Understanding Humor & Laughter During The SMiLE Era.

[Bill Tobelman]

To me, the humor aspect of the SMiLE era is misunderstood. The topic of SMiLE era humor is typically approached the same way one would approach Hawthorne humor from any point in Beach Boys history. Humor is understandably treated like, well, humor.

The following link is an example of this approach and ESQ subscribers may want to check out Andrew G. Doe's humor article in the Winter 2011 issue for another example of this tact.

http://333sound.com/2014/05/14/beach-boys-week-the-beach-boys-and-comedy/

While this approach seems entirely reasonable and does apply to some of the SMiLE era's projects, Brian Wilson's SMiLE era ideas about humor and laughter definitely go well beyond this limited scope.

For example, David Anderle stated that, "He (Brian) would see the solutions to all problems in terms of humor," and Michael Vosse stated that, "He (Brian) felt that the moment somebody laughed, that while they're laughing, that all control was gone. They cannot control themselves. And at that moment they can have a spiritual experience." So we have humor entering the realm of problem solving as well as promoting spiritual experience. It seems that there is much more to Brian's SMiLE era take on humor than meets the eye.

In 2004, at the time of BWPS, Brian made some comments regarding Arthur Koestler's 1964 book The Act Of Creation (http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/music/pop/12377/).

"It (The Act Of Creation) explains that people attach their egos to their sense of humor before anything else.....The book's about the logic of laughter....."

Let's look closer at this quote. The Beach Boys' Hawthorne humor is one of ego driven one-upmanship. A good example of this is the track "'Cassius' Love vs. 'Sonny'  Wilson" from the SHUT DOWN VOLUME 2 LP. The competitive Hawthorne comic style would therefore likely lead Brian Wilson to relate to The Act Of Creation's necessary ingredient for humor: the "self-asserting" tendency, and Arthur Koestler indicates that this "self-asserting" tendency is at its strongest level when associated with humor. From Brian's unique Hawthorne perspective Koestler was essentially explaining that, "people attach their egos to their sense of humor before anything else."

As one can see we're delving into the dynamics underlying humor and laughter and going forward these ideas might best be thought of as 'the logic of laughter' or 'the logic of humor' for, as The Act Of Creation maintains, this basic logic flows through, and can be detected in, all realms of creative activity. Most closely related to humor is the area of science and/or discovery.

Arthur Koestler maintains that the logic behind the greatest scientific discoveries in history is related to that of humor: that Archimedes' "Eureka!" cry at finding the solution to a problem is related to laughter as the result of getting a joke, that the riddle of science is related to the humor's riddle. With this in mind it is not too far-out of an idea that 'the logic of humor' might be the basic answer to any and all problems requiring creative solutions. With this in mind we can reread David Anderle's statement, "He (Brian) would see the solutions to all problems in terms of humor" in a different light as The Act Of Creation gives the idea credence.

The 'the logic of humor' is also related to the creative realm of art. Getting a joke is seeing the mind of the creator of the quip and similarly getting a piece of art is understanding the mind of the artist behind a work of art.

Michael Vosse stated that, "He (Brian) felt that the moment somebody laughed, that while they're laughing, that all control was gone. They cannot control themselves. And at that moment they can have a spiritual experience." The first part of this statement has to do with laughter resulting in a loss of control. This idea is summed up nicely in The Act Of Creation.

"Laughter, as the cliche has it, is 'liberating', i.e. tension-relieving....laughter prevents the satisfaction of biological drives, it makes man equally incapable of killing or copulating; it deflates anger, apprehension, and pride....the sole function of the luxury reflex seems to be the disposal of excitations which have become redundant..."*

The second part of Michael Vosse's statement has to do with spiritual experience. This is a touchy subject for many as it's not a common occurrence so I'd like to use a lengthy quote from the book Psychedelic Art to help address this matter:

'"On the deepest, integral level, the psychedelic experience is one of psychological integration, "illumination," and a sense of self-transformation. In our experimental work with psychedelics, only a small percentage of the subjects ever reached this deep level. How many artists have reached it, no one can say. Not in art or elsewhere do we find an entirely successful attempt to communicate experience that men of all times and places have tended to agree is essentially incommunicable.

