Dennis 1983 unseen pics on Facebook

[Catbirdman]

Hopefully I won't drag us into too much of a tangent here, but I always find it interesting to see what other passions fellow BB nuts have beyond the BBs themselves...

Andrew, real quickly, curious to know what you thought of the series of the TV show Whitechapel that dealt with the Jack the Ripper copycat (assuming you've seen it)? I recently watched it with family over the holdiay break, but know nothing whatsoever about Jack the Ripper. From your POV, and from Ripper fans' POV, was it well done?

The BB aside, I can also bore for England on the subject of:
Jack the Ripper...

Interesting interests by the way. Eclectic. My interests all tend to focus on musicians of various sorts. Oh, and Doctor Who.

[Andrew G. Doe]

At the risk of repeating the furore that ensued the last time I used this term, I prefer my Ripper straight. Watched Ripper Street for a bit, and while the period feel was excellent, the dialog and storylines disappointed. Don't get me started on From Hell... truly, there's not been a single TV/movie retelling of the events that's been even close to adequate.

FWIW, my favored - or more accurately, least-unlikely - suspect would be George Chapman, although I'm of a mind with respected Ripperologist Don Rumbelow when he stated in his first book (I paraphrase slightly):

"When the Day of Judgement dawns, when all unknown will be known, and when all Ripperologists as one ask Jack to step forward and state his name, I've a feeling we'll all be looking at each other and saying "WHO ?""

[Cam Mott]

Do you still dabble in Cassidy and Longabaugh ol' pal?

[guitarfool2002]

The BB aside, I can also bore for England on the subject of:

Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid & the Wild bunch (the real people, not the movie)...

This I did not know! I'm hoping this will be of interest...as I'm writing this before heading off to work, I'm in the exact township and area where the real "Sundance Kid" Harry Longabaugh was born and raised. I'm not more than a few hundred yards away from an area of land where he is rumored to have been later in his (short) life, and maybe a 5-7 minute drive away from his actual childhood home.

I'm telling information I'm sure everyone knows, but the film got one aspect wrong about his hometown area. A section of my township (I call it mine because it's where I pay my property taxes each year... ) is called "Mont Clare", a name which has developed since the late 1800's from "Mt. Clair" to "Mont Clair" to "Montclair". It was originally called "Quincyville" until around the time of Sundance's birth, which is where some of the confusion may have come.

There is also a "Montclair" New Jersey, and in the film Sundance says he's from New Jersey. But it's actually "Mont Clare" Pennsylvania.

I doubt I still have this article...but maybe 15 or 20 years ago there was a series of articles in the local paper where historians had pinpointed one of the original Longabaugh family homesteads to what is now land occupied by the local middle and high school complex. That's the one a few hundred yards away from my place. There was a family connection with Sundance, and somewhere it was recorded or reported that he had come back to visit and stayed here at some point, I forget if they uncovered family letters from that time or if it was a relative who had confirmed it from the family's history...just can't remember the details.

Back to his childhood home. That was definitely in Mont Clare, they have the street address, and a family connection further told in the story was that a Longabaugh relative named Place married one of the Pennypacker girls, and Pennypacker is a known name in Pennsylvania because one of them went on to be governor of the state. Remember Katherine Ross' character is Etta Place, and Sundance used the name Harry Place as an alias. Direct connection to his birthplace.

If I can find any trace of those articles I'll forward them if interested. The film is one of my favorites, of all time, and finding out that there was a local connection to the real Sundance Kid was neat, I think for a lot of people in this area. What it also showed was the development of this area from the late 1800's to the 20th century, and all that happened in a relatively short period of time.

***I know I'm telling what I'm sure has been told often and is already known the historians and history buffs, but when I saw the name "Longabaugh" in a Dennis Wilson thread, I had to chime in as I happened to settle my own homestead where Sundance once lived. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

Do you still dabble in Cassidy and Longabaugh ol' pal?

Not as much as I used to, but I did have a (very small) hand in debunking a photo alleged to show a whole host of western legends (including Butch & Sundance) gathered at a place in Montana called Hunters Hot Springs in (allegedly) 1883.

[Mike's Beard]

As a real life crime buff as well as a Beach Boys fan, let's just say I've been obsessed with the Charles Manson case for several years now.

