Pike's Folly

by Mike Heppner

  Heath couldn’t resist asking, “Are you going to do any songs from Smile?”

  Brian cocked his head slightly, as if trying to recollect the name of an old friend. “The problem with a lot of those songs, Heath, is that I don’t remember how most of ’em go. I mean, I can remember the words, and the melodies . . . but that’s about it.”

  And then a miraculous thing happened. Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair, took a quick, shallow breath and sang, “She laughs and stays in her one, one, one, wonderful.”

  And Heath felt the mountain drop out from under him, and the wind was silent, and a sparkling firmament settled softly on the trees.

  When he finished singing, Brian said, “It was good to see Nate again. We haven’t worked together since the eighties. I’ve lost a lot of weight since then.”

  “You look great, Mr. Wilson,” Heath said.

  Brian pointed at himself, and those deep, Frankenstein eyes sparkled hideously. “Who’s Mr. Wilson? I’m not Mr. Wilson.” From this, Heath understood he was to call him Brian. “Mr. Wilson was my father,” he said, “not me.”

  Murry Wilson, Heath thought: the Beach Boys’ first manager and the man who, once Brian’s talents began to outstrip his own, so berated his eldest son in the studio that on a 1965 session tape he could be heard screaming, “You see, Brian? I can be a genius, too.” It was Murry who’d done the most to undermine Brian’s self-confidence. Two years after Smile, Brian produced one of his best songs from the late sixties, “Break Away,” and on the label, his songwriting partner was credited as “Reggie Dun-bar,” a pseudonym for Murry. It was almost as if Brian were saying, “You’re right, Dad. I’d be nothing without you.”

  Feeling uncomfortable, Heath asked, “How did you meet Mr. Pike?”

  Brian had to think about it for a while. “Well, that was when my brother Dennis was still alive. Denny’d done some acting during the Beach Boys days, and Nate wanted him to be in one of his movies. We were all gonna produce it together. I don’t remember if the movie ever got made, but Nate was fun to hang around with. He’s a good drummer.”

  Heath stared. “Mr. Pike?”

  “Yeah! Nate always reminded me of Denny on the drums. Denny never thought he was a good drummer, either, but man, he could swing it!”

  Brian went back to talking about his current band, his fans and some of the new songs he was trying out on tour. “I never thought I’d get so much enjoyment from playin’ every night. I find it very therapeutic. For a long time, I didn’t want to go out on the road because I was in so much psychological pain, and I didn’t want to inflict any of that bad karma on the audience. You know, that’s not good for the music, and it’s not good for the soul either—and the soul is what’s important. I always try to write soulful music. It’s not ‘soul music,’ but it’s soulful.”

  Listening to him, Heath wanted Brian to know that, as an artist himself, he could sympathize with what he was telling him. “I feel the same way,” he said, “when I’m working on a screenplay or writing a script . . .” Same thing, you idiot, he thought, then realized he’d inadvertently picked up Brian’s rambling, redundant speech patterns, and even a hint of his southern California accent. He didn’t want Brian to think he was mimicking him, so he spoke clearly and precisely in his regular voice. “I think that a lot of younger artists are afraid of expressing themselves,” he said, “because they think they’ll be criticized for it. But I want to express myself. I want to make myself open to people, like you did with your music.”

  Brian regarded him thoughtfully. He’d obviously done this as a favor to Pike, but he also seemed to be genuinely enjoying Heath’s company. “I always tell people,” he said, “ ‘Man, I still believe in the power of music.’ That’s what the Beach Boys were all about. Every song that we ever recorded was about the same thing: love. Sharin’ it, spreadin’ it, believin’ in it. And that’s why those songs are still popular today.”

  Heath saw an opportunity to ask a Smile question. “But what about ‘Cabin-Essence,’ or ‘Child Is Father of the Man’? I mean, both of those songs seem a little abstract for pop music.”

  Brian couldn’t suppress a pained expression. Every successful artist, Heath supposed, had his own albatross to contend with, and this was Brian’s.

