Rocky Pamplin book about The Beach Boys?

[Fall Breaks]

Honest question: does cold help when treating someone who has possibly overdosed on heroin?

[The Shift]

So instead of calling an ambulance and qualified medical help when you thought he was at risk of slipping into a coma, you dumped him in a bath and poured ice on him?

And prayed?

Did you pray for his life or your jobs?

Brian Wilson is truly a survivor, and I appreciate that fact even more so today.

[Emily]

 Good morning Smile, hope you all had an enjoyable weekend! I don't read Smile or use the Internet on weekends...ever. So I always have some catching up to do on Mondays. On Friday someone suggested to me that it would better serve me to revisit the Carl incident in Australia rather than talking about Dennis and his danger to Brian. However, they are very much interrelated... to illustrate this point I am going to backup to my last post on Friday where I mentioned that Dennis's wife Karen discovered HEROIN in his underwear, on a plane, and flushed it down the toilet, while Dennis tried to wrestle it away from her, fighting her way into the lavatory, while passengers watched the spectacle. That flight was en route to New Zealand on the first leg of a three week tour. A tour in which Stephen sent a MEMO to every band and crew member stating that "on no uncertain terms" was any one permitted to loan or give money to Dennis or they would be immediately "terminated" without pay! Stephen also called Carl and requested that he give his "word" that he too would not give "any money" to Dennis for fear that Dennis would buy drugs and jeopardize what was named "The Comeback Tour"! Carl said... sure Steve... no problem... gotta go (and hung up). (inauspicious beginnings) Not only did Karen grab the very next flight back to L.A., she couldn't get away from her husband fast enough, but not before making a giant scene, screaming obscenities at him, while repeatedly hitting him over the head with his shoes walking to baggage claim, while all nearby onlookers stopped and stared, pointing fingers, at "The Ugly Americans," whispering... those are "The Beach Boys"!  Karen was appalled at Dennis for putting her at risk smuggling Heroin, onto a plane, that could have gotten them both arrested and resulted in "CAUSING AN INTERNATIONAL SCANDAL" and the cancellation of the entire Australian/New Zealand tour! Not least of all because they were completely "broke" and desperately needed this income, but because he had "PROMISED" her over and over that he would "NOT" do Heroin, the latest drug he swore he was not addicted to, on this three week tour! Three days later Dennis scored Heroin in Sydney, "WITH A HUNDRED DOLLARS "CARL GAVE DENNIS" who thought it was only "TOO COOL" to give half of the Heroin to Brian! Brian snorted all of it, that night in our Hotel Suite, and collapsed face down on the floor! Stan and I... as "FREAKED OUT" as we were tried desperately "NOT TO PANIC" carrying Brian's "motionless...lifeless" body into the bathtub, running cold shower water on him, while pouring  "BUCKETS OF ICE" in the water, causing him to shiver profusely, to keep Brian from slipping into a "COMA" ; as in "COMATOSE" ; as in "OVERDOSE"! Brian's eyes were unresponsive and rolled back up into his eye sockets, with only the whites of his eyes showing! While Stan and I PRAYED OUT LOUD...PLEASE DON'T LET BRIAN DIE! The longest "45 minutes" of our lives past...until Brian slowly opened his eyes half way... and mumbled in a whisper...what the hell am I doing in this "ICE BATH"? To cut to the chase... the next day a guy named Merlin came up to me at the "SOUND CHECK" and said "Brian keeps asking me to get him more Heroin"! I took Merlin over to Stephen and told him to repeat what he just told me! Stephen called an EMERGENCY MEETING that night in Mike's suite... where Carl immediately blurts out "I didn't have nothing to do with NO HEROIN... then David Frost proceeded to bluster, blubber and filibuster for the next hour and a half in his pompous way, all hyperbole and grandiosity doin his best to conjole, manipulate, decieve, subvert, accuse, flatter, some saber rattling and threatening... about that time Carl decided to chime in again with... you don't know F_ _ _ ALL... Rocky... don't talk to me... talk to someone else F_ _ _ YOU... Rocky! "NEED I GO ON? The meeting ended abruptly!

Ditto John Manning. If it's true that Brian Wilson was unconscious for 45 minutes, why was an ambulance not called? What can you tell us about how you came to be in a mindset that you wouldn't seek medical help for a man you were praying wouldn't die?

