SMiLE Sessions box set!

[The Heartical Don]

...is everybody sleeping???...

Some of us have work Don. We can't all live the carefree playboy lifestyle!   

I pity you. I was just smoking an excellent Cohiba, to go with my Courvoisier. Waitin' for things to happen. I even called off Wanda, Foxy, and Beebs, because I value SMiLE more than casual sex.

[Chris Brown]

Awesome news, let the countdown commence!

[Mike's Beard]

...is everybody sleeping???...

Some of us have work Don. We can't all live the carefree playboy lifestyle!   

I pity you. I was just smoking an excellent Cohiba, to go with my Courvoisier. Waitin' for things to happen. I even called off Wanda, Foxy, and Beebs, because I value SMiLE more than casual sex.

How about enjoying casual sex whilst listening to Smile? If you can last the distance over 4 CDs, my hat off to you. I did once last 3 spins of Blink 182's "Enema of the State". Happy days.

[petsite]

Brian's drug use - here we go again.

In Beautiful Dreamer...well anyone that looks and listens to Loren Daro and think that he is anything other than the slimest kind of human being is missing the point. Mr. Genuis sells textbooks. He laughs at Brian's freakout, while Brian shows his pain about the same issue. That tells you all you need to know about what is by all appreances a socio-pathic person (or at least narasstic).  He states that drugs didnt hurt Brian and he wrote his best songs after that. Drugs DID NOT give Brian his talent. He had that. As Brian himself said, it opened doors to creativity...and then closed them before they helped.

[The Heartical Don]

...is everybody sleeping???...

Some of us have work Don. We can't all live the carefree playboy lifestyle!  

I pity you. I was just smoking an excellent Cohiba, to go with my Courvoisier. Waitin' for things to happen. I even called off Wanda, Foxy, and Beebs, because I value SMiLE more than casual sex.

How about enjoying casual sex whilst listening to Smile? If you can last the distance over 4 CDs, my hat off to you. I did once last 3 spins of Blink 182's "Enema of the State". Happy days.

Sure. And the lady asks in mid-orgasm: 'say, Don, what does 'Over And Over The Crow Cries Uncover The Cornfield' mean?'

[hypehat]

If that happens, you simply pause, give a look of studied indifference, and say "It's a Zen riddle, love."

[Shady]

...is everybody sleeping???...

Some of us have work Don. We can't all live the carefree playboy lifestyle!  

I pity you. I was just smoking an excellent Cohiba, to go with my Courvoisier. Waitin' for things to happen. I even called off Wanda, Foxy, and Beebs, because I value SMiLE more than casual sex.

How about enjoying casual sex whilst listening to Smile? If you can last the distance over 4 CDs, my hat off to you. I did once last 3 spins of Blink 182's "Enema of the State". Happy days.

Sure. And the lady asks in mid-orgasm: 'say, Don, what does 'Over And Over The Crow Cries Uncover The Cornfield' mean?'

"Shut up baby, don't f*** with the formula"

[Mike's Beard]

...is everybody sleeping???...

Some of us have work Don. We can't all live the carefree playboy lifestyle!  

I pity you. I was just smoking an excellent Cohiba, to go with my Courvoisier. Waitin' for things to happen. I even called off Wanda, Foxy, and Beebs, because I value SMiLE more than casual sex.

How about enjoying casual sex whilst listening to Smile? If you can last the distance over 4 CDs, my hat off to you. I did once last 3 spins of Blink 182's "Enema of the State". Happy days.

Sure. And the lady asks in mid-orgasm: 'say, Don, what does 'Over And Over The Crow Cries Uncover The Cornfield' mean?'

Not to rain on your mojo Don, but if a woman is asking you during climax what the lyrical content of "Cabinessence" means, she is either "faking it"......

[Mike's Beard]

............. or you are having sex with Mike Love.

[Shady]

 

[Dunderhead]

Brian's drug use - here we go again.

In Beautiful Dreamer...well anyone that looks and listens to Loren Daro and think that he is anything other than the slimest kind of human being is missing the point. Mr. Genuis sells textbooks. He laughs at Brian's freakout, while Brian shows his pain about the same issue. That tells you all you need to know about what is by all appreances a socio-pathic person (or at least narasstic).  He states that drugs didnt hurt Brian and he wrote his best songs after that. Drugs DID NOT give Brian his talent. He had that. As Brian himself said, it opened doors to creativity...and then closed them before they helped.