The integral level seems always to be one of religious or mystical experience. Whether some other way of experiencing this level is possible, we do not know. Here the ideas, images, body sensations (if any), and emotions are fused in what is felt to be an absolutely purposive process culminating in a sense of self-understanding, self-transformation, religious enlightenment, and possibly mystical union. The person here experiences what he regards as a confrontation with the Ground of Being, God, Mysterium, Noumenon, Essence, or Fundamental Reality. The content of the experience is self-validating and known to be true. There is no question at all that these experiences are of profound depth levels of the self. In no apparent way do they differ from other religious and mystical experiences traditionally accepted as authentic.

After such an experience there is likely to be a powerful wish to communicate what has happened. Some of the psychedic art may be thus motivated. "'

I think the description of this level of psychedelic experience is likely similar to what happened to Brian Wilson prior to SMiLE. As is pointed out, this spiritual experience cannot be communicated by common means of communication, however, The Act Of Creation asserts it's possible for the consumer of a work of art to understand the mind of the work's creator (just as the person who gets a joke gathers a glimpse into the jester's mind). In this way Arthur Koestler's The Act Of Creation may have provided Brian Wilson with a potential means by which to communicate his spiritual experience.

Brian stated that "It (The Act Of Creation) explains that people attach their egos to their sense of humor before anything else..." and if we add to this Koestler's idea of laughter resulting in a loss of control one can gather that laughter could result in a temporary loss of ego which is often considered a necessary ingredient of a spiritual experience.

Viewing Brian Wilson's obsession with laughter through the lenses of Koestler's The Act Of Creation potentially gives us insight into the SMiLE era mind of Brian Wilson.


*Note the use of the word excitations.

[Cam Mott]

I'm not qualified to speak to most of this Bill but I suspect there was a lot of humor to Brian in the SMiLE recordings that the rest of us don't pick up as particularly humorous. Probably some of the things I might consider borderline funny might have been funny to Brian BECAUSE they were borderline funny and/or flat out corny and unfunny. The unfunny funny that the Wilson's and Mike seems to share.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

I definitely think it would play a bigger role than the more casual SMiLE fans realize. Brian also said spoken word humor would be a big part of it. I suspect some of the tracks would have been overlaid with some of the psychedelic sounds skits or they would be placed on the end or beginning of some of the more important tracks. This could tie into the theories you state here. If someone is only half-listening to one of these songs, letting the sounds play while they do housework or drive, if a spoken word section between tracks or verses comes in it suddenly takes them out of their apathy and forces them to pay attention. Even more active listeners would be taken aback and forced to pay closer attention to this bizarre new music throwing them for a loop. I think that kind of scenario would play out similarly to what Brian thought laughter does to us in general.

Some posters here say the album was losing focus or dead the minute it took on the name SMiLE instead of Dumb Angel. That may be, but in any case smiling, laughing, not taking yourself too seriously and being open-minded, I think these were all ideas he wanted explored.

Personal conjecture: I don't think we can really control when we laugh or explain exactly why we do. It just...is. And it's proven to be contagious. How this factors into the SMiLE puzzle exactly, I can't say. But I think these are significant attributes that may have factored in.

[CenturyDeprived]

I definitely think it would play a bigger role than the more casual SMiLE fans realize. Brian also said spoken word humor would be a big part of it. I suspect some of the tracks would have been overlaid with some of the psychedelic sounds skits or they would be placed on the end or beginning of some of the more important tracks. This could tie into the theories you state here. If someone is only half-listening to one of these songs, letting the sounds play while they do housework or drive, if a spoken word section between tracks or verses comes in it suddenly takes them out of their apathy and forces them to pay attention. Even more active listeners would be taken aback and forced to pay closer attention to this bizarre new music throwing them for a loop. I think that kind of scenario would play out similarly to what Brian thought laughter does to us in general.

Some posters here say the album was losing focus or dead the minute it took on the name SMiLE instead of Dumb Angel. That may be, but in any case smiling, laughing, not taking yourself too seriously and being open-minded, I think these were all ideas he wanted explored.

Personal conjecture: I don't think we can really control when we laugh or explain exactly why we do. It just...is. And it's proven to be contagious. How this factors into the SMiLE puzzle exactly, I can't say. But I think these are significant attributes that may have factored in.