[mikeddonn]

Thank you for that Rocky.  It certainly sheds more light on the incident with Carl, and the whole build up of tension that led to that point.  You are pushed to breaking point, then Carl doesn't seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation, then, as you say, it's brought to an abrupt end.

Also, regards Brian and the bath again, some might say "why not call a doctor".  Others may think "we can't let anyone know".  It might not follow the normal rules, but how many here have worked for a major rock band/celebrities?  Very hard to judge unless you've been put in the position.  At least it worked out for Brian and we can all be thankful for that.

It all sounds like something out of a film script!

[Emily]

Also, regards Brian and the bath again, some might say "why not call a doctor".  Others may think "we can't let anyone know".  It might not follow the normal rules, but how many here have worked for a major rock band/celebrities?  

Yes, but that underscores my question. It's not the normal rules so some elucidation on how people arrive at a mindset that they are not doing what would be obvious to people following the normal rules might be more interesting than yet another celebrity drama. Instead of 'oh, it's celebrity stuff; we can't understand' why not ask him to help us understand?

[mikeddonn]

Also, regards Brian and the bath again, some might say "why not call a doctor".  Others may think "we can't let anyone know".  It might not follow the normal rules, but how many here have worked for a major rock band/celebrities?  

Yes, but that underscores my question. It's not the normal rules so some elucidation on how people arrive at a mindset that they are not doing what would be obvious to people following the normal rules might be more interesting than yet another celebrity drama. Instead of 'oh, it's celebrity stuff; we can't understand' why not ask him to help us understand?

I understand the point you are making and it's valid.  I understand Rocky's situation even though I haven't experienced it.  People get caught up in that world, the pressure, the money etc.  The 'norm' gets redefined and can suck you in.  You need to be very strong willed to avoid it.  Think about peer pressure, people committing war crimes etc.  Reasonable people who become unreasonable/crazy even.  Sometimes it creeps up on them and they're gone.  Some make it back, some don't.

[The Shift]

I'm not enjoying this subtext that celebrities are different to humans. I really want Rocky to break new ground in this thread and put forward some thoughts that help me understand the context of his approach; perhaps some acknowledgement that so many people did so many f***ed up things in the mistaken belief that they were doing the right thing under the circumstances. But right now it seems nothing was being done right, at all, and even with the benefit of 40+ years' hindsight there's no awareness of that fact, beyond token lip service.

[The Cincinnati Kid]

I'm just thinking out loud here, but it seems like after Brian's 1968 stay in a hospital everything but actual medical treatment was sought to keep Brian alive.  I've read (probably here) that his stay in 1968 changed Brian in a bad way.  Maybe everyone involved was afraid something like that might happen again.  Although it doesn't sound nice, you have to remember what Darian said about them in a recent interview.  They were just some "hicks from Hawthorne" or something along those lines.  They may have thought they could handle it themselves and when they tried to get help again with Landy he ripped them off.  

[SteveMC]

This ice bath story is a good one. I imagine anyone dating Dennis in the 70s did their fair share of illicit substances.

I also wish Carl ducked. Carl never had a threatening or intimidating presence. I feel it unnecessary to crack him with an overhand right/sucker punch.

[mtaber]

This book will sell to the same people who go to the Indianapolis 500, hoping to see a car crash.

[adamghost]

I know I'm beating the same point into the ground, but notice how the further we dig into this the more it comes right back to the bizarre rules of the toxic up-is-down world of the '70s music industry that all the players inhabited, and how it warped everybody involved in ways that, looking at it through our own prism, seems baffling.

[DonnyL]

I know I'm beating the same point into the ground, but notice how the further we dig into this the more it comes right back to the bizarre rules of the toxic up-is-down world of the '70s music industry that all the players inhabited, and how it warped everybody involved in ways that, looking at it through our own prism, seems baffling.

I mean, that's basically it Adam. It doesn't seem baffling to me at all. It's not about celebrities guys, it's about the '70s counterculture. Nobody wanted anyone to go to jail, nobody wanted a scandal to break up the tour ... The books from those days are filled with stories of tricks to revive people when overdosing. Totally different world. Totally impossible to say how any of us would have behaved in that scene, with that kind of background. I'm sure some would have called the cops right away. But if guys like Rocky and Stan were the kind to call an ambulance right off the bat, they probably would have been fired long before this happened. Right or wrong, good or bad, glad or sad.