Just rewatched that, I think calling him a sociopath is a real stretch, the guy just has a fond memory of something silly his friend did 40 years ago. Drugs didn't make Brian talented but they influenced him and opened up new ways of thinking and new perspectives. Phil Spector records didn't give Brian his talent either, they just influenced him and showed him new things.

[bgas]

............. or you are having sex with Mike Love.

Is that enjoyable?

[The Heartical Don]

............. or you are having sex with Mike Love.

  ...great stuff! Since it wouldn't be very becoming to quote all replies on my remark: thanks to everyone who dispensed their wit & wisdom re: my encounter with that curious lady. I wet myself...

[tansen]

Drugs didn't make Brian talented but they influenced him and opened up new ways of thinking and new perspectives. Phil Spector records didn't give Brian his talent either, they just influenced him and showed him new things.

Very well said!

[Andrew G. Doe]

Drugs didn't make Brian talented but they influenced him and opened up new ways of thinking and new perspectives. Phil Spector records didn't give Brian his talent either, they just influenced him and showed him new things.

However, Phil Spector records didn't rewire Brian's brain.

[Runaways]

you could argue.............

[petsite]

From different websites (both pro and con on LSD use), the following statement is repeated time and time again:

The only bad parts of LSD are going to be experienced on a mental/psychological level.. LSD has the potential to trigger schizophrenia and bi-polar earlier in life.

That about says it all. If you are already on the razor's edge, this could (as it did for Brian) push you over. And I guess that is why I never did ANYTHING growing up. Why would you ever want to take a chance? I have been tested out at 150-160 IQ. I would hate to be a drooling wreck.

 

[Dunderhead]

Drugs didn't make Brian talented but they influenced him and opened up new ways of thinking and new perspectives. Phil Spector records didn't give Brian his talent either, they just influenced him and showed him new things.

However, Phil Spector records didn't rewire Brian's brain.

And that's only further reason why drugs are a very important part of what Brian was doing. Just because drugs may have "harmed" Brian does not diminish the influence they exerted over him.

AGD, you of all people understand the importance of facts so I've been surprised to see you post some underinformed comments on the subject, like when you invoked the hoax of people staring into the sun.

Is it necessarily a bad thing that LSD might rewire your brain? The connections inside of our brains harden over time, they solidify which makes it more difficult to learn new things. Some theories propose that LSD increases neural plasticity, thus allowing you to more easily form new connections within your brain. You appear to believe that such "rewiring" is bad, and certainly putting it in those terms puts a negative slant on it, but I don't believe it really is such a negative thing.

If LSD really did "rewire" Brian's brain and allow him to form new connections, that would give even greater primacy to the role of drugs in the creation of SMiLE.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Drugs didn't make Brian talented but they influenced him and opened up new ways of thinking and new perspectives. Phil Spector records didn't give Brian his talent either, they just influenced him and showed him new things.

However, Phil Spector records didn't rewire Brian's brain.

And that's only further reason why drugs are a very important part of what Brian was doing. Just because drugs may have "harmed" Brian does not diminish the influence they exerted over him.

AGD, you of all people understand the importance of facts so I've been surprised to see you post some underinformed comments on the subject, like when you invoked the hoax of people staring into the sun.

Is it necessarily a bad thing that LSD might rewire your brain? The connections inside of our brains harden over time, they solidify which makes it more difficult to learn new things. Some theories propose that LSD increases neural plasticity, thus allowing you to more easily form new connections within your brain. You appear to believe that such "rewiring" is bad, and certainly putting it in those terms puts a negative slant on it, but I don't believe it really is such a negative thing.

If LSD really did "rewire" Brian's brain and allow him to form new connections, that would give even greater primacy to the role of drugs in the creation of SMiLE.

Did dropping acid, even only three times, do Brian any obvious favors beyond the short term ? As the man himself said, (I paraphrase) "I blew my mind into about a million pieces". As I recall from the interview, he wasn't laughing anything like as hard as Daro did. Not at all, in fact. Brian has stated in public and private that his doing drugs was a really stupid thing to do, and if he had his time over again, he wouldn't.