  “I reached a point when I was a lot younger,” he said confidentially, “when I began to question my own spirituality. It was . . . a bad scene. And I stopped seein’ things clearly. I wasn’t exercising, I wasn’t eatin’ right. And after awhile it began to affect how I heard things inside my head. Instead of writing spiritually joyful music, I was writing acid music and marijuana music. I wasn’t thinking about God anymore.” He paused. “And then I realized that God isn’t about what’s in your head. That’s not where God lives. God lives in your feet, and your arms, and your hands, and your muscles. God is what happens to you when you hear a Sam Cooke song on the radio and you have to stop what you’re doin’ and just groove to the music. That’s a spiritual celebration. That’s why I love disco music, because disco music is spiritual. Anything that makes you move your feet.”

  Heath had to disagree. “But that’s not what’s so great about it, I mean, what you were doing on that album. I feel like when I listen to those songs—‘Heroes and Villains,’ and ‘I Love to Say Dada’—that it is spiritual music, because it’s so pure and strange and beautiful, and it makes me think about . . .” He stammered, aware that he wasn’t making much sense. “About myself, and what I want to do with my life, and it . . . inspires me. I mean, I’m not saying you’re wrong, because obviously you’re not, but when I think about your albums—and I love all of them, even Orange Crate Art—it’s always Smile that I come back to, because it’s more than just an album, it’s this thing, this concept I can’t put into words. It’s pure experience. It’s like this vacant space that swallows everything up.”

  Heath felt dismayed that Brian didn’t share his enthusiasm for Smile. On a purely intellectual level, he understood that artists were often the worst judges of their own work, but to apologize for something that had given him so much pleasure seemed almost obscene.

  Brian looked wistful. “I sometimes think if I had finished that record, people wouldn’t be so interested in it. As hard as I try, I can’t write the perfect song. I can’t say all there is to say in a three-minute piece of music. I tried once, and I almost went crazy doin’ it.”

  Heath wondered what song he might be referring to, but Brian didn’t elaborate.

  “A song is really just a means of communicating with people,” he said. “That’s why I wrote those surf songs back in the sixties—’cause that’s what kids were doin’, and I wanted to write happy music about things that other people cared about, like surfin’ and hangin’ out with your friends. It wasn’t art music per se, it was religious music.” He sighed. “But the fact is, once a song’s over, it’s over. You can listen to it as many times as you want, but you’re never gonna get any closer to the essence of the song itself. The only way to get truly close to a song is to stop listening to it. There are some songs I won’t listen to anymore, because I don’t want to ruin them. I haven’t heard ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ in over ten years, but I remember every note of it.”

  Heath asked, “So if you had to do it over again, you wouldn’t have written any music at all?”

  Brian gave the question serious consideration. “No. I couldn’t live without music. Music’s my big brother. I’ve always been everyone else’s big brother, but music is my big brother.” This statement was made more poignant by the fact that both of Brian’s brothers were dead, and that he probably could’ve used a real big brother when he was younger, instead of an intangible one.

  “Believe me,” he said, “a day doesn’t go by that somebody doesn’t ask me about that record. And as much as that might upset me, it’s also kind of cool. There’s something mysterious about an unfinished work of art—‘mysterious’ in the old sense of the word, meaning that which re
lates to the mystical or inexpressible. Because I couldn’t finish the record, the music still belongs to God. And that’s what I wanted to do in the first place. When I went in the studio to make Smile, all I knew was I wanted it to sound joyful, and childlike, and honest. I didn’t have any idea what the single was gonna be, or even what any of the individual songs were gonna sound like. I just wanted to play, you know, like little kids play. Have you ever watched kids playin’ in a sandbox, and they make a mound over here and another little mound over there, and pretty soon it’s a castle or a dragon or, you know, a sports car? They don’t sit down and say, ‘Now I’m gonna make a sports car.’ They let the sand talk to them. And I wanted to do that with my music. Same thing with ‘Good Vibrations.’ That was all about the sand, man. That was about listening to the sand and lettin’ the music do its own thing.”

  Heath appreciated what Brian was saying but couldn’t relate to it himself. “It’s hard to make a film like that, though. You need to have a plan of some kind—if not a screenplay, at least a rough outline.”

