It was entitled "The Bee-Gees Vs. The Beatles - Who's the Best?!" We elementary school kids who opened the cover of National Scholastic's insipid answer to Rolling Stone found that the answer was, of course, "The Bee-Gees!!"

And we all know how that went, don't we?

The Stones? Are you fucking kidding me?? Yeah, they've "endured" - and why not? They're a corporation now, not a musical band. They've got product to sell and inventory to move (hence the endless tours, whereupon who-knows-how-many people place bets as to who will be the first to drop dead on stage during a live performance). I was dancing to their last genuinely good song at my Junior Prom in 1982. As someone upthread pointed out, The Stones have put out some good albums...and a whole lot of shit.

But The Beatles were something else. They were like Kubrick was to cinema, Tolstoy was to the novel, Dickinson was to poetry, Picasso was to painting. We shall not see their like again for a very, very long time. Not only did The Beatles never release a bad album - they never released a mediocre one, or even a good one. Every album was great in its own way. And if you were a contemporary, you could hear them grow artistically and sonically, from "Meet the Beatles" to "Rubber Soul" to "Revolver" to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and beyond. In fact they grew so much they flew apart at the seams. That kind of brilliant creativity can't be contained.

But as to the album in question. I was born just under the demographic wire to be a Baby Boomer, but I'm really more of a Gen. X guy (though I hate these labels). I'm a fan of all kinds of pop music and rock. But there is not a single band in the history of either that produced anything CLOSE to SPLHCB. Not even my beloved Doors, with their amazing debut in 1966. Everybody has at least one clunker on their album. Not The Beatles, not on any album. Melodically complex, lyrically brilliant, SPLHCB may not have spoken directly to the politics of the time, but it was so unimaginably good that it performed perhaps the greatest miracle of all: It took peoples' minds off "the turbulent 1960s", if only for an hour. Name me another album of the time that did that, and then endured.

Does anyone remember the almost unbelievable storm of self-congratulatory hype that attended the 20th anniversary of this album? An entire generation grooving on how they listened to the BEST album, MAN!! It was especially egregious considering the first track on the album began with "It was twenty years ago today!", made for marketing.

Has anyone noticed the much more muted celebration this weekend? My point is that there's nothing wrong with celebrating an icon of your youth when you're 60 any more than when you're 40. It's still your youth, and the icon is still valid. Perhaps even more so.

I agree with all those who have lambasted the two "critics" who discussed this album. But then what do you expect? Although Salon can probably afford to pay Greil Marcus for his views, do you really think he'd be caught dead here?

As to "When I'm 64" being maudlin...well, the argument can be made, I suppose, but when you consider that only two of them made it that far, it becomes somewhat more important, don't you think?

This man is a fool. Eliminate Social Security? Why what a great idea! If the elderly can't support themselves, let them starve. And the New Deal? Bad idea. Better to let the country go swirling down the toilet bowl, right?

Like all Libertarians, this man has no interest in the consequences of his stated policies.

1. Berkeley Breathed has finally sold out Or,

2. Joan Walsh has a soul

Hmmmm....hard to know which it is....

Anyway, my favorite two Bloom County panels are these:

1. The guy in the wheelchair visits his girlfriend's mother. They're having coffee...

Panel One: "Sometimes people are a little nervous when meeting a disable person." "Oh no, not me!"

Panel Two: They just look at each other.

Panel Three: Guy in wheelchair goes "Boo." and his the mother reacts like someone shot a rifle in her house.

2. The senator (remember him?) is visiting a farmer.

Panel One: "I'd like to express my support for all of America's struggling farmers."

Panel Two: Farmer walks up with an armful of some kind of bushel. Senator says, "Well, that's a mighty fine bunch of corn you've got there."

Panel Three: "'taint corn. It's dope. Here, take a bushel home for the wife."

NO ONE made the 80s bearable the way Berkeley Breathed did. Long may he reign.

When I first read the link to page three, indicating that Mr. Breathed had done battle with the P.C. morons, I was greatly thrilled. Then I clicked the link and read the above. There is nothing "P.C." about that issue. While it may not mean a thing to a five-year-old, it sure as shit means something to a ten-year-old, and even more to a 14-year-old, and more still to an 18-year-old.

I grew up in a working class family. I'm not ashamed of that, but then I was raised in a smart working class family. They bluntly told me that I didn't want to end up like them, and so I'd better get my ass in gear and go to college. And they were right. But had they just malingered along, never offering a sense that I could be different, my life wouldn't be worth a plug nickel.

Mr. Berkeley "I've-Been-A-Wealthy-Creative-Artist-Since-I-Was-25" Breathed needs to pull his head out of his ass on this one. And quick.

I HAVE read everything he's ever written (except the kiddy books). I was responding to what he said in the interview which, considering what he's written, was quite a shock.