Your attempts to 'prove' that Brian's drug useage was instrumental in his creative growth is beginning to resemble Daro's apologia, and is about as successful and palatable. It also leads me to consider that you're indulging in some self-justification here.

[A Million Units In Jan!]

This thread= 

[pixletwin]

Drugs didn't make Brian talented but they influenced him and opened up new ways of thinking and new perspectives. Phil Spector records didn't give Brian his talent either, they just influenced him and showed him new things.

However, Phil Spector records didn't rewire Brian's brain.

And that's only further reason why drugs are a very important part of what Brian was doing. Just because drugs may have "harmed" Brian does not diminish the influence they exerted over him.

AGD, you of all people understand the importance of facts so I've been surprised to see you post some underinformed comments on the subject, like when you invoked the hoax of people staring into the sun.

Is it necessarily a bad thing that LSD might rewire your brain? The connections inside of our brains harden over time, they solidify which makes it more difficult to learn new things. Some theories propose that LSD increases neural plasticity, thus allowing you to more easily form new connections within your brain. You appear to believe that such "rewiring" is bad, and certainly putting it in those terms puts a negative slant on it, but I don't believe it really is such a negative thing.

If LSD really did "rewire" Brian's brain and allow him to form new connections, that would give even greater primacy to the role of drugs in the creation of SMiLE.

Did dropping acid, even only three times, do Brian any obvious favors beyond the short term ? As the man himself said, (I paraphrase) "I blew my mind into about a million pieces". As I recall from the interview, he wasn't laughing anything like as hard as Daro did. Not at all, in fact. Brian has stated in public and private that his doing drugs was a really stupid thing to do, and if he had his time over again, he wouldn't.

Your attempts to 'prove' that Brian's drug useage was instrumental in his creative growth is beginning to resemble Daro's apologia, and is about as successful and palatable. It also leads me to consider that you're indulging in some self-justification here.

Hammer, meet nail.

[Dunderhead]

This argument is just really confusing. It's like you're saying Brian wasn't influenced by drugs because they caused him mental distress in subsequent years.

But that doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter if he regrets it. Just because he, 40 years later, thinks his drug use was probably a bad call is irrelevant to whether those drugs influenced him. you can be affected and influenced by things that hurt you, a traumatic experience, a loss, a failed love, a personal tragedy, just because something might have been negative and destructive and dangerous doesn't mean that you can't be influenced by it.

hell, I'd say Brian's relationship with his father was a major influence on him even though his dad beat him and caused him all types of grief. It was still an influence.

Whether or not drugs were good or bad for Brian is totally irrelevant. Personally I think that LSD specifically was less harmful to Brian than is generally stated, and some think that it was THE major contributor to his downfall, but all that's pointless. Brian was influenced by drugs. period.

[Sam_BFC]

Surely it is fair for us to say he was influenced by them but does not owe his greatness to them.

[Dunderhead]

But what does that even mean? He doesn't owe his greatness to his influences? Without his influences who knows what would have happened. What if Brian's dad never beat him? What if Brian never heard Rhapsody in Blue? What if he never turned on the radio and caught Be My Baby? What if he had never smoked that first joint or did that first hit of LSD?

I might grant you that Brian had some innate talent that existed independently of everything else (even that's questionable though depending on what side of the nurture v nature argument you side with), but ultimately Brian used his influences as tools to shape that talent into the form of Pet Sounds or SMiLE. Once you start subtracting influences you're subtracting experiences, you're taking away the things that made Brian Brian.

His art is a reflection of who he is, and who he is is a reflection of his experiences. Trying to say what Brian would or would not have been with or without certain experiences is meaningless, because at the end of the day by altering his experiences you're altering who he was as a person.

If you're an artist everything you do is instrumental to your artistic growth and development, it doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter if it's morally right or wrong, if it was a mistake or error, if it was good or bad. *Life is instrumental to art* and drug use was certainly a part of Brian's life.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Just because something influenced him doesn't mean it's a *good* thing. The abuse he suffered as a child influenced him as well.

I'm pro-drug (extremely so) but not everybody should get high...not everyone can handle it.