  “That’s not important. Don’t worry so much about the process. Songwriting is all about discovering beauty, not creating it. And that’s also true of filmmaking. If you can’t finish something honestly, leave it unfinished. That’s what I did with Smile.”

  Heath, who’d been staring down at his shoes, looked up. “You did?”

  Brian’s face became very serious, as if he’d never spoken of this before. “Smile wouldn’t have worked as a real record—not the kind that you hold in your hands and put on a turntable. It wouldn’t have made it.”

  “That’s not true. What about ‘Surf ’s Up’? That song kills ‘A Day in the Life.’ And ‘Cabin-Essence,’ and ‘Do You Like Worms,’ and—”

  “No,” Brian insisted. “It wasn’t good enough. Hey, I was stoned out of my mind. I was fat and depressed and I couldn’t write anymore. I blew it, man, you know? There I was: twenty-four years old, I’d just had a number-one hit single, the Beach Boys were the most popular band in England—more popular than the Beatles—and everyone in the world was waiting to hear what I’d do next. I couldn’t just come out with another album, could I? I had to do something amazing. A super album! So that’s what I did. I went into the studio and kept the tapes rolling . . . and went fucking nuts, man. It’s as simple as that. That’s what Smile is—it’s me going nuts. Playin’ with fire trucks and makin’ barnyard sounds and gettin’ on my brothers’ nerves and”—he laughed—“and just gettin’ it all on tape, you know? And all the while, people were asking me, ‘When’s the next Beach Boys record comin’ out?’ And I kept saying, ‘It’s gonna be great, man, it’s gonna be great!’ But I had no idea.”

  Heath had stopped listening. He’d heard enough already. Up until now, his own project—the hours of footage that he’d shot with Pike and Marlene—had failed to cohere. It lacked structure, lacked a thesis. But after talking to Brian, he knew what his thesis was. The lost movie. The unfinished work of art.

  When their meeting was over, Heath and Brian walked out of the clearing and back to the staging area, where a helicopter was waiting to take Brian to a sound check in Concord. Before leaving, he said, “Denny had a lost album, too, called Bamboo. He never finished it. I don’t like it when a person finishes everything he starts. It means he’s not tryin’ hard enough.”

  Heath smiled. “Sounds like Mike Love.”

  Brian was surprisingly generous toward his cousin. “Let me tell you something—Mike Love is the Beach Boys. Without Mike there wouldn’t have been a group. I love that guy. Every one of those fellas—Mike, Carl, Dennis, even Al and Bruce—was more responsible for the Beach Boys’ success than I ever was. They played the concerts, man. They went on the road, they took the music to the people. I’m grateful to each one of ’em, and I miss Carl and Dennis somethin’ terrible.” He held out his hand. “Look, if you need anything else, just let me know. Nate’s got my number. I’ll be on tour through August, but any time after that’s cool.”

  “There might be one thing,” Heath began, but then the helicopter pilot shouted, “Brian, we’ve got to go.”

  Brian waved for the pilot to hold on. Putting his arm around Heath’s shoulder, he said, “I wrote a little tune once. I think it made it on to one of our records. It’s more like a Boy Scout chant than a real song. It goes”—he sang in his nearly worn-out falsetto—“Eat a lot, sleep a lot, brush ’em like crazy. Run a lot, do a lot, never be lazy.”

  Heath knew the song, of course. “ ‘Mama Says,’ from Wild Honey. The original version was supposed to be on Smile.”

  “It’s good advice,” Brian said, maintaining a strong grip on Heath’s shoulder. “Don’t forget it.” Then, releasing him, he jogged across the field and climbed into the helicopter, which took off almost immediately. Heath watched the chopper rise, hover at a low altitude and make a 180-degree turn toward its destination. He couldn’t see Brian through the glass canopy but kept waving anyway, until the helicopter dipped over the mountains and the sound of the chopper blades faded into silence.

  Thanks, Mr. Pike, Heath thought, and walked back to the store.

  5

  Foreword —by Brian Wilson

  Man, I wish you could’ve seen it.