[Emily]

I know I'm beating the same point into the ground, but notice how the further we dig into this the more it comes right back to the bizarre rules of the toxic up-is-down world of the '70s music industry that all the players inhabited, and how it warped everybody involved in ways that, looking at it through our own prism, seems baffling.

I mean, that's basically it Adam. It doesn't seem baffling to me at all. It's not about celebrities guys, it's about the '70s counterculture. Nobody wanted anyone to go to jail, nobody wanted a scandal to break up the tour ... The books from those days are filled with stories of tricks to revive people when overdosing. Totally different world. Totally impossible to say how any of us would have behaved in that scene, with that kind of background. I'm sure some would have called the cops right away. But if guys like Rocky and Stan were the kind to call an ambulance right off the bat, they probably would have been fired long before this happened. Right or wrong, good or bad, glad or sad.

]
OK, I understand yours and Adamghost's perspectives. But is it a problem to ask Rocky Pamplin to try to evoke that? His recountings are giving a play-by-play but not explaining the motivations. He should be aware that his audience was not living at that time in that place. A good narration will pull us in so we relate to and understand the narrator or the characters; so we have a better sense what drove their choices. And that understanding should be able to be developed from the book alone, not from an outside awareness of the culture they were living in. The book should paint that for us. It's just good writing.
And I still think the 'different world' stuff is overplayed a bit as well as the moral relativity. There were some people who were around at the time who knew what was going down and thought it was wrong. And there were a lot of people around at the time who didn't act like this even in the music industry. The people involved must have known that this was not standard behavior and while standard behavior is often not the best behavior one would think that a deviation from standard would prompt one to think a bit about what's the best thing to do. I'd expect that calling an ambulance crossed their minds because it's the obvious thing to do when faced with an unconscious person. They chose not to do it. Why? What went through their minds when they chose to deviate from the standard? That's the kind of thing that would make this an interesting read rather than a typical sensationalist Hollywood tale.

[c-man]

 Good morning Smile, hope you all had an enjoyable weekend! I don't read Smile or use the Internet on weekends...ever. So I always have some catching up to do on Mondays. On Friday someone suggested to me that it would better serve me to revisit the Carl incident in Australia rather than talking about Dennis and his danger to Brian. However, they are very much interrelated... to illustrate this point I am going to backup to my last post on Friday where I mentioned that Dennis's wife Karen discovered HEROIN in his underwear, on a plane, and flushed it down the toilet, while Dennis tried to wrestle it away from her, fighting and screaming her way into the lavatory, while passengers watched the spectacle. That flight was en route to New Zealand on the first leg of a three week tour. A tour in which Stephen sent a MEMO to every band and crew member stating that "on no uncertain terms" was any one permitted to loan or give money to Dennis or they would be immediately "terminated" without pay! Stephen also called Carl personally and requested that he give his "word" that he too would not give "any money" to Dennis for fear that Dennis would buy drugs and jeopardize what was named "The Comeback Tour"! Carl said... sure Steve... no problem... gotta go (and hung up). (inauspicious beginnings) Not only did Karen grab the very next flight back to L.A., she couldn't get away from her husband fast enough, but not before making a giant scene, screaming obscenities at him, while repeatedly hitting him over the head with his shoes walking to baggage claim, while all nearby onlookers stopped and stared, pointing fingers, at "The Ugly Americans," whispering... those are "The Beach Boys"!  Karen was appalled at Dennis for putting her at risk smuggling Heroin, onto a plane, that could have gotten them both arrested and resulted in "CAUSING AN INTERNATIONAL SCANDAL" and the cancellation of the entire Australian/New Zealand tour! Not least of all because they were completely "broke" and desperately needed this income, but because he had "PROMISED" her over and over that he would "NOT" do Heroin, the latest drug he swore he was not addicted to, on this three week tour! Three days later Dennis scored Heroin in Sydney, "WITH A HUNDRED DOLLARS "CARL GAVE DENNIS" who thought it was only "TOO COOL" to give half of the Heroin to Brian! Brian snorted all of it, that night in our Hotel Suite, and collapsed face down on the floor! Stan and I... as "FREAKED OUT" as we were tried desperately "NOT TO PANIC" carrying Brian's "motionless...lifeless" body into the bathtub, running cold shower water on him, while pouring  "BUCKETS OF ICE" in the water, causing him to shiver profusely, to keep Brian from slipping into a "COMA" ; as in "COMATOSE" ; as in "OVERDOSE"! Brian's eyes were unresponsive and rolled back up into his eye sockets, with only the whites of his eyes showing! While Stan and I PRAYED OUT LOUD...PLEASE DON'T LET BRIAN DIE! The longest "45 minutes" of our lives past...until Brian slowly opened his eyes half way... and mumbled in a whisper...what the hell am I doing in this "ICE BATH"? To cut to the chase... the next day a guy named Merlin came up to me at the "SOUND CHECK" and said "Brian keeps asking me to get him more Heroin"! I took Merlin over to Stephen and told him to repeat what he just told me! Stephen called an EMERGENCY MEETING that night in Mike's suite... where Carl immediately blurts out "I didn't have nothing to do with NO HEROIN... then David Frost proceeded to bluster, blubber and filibuster for the next hour and a half in his pompous way, all hyperbole and grandiosity doin his best to conjole, manipulate, decieve, subvert, accuse, flatter, some saber rattling and threatening... about that time Carl decided to chime in again with... you don't know F_ _ _ ALL... Rocky... "don't talk to me... talk to someone else" F_ _ _ YOU... Rocky! "NEED I GO ON? The meeting ended abruptly!