[donald]

Don't think it has been recalled on this particular thread that the Wilson's were likely genetically predisposed to addiction.

Also, want to express appreciation to AGD for his candid remarks.

[Micha]

It's not about intelligence. Once addiction hits you, you're a virtual slave to it.

Well, he shouldn't have started drinking & drugging, in the 1st place. It's not that difficult of a task, hence my use of the word "smart".

Such a sweeping generalisation: have you ever experienced addiction, personally or among family & friends ? I'm thinking not. If you have an addictive personality, it is a difficult task. I know - my own addictive personality manifests itself, in one form at least, as having to know as much as is humanly possible about any subject that really engages my interest and attention. That's why I'm here, why I've apparently attained such fan status as some claim I have and why the 10542 website exists. Can I just turn that off ? No. Should I have stopped back in 1975 ? Yes, but the fact is, I couldn't. This aspect of my addiction has only (only !) cost me untold thousands of pounds, most of the space in my house and the wrath of some oddly amusing posters across the 'net. The drinking... ah, that was another matter. Wasn't just the bucks.

As DM stated, it's nothing to do with intelligence. However, making sweeping - and crass - statements like yours would indicate a lack of both intelligence and compassion. BTW, in case you've not noticed, Dennis had a brother who was, possibly, a worse example: by your logic, Brian wasn't too smart either.

Andrew, I agree with everything you say here but one: The tendency to want to know everything and really everything about a certain subject is IMHO not an addiction. It can develop into one if you start to neglect your relationships, the things you do for a living, or your personal hygiene over that, and I can't imagine you did exactly that.

[Wirestone]

The thing is, I think our perspectives on Dennis are really messed up by his death/suicide. The fact is, you can be a tremendous drug addict and do horrible things to yourself, but if you're young and in shape (as Dennis was, even toward the end), you can rebound. Look at Brian, who was arguably worse off but ended up recovering more than anyone probably thought possible. He's now 70-plus for goodness' sake, so clearly the genes for longevity are in the family.

So if I read one more piece about Dennis "dying before he was dead" and so on -- that's all nonsense. He was alive until he wasn't. There were possibilities -- abundant possibilities -- until there weren't. And it makes us feel better, perhaps, to think that it was all preordained, and that Dennis was in a fatal spiral, etc., etc. But that's only true in retrospect.

[Andrew G. Doe]

It's not about intelligence. Once addiction hits you, you're a virtual slave to it.

Well, he shouldn't have started drinking & drugging, in the 1st place. It's not that difficult of a task, hence my use of the word "smart".

Such a sweeping generalisation: have you ever experienced addiction, personally or among family & friends ? I'm thinking not. If you have an addictive personality, it is a difficult task. I know - my own addictive personality manifests itself, in one form at least, as having to know as much as is humanly possible about any subject that really engages my interest and attention. That's why I'm here, why I've apparently attained such fan status as some claim I have and why the 10542 website exists. Can I just turn that off ? No. Should I have stopped back in 1975 ? Yes, but the fact is, I couldn't. This aspect of my addiction has only (only !) cost me untold thousands of pounds, most of the space in my house and the wrath of some oddly amusing posters across the 'net. The drinking... ah, that was another matter. Wasn't just the bucks.

As DM stated, it's nothing to do with intelligence. However, making sweeping - and crass - statements like yours would indicate a lack of both intelligence and compassion. BTW, in case you've not noticed, Dennis had a brother who was, possibly, a worse example: by your logic, Brian wasn't too smart either.

Andrew, I agree with everything you say here but one: The tendency to want to know everything and really everything about a certain subject is IMHO not an addiction. It can develop into one if you start to neglect your relationships, the things you do for a living, or your personal hygiene over that, and I can't imagine you did exactly that.

No... but... all the interests I've listed have taken up way more of my spare time than is healthy. The BB are far and away the worst offenders, but if tramping around a burial ground trying to work out where an unmarked grave might be, or quartering Hollywood trying to locate the exact site of the Babylon set for Intolerance (demolished in 1919, 1920) isn't an addiction, I don't know what is. 

