The Smiley Smile Message Board

Was he quiet? Popular? More of an outcast?

I remember reading something about him in high school, but I think it was about his grades or something.

I'm curious if there is anything regarding how he generally acted in high school.

He was a popular guy, on the football team and stuff. It's actually covered a pretty good amount in the beginning of Catch a Wave.

Awesome, thanks! I'll have to watch that!

Just realized that's a book  ;D

My bad

Almost essential reading (for a BBs fan), I'd say.

Some of his high school classmates thought him strange at times.  It's all in catch a wave.

I love that group picture where one of his classmates spilled ink on Brian just before the photo was taken, and Brian's expression is pretty funny. Yeah, I guess he was well-liked and stuff, though still kinda quiet and an oddball at times.

I'll second the recommendation for Peter Ames Carlin's "Catch A Wave" as perhaps the best look at Brian's school years, I think in large part due to the access to his friends from those years as primary sources. And going beyond those years, the best telling of the Wilson family heritage in general, the family tree if you will, is in Timothy White's "The Nearest Faraway Place".

Sports jock, bangin' cheerleaders. 

nah, Brian wouldn't have been bangin' cheerleaders

Dennis, on the other hand....

Did Dennis spend any time in High School?  I thougt he was always out surfin' and bangin

Actually, he wasn't the "bro" that you're building him  up to be. Supposedly he was somewhat popular, but not a "popular", "in" kid per se. He played football and baseball but apparently wasn't a true "jock". Apparently though, he did fall in love with a pretty cheerleader. Mike even married one.

And they once rode a cab out in Salt Lake City now, comin' up with "Fun, Fun, Fun".

AND THEY NAMED HIM WRINKLES

Somebody should track down that cab driver and interview. Did he instantly hear it is a hit? Was Brian trying to turn it into a downer? Did Mike come up with his whipping hand gestures (chariot race now) right there and then? So many questions...

Says who?  He was most certainly a 'true jock'.  I know it goes against the whole narrative people want to promote: Brian's a gentle, introspective genius who's a little bit like you and I, he's just misunderstood and just wasn't made for these times, blah blah blah

The truth is

1. He was a good athlete, in two different sports
2. He was most certainly popular and had an outgoing personality
3. He used that personality to start his own Rock Band, which went on to become of the greatest of all time
4. He used that same personality to influence and impress people like the older studio musicians he worked with in the mid 60's, whom all worship the ground he walks on to this day, essentially
5.  He LITERALLY was banging cheerleaders.  Cheerleaders bore him children.
6.  Brian towers over everybody in the band, has more weight on them, and generally has always been an athletic, muscular dude, even when he was fat he looked like a beast with thick forearms and large hands.

The only reason people don't consider him a 'jock' is because he was even BETTER at music than he was at sports.  He wouldn't have been a pro player or anything like that but he was competent enough to be a letterman in two sports...

The cabbie was the one who added "now" to it after every line.

Originally it was

"She got her daddies car and she drove to the hamburger stand.
Seems she forgot all about the library like she told her old man.
And with the radio blasting goes cruisn' just as fast as she can.
And she'll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes her t-bird away"

Cheerleaders bore him children? Which cheerleaders? Marilyn? Was she a cheerleader? Certainly possible. Pretty sure she wasn't, but maybe. Surely somebody like AGD knows. However, even if she was, he was in The Beach Boys by this time and I doubt her extra-curricular pursuits were of much interest to Brian besides her music.

And him being popular, it's already been described. In many of the books on Brian and the group. He wasn't part of the popular crowd apparently, but he wasn't an outcast. He was apparently friends with lots of different groups, but wasn't the big man on campus from what we know. On the other hand, he also certainly wasn't sitting by himself during lunch writing poetry. So in that he probably is quite a bit like many of us, having lots of different interests and acquaintances. Not strictly a jock or "artiste".

If by "jock" you mean he was a dude who played sports, yeah sure. But to pigeonhole him like that would be stupid. But then again to pigeonhole certain pro athletes these days as "jocks" is incorrect too, since sometimes these guys are not the brainless lugs we assume. Plenty of well-studied, artistic athletes.

You're also the guy that said the entire group is Republican so we should learn to take your proclamations with a large grain of salt. You state lots of things as fact that you haven't a clue about.

Popular? Yeah, because he was a likable guy, and an oddball kind of fun. Outgoing personality? I mean, I obviously didn't know him back then (who here did? :P) - but that's not the impression I get from all the books and articles and interviews I read about BW as a highschooler.. He wasn't the big man on campus. Mike was, rather. Brian could deal with people, obviously, and was well-liked - but that doesn't equal an "outgoing personality" in my book. (Well, it's all fruitless musing at this point anyway, I guess..)

(http://oi62.tinypic.com/240xbo4.jpg)

This is based on Be True To Your School, right? Not that I have any cultural insight on the peculiarly American phenomenon of cheerleading, or the extent to which attractiveness was a prerequisite for it.

Marilyn was the only person to bear Brian's children (as far as we know), and no-one has ever described her as having been a cheerleader at school. Mike was the one who married a cheerleader. Twice, in fact.