I figured you would chime into this thread, Mujan   The topic and questions posed are interesting things to consider. I think one main issue I have with BWPS compared to TSS is the absence of the spooky, drugged-out laughing sounds that I felt creeping into the world of the original SMiLE tapes. That stuff was haunting, to say the least, and it probably either couldn't be properly replicated in 2004, or perhaps Brian didn't quite want to go down that rabbit hole. But yes, I think there would have been much more laughter type of stuff threaded into a finished 1967 SMiLE - absolutely.

Also, I think there's a clear line to be drawn between Cassius Love Vs. Sonny Wilson -> I'm Bugged at My Old Man -> SMiLE songs with laughter. I guess you could possibly throw Punchline in there too at the start of the progression - that one's an odd bird. And Teeter Totter Love as well. I think in most of these cases, there's an element of escapist absurdity, and intentional distracting from real issues at hand... but that ultimately it was Brian poking fun/laughing at things/people who were stressors in his life, as a way of diffusing the stress, and possibly momentarily putting those people who were thorns in his side into a context of an atmosphere of laughter, where seriousness was played down, and where everyone would on equal footing, vulnerability-wise.

[Andrew G. Doe]

...ESQ subscribers may want to check out Andrew G. Doe's humor article in the Winter 2011 issue for another example of this tact.

Y'know, I'd completely forgotten I'd written that. Maybe I should dig it out and re-read.

Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... maybe not.

[Mikie]

It's "Hawthorne Humor" and it's as simple as that. It ain't heavy - don't think you need to read any Arthur Koestler books or anything else to explain it.

I'm trying to remember where the term originated, though. Friend of mine and I use to use it freely way back when. Wasn't it in an article written by Paul Williams about Smiley Smile and Wild Honey? Or was it Earl Leaf? Anybody remember?

[Mr. Verlander]

Depending on if you really think humor was this big of an influence on SMiLE, then Smiley Smile is closer to what Brian wanted to do. How does one make a 'teenage symphony to God', and also make it humorous? How can you make an album that is going to compete with The Beatles, and still make it funny? Maybe this is why Brian dropped the idea of 'SMiLE' the album, and instead did Smiley Smile. The music on SMiLE is hardly funny. The 'You're Under Arrest' part? 'Building after the fire' in IWBA? 'Vegetables'? Those are merely moments in what seems to be an otherwise pretty serious album. Smiley, on the other hand, is a lot 'funnier'. Depending on your sense of humor.

[guitarfool2002]

Bill makes some interesting connections and some of them are key to the story of Smile. Definitely worth digging a bit deeper under the surface to learn more. However, I also thought there were a few points that were important, and perhaps a misunderstanding in some ways of where some of this was coming from regarding Brian.

Apologies in advance, but I find the topic of the nature and origins of comedy fascinating, and can talk non-stop about some of the points...   I'll try to keep it on topic and specific to Brian and Smile, but follow-ups may happen as well into a treatise on comedy in the 1960's and beyond...

I'll start with the idea of "Hawthorne Humor". First, I think Bill's original piece may have understated some of what that term could mean. From his teen years, it has been reported that Brian would try to organize his friends and family into doing comedy skits, which could involve Brian setting up a scenario or premise and having those with him riff on or improvise from that premise. Keep in mind, this is well before Smile, and it sounds a lot like the recorded evidence we have of Brian doing the same kind of setups with his Smile-era circle of friends like Vosse, Anderle, Parks, Seigel, Gordan, Blaine, The Honeys, etc. "Psychodelic Sounds" indeed. Or were they?

So there was a teenage Brian setting up these skits, and supposedly he also had the tendency to over-produce or try to step in to control the flow of the skit too often. Perfect trait for producing records, perhaps not for trying to get non-comedians who had no experience or skills in improvisation to create something funny from a premise combined with direction on how to move the skit along.

Doesn't that sound familiar? The same thing can be heard on those bits of spoken-word material from Smile. From the vegetables routine with Vosse and Blaine, to the Parks-Anderle-Vosse-Gordan skits, to the infamous "Lifeboat" skit where Jules somehow got under people's skin and caused bad vibes.

But the idea, the notion of doing that, did not originate with Smile if we consider Brian had been doing the same things in his teens.

