The Smiley Smile Message Board

I recall my last interview with Mike Love, though he didn’t participate. That’s Mike. When he isn’t participating, he simply isn’t participating. I’m reminded of Verna and that night in Barcelona, when she didn’t participate. Ah death, where is thy sting! We return to the bar again next time, amply fueled by rejection.

Mike would have been dressed in natty chinos, a color-splashed Tommy Bahama tropical shirt, John the Baptist sandals, an orchid beret and an ironic chastity belt – bountiful rings. 7-Up to sip, spiked with V-8. A Mars bar.

HB: Michael, so good to have this sit-down. It’s been too long. How are you?

ML: Do I know you?

HB: Kidder. I’ll get right to the interview. Quite an enticing Mars bar… No? Perhaps hunger will train my mind as we cover some very important ground – your life as a Beach Boy.

ML: How did you get in here?

HB: Never mind me, young man! You’re the subject du jour! You have toured as a Beach Boy for substantial parts of six decades. What is your best memory?

ML: I feel as if I should call security.

HB: So you feel secure on the road… and no wonder! You are a consummate entertainer!

ML: It’s all about positive vibes. The lyrics to Good Vibrations say it all – excitations.

HB: What do you say to the charge that you once kept Brian Wilson locked in a cellar, only root vegetables and hardtack to eat, for the better part of five years?

ML: What???????

HB: I need you to focus. At what point did you think it fair for you to claim credit for lyric contributions that frankly you had made?

ML: From the beginning…

HB: So you admit that you always wanted to be credited for your own lyrics! Insightful. Very.

ML: If you had contributed to valuable…

HB: So you say it’s all about the money?

ML: I don’t believe that’s what I…

HB: You sure you’re planning to eat that Mars bar?

ML: Can we stick to the interview?

HB: When did you first implicate Brian in the Manson murders?

ML: Huh??????

HB: Do you acknowledge that your on-stage dance moves and gestures are, shall we say, a bit odd?

ML: Would you get your grubby hands away from my Mars Bar?

HB: Now Michael, I am the interviewer and you the interviewee. I believe that makes me the questioner.

ML: Security!

HB: Yes, to me that’s the comforting theme of so much of Brian’s music – an insecure man determined to employ his musical gifts to make the listener feel loved and secure. Why do you hate Brian?

ML: I don’t hate my cousin! Where do you come off? I have known Brian since childhood!

HB: I hardly think it’s constructive to refer to Brian as a child.

ML: I didn’t…

HB: In a parallel universe, where do you think the gas station at which you are still pumping fuel would be located?

ML: This is the most ridiculous…

HB: How dare you tour?

ML: Look chump…

HB: Michael, can you not understand how a Brian Wilson fan might be upset at the idea of you singing Fun, Fun, Fun while knowing the great man is home watching Wheel of Fortune?

ML: Brian enjoys game shows.

HB: So this is a game to you?

ML: What are you implying?

HB: When did it first occur to you to steal Brian’s legacy?

ML: I never…

HB: As early as 1964?

ML: The Beach Boys are a band, and all of its members…

HB: So Brian is unimportant?

ML: Who said that?

HB: But we have been sitting here for 6 minutes and 22, make it 23, seconds, and you have not offered a single word of praise for your meal ticket, er, cousin!

ML: Brian is America’s greatest living composer and a pop music genius.

HB: But he falls short, in your mind, as an entertainer?

ML: This is ridiculous!

HB: That is the thanks you give Brian for saving you from a life of unfiltered Camel cigarettes and refrigerator repair? You call him ridiculous?

ML: Look you bloviating alcoholic!

HB: I can’t understand why this must be personal.

ML: You’ve insinuated yourself into my life and made the most absurd charges…

HB: Why did you sleep with Marilyn?

ML: I never!

HB: Then it was Al Jardine?

ML: Al Jardine never slept with Marilyn!

HB: But you slept with Al Jardine! And when your little romance cratered, you tossed him from the band!

ML: Are you on drugs?

HB: Always with the drugs… No discussion with you about Brian Wilson can avoid that subject, it seems. I notice you haven’t touched the Mars bar…

ML: Look, if I give you this candy bar will you get out of here and never make me see your ugly…

HB: This is delicious! Now where were we?