Wasn't it Karen who got Dennis hooked on "H" in the first place? Reportedly, he said that's one drug he'd never try, 'til Karen basically called him a chicken, and so he did...

[Alan Smith]

Wasn't it Karen who got Dennis hooked on "H" in the first place? Reportedly, he said that's one drug he'd never try, 'til Karen basically called him a chicken, and so he did...

Yeah, that's as per the Gaines book, circa NYE, 1977.  The section in question continues with Karen also recalling "Dennis tried it on my account, and I always felt deeply guilty about that.  He got violently sick and so did I.  We spent New Year's with our heads in the toilet and vowed never to do it again".

[The Shift]

What's troubling me is that - unless I'm missing it - not only does there seem to be any acknowledgement from Rocky that how they treated Brian was, on reflection, gravely wrong and potentially deadly, but also I get a sense that if he had to he'd do it over again… I sense no evolution!

Okay, I can accept Adam and Donny's point that the culture was very different then, maybe, and that the rock world was a counterculture world … was it that long since Brian Jones' head had been held underwater in the pool? – but risking Brian's life to avoid an "international scandal" just rubs me up so many wrong ways, even if I am judging history through the comfort of my rose tinted 40+ years' benefit of hindsight, evolution and moral aloofness.

I'm sure, had Brian died in that bath of ice, Rocky and Stan would have done time whether it had happened then or today. Assuming the truth had come out, of course…

[AndrewHickey]

What's troubling me is that - unless I'm missing it - not only does there seem to be any acknowledgement from Rocky that how they treated Brian was, on reflection, gravely wrong and potentially deadly, but also I get a sense that if he had to he'd do it over again… I sense no evolution!

Quite. It's not that Pamplin behaved badly in the 70s that's the problem -- most of the Beach Boys behaved badly during that time too. The difference is that they at least know they were behaving badly (or at very least just don't talk about it in public). Pamplin seems to be bragging about behaviour he still, to this day, considers admirable.

[adamghost]

I know I'm beating the same point into the ground, but notice how the further we dig into this the more it comes right back to the bizarre rules of the toxic up-is-down world of the '70s music industry that all the players inhabited, and how it warped everybody involved in ways that, looking at it through our own prism, seems baffling.

I mean, that's basically it Adam. It doesn't seem baffling to me at all. It's not about celebrities guys, it's about the '70s counterculture. Nobody wanted anyone to go to jail, nobody wanted a scandal to break up the tour ... The books from those days are filled with stories of tricks to revive people when overdosing. Totally different world. Totally impossible to say how any of us would have behaved in that scene, with that kind of background. I'm sure some would have called the cops right away. But if guys like Rocky and Stan were the kind to call an ambulance right off the bat, they probably would have been fired long before this happened. Right or wrong, good or bad, glad or sad.