Now the suggestion from Bill that Hawthorne Humor as a description was leaning toward the Cassius vs Sonny type of boasting, put-down kind of humor. Call it locker room humor, jock humor, whatever...but I don't consider that an accurate description. It was a part of it, for sure, but that was not indicative of the whole scene.

Brian apparently liked the "put-on", setting up a joke where people could be fooled into believing something until (or if) they got let off the hook and were in on the fact they had just been had. For some, the result or the reaction of the person being put on was the payoff, the punchline if you will. I think Brian enjoyed the setup as much as the punchline. Let me explain.

One of Brian's put-ons supposedly involved filling a bag or a milk carton with oatmeal. He and his buddies would be in a car, driving along, and they'd pull up beside another car. Brian would lean out the window and pretend to be sick, and would put on that he would vomit out the window down the side of the car, when really it was the stash of oatmeal which he had been hiding just out of site.

A pretty funny prank, right? But i think there could have been just as much humor in it for Brian in setting the whole thing up and driving around with a bag full of wet oatmeal waiting for the right hapless, random people on the street to pull the prank. Some would say the payoff was in those folks' reactions as they watched what they thought was a kid puking out the side of a car, but how about the humor involved in the setup and planning? I think, perhaps, Brian's sense of humor could have found as much to laugh at in the lead-up to the punchline as in the punchline itself. Not to mention the anticipation of holding that bag of oatmeal and thinking "this is going to be funny as hell" as the scene played out.

Was the Hawthorne humor among high school athletes also a part of the Cassius vs Sonny put-down style? Of course, but considering the skits that we're familiar with from Smile were part of Brian's humor in Hawthorne years earlier, the fact that he enjoys the put-on seemingly more than the put-down, and he seemed just as involved in plotting out and directing the skit as delivering the punchlines, there was no one-size-fits description for what that humor from his youth really was.

Those Smile skits and improvs didn't happen in a vacuum, nor were they new or specific to 1966.

Part 2 to follow - The Smile connection and visuals.

[guitarfool2002]

Part 2: Smile, Thurston Moore, Pet Sounds, The Big Kahuna, and Boston Harbor

If you want an idea of the kind of humor in play with the Smile cover design and packaging, and how that humor may have connected with people of a certain mindset or perspective, consider what Thurston Moore said about his discovery of the Pet Sounds cover in the Don Was documentary. Understand that Thurston Moore comes from an avant-garde, underground music and humor background and mindset...all one needs to do is play a few minutes of a Sonic Youth album to get where he's coming from artistically. You either get it or you don't.

So Thurston in that documentary described when he first saw the Pet Sounds cover. Here were the Beach Boys, he said, on the cover of an album that was even at that time considered an artistic work, a work of pure beauty and some would say genius...surrounded by sheep and goats. This band who up to that point had on their album covers photos of the beach, the surf, hot rods, matching clothes, preppy or prepped-up clothing and a California lifestyle vibe...at a zoo surrounded by sheep and goats.

It was totally incongruous, it didn't fit, it was out of character and persona, it was even jarring and unusual...but from what he says Thurston Moore was drawn to it in some way enough to pick it up. And that was that.

I'd say Thurston "got it" on a level maybe a lot of others seeing that cover might not have considered. *Perhaps* Pet Sounds even before Smile was part of the subliminal humor Brian was discussing during Smile.

Get people's guard down, set them up to expect something else (again Brian with the humor set-up in play), and totally blow their minds when they actually step into the universe he created on the grooves of that record. You see a cover shot of the Boys with sheep and goats - what the hell is this? - then drop the needle and the intro to Wouldn't It Be Nice, that ethereal, magical, mysterious sounding intro that may be among the best bits of recorded music in the history of recorded music...they're totally hooked and reeled in. The cover was so jarring, perhaps so unexpected and incongruous for those seeing it, that their expectations were in place, their guard was down, they may have even laughed...and BAM! The opening notes of Wouldn't It Be Nice.

That is very similar if not exactly what Brian was talking about and what Vosse reported as the genesis and design of the Smile packaging as well. And, the nature of that kind of humor which fueled it all.

I love the Smile cover, just so everyone knows before reading what I'm about to say. I have it as my screensaver, I have a giant framed poster of it as well as smaller framed images/prints of it, and other examples too. But that cover according to what Vosse said, was deliberately silly or even goofy. It was supposed to look that way for a reason - the absurdity of such a childlike or almost primitive-looking cover design in order to prepare those seeing it for the heavy trip they were about to get from the music on the record inside.

