Tripping With The Heroes And Villains

[Bill Tobelman]

This is a weird idea but recently the thought has occurred to me that "Heroes & Villains" may be a "good trip" and "bad trip" idea. Naturally the 'good trip' is the 'heroes' part of the equation.

Brian Wilson told Tom Nolan that his spiritual experience was what inspired SMILE & that 2 of his LSD trips were part of his new direction.

Judging by Brian's "autobiography" one trip was a bad trip & one trip was a super great one.

Here's the point; if "Heroes And Villains" is the "centerpiece" of SMiLE (as David Leaf claims) then would "H & V" be the 2 trip thing (as Brian stated 2 trips inspired SMILE)? Centerpiece = centerpiece. Brian had a good trip & a bad trip. Could this be "Heroes & Villains"? Naturally there would be other meanings attached as SMiLE was multi-meaningful. Good trip/bad trip=heroes/villains?

When Van Dyke talks about good triumphing over evil in the SMiLE DVD is he talking good trip trumping bad trip?

In any case, the idea that "H & V" might be "good trip/bad trip" (on one level) would firmly ground SMILE in with Brian's spiritual experiences.

If you understand the idea of ego-death & LSD you may get the lyric, "it's all an affair of my life withthe heroes & villains."

Heavy stuff & cool all the way.

[Bill Tobelman]

So if Brian has a bad trip ego-death & a good trip ego-death & death = "done" then "heroes & villains just see what you've done done" might make sense.

"Bicycle rider" = A classic LSD reference as Hoffman rode his bike during his first intentional trip.

"See see" = "cc" is a measurement unit sometimes applied to LSD.

"done done" = two ego-deaths

"To the church of the American Indian" = In the mid sixties an American Indian church (I believe it actually was Christian based) was under the gun for using hallucinogens as part of its traditional ceremony.

[MBE]

I don't think we should trust anything in "Brian's" book if the info doesn't appear elsewhere.

[Andrew G. Doe]

"See see" = "cc" is a measurement unit sometimes applied to LSD.

LSD was invariably measured in microgrammes back then: a microgramme  is 0.000001 gram in weight. A gram, for those of us still thinking in imperial, weighs about a thirtieth of an ounce. The amount of LSD that is required to affect anyone starts at maybe 25 microgrammes: anyone ingesting even 1 cc - cubic centimeter - of LSD, would probably die.

[The Shift]

Interesting piece on the CC Rider song at Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_See_Rider) including the song's origins. I know that Wiki shouldn't ever be taken as gospel - ! - but in this case it states that the song was first recorded in 1924, way before the invention of LSD.

That said, Wiki also recounts Hoffman's bicycle episode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lsd#Bicycle_day -  I wasn't aware of that story until now. Sounds like some of those effects were similar to what BW's experienced for years since the 60s, though I'm sure many will rush to point out other causes.

Fascinating, and just one of the many instances why I love this board so much.

[Loaf]

Listening to H&V last night, in light of reading Bill's website, it seemed to me that the 'Heroes' and 'Villains' are the people of this world who either help the spiritually-minded to live in a spiritually-minded world, or who bring down the spiritually-minded back to the grubby quotidian existence of the villains' own lives.

So, VDP would be a 'hero', whereas Mike or Murry, and people who denigrated Brian and VDP's attempts to realise this spiritual vision, are 'villains'. I don't think the song is ABOUT MIKE per se, but he would be lumped in with the 'villains' for his negative 'pre-enlightenment' attitude. And perhaps having him sing on it is either irony on Brian's part or an attempt to get Mike to see the enlightenment that Brian had seen, and probably both.

EDIT: Okay, I've just read some more of Bill's website, namely the Zen interpretation of H&V, and he says this same thing, so forget what I just said, it makes me look like i plagiarised him. But i do think it's true. I'm undecided about the good trip/bad trip aspect of it.

[Bill Tobelman]

I think that Andrew is correct about the "cc" bit but perhaps such measurements were applied to obviously larger quantities like, for instance, something that the Swiss manufacturer Sandoz might supply (when LSD was legal).

Speaking of Sandoz didn't they put out a light blue liquid form of LSD? Then one would "drop" the acid.

Funny how that could remind one of the "I could use a drop to drink" lyric from "Blue Hawaii" which was the music from "Love to Say Dada" which sort of had those L,S,D, letter thing going on. Hmmmmm.

[Bill Tobelman]

Just want to say sorry about this topic thread. Seems like I was wrong to suggest "Heroes & Villains" was "good trip/bad trip." There's probably something to their similar opposite dynamics, but the way I framed it doesn't seem to make too much sense. Sorry.