]
And there were a lot of people around at the time who didn't act like this even in the music industry. The people involved must have known that this was not standard behavior and while standard behavior is often not the best behavior one would think that a deviation from standard would prompt one to think a bit about what's the best thing to do.

But that's just it, Emily:  there really weren't.  Very, very few people in the music biz were not invested in the drug culture (either as active participants or people who felt they had to go along) and also the culture of the music industry where there was huge amounts of money and great motivation to condone and even enable bad behavior (think the banking industry in the 2000s for a parallel).  As I've said before, when I started playing in my late teens, other musicians were extremely suspicious of anyone that wouldn't share a joint.  If you weren't doing drugs in bands in the '70s, you would have been viewed with a great deal of distrust, and I would guess you'd probably go to some lengths to minimize or even hide your clean behavior.  I mean, I wasn't around then, but I was around in the '80s when it was starting to die out, and you could still very much feel the echo of it.  And the people at the record labels were, for the most part, coked to the gills.  So the suits/authority figures were just as bad if not far worse.

I don't think you really can minimize this factor.  It's not condoning it at all; it's just stating the basic fact that going up against it would have been very, very hard and required a bit of finesse.  Things were probably further exacerbated because there was a faction of people - not just Rocky Pamplin but Mike Love and Al Jardine - who were pushing back against the drug culture, and we see how well they're viewed in retrospect - not very.  This is not to defend what Rocky did.  But I do get that he was operating in a crazy world and in his own weird way, he probably was trying to do exactly what you are suggesting - which is to enforce an outsider's "no way" to this crazy environment - and it worked out being a fist to Carl's face.  Not the way to go at all - but he was given the brief to try and keep drugs out of the hands of drug users who were in a business where such drug use was rampant.  Extreme measures would certainly have been called for.  It doesn't excuse Rocky or Gene Landy or others but it sure helps explain how they came to be.  I think the kind of people we would wish to be in the environment would not have been welcomed and in fact would have stayed very far away of their own accord (family members excepted, since they had no choice).

[adamghost]

This didn't, btw, ever totally die out.  I definitely remember when my band was rising in the mid '90s marveling that every single band in L.A. that was addicted to smack was getting signed.  It's what was cool then; it's what was selling.  It's what was perceived to be making money (though all the bands flopped).

[Jay]

I must admit, this is turning into one of the more interesting threads we've had here. I'll admit, I used to think Rocky Pamplin and Steve Love were some of the lowest scumbags for what they did to Dennis, and for what happened to Carl. I'm trying to change my opinion with every new post Rocky makes here. Bottom line is, it was a f***ed up time for everybody, and f***ed up, stupid and dangerous things happened. People make mistakes and do dumb sh*t on the spur of the moment, and when it feels like the only logical decision to make. I still have serious misgivings of the people involved in all of this, but I'm trying to be more understanding, given the context and perspectives of everybody involved.

[The Shift]

I must admit, this is turning into one of the more interesting threads we've had here. I'll admit, I used to think Rocky Pamplin and Steve Love were some of the lowest scumbags for what they did to Dennis, and for what happened to Carl. I'm trying to change my opinion with every new post Rocky makes here. Bottom line is, it was a f***ed up time for everybody, and f***ed up, stupid and dangerous things happened. People make mistakes and do dumb sh*t on the spur of the moment, and when it feels like the only logical decision to make. I still have serious misgivings of the people involved in all of this, but I'm trying to be more understanding, given the context and perspectives of everybody involved.

I'm trying and trying but Rocky keeps - and Inapologise, Ricky, for talking about you almost as if you aren't here in this conversation; it is very rude of me - making it harder for me to have any understanding at all. I wish that it were otherwise.

[Emily]

But that's just it, Emily:  there really weren't.  Very, very few people in the music biz were not invested in the drug culture (either as active participants or people who felt they had to go along) and also the culture of the music industry where there was huge amounts of money and great motivation to condone and even enable bad behavior (think the banking industry in the 2000s for a parallel).  

To me there's a pretty big difference between being invested in a drug culture and what went on here but I think we are interpreting the motivations of some of the participants differently. I don't think this was really about drugs so much as compliance. It's a little like if Paul McCartney (or Allen Klein or the Eastmans or Neil Aspinall) had found some leverage to be able use physical force without repercussion to get compliance out of Lennon and Harrison.
Here's where some elucidations from Rocky would be helpful.

