchino, of course, gave us the music to the Star Trek reboot. And he also did the soundtrack for the upcoming Land of the Lost. (Ah well, two out of three ain't bad.)

After you've listened to the podcast, I hope you'll visit What Would Toto Watch and A Fistful of Soundtracks. And graphic novel fans may want to check out Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, which feature's Aquino's story, "Sampler."

I'd like to take a moment of out your busy schedule to ask you a simple question:

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

I ask this because of George Gershwin.  You see, I've owned more than one copy of recordings of Gershwin's wonderful Rhapsody in Blue, often along with An American in Paris and Lullaby for Strings.  Somehow over the years my CD copies of these greats have gotten the crap kicked out of them -- my kids, when they were much younger, loved Rhapsody in Blue and consequently the CD saw some hard use; and my first CD copy was one of the earliest CDs ever made and the aluminum layer actually began to flake away.  I was thinking I'd like to hear the piece again recently, so I decided to download a copy over BitTorrent.  Considering how many recordings I've owned -- to say nothing of my father and grandfather's copies -- I feel entitled.

I found a lovely torrent of a four CD set called The Ultimate Gershwin.  I began to download it.  Eventually the download halted at 93 percent because, it turns out, there are no seeds for this torrent.  Well, certainly if there are only partial copies of the set, they'll include Rhapsody in Blue at least, and probably An American in Paris.

I checked.  The answer is no.  This Ultimate Gershwin torrent actually manages to lack An American in Paris, Rhapsody in Blue, and Lullaby for Strings.  (In fact the original CD set fails to include Lullaby).

Truly I weep for the state of Western civilization.