[Andrew G. Doe]

The thing is, I think our perspectives on Dennis are really messed up by his death/suicide. The fact is, you can be a tremendous drug addict and do horrible things to yourself, but if you're young and in shape (as Dennis was, even toward the end), you can rebound. Look at Brian, who was arguably worse off but ended up recovering more than anyone probably thought possible. He's now 70-plus for goodness' sake, so clearly the genes for longevity are in the family.

So if I read one more piece about Dennis "dying before he was dead" and so on -- that's all nonsense. He was alive until he wasn't. There were possibilities -- abundant possibilities -- until there weren't. And it makes us feel better, perhaps, to think that it was all preordained, and that Dennis was in a fatal spiral, etc., etc. But that's only true in retrospect.

Would argue (well, I would, wouldn't I ?): I've spoken with people who knew DW towards the end (some you'd know, some not) and they all agreed on one point, namely that from about 1982 on, they looked into his eyes and saw (to quote one exactly) "a dead man walking". By fall 1983, Dennis was alive, but not living, and he'd exhausted all the possibilities, or so he felt.

[Sam_BFC]

No... but... all the interests I've listed have taken up way more of my spare time than is healthy. The BB are far and away the worst offenders, but if tramping around a burial ground trying to work out where an unmarked grave might be, or quartering Hollywood trying to locate the exact site of the Babylon set for Intolerance (demolished in 1919, 1920) isn't an addiction, I don't know what is. 

How do obsession and addiction relate to one another?

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

am I naive or am I the only one who sees Dennis' addictions and substances of choice as more or less symptoms of the real problems?

[Wirestone]

I wonder. Clearly Dennis was disturbed and self destructive in a way that neither of his brothers was. And that had everything to do with who he was, not what he ingested.

[Kurosawa]

It's not about intelligence. Once addiction hits you, you're a virtual slave to it.

Well, he shouldn't have started drinking & drugging, in the 1st place. It's not that difficult of a task, hence my use of the word "smart".

Such a sweeping generalisation: have you ever experienced addiction, personally or among family & friends ? I'm thinking not. If you have an addictive personality, it is a difficult task. I know - my own addictive personality manifests itself, in one form at least, as having to know as much as is humanly possible about any subject that really engages my interest and attention. That's why I'm here, why I've apparently attained such fan status as some claim I have and why the 10542 website exists. Can I just turn that off ? No. Should I have stopped back in 1975 ? Yes, but the fact is, I couldn't. This aspect of my addiction has only (only !) cost me untold thousands of pounds, most of the space in my house and the wrath of some oddly amusing posters across the 'net. The drinking... ah, that was another matter. Wasn't just the bucks.

As DM stated, it's nothing to do with intelligence. However, making sweeping - and crass - statements like yours would indicate a lack of both intelligence and compassion. BTW, in case you've not noticed, Dennis had a brother who was, possibly, a worse example: by your logic, Brian wasn't too smart either.

Exactly. I'm much the same. I kept away from drugs, etc because I knew I couldn't stop. Guys like Denny and Brian, they had personal problems and pain that I couldn't comprehend that led to their problems.

[Jon Stebbins]

So if I read one more piece about Dennis "dying before he was dead" and so on -- that's all nonsense.

The original quote regarding Dennis being "dead" a couple of years before his body actually was deceased...  came from Barbara Wilson...it's in the Endless Harmony documentary. I'd never tell her that her perspective is nonsense. I've spoken to her about this in person and she saw the essence of him completely disappear prior to his actual death...and that's how she could best describe it.

[Jay]

You know, the more I read the new Beach Boys concert archive book, the more that I start to think that the early start of the downward spiral might have been when his marriage to Barbara ended.

[Mike's Beard]

What exactly were Dennis' "problems"? He had a dad who communicated best with his fists, I was also lucky enough to grow up with a dad who thought nothing of punching the sh*t out of his sons and that has given me very mixed feelings about my childhood. It hasn't however gave me a free pass to become a drug addict. OK so he was unlucky enough to get hooked on the vices of Rock & Roll, however he was given chance after chance to clear up his life and he threw it all away. Sorry if that sounds harsh but there are a lot of people out there who have been given less breaks in life than Dennis Wilson.

