Brian Wilson. What happened? This picture always reminds me of Christopher Reeve. When we went to see him on the Pet Sounds tour I wanted to ask who let him out of the cage for an hour so he could amble onto the stage and put his face up to the light and gasp for air. Don't get me wrong -- I couldn't ask for a more incredible concert experience than seeing Pet Sounds performed in its entirety with an orchestra. Amazing. But it was hard to believe he even remembers writing Pet Sounds. There is a fan area on the official Brian Wilson site (www.brianwilson.com) where people generally hang out and chat when there's nothing else to do, (which seems to be, well, always), called the Blueboard where one guy complained about the new Christmas songs and Melinda Wilson hopped on and respectfully snapped back at him, "I have never posted a response to negative comments on this board to date, but this one has to be addressed. I can hardly believe that this post came from the same gushing adorable fan I met this summer out on tour, telling me his name was Dave Driscoll from the Blueboard. I am the first one to appreciate individual opinions, but yours is so cruel and so wrong.........The reason Christmas Day ended up on an obscure CD in Wal-Mart is no accident. Brian knowingly recorded that song for Michael Lloyd's annual Christmas CD whos proceeds go to children in need who other wise would not have a Christmas.......as far as his OK at best version of Silent Night, he was in the studio doing a project and decided to give YOU fans what he thought would be a nice little Christmas treat. If you do not want to believe that baa humbug to you. As for Brian having to prove to anyone he still has it........well I won't even comment on that. Maybe if you were busy doing some charity work on your own, you would have little time to doubt the intensions of my husband. I do wish the Dave Driscoll who I met this summer out a very Merry Christmas, but now I am not sure you are the same guy. If it turns out that you are, I will tell myself you must have been having a really bad day to write such a cold and critical response.......Much Love and Mercy to you.......Melinda Wilson"

I guess I am just taken aback by how REAL they are. I mean, you see this man who wrote one of the best albums ever made, is known as our era's Mozart, and yet to look at him you would not know it. And here Melinda is, with her little typos and too many ellipses. They're just so honest and open, I guess, that I worry about them. Like they need ME to worry. But I just can't believe the man can be adequately sheltered from the pain of fame. We already know he couldn't handle it back in the day. It's just strange to see this man who has been to the edge and back, but hasn't really ever come all the way back. He seems to have slipped into some alternate reality on the way back. Some alternate personality. I hope they are sitting in front of a roaring fire sipping virgin eggnog under a big red plaid blanket smelling their fresh Christmas tree.

We really expect the art and the artist to be the same but learn with age that it's not the case. Joan Didion has an essay where she takes her daughter to a museum and Georgia O'Keefe's huge painting of clouds is hanging in the stairway. Joan's daughter Quintana Roo (love it!) runs up to it and says, "who drew that?" Joan tells her. "I have to talk to her right away," Quintana says. If art and the artist were the same then mankind would have some transcendent qualities. But instead the art flows through, I suspect, and that's what we leave behind. It's crazy how music is like that. Bing Crosby's voice has practically become a family member for us. It is amazing how we can have actual relationships with art. We expect the Thom Yorkes to understand, empathize and react when we tell them we sit on our kitchen floor and cry through all of Ok Computer. But they don't. Because the artist is separate. It makes me angry that Darren Aronofsky will never squirm the way I squirmed all through Requiem for a Dream. He's just too close to it to be affected the same way. This fascinates me.