He’s Back! : Visions of Heidi on His Brain : The public wants coverage of the alleged madam, and we must-- do you hear, <i> must</i> --give the public what it wants.

Will this torment never end? I take just a few weeks vacation and what happens? Utter chaos.

No sense dallying. Let’s get right to the blockbuster story that’s riveting all of us: Heidi Fleiss. You can hardly pick up a newspaper or turn on television without inhaling a lung-blackening whiff of Fleiss, the woman accused of running a Los Angeles call-girl ring servicing the rich and famous.

All I’ve been hearing are complaints about coverage of Fleiss from cynics who charge the media with pushing this snowball into an avalanche. What these shortsighted critics fail to appreciate is that the public wants this elaborate coverage of Fleiss, and we must--do you hear, must --give the public what it wants.

Give us some credit. The notion that we in the selfless mainstream media are exploiting this story and pandering to the lowest tastes like paparazzi is misguided. Every photo, every mention of Heidi Fleiss can be defended journalistically.

Now on to other matters.

How bizarre the news has been lately. Take KTLA-TV Channel 5 entertainment reporter Sam Rubin’s tasteless, kidding, unsubstantiated crack about KTLA anchor Hal Fishman cross-dressing on the air, to which Fishman understandably responded with anger. Rubin was out of line. There is absolutely no evidence of Fishman ever wearing female clothing, and certainly not like the taupe designer mini-dress that Heidi Fleiss wore to her recent arraignment.

And what about this Vince Coleman affair? The New York Mets prankster accused of lobbing an explosive device in the vicinity of fans after a Dodgers game that, incidentally, Heidi Fleiss did not attend? It’s just boggling.

Quite candidly, that story so upset me that I had to pour myself a stiff drink with lots of ice, which happens to rhyme with Fleiss.

And what’s all this fuss about television violence? And this business about Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) wanting new television sets to be equipped with a “V” chip or device that would give parents the option of zapping programs with violence, but not coverage of Heidi Fleiss?

It makes you yearn for the good old days of television, say the year that “The Andy Williams Show,” “The Monkees” and “Mission: Impossible” won Emmys. Let’s see, that was in 1966, coincidentally the year that Heidi Fleiss was born.

Only two years later came the premiere of the short-lived NBC soap opera “Hidden Faces.” That was also the year of one of the most controversial episodes in TV history, when clock-watching NBC snipped off the end of a football telecast, with the New York Jets leading the Oakland Raiders 32-29, for the scheduled start of the children’s program “Heidi,” causing viewers to miss the Raiders’ two-touchdown rally in the last nine seconds.

The children’s program was based on a book by Johanna Spyri, who, unlike Heidi Fleiss, is now dead and was never accused of being a madam. Nor was Jane Fleiss or Wendy Speiss, actresses on the old NBC soap opera “The Doctors.” Jane Fleiss also appeared in “Kent State,” an NBC movie based on a real incident at a university that, ironically, Heidi Fleiss did not attend.

Oh, and by the way, one of the hosts of the old KABC-TV Channel 7 series “Eye on Hollywood” was Jann Carl, who, like Heidi Fleiss, is Caucasian, would you believe it? And who anchors the newscast on which Carl now appears, a newscast on one of two stations that preempted regular programming to carry Heidi Fleiss’ arraignment live? Very, very curiously, none other than . . .

HAL FISHMAN!!!!!

Hmmmmm. Just thought you might want to know.

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GO FIGURE. So the prime-time Emmy nominations are announced, leaving out HBO’s “Dream On,” Fox’s “The Simpsons” and ABC’s “Roseanne” from the best comedy list, while atrophying “Murphy Brown” gets the nod again.

At least you can manufacture a rationale--albeit puny--for each of the first two omissions: Emmy nominators may have felt they’d be validating explicit depictions of sex by recognizing the bawdy brilliance of “Dream On,” even though the episode submitted was an atypical one with an AIDS theme. And despite its magnificence, “The Simpsons” bears an indelible animation stamp that some in Emmydom narrow-mindedly see as diminishing its credentials as pure comedy. Either that or they don’t get the jokes.

But “Roseanne,” which didn’t get nominated even though its stars, Roseanne Barr and John Goodman, did? Pinch me, I must be dreaming. Not since “All in the Family” and “MASH” has a TV comedy simultaneously registered so high on the Richter scales of commercial success and social relevance. Just as those two series did--but in vastly different ways--”Roseanne” has expanded the definition of the half-hour comedy. Its struggling-to-make-ends-meet characters are probably a truer reflection of a large chunk of America in the 1990s than any other series characters on TV today.

It just so happens, besides that, that “Roseanne” is funny, braiding heartache and laughter in ways that few comedy series have the skill to do.

Its omission is outrageous. This discrimination against Iowa diner owners must end.

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GO FIGURE II. When we last checked in with idealistic mogul Ted Turner, he was railing about TV violence while blaming network executives for the nation’s swelling crime rate.

That was last June, when the hip-shooting Turner told a congressional panel that TV violence caused violence in society. Thus, Turner said, TV executives were “guilty of murder.” He added: “Me, too.”

Turner sounded like he was begging someone to stop him before he murdered again. No one did.

That’s evidenced by the violence-laden movies run all summer on his TBS and TNT cable networks. At 7:35 p.m. Tuesday, Tranquil Ted hit the butchery jackpot with the TBS airing of “The Island,” an enormously, gruesomely violent movie about modern-day cutthroat buccaneers who capture Michael Caine and his son on the high seas. It was gore galore, with a total body count of at least four dozen.

The intent here is not to prove or disprove Turner’s charge about TV’s culpability. Before chastising others, though, he should eradicate his own lice.

Which, incidentally, rhymes with. . . . Nahhhhhh .