Things were probably further exacerbated because there was a faction of people - not just Rocky Pamplin but Mike Love and Al Jardine - who were pushing back against the drug culture, and we see how well they're viewed in retrospect - not very.  This is not to defend what Rocky did.  But I do get that he was operating in a crazy world and in his own weird way, he probably was trying to do exactly what you are suggesting - which is to enforce an outsider's "no way" to this crazy environment - and it worked out being a fist to Carl's face.  Not the way to go at all - but he was given the brief to try and keep drugs out of the hands of drug users who were in a business where such drug use was rampant.  Extreme measures would certainly have been called for.  It doesn't excuse Rocky or Gene Landy or others but it sure helps explain how they came to be.  I think the kind of people we would wish to be in the environment would not have been welcomed and in fact would have stayed very far away of their own accord (family members excepted, since they had no choice).

I don't quite understand what you're saying here.
1. With this quote: "he probably was trying to do exactly what you are suggesting - which is to enforce an outsider's "no way" to this crazy environment" - I don't think that's what I'm suggesting. Could you elucidate?
2. You are saying it's a drug culture environment, then you are saying that Rocky was brought in by anti drug culture people, then you are saying they were the right kind of people to be welcomed in the drug culture environment.  I assume you are saying something that makes sense, because you always do, but I'm not getting it.

But all this aside, why am I being corrected for asking him to explain for himself?

[Emily]

I must admit, this is turning into one of the more interesting threads we've had here. I'll admit, I used to think Rocky Pamplin and Steve Love were some of the lowest scumbags for what they did to Dennis, and for what happened to Carl. I'm trying to change my opinion with every new post Rocky makes here. Bottom line is, it was a f***ed up time for everybody, and f***ed up, stupid and dangerous things happened. People make mistakes and do dumb sh*t on the spur of the moment, and when it feels like the only logical decision to make. I still have serious misgivings of the people involved in all of this, but I'm trying to be more understanding, given the context and perspectives of everybody involved.

I'm trying and trying but Rocky keeps - and Inapologise, Ricky, for talking about you almost as if you aren't here in this conversation; it is very rude of me - making it harder for me to have any understanding at all. I wish that it were otherwise.

yeah. I tried to open that door. But I keep hearing somebody who doesn't understand to this day that these were not good approaches to the problems at hand.

[Jay]

To be fair, Rocky did express regret on reply #817 on page 33 of this thread. What I don't fully understand is the seemingly blind devotion to Brian. To keep Brian away from drugs and anything else dangerous to his health and well being. But why not Carl? It seems obvious to me that everybody involved in the tour knew Carl was drinking to excess and abusing drugs to excess. Why wasn't he given the same protection from substances, and people giving him said substances? Look, everybody shared and gave drugs and booze to everybody else. Why wasn't Brian "punished" for using and sharing drugs with Dennis? Same goes for Dennis and Brian sharing drugs with Carl. If they didn't actually share and use drugs with him(Carl), they damn sure knew what he was doing, and let him! The blind love and, if you will, worship of Brian baffles me.

[Emily]

To be fair, Rocky did express regret on reply #817 on page 33 of this thread. What I don't fully understand is the seemingly blind devotion to Brian. To keep Brian away from drugs and anything else dangerous to his health and well being. But why not Carl? It seems obvious to me that everybody involved in the tour knew Carl was drinking to excess and abusing drugs to excess. Why wasn't he given the same protection from substances, and people giving him said substances? Look, everybody shared and gave drugs and booze to everybody else. Why wasn't Brian "punished" for using and sharing drugs with Dennis? Same goes for Dennis and Brian sharing drugs with Carl. If they didn't actually share and use drugs with him(Carl), they damn sure knew what he was doing, and let him! The blind love and, if you will, worship of Brian baffles me.

You mean where he said this: "...is not something then... nor are we proud of now. Our tactics, like Murrys, regarding discipline, were not good ones (spare the rod and spoil the child)" and then went on for about 10 more sentences explaining why it was the best thing to do?

"The blind love and, if you will, worship of Brian baffles me."  $$$$$