I don't think his tweet was necessarily mean-spirited... but maybe that's because I always thought the Beach Boys shred video was hysterical. More questionable than the video he linked is the fact all he wrote was "Brian Wilson, born June 20", while he elaborated on Errol Flynn and Chet Atkins.

Fascinating insights about Brian's motivations and ambivalence. Also, I feel like it's rare for a Baby Boomer to write about other Baby Boomers (the 60s California rock groups) in a critical (or maybe just balanced), rather than nostalgic and reverential, way.

When I talked to him a bit after class about the Beach Boys, he would say how back then people tended to mistake Brian's symptoms of illness as eccentricities, since everyone was at least a bit eccentric. He mentioned how people could be all messed up on drugs and whatnot, and others would just take it as the person "finding themself" or "just doing their thing", instead of something serious and often grave. Goldstein was always good about having a balanced view as opposed to purely nostalgic.

Richard Goldstein was my professor for a class I took on the 60s last semester. He's one of the most fascinating people I've ever known and I feel privileged to have heard him tell stories about his interactions with the Beach Boys among many other famous musicians of the 60s. I took the class at the height of my Beach Boys craze so I spent a good deal of time talking to him about them throughout the semester. He told us the story about Brian's pants falling down among others, including the one about Dennis driving on acid. He said he felt like he was going to die the entire ride. He didn't tell us that he went in the tent though-- probably would have been frowned upon by the school's bureaucracy, given what went on in the tent.

Love You was oddly enough the album that really got me intrigued to hear more Beach Boys. My friends and I would listen to Pet Sounds in high school, but I wasn't captured by it for a long time, aside from God Only Knows, which I couldn't listen to because it would send me into hysterics, as much as I adored it. It took me til last year to really wrap my head around the depth of that album. It took a long time for me to understand it, emotionally and musically.

There are honestly quite a few Beach Boys albums I've yet to hear... I guess I'm kind of savoring them.

Thanks for responding, guys.

I actually came across her old posts right after I posted the question, one in which she mentioned being an astrologer. Shame people've tried to make her out to be a bad person-- she had a lot of good thing to say on this board (including in the Love & Mercy thread!)

I had a dream I was driving into a strip mall in my hometown and for some reason Brian was doing a meet and greet outside the pizza parlor in the strip mall. I didn't know before I got there but once I realized I started fixing my makeup because I looked bad in the dream or something. I waited in line and then when it was my turn we talked for like 15 minutes at a small round table about music theory and why certain sounds evoke certain emotional responses. He seemed very engaged in the conversation and then he told me I remind him of Zooey Deschanel. I told him I knew he thinks she's pretty (doesn't he say that at the end of that one interview she did with him?). Then I got up to walk away and as I was walking past him I decided to turn around and I told him I loved him and he looked surprised and turned red... then I woke up.

Ha! That's true, tho. When i first saw your profile pic, i thought "damn, she looks dead-on like Zooey D." 

Haha, well thank you! 

Basically everything by Steely Dan... save Gaucho and everything post-Gaucho I guess. Someone here mentioned Black Cow-- totally agree on that one. Everything on Aja is flawlessly done, as is nearly everything on The Royal Scam, especially Kid Charlemagne. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were notorious perfectionists, to the point they'd end up infuriating their musicians, I've heard. But it was totally worth it.

First one was really sad to watch... he seemed totally drugged up and out of it.  Couldn't help but laugh at the Jerry Lee Lewis comment, though.

I haven't heard too much by him but what I have heard, I enjoy a lot. Reminds me of really obscure 60s psychedelic pop. I think of him as a modern R Stevie Moore. My favourite song is probably Round and Round-- there's something so joyous and ecstatic about it. It's infectious. Here it is, if anyone wants to hear it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiLqAu4s-_s

Maybe this is a dumb question, but is Debbie Keil the astrologer THE Debbie Keil? I just found the astrologer's website and saw Brian's named mentioned so it made me curious... she's also got blonde hair.

You know I've actually thought about what I would do if I ever found myself in that scenario... I'd probably just babble because I'd be so flustered. I'd feel weird at a meet and greet though, knowing he isn't particularly fond of them.

I had a dream I was driving into a strip mall in my hometown and for some reason Brian was doing a meet and greet outside the pizza parlor in the strip mall. I didn't know before I got there but once I realized I started fixing my makeup because I looked bad in the dream or something. I waited in line and then when it was my turn we talked for like 15 minutes at a small round table about music theory and why certain sounds evoke certain emotional responses. He seemed very engaged in the conversation and then he told me I remind him of Zooey Deschanel. I told him I knew he thinks she's pretty (doesn't he say that at the end of that one interview she did with him?). Then I got up to walk away and as I was walking past him I decided to turn around and I told him I loved him and he looked surprised and turned red... then I woke up.

I also had another dream where I was walking in the backyard of my childhood home and Mike was sleeping on a bench in front of the basement stairwell. He was dressed in all white and wore a white hat (you guys probably know which outfit I'm referring to). I asked him what he was doing there and he said he and the band had just arrived. Evidently they were staying in my house while they were in New York on tour. So I went inside to find everyone else and I don't remember seeing Carl, Al, or Dennis at all, but I remember looking into a sunroom where Brian was sitting with a bunch of old ladies talking about who knows what. In the dream I thought to myself that this was my only chance to tell him whatever I wanted to tell him. So in the dream I become extremely anxious about what to say to him, and ended up waking up before I got the courage to tell him whatever it was.

New to this forum... no idea if this has been posted before,  but I screencapped it from the youtube video Behind the Sounds: Don't Talk

"Little two scoop"... obviously I knew it couldn't be, because the lyric is also the title, but I heard it as that.