The back cover photo has the same design and concept. It's a freakin' ridiculously bad photo of the Beach Boys wearing matching striped shirts and laughing. It has nothing to do with the music on the record, visually at least. It was supposed to be a ridiculously bad photo of the group - again, playing into the absurdist humor and setting up expectations among those seeing it and assuming things about the music.

In other words, another put-on.

Take the Smile booklet photos, the ones most of us had seen. Who in their right mind would set up an official photoshoot of the Beach Boys for a Beach Boys album and place them on a rowboat in chilly Boston Harbor in the cold season? Dressed in winter jackets adrift on a boat in a run-down East Coast harbor district, looking cold as can be...Completely absurd, right? Ridiculously bad...totally opposite what fans would expect from the ultimate tanned and sunny West Coast California band.

That was the absurd humor of it.

Take those booklet photos. The band backstage in a dressing room. Drinking milk. Shirtless, combing hair and primping, holding a guitar up to tune it. Glamorous shots? Photos you'd expect to see in a Smile album booklet? Of course not. They were essentially "wrong" for that album's visuals, but were designed for just that reason.

Another absurd put-on.

And there it is. Get the people to see this stuff, perhaps laugh or even say "what???" to a bizarre visual like those above, then they drop the needle and the music is ready and able to blow their minds, to reach them on a really deep level if they're open to experiencing it.

This was actually part of what was in the air regarding the very nature and design of comedy in the 1960's. Like music, it was going through major changes in design, outlook, and execution that would radically change the whole business of comedy for future generations.

You had Terry Gilliam and Tony Asher working at the same ad agency for a time before Gilliam moved to England and went on to Monty Python. You had comedy troupes like The Committee and Firesign, you had magazines like the Lampoon which would produce some of the key players in SNL and underground comedy in the 70's. You had Mason Williams and Tommy Smothers smoking dope in an apartment and writing ideas for comedy skits on slips of paper and storing them in shoeboxes...those slips of paper which would turn into the Smothers Brothers TV show which broke all kinds of rules and got killed for doing it. You had college kids experimenting with film, then being liberated by the Sony Porta-Pak video recording system that allowed recording and editing unlike what they had seen. Kentucky Fried Movie via The Groove Tube, SNL via Second City...all of it springing from this new comedy.

Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Steve Martin...'nuff said.

Consider one of Steve Martin's more infamous bits from live stand-up that have been passed into legend. He'd get his audience together, and he'd have them follow him to a local fast-food joint or similar food stop in the area. Say it was McDonalds...Martin would lead his audience out of the club, down the street, and walk en masse into a McDonalds. Say it was 150 people. He'd go up to the counter and order something like 200 burgers, 150 fries, etc. The setup was in play. Then he'd all of a sudden change the order to one small Coke or something. Totally absurd, all about the set-up and the put-on, but I'm sure no one in those crowds who marched behind Martin into those restaurants would forget the experience. If indeed that was what happened...

Again, it wasn't some hack with a bad suit, a seltzer bottle, and a rubber chicken telling one-liners as a drummer hit the rim-shots behind him. It was a totally new and absurd form of comedy, breaking all the rules.

And who was the "Big Kahuna"? He was the mascot for KHJ in Los Angeles. PD Ron Jacobs dreamed it up. They'd have the Kahuna show up at sporting events, store openings, on the TV dance and music shows that KHJ would air, etc. A big guy dressed in ridiculous costumes supposed to be a Polynesian god or something, carrying a spear, the whole bit. The Kahuna became a bit of a celebrity, it was a classic radio/TV station promotional gimmick, like a precursor to the San Diego Chicken or the Phillie Phanatic or any other oversized, overblown mascots that would entertain fans at events.

At the risk of upsetting Jacobs or anyone else - although it's been written about and isn't much of a secret...

The Big Kahuna was a massive put-on, a ruse, an in-joke for those who knew who it actually was in the costume. The Kahuna was actually a guy Jacobs knew who would supply KHJ with potent grass if needed. Those who were in that circle of people, i.e. KHJ staff, assistants, agents, musicians, etc...they knew the Kahuna supplied the dope. Yet there he would be on 9th Street West or at the opening of the new Thrifty Drug store as a mascot for the kids, the unofficial ambassador of the radio station.