ML: You were leaving.

HB: Ah yes! Um, where was I going?

ML: How would I now?

HB: I must have mentioned something.

ML: Is this some kind of joke? Am I on Candid Camera? That’s it! Hey, this will make a great segment. Is Stamos in on this?

HB: Can we agree that you are the devil incarnate?

ML: Hey John! Good luck with Fuller House!

HB: Do you still find Brian to be a third-rate singer?

ML: This is really hilarious! Any idea when this piece will air? I think you ought to consider getting some footage of Johnston being ambushed. His shorts alone will get a lot of laughs.

HB: An entire interview all about Mike, Mike, Mike. I think we have all we need. No wonder Brian couldn’t complete Smile. It’s a wonder he finished Pet Sounds.

ML: Man, I’ve never been on Candid Camera! Far out!

HB: You don’t have another Mars bar?

Hank, if I were able somehow to enter the parallel universe where Mike works at the gas station and stack the racks with copies of The Beach Boys Salute Nascar cds, what would happen? Would it create a simple time paradox or are we talking a whole rip in the time/space continuum? Please advise.

This is absolutely ridiculous!

If only the "footage" of this existed on YouTube...HB, you are a demented genius AND a hard-working guy!!  :hat

This question has been studied quite deeply by Alan Boyd, and if he is to believed, the probability of the latter circumstance is roughly 58.732%, in which case there is some possibility that Mike Love would become the composer of Smile and would also own a chain of Church's Chicken franchises. In the less dire alternative, he would merely be the composer and lead singer of God Only Knows. In neither scenario would Al Jardine exist.

This topic has made my day!

you don't set the bar very high I see

Painful.

Quite a funny, cleverly written parody. Mike the innocent victim/interviewee. The crazed interviewer insanely mixing/confusing myth, legend, rumor and reality. Gave me a good laugh!

What bar? The Mars bar? ;D

As for this hilarious interview being painful----on Smiley!!!!----that may just have made my night. :lol   

My apologies to OP but can we make a separate sub-board for stuff like this? Sorry.

No need to apologize, young man! I was able to produce this without the need even to iron my shirt. There was a time, of course, when the lovely Rose would do my ironing, but that was before the incident with the Colombian line dancer and the parakeet feathers.

As to whether we can create such a board, I am clueless, only recently having learned the intricacies of the abacus. But perhaps there is hope. My fourth wife rarely belched after our second year of marriage.

Carl Wilson, love his golden heart, once told me "It's great to be here tonight performing our music for you folks." That he, while on stage, would have picked me out of a crowd of thousands -- a lonely man sitting in the 47th row behind a restless peanut vendor -- says something about his affection for his fans.

It is a lesson for all of us who love the Beach Boys: "The smile you send returns."

Surf in USA!

I very fondly remember the great Carl Wilson saying this as well. Pretty much says it all.

Thank you, Hank. I always enjoy your recollections.

Personally, I love this threads and would for that reason like a subboard for them so they don't get lost in the main maelstrom.

Please don't move this hilarious third person omniscient!  :love

So funny!  :lol


S/he brings levity to all this intense music discussion!   :thewilsons

There ya go. Something for everyone.

Mike Love on Bruno Mars?

Thank you, Hank!

MORE! (please)?

If Mars had life on it, I might find Mike on it.

Briarstem!!!  Great name.  Thanks for this hilarious fun-poking at those of us who often take our Beach Boys fandom way too seriously.

Ah yes, I recall like it was yesterday - though it was long ago - my first purchase of a Beach Boys album. It was Best of the Beach Boys Vol. 1. I had heard it first at my cousin Agnes' house -- she of the unfortunate wart. How I thrilled to Little Honda! How my young heart groped to understand the feeling behind the Warmth of the Sun.

In the ensuing years, many of them less than optimal as I battled a tendency to whine, the Beach Boys were decidedly uncool. And yet they were mine! There were no fans among my friends. Blame Black Sabbath. And there was no Internet, where I might have found like-minded souls.

Most of the original albums were out of print, though some I found among the Perry Comos and the Zager & Evans in the cut-out bin. Smiley Smile was located at Medallion, Surf's Up at Skillern's Drug Store.

