Doreen was counting on me to entertain Brian Wilson.<\/p>\n
Felice is really good at these awards dinners.\u00c2\u00a0 She throws her head back and laughs, looks inquisitively when hearing the most banal drivel.\u00c2\u00a0 Me?\u00c2\u00a0 After a moment inside the ballroom absolutely everything at home sounds appealing.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only reading the newspapers and surfing the Web, but even cleaning the house.\u00c2\u00a0 What am I supposed to SAY to all these people?\u00c2\u00a0 In dread I spend the evening avoiding eye contact with casual acquaintances.\u00c2\u00a0 First not knowing if they’ll remember meeting me, then fearful that they will and we’ll have one of those once in every five year conversations about…nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not good with nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to go deep, I’m your man.\u00c2\u00a0 But if we’re never going to pierce the surface, I feel so phony that I start to die on the inside and either clam up and say nothing or go just one degree too intense, catching the other person off guard, ending the interaction cold, for they had no intention of actually communicating.\u00c2\u00a0 Awards shows are networking on steroids.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m the worst networker of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 The concept of making connections to mutually use each other down the line…makes me feel scummy.<\/p>\n
After feeling like a deer in the headlights, I urged Felice to find our table.\u00c2\u00a0 Our bunker.\u00c2\u00a0 To hide out.\u00c2\u00a0 To get some relief.<\/p>\n
Contrary to Doreen’s precis, Brian was not seated right next to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, he was directly across the table.\u00c2\u00a0 On the other side of the BMI brass.\u00c2\u00a0 As Felice carried on with Frances Preston I stared through the centerpiece at the living legend.\u00c2\u00a0 Wondering if we could actually communicate.\u00c2\u00a0 Both of us hearing-impaired, the din making it difficult for even a regular person to understand conversation.<\/p>\n
Not being able to gain the gumption, I got into it with Charlie Midnight.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out he was best friends with Dan Hartman.\u00c2\u00a0 Charlie told the story of the "I Can Dream About You" video starring an actor and this causing confusion whenever Dan showed up to claim a reservation.\u00c2\u00a0 I told Charlie that not only had I been in the studio when the track was mastered, I’d seen Dan as part of Edgar Winter’s White Trash at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Brian’s sitting there in isolation.\u00c2\u00a0 Speaking to no one.\u00c2\u00a0 Staring into the distance.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t want to let Doreen down.\u00c2\u00a0 I got halfway out of my seat and told him I was planning to do a podcast on semi-obscure Beach Boys cuts the very next day.\u00c2\u00a0 Wanting to show my pedigree, I told him my number one favorite was Carl’s "Girl Don’t Tell Me".\u00c2\u00a0 I figured this would elicit a sparkle in his eye.\u00c2\u00a0 But not getting a rise, I went on to say I would also play Dennis’ "Angel Come Home".\u00c2\u00a0 There was palpable evidence of excitement, but no conversation.\u00c2\u00a0 So I dropped a name, of a friend whom I’d gotten a job working as the marketing person on the "Smile" project.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a hint of recognition, but once again, no conversation ensued.\u00c2\u00a0 So I brought out the big gun.\u00c2\u00a0 I told Brian the reason I lived in California was because of the Beach Boys.\u00c2\u00a0 Their music made me believe the west coast offered a better life.\u00c2\u00a0 That I told everybody this.\u00c2\u00a0 And I do.\u00c2\u00a0 But we just couldn’t catch fire.<\/p>\n
After a little steak and shrimp, after a deep, but breezy conversation with Felice’s old and my new friend Dave Koz, the awards ceremony began.<\/p>\n
I was caught off guard that the gig didn’t even begin until 7:30.\u00c2\u00a0 Usually, cocktails start at 6, no later than 6:30.\u00c2\u00a0 And now they were giving the awards out starting at 9:30.\u00c2\u00a0 We were going to be there till midnight.\u00c2\u00a0 After all the speeches.<\/p>\n
But there were no speeches.\u00c2\u00a0 Just short intros, presentations and quick photos.\u00c2\u00a0 They were giving out awards as fast as the recipients could get to the stage, one seemingly every other minute.<\/p>\n
I must admit, I had not heard of many of the shows these composers were winning awards for.\u00c2\u00a0 So many of the movies were sequels.\u00c2\u00a0 Fodder.<\/p>\n
And across the table, Brian was staring into space.<\/p>\n
Then I realized he was watching the video screen.<\/p>\n
And, as Mark Mothersbaugh received an award, I started to wonder why Brian was even there.\u00c2\u00a0 Was he getting one of those legend awards?\u00c2\u00a0 One you get for career achievement when your career is nearly over?<\/p>\n
And in between looking at the screen, Brian’s got his head in his hands.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m prodding Felice to take action.\u00c2\u00a0 She wants to tell him she was good friends with Carl, who her dad was.\u00c2\u00a0 But she’s nervous.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel Doreen would want her to.<\/p>\n