A classic put-on. And like many other very subliminal and absurd comedy examples, very much a part of that offbeat humor. People might laugh at the Kahuna and his antics as a mascot...people who knew the whole story would laugh perhaps even harder at the setup and the put-on that they knew but barely anyone in the public would know who the guy was.

Comedy as of 1966 was very much like music - What had been standard, accepted, even taken for granted was being shattered by the true innovators, and even those who could both appreciate and execute a perfect put-on to an unsuspecting audience. The whole nature of Steve Martin's earlier standup was a put-on, maybe even a ruse of sorts. Martin's parody of comedy and comedians was so successful that the audiences who laughed at some of his absurd bits didn't realize they were laughing at a parody, a put-on of the whole notion of live comedy and comedians. A classic twist.

And if all of that gets into the philosophy and psychology of expectations and the design of humor, i.e. "what makes something funny?", it was part of the same types of humor that went into Smile. Absurdist, ridiculous, etc.

Brian was aware of so much of what was in the air at that time, it was only natural to see it show up in his own work in 1966-67.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Depending on if you really think humor was this big of an influence on SMiLE, then Smiley Smile is closer to what Brian wanted to do. How does one make a 'teenage symphony to God', and also make it humorous? How can you make an album that is going to compete with The Beatles, and still make it funny? Maybe this is why Brian dropped the idea of 'SMiLE' the album, and instead did Smiley Smile. The music on SMiLE is hardly funny. The 'You're Under Arrest' part? 'Building after the fire' in IWBA? 'Vegetables'? Those are merely moments in what seems to be an otherwise pretty serious album. Smiley, on the other hand, is a lot 'funnier'. Depending on your sense of humor.

I think Smiley was *very* close to what Brian wanted to do. Not so much with the stripped down, laid back feeling but definitely with the humor. Just replace Shes Goin Bald with Veggies (including the fight), the "Good!" in With Me Tonight with "Youre Under Arrest!" the laughing in Little Pad with the Moaning Laughing Psych Skit (possibly coming after the breathing skit as the air element?) etc, etc. These are just a few examples off the top of my head of how SMiLE may have incorporated humor elements that eventually took root in Smiley.

I know I've said it so often I must sound like a broken record, but Psychedelic Sounds and Smiley are key pieces of the puzzle that have been ignored for too long. With the former in mind it's clear how the latter came to be. SMiLE was always going to have those weird, offbeat moments. What changed wasn't the humor, it was the pressence of the Wrecking Crew and the grand Americana/Life themes that would have structured both sides (I suspect.) The humor idea was right there from the start (if the Psychedelic Sounds recordings were genuine prototypes ofoideas Brian would later flesh out with the band, as I strongly suspect.)

How do you make a symphony to God and make it funny? If you believe humor itself is innately spiritual. Which Brian did, as OP proves. How do you compete with the Beatles and be funny? Well, I think SMiLE in any configuration kicks Pepper's ass. My favorite mixes are my own, which utilize a lot of psychedelic sounds sketches.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Always remember, Brian's the descendant of Ohio and Kansas farmers. We're not talking humour on the Algonquin Round Table level here.

[guitarfool2002]

Always remember, Brian's the descendant of Ohio and Kansas farmers. We're not talking humour on the Algonquin Round Table level here.

That's kind of an absurd statement to make on several levels. About that Algonquin Round Table: Did the fact that Harpo Marx grew up poor, quit school at age 8, and worked menial odd jobs like selling newspapers with his brother Chico to help support the family affect his status as a regular at the ol' Algonquin? Using the logic above, Harpo was the son of a tailor who immigrated to New York City from France, he grew up poor and basically with no formal education, so we're not talking Algonquin Round Table material there, yet it seemed there was always a seat open and waiting for Harpo to join in with all the witty intellectual banter and tomfoolery...

[Andrew G. Doe]

Was Brian's humour on that level ? Did Benchley ever sh*t on a dinner plate and put it in his fathers place ? Did Parker ever pretend to throw up down the side of her car ?

Oh, and according to Harpo himself, his main contribution to the Round Table was to be the audience for the quips of other members.  

