Thoughts while wondering how a beehive with hundreds of bees buzzing around it on Saturday morning – a sight my wife Tracey swears on a stack of bibles to be true – could have suddenly disappeared without a trace by Sunday afternoon…

My good friend and AZ rapper Dollar Bill returned to his native New Orleans for a recent visit. His thoughts on what he saw and experienced here.

Speaking of New Orleans, it appears that the Army Corps of Engineers is now saying levee improvements won’t fully be in place by the time hurricane season starts (just over a month from now, by the way). This, as the most powerful cyclone ever recorded is bearing down on Darwin, Australia. Yikes.

So, Salt River Project (our power company out here in AZ) wants a rate hike due to climbing energy costs. What do you think the chances are they will ask for a rate decrease if and when gas prices come down? Uh huh. Probably the same as the Kansas City Royals making .500 this season.

Last night I finally got around to watching the 2-DVD Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE set, containing a 90-minute documentary about the history of the legendary 1967 Beach Boys album project abandoned and thought by most never to be released, then amazingly resurrected, reassembled, and release by Brian in 2004, and a concert performance of the album in its entirety by Brian and his new band.

While the documentary provided an interesting history of the SMiLE project (one, by the way, very favorable to Brian, given his history of mental problems and drug abuse), it was the concert in vivid 5.1 Surround Sound that was truly spectacular. To see and hear these legendary SMiLE songs performed with such detail and joy by everyone involved (especially Brian) was a wonderful and astonishing thing to see. The film and sound quality truly made you feel like you were there, witnessing an event in popular music history that, unlike so many other events of this sort, actually lived up to the hype.

Speaking of the Beach Boys, I was wondering if, given the upcoming 40th anniversary of the release of their spectacular Pet Sounds album coming up, something like this would be possible. Given Brian’s new-found touring confidence, here’s hoping that the other surviving members can bury their egos long enough to do an anniversary of this magnitude justice.

…actually, I’m glad the beehive is gone. Otherwise I’d have to look at something like this.