Lenny Bruce would be the ’50s Dennis Leary.

@Darin: Lenny Bruce was the 50s Denis Leary.

More to your point, there’s an interesting undercurrent of “yes, but do we have it too good?” in both of those pieces. Political correctness – the defining feature of San Angeles – is the kind of thing you can only worry about if you have lots of well-fed, employed, contented people. Ditto marketing jingles in the 50s.

So the nominal utopias in which Bester and, um, Peter Lenkov set their respective stories wouldn’t look so bad if viewed through, say, the late 40s or late 60s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JizGkM6gbvQ

Another thing of note is that this was Leary’s heyday. When perich says, “The audience nods their heads at his crude libertarianism, even though the politically correct society of San Angeles is largely harmless. Spartan, the movie’s hero, empathizes with him – and since he, a man of the 90s, is the lens through which a 90s audience interacts with the film’s future, we are meant to empathize as well.”

He’s spot on. Leary was the type of man that could sing “I’m an asshole” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPnv8UvKFzc .

The reason I bring this up is the comparison between the 50s and 90s. In the 50s, things looked really good – Babyboomers, low unemployment, American pride from winning the WWII, nationalism vs. the Ruskies. In the 90s, things looked really good, Gen X, low unemployment, American pride from winning the Cold War, and lots of coke up the nose. (OK, so the coke part didn’t happen as much in the 50′s).

There’s an ebb and flow to the watered down good and the libertarian good moving together.

If only I could find out who was the 50′s Denis Leary was and what did he say?

Alfred Bester also a character name in Babylon 5 who happens to be a Telepath. I see a small hommage going on.

The Espers Guild = Psi Corps.

!m!