[Jukka]

What's the story about Brian dreaming up a movie about a chicken running around wearing tennis shoes or something like that? Where was that mentioned? Man, that would have been great.

[Andrew G. Doe]

What's the story about Brian dreaming up a movie about a chicken running around wearing tennis shoes or something like that? Where was that mentioned? Man, that would have been great.

That's in the seminal Jules Siegel 1967 article "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God !". I think. Certainly from the Smile era.

[Bill Tobelman]

Guitarfool2002 makes some interesting points regarding Hawthorne humor and I'd like to state my case.

When one thinks about Hawthorne, California one naturally thinks that this is where The Beach Boys came from. Out of this environment sprang songs that are an expression of competitive ego and one definitely gets the idea that they are connected with the culture & mentality of Hawthorne. You had "Surfers Rule," "Be True To Your School," "Don't Back Down," "Our Car Club," and "Shut Down" and I think '"Cassius" Love vs. "Sonny" Wilson' is an expression of this same competitive ego mentality on a smaller level.

So, in 2004, when Brian talked about noticing (via The Act Of Creation) the connection between ego and humor in other people (http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/music/pop/12377/) I, perhaps incorrectly, assumed Brian noticed this quality in folks from Hawthorne.

The main point of my original post was to explain that SMiLE era Brian's concepts of humor went far beyond the way we typically think about humor. Here's a link to the triptych from The Act Of Creation. The terms are arranged in 3 columns. On the left we have the humor terms, in the center we have the science/discovery versions of the humor terms, and on the right we have the art versions of the humor terms. This visual may help folks think of humor in a broader SMiLE era way. At the bottom left of the triptych you'll notice a "S.A." which stands for the "self-asserting" tendency and one can see that it's connected to the humor side of the triptych.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ztENLkkxnn4/VAcsRfFcUTI/AAAAAAAADwM/g3rWAafv27c/s1600/tumblr_lvg2z91EcP1qz6f4bo1_500.jpg

[ontor pertawst]

one definitely gets the idea that they are connected with the culture & mentality of Hawthorne.

How are you getting this idea? What differentiates it from Gardena Humor, Redondo Beach Humor, or the biting, acidic Inglewood Humor? It just seems like BW's sense of humor to me.

[guitarfool2002]

Was Brian's humour on that level ? Did Benchley ever sh*t on a dinner plate and put it in his fathers place ? Did Parker ever pretend to throw up down the side of her car ?

Oh, and according to Harpo himself, his main contribution to the Round Table was to be the audience for the quips of other members.  

But Harpo still got the standing invitation to the parties that I'm sure many in literary and artistic/cultural circles coveted...

What struck me though was connecting someone-anyone to their family roots with the suggestion implied (IMO) that one cannot make themselves into their own person, acquire knowledge, and form a personality of their own into adulthood. So what if the Wilson clan were farmers or doctors or candlestick makers, whatever grandchildren and beyond would come from that heritage could develop themselves into whatever and whoever they would choose to become.

Point being, Brian in his early 20's was soaking up knowledge and information and discovering new ideas like a sponge, driven in part by his surroundings and being in the right place at the right time where major changes were happening in art and popular culture. And some of those around him were tapped into a "scene" (and I hate that word) that I'd compare to what many young adults would have gotten by attending college and experiencing all those new things in that way. Go back to numerous reports from those around him in 64-66 and you'll read reports of him reading a wide variety of books on philosophy, religion, etc. and being able to hold his own quite nicely in discussion of these matters with those we'd consider having a "formal education" through college degrees and the like. Again, I compare that period of Brian's life to what others his age would get at universities, that sense of branching out and taking in all kinds of new ideas and experiences.

Onto the follow-up point...You're comparing what kids in their mid-teens would do for fun with adults. I know personally some of what I did at ages 14-18 would seem absolutely ridiculous for me at even age 22 or 23. And some of what I did at age 23 seems completely insane compared to what I would do after my mid-30's, and so on. Maturity, responsibility, experiences positive and negative - You cannot compare in that way how someone acted as a 15 year old to what they'd become as an adult. Are there parallels, are there direct links? Absolutely. But there is also the difference between immaturity and the basic process of growing up and learning new things, then applying the knowledge and experience into your own life and mindset.