And then I’m starting to get it.\u00c2\u00a0 Brian is even more uncomfortable than me.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not at home in a room of a thousand people.\u00c2\u00a0 He belongs at home, in the studio.\u00c2\u00a0 Creating.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve lost sight of what an artist truly is.\u00c2\u00a0 We think he’s someone who does radio interviews, who appears on "Entertainment Tonight", who hangs out in the clubs on the Sunset Strip.\u00c2\u00a0 When most legendary artists are misfits.\u00c2\u00a0 Their art being the only way they can communicate.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt protective.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to let Brian go, release him from the pain, let him go home and write songs.<\/p>\n
And just when Felice got up and whispered in Brian’s ear, just after she’d conveyed her information, before she’d gotten a reaction, from the dais we hear BRIAN WILSON!<\/p>\n
I’d stopped paying attention.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d been focusing on Felice.\u00c2\u00a0 Brian got up in a lumbering fashion, but he strode to the stage with a bounce in his step.\u00c2\u00a0 And over the sound system "God Only Knows" started playing.\u00c2\u00a0 And on the video screen came images of HBO’s "Big Love".\u00c2\u00a0 And I got butterflies.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though I found "Big Love" unwatchable.\u00c2\u00a0 Because hearing "God Only Knows" on a Wednesday night in Beverly Hills forty years later was like hearing a bluebird through your kitchen window on a warm spring day, like getting out of your car at the beach and being confronted with the blinding sun, like swooping down your favorite ski slope in twenty inches of powder.\u00c2\u00a0 The song exuded a sense of being fully alive, with an exuberance no moving image possesses.\u00c2\u00a0 It turned another night on the entertainment business circuit into a highlight of one’s life.\u00c2\u00a0 Hearing the work of a genius above whom none reside.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought back to Hawthorne, and Murry.\u00c2\u00a0 Dad insisting Brian put Dennis in the band.\u00c2\u00a0 Playing football.\u00c2\u00a0 But Brian following his one true love, music.\u00c2\u00a0 Creating this music out of thin air.\u00c2\u00a0 Just laying down what was in his head.\u00c2\u00a0 This was the guy who did this.\u00c2\u00a0 He was still here.<\/p>\n
And contemplating all this, I spontaneously jumped out of my seat.<\/p>\n
And with my now towering stance, having an ability to survey the landscape, I noticed I was not the only one, all over the room people had jumped up.\u00c2\u00a0 There was thunderous applause.\u00c2\u00a0 Soon the whole room was on its feet.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though prior to this moment the only people leaving their seats were award winners and those going to the bathroom.<\/p>\n
Brian smiled as his photo was taken.\u00c2\u00a0 The awards ceremony continued.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody was happy for the guy who’d done the score for "Brokeback Mountain".\u00c2\u00a0 And they DID give a legend award to the dude who wrote the themes to the "Andy Griffith Show", "Make Room For Daddy" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and kept the publishing to boot!\u00c2\u00a0 And I must say those awards resonated with me.\u00c2\u00a0 But I could not stop looking at the living legend across the table.\u00c2\u00a0 The untrained man, the modern Beethoven, who’d turned teenage music into legendary poetry and then had jettisoned it all for a broader vista, creating "Pet Sounds", which lacking commercial success was followed quickly by a greatest hits album.\u00c2\u00a0 It excised a bit of his soul.\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind "Smile".\u00c2\u00a0 Today "Pet Sounds" is seen as a compatriot to "Sgt. Pepper", except that Brian’s work stands the test of time better.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t only "God Only Knows", but "Sloop John B.", and "Wouldn’t It Be Nice", and "I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times".<\/p>\n
And just when it looked like he was going to make it through the evening, with only a handful of awards left, Brian got up with a start and exited.\u00c2\u00a0 A faux pas for anybody else, but having given us such joy, Brian is privileged.<\/p>\n
I don’t know what goes on inside Brian Wilson’s brain.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve seen him come alive at the strangest moments.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’d endured so much, it would take a toll on you too.\u00c2\u00a0 But those tunes..\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 "God Only Knows" sounded as fresh as not only yesterday, but today. <\/p>\n
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Doreen was counting on me to entertain Brian Wilson. Felice is really good at these awards dinners.\u00c2\u00a0 She throws her head back and laughs, looks inquisitively when hearing the most banal drivel.\u00c2\u00a0 Me?\u00c2\u00a0 After a moment inside the ballroom absolutely everything at home sounds appealing.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only reading the newspapers and surfing the Web, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-6M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}