But most were procured in odd form - releases by Pickwick and the like that didn't include every cut of the original -- Today and Summer Days & Summer Nights, housed in purple covers with more recent photos of the band; Concert, an album of early cuts such as Luau and What is a Young Girl Made Of.

Some albums were won by trade - originals scored from the collections of friends' older brothers and sisters - Party was nabbed in a trade of a Deep Purple album. Pet Sounds came by trade. So did All Summer Long.

Oh! The fun was unimaginable! The surprising finds -- Sunflower in a store that sold and repaired televisions, Holland, So Tough, LA, Love You, Keeping the Summer Alive.

Aged and decrepit, I still own every album. I watched the stores closely, for new releases seldom stayed long on the shelves - not because they went like hot cakes but because record shops stocked few, if any. And they moved quickly to cut-out status.

But they were and still are my treasures! When I joined the football team as a brief, painful cure for my unpopularity with girls - surely a product of my persistent hiccup, which was only cured when a duck feather was found lodged in my trachea - I recorded songs to my cheap little tape recorder -- one side fast songs, the other slow. On the bus to games, I played the fast ones. On the bus home, I played the slow ones.

Such healing power!

And as my nomadic and rather odd life wound from one stop to another, my records came along. Penniless I wouldn't have taken a thousand dollars for one of them.

And so they remain.

I learned the history of the band slowly and over decades. As a child, I had decided who sang what solely based on their pictures. I envisioned Al singing the parts that are Mike Love's, Dennis wailing the high voice. But I had no idea any of their names. It was all based on photos. Mike had to be the drummer because he had a beard.

Ah to be a child!

I learned the history and the genius of Brian Wilson. I attended concerts. I had neither the money nor the ability to take it all in large gulps. It came to me slowly. And so it still comes.

Yet it was all about the music! When Endless Summer rocketed up the charts, there were "I told you so's" galore. And when Pet Sounds was recognized as genius by more and more people, friends were reminded who was ahead of the curve. Occasionally they would become annoyed and answer with whoopee cushions, exploding cigars and the like.

But my secret - my great love - remained my own, whether shared or not. The music was mine.

It was about love, and it was about fun. I related to the emotions.

It isn't possible for me to forget what the music was and is about. It is impossible for me to accept it as divisive. Both Brian Wilson and Mike Love contributed in great measure to an important part of my otherwise largely unsuccessful life. Did they contribute in the same measure? No. But I feel no need to count.

I could no more dislike Mike Love than I could dislike Brian Wilson. There is too much I owe to each of them -- and to the others who formed this wondrous band, the Beach Boys.

Joy!

I am bemused when someone eschews the humor and the fun. These are so much a part of this great music! Brian surely understood.

I learned much from those beautiful melodies, the harmonies, the wonderful music. I learned a great deal about tears and a great deal about laughter. I learned something of the depth of love and emotion. I still learn.

There is much to be said for scholarship, and I appreciate the information. But the heart is set aside for something perhaps less tangible but certainly more valuable -- the vast array of emotions. Sadness at times? Yes. But overwhelming happiness.

I've spent my life in pursuit of the girl who got her daddy's car and cruised through the hamburger stand. Occasionally I have caught her.

And I have listened to In My Room at times my heart ached most.

I have fallen asleep to Pet Sounds and in love to the second side of Today.

And I have chosen to believe the essential truths of The Beach Boys Party. An old man can still imagine sharing an icy Coke with a nubile blonde. And he can still chuckle at a send-up of I Get Around.

Heroes & Villains has its place. So too does Hully Gully.

Now for a vodka Milk of Magnesia! It is Saturday and my gout is calm!

Look out Edna!

I usually skip posts of more than three or four lines ("Got a short little span of attention") but yours are required reading, Hank. Thank you. :=)

Isn't that the interview that got you fired from the Checotah Penny Saver, Hank?

That and something about the drawer full of Scotch. No soda.

Still stuck on the Mars bar!  The bummer I found when I served Mr. Love a SNICKERS bar, he didn't change to some one else he was still the same inner beast.

Bizarre, but funny stuff, Hank.  :lol