A lot of what I did or found funny as a kid or teenager simply wasn't as funny after I reached a certain age. A lot of who I was as a kid or a teenager was not who I would eventually become as an adult. Not that the experiences as a kid didn't shape me and influence who I am currently, but it's simply a universe apart from being 14 to being 22, or 22 to 30, and on and on.

Re: The Algonquin Round Table. Honestly, I haven't read much about their childhood, or enough to know what they were like as kids. But knowing how the majority of them appreciated a good prank, and would pull off some whoppers on each other quite regularly, I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that they had a pretty mischievous streak as kids and pulled pranks not unlike those of a young BW.

As they got older, their humor and their pranks got more nuanced and developed like many of us too. But the heart of a kid throwing eggs at someone's house and running away laughing was probably still beating in those adult bodies...

Speaking of pranks becoming more nuanced, note there was one of epic proportions pulled during the Smile era...at least I consider it a prank of epic proportions...more on that to come. 

[Mikie]

So nobody knows where the term "Hawthorne Humor" originated. It had to be a writer/author somewhere.

The fake opening the car door and barfing up milk is an old one. A lot of kids did that, and not just in Hawthorne. Brian recounts doing that in addition to being a passenger in a car driven by somebody else, pulling the car up at an intersection next to someone and yelling "Hey! F*ck you!" out the window, then ducking down quickly, making it look like the driver said it. Typical teenage pranks. I'm sure there were many more that Brian or Dave have recounted over the years. Another one - sitting on the curb with Dennis lighting farts. Dave has many stories......

[guitarfool2002]

So nobody knows where the term "Hawthorne Humor" originated. It had to be a writer/author somewhere.

The fake opening the car door and barfing up milk is an old one. A lot of kids did that, and not just in Hawthorne. Brian recounts doing that in addition to being a passenger in a car driven by somebody else, pulling the car up at an intersection next to someone and yelling "Hey! F*ck you!" out the window, then ducking down quickly, making it look like the driver said it. Typical teenage pranks. I'm sure there were many more that Brian or Dave have recounted over the years. Another one - sitting on the curb with Dennis lighting farts. Dave has many stories......

The highlighted quote: Someone got me really good with a variation of that one when I was around 30 years old. 

We were working a recording session late-night, and took a break. Piled into my car, 4 of us, and drove down to the local convenience store that was open 24/7 for some food. I'm the first in line, one of the guys we were recording just behind me. The cashier started totaling up my items, and as she was punching them in, she asked would I like to donate a dollar to a local children's charity. Before I could say a word, my friend behind me ducked down a bit and said "nah, f*ck 'em." The girl looked up from the register with a look of horror...and I was humiliated. "It wasn't me!!!" or something was all I could say.

So the classics never go out of style...

[Andrew G. Doe]

Hawthorne humour, Bronx humour... it's all the same - juvenile humour. Is all. Nothing cosmic, nothing special to any locality. It's just kids being kids. Sooner or later, they grow out of it*: in Brian's case, it seems to have been later.

[* actually, this isn't true - some never do]

[JakeH]

So nobody knows where the term "Hawthorne Humor" originated. It had to be a writer/author somewhere.

Who knows where it originated, but I think the term dates at least as far back as one of those two books from the late '70s - California Myth and the book by Byron Preiss - pretty sure that at least one of those books uses the term "silly Hawthorne humor," or "simple Hawthorne humor," something like that.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Was Brian's humour on that level ? Did Benchley ever sh*t on a dinner plate and put it in his fathers place ? Did Parker ever pretend to throw up down the side of her car ?

Oh, and according to Harpo himself, his main contribution to the Round Table was to be the audience for the quips of other members.  

But Harpo still got the standing invitation to the parties that I'm sure many in literary and artistic/cultural circles coveted...

Absolutely. But was it to do with his scintillating wit and rapier-sharp repartee... or because he was a famous movie star ?

[Bill Tobelman]

David Anderle quoted in CRAWDADDY!

Another thing: his (Brian's) humor is a particular kind of humor. Not being exposed, not being worldly, his humor is very Hawthorne, California. So Smiley Smile seems to a lot of us to be really corny, terribly corny, and very "in" on a Hawthorne level. The things I can't relate to on that album are things that I feel were like high school days to me, which to Brian are not necessarily high school days.

[Andrew G. Doe]

There y'go: Hawthorne = high school.