[bluesno1fann]

What exactly were Dennis' "problems"? He had a dad who communicated best with his fists, I was also lucky enough to grow up with a dad who thought nothing of punching the sh*t out of his sons and that has given me very mixed feelings about my childhood. It hasn't however gave me a free pass to become a drug addict. OK so he was unlucky enough to get hooked on the vices of Rock & Roll, however he was given chance after chance to clear up his life and he threw it all away. Sorry if that sounds harsh but there are a lot of people out there who have been given less breaks in life than Dennis Wilson.

You can say the exact same for Brian you know. Except that he eventually pulled through

[Micha]

all the interests I've listed have taken up way more of my spare time than is healthy. The BB are far and away the worst offenders, but if tramping around a burial ground trying to work out where an unmarked grave might be, or quartering Hollywood trying to locate the exact site of the Babylon set for Intolerance (demolished in 1919, 1920) isn't an addiction, I don't know what is. 

Well, one of the main points is: Do you enjoy your searches? If so it very likely is not an addiction. Example: Most smokers that I know want to stop and don't enjoy craving for cigarettes all the time. They are addicted. I do know a few people who enjoy smoking and have no problem to not smoke for days. The latter people probably have had luck with their genes, as the nicotine doesn't make them addicted. (As both my parents are nicotine addicts, the only thing that prevented me from becoming one is that I hate the feeling of smoke in my lungs. It has nothing to do with the fact that I'm really smart )

Another indication whether your quest for knowledge is an addiction or not would be whether you could afford to spend the noney for the travels or if you had to make debts for it. Or if by doing so you hurt people that are important to you (which I think you already answered with "no").

[Andrew G. Doe]

I offer you this: I've bought records because of their BB connection that have literally had the store staff (who knew me) crying with laughter: Julio Iglesias, anyone ?

And yes... I've spent money I really couldn't afford on the latest BB/solo/related release, irrespective of its musical merit, or on books, magazines, or just phone calls. It's The Beach Boys, see ? I'm a fan: it's what I do.

Hello, my name is Andrew Grayham Doe, and I'm a Beach Boys obsessive.  

Don't get me started on Billy Beldham: no, really, just... dont. Did I enjoy looking for his unmarked grave on a foul February day with the rain hissing down ? No... no, can't say I did, but as that annoying Frenchie said (kinda), it wasn't the finding, it was the act of searching. I felt a sense of mild, if damp, fulfillment.

Seriously for a moment, I deeply appreciate all the comments and support, both here and via PMs: stopping doing something that, however pleasant, you've been told by your family doctor will very likely see you off within a relatively short period of time if you continue doesn't require too many smarts, just the courage to look at the evidence and say "you're right". There's a fine, fine line between obsession and addiction, and there's no simple "solution".

Finally, it may be germane that my half-brother, from my father's first marriage, had a serious drinking problem, one which destroyed his marriage and comprehensively screwed up his life, until he saw what was happening and turned it around, eventually becoming something of a local big wheel in Alcoholics Anonymous. You may have heard of his sponsor, name of Clapton: plays a fair old guitar. Colin died in 2004, just shy of his 60th birthday, the original rough diamond. Bit of a tricky year for me, 2014: my father died 20 years ago, Colin ten years ago and my mother five. Were I numerologically inclined, I'd note the descending sequence and maybe think about setting my affairs in order. But, thankfully, I'm not. 

[Micha]

Colin died in 2004, just shy of his 60th birthday, the original rough diamond. Bit of a tricky year for me, 2014: my father died 20 years ago, Colin ten years ago and my mother five. Were I numerologically inclined, I'd note the descending sequence and maybe think about setting my affairs in order. But, thankfully, I'm not. 

A good thing you don't know your math - as the periods between deaths diminuate by half, the last death should have happened 2 1/2 years ago.

May you be with us for a long, long time, Andrew!

[Andrew G. Doe]

A few years ago, I did one of those "how long will you live ?" quizzes, based on health, lifestyle and such. Apparently I died when I was 37. 

[Alan Smith]

A few years ago, I did one of those "how long will you live ?" quizzes, based on health, lifestyle and such. Apparently I died when I was 37.  

Well, I for one am glad to see and read that you've made a partial to full recovery in the meantime.

To paraphrase Micha, Long Live The Legendary AGD.

[bgas]

A few years ago, I did one of those "how long will you live ?" quizzes, based on health, lifestyle and such. Apparently I died when I was 37. 

That just means you're dead before you're deceased. I'm expecting your body to be around til it's 100.