  Most of what you’re about to read doesn’t exist anymore; some of it does, though who knows what happened to it—ask Heath. I was one of a few invited guests who happened to get a peek at Heath Baxter’s unfinished masterpiece, and I can tell you that I haven’t been so blown away by a movie since the first time I saw 2001. Heath’s movie is hard to describe—part guerrilla documentary, part sex film and part time capsule, it manages to incorporate a staggering array of visual techniques as it offers a glimpse into the lives of its famous, real-life characters. For now, all we can do is savor these collected fragments—adapted from the director’s own transcripts—and to hope that, one day, Heath will come to his senses and release the rest of it.

  Man, I wish you could’ve seen it.

  Love and Mercy,

  BW, Summer ’02.

  Fragment #3b—“Ich bin der Zorn Gottes!” (1:13)

  (NATHANIEL PIKE, 43, stands beside a construction site in a heavily wooded area, where workers are deforesting the land to make room for a parking lot. He looks uncomfortable in front of the camera, which slowly tightens in from a wide shot.)

  PIKE: (Speaking directly into the camera.) Welcome to my kingdom. My little, uh . . . this is where I like to take my clothes off and run around naked. (He laughs.) No, I don’t . . . but I would, if I wanted to. Nothing wrong with that. (Getting impatient.) Hey, Heath, is this gonna take all day?

  HEATH: (Behind the camera.) I’m just practicing my zoom.

  (The camera pulls back as twice more, HEATH BAXTER, 26, rehearses his technique. Pike checks his watch, then fiddles with his shirtsleeves.)

  PIKE: All right, let me tell you a joke. You wanna hear a joke?

  I’m gonna make up a joke. Two guys walk into a bar, and one of ’em says, “Hey, you know what? I just got laid.” And the other one says, “So did I.” (He pauses, thinking of a punch line.) And then the first one says, “Was it good?” And the other one says, “I don’t know . . . was it good for you?” (He smiles, proud of himself.) Hey, Heath, did you hear that? (No reply, so he asks again.) My joke. Did you hear my joke?

  HEATH: (Preoccupied.) I’m sorry, I was just practicing my zoom.

  PIKE: Well, screw you, then . . . he don’t listen to my jokes. (Pike lapses into a ponderous silence, as again, Heath Zooms in with his camera, then pulls quickly back out.)

  Fragment #7a—“Have You Seen Me?” (2:57)

  (MARLENE BREEN, 32, poses at the entrance to the Sakonnet Bridge, a small link of state highway that crosses the Sakonnet River near Tiverton. The day is gray and breezy, and she’s bundled up in a long winter coat. About twenty yards down the empty road, STUART BREEN, 31, keeps an anxious lookout for approaching cars. After a truck passes, he signals to Marlene, who slips off he
r coat and stands naked. She looks very cold as she smiles for Heath’s camera.)

  HEATH: Hold it. Hold it. Good.

  (A gust sweeps up from the river, blowing Marlene’s hair in her face. Both she and Heath laugh.)

  MARLENE: Ooo, it’s cold!

  HEATH: You wanna stop?

  MARLENE: (With the wind dying down.) No, it’s okay. (Looking over her shoulder, she gets an idea and starts across the bridge, walking away from the camera.) Let’s go over here.

  HEATH: (Laughing.) Oh, shit . . .

  (He follows her, stops to frame his shot, then runs to catch up. Stuart yells at them from far off, but his words are unintelligible.)

  HEATH: (Teasing her.) Damn, girl, you’ve got a nice ass!

  (She smiles back at him and keeps walking. For several seconds, all we hear is the wind, Heath’s breathing and Stuart’s distant shouts.)

  HEATH: All right, we should probably head back.

  (She ignores him and picks up the pace.)

  HEATH: I can’t believe this. (A few steps later.) This is so fucked up.

  (Midway across the bridge, she stops and leans back against the guardrail.)

  MARLENE: This looks like a good place.

  HEATH: A good place for what?

  MARLENE: (Shrugging.) What do you want to talk about?

  (The picture goes in and out of focus as Heath makes an adjustment to his camera.)

  HEATH: Uh . . . whatever you want to talk about, Marlene. You’re doing fine.