IVIV (12): 195-197

[Robin Landseadel]

On 10/30/09, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

>> p.196:  Denis is freaked because members of The Boards have broken  
>> into his
>> house, ostensibly looking for the photos he took at their house.
>>
>> " ... they are supposed to be freaks, a freak surfadelic band,  
>> that's their
>> public image, and freaks don't rip off other freaks, and most of  
>> all if they
>> take your food, freaks share it.  Didn't you see that movie?   
>> There's this
>> actual 'Code of the Freaks' --"
>>
>> Cute joke about Freaks (1932), which I've always been too squeamish  
>> to
>> watch.  But Denis' comment strikes me as one of the most poignant  
>> moments in
>> the book.  Denis' indignation captures the outright sadness people  
>> felt when
>> they realized the vague, half-baked promises of the '60s weren’t  
>> gonna pan
>> out.  Manson's shadow looms again  -- he looked and acted like a  
>> freak, like
>> "one of us" (to quote the movie), but turned out to be the exact  
>> opposite --
>> Free Hate, not Free Love. The Boards act like zombies and pigs  
>> instead of
>> surfer dudes.  If we're assuming them to be, in part, an analog of  
>> the Beach
>> Boys, there's another whiff of Manson, since one or more of the  
>> Beach Boys
>> rubbed shoulders with Manson.  Denis has every right to be upset.

It was Dennis Wilson who rubbed shoulders with Charlie. Dennis was the  
only surfer in the group, the "parteee-ist", "The Dude" incarnate and  
in his prime, the most outgoing & social of the Wilson brothers. What  
do think the odds are that TRP rubbed shoulders with Dennis,  
considering the whole six degrees thing—we already know of a famously  
disastrous encounter between the author and Brian Wilson. As a doorway  
to Brother Brian Dennis looks like the perp.

On Oct 30, 2009, at 11:08 AM, rich wrote:

> yeah the Boards, what a bunch of dicks, really. But one thing to
> remember is that there so many different guys who were in the band,
> now doing these "jobs" of harrassment, and shit,  its like a hippie
> version of the straight world Vigilantes in a way.
> The Beach Boys line up didn't change all that much, at least core:
> Wilson Bros, Mike Love, Al Jardeen up to 1970. Blondie Chapman
> (because of him I bought my first Montreal Canadiens jersey way back
> when) and company came later. Bit I think the BB comparison is valid
> overall.

There's other connections as well.

The guy who was the real target of Charlie Manson was Terry Melcher,  
involved with both the Byrds and the Beach Boys and another link to  
Phil Spector. "The Wrecking Crew" is drummer Hal Baline's  name for a  
loose assemblage of world-class session musicians that were first  
recorded by Phil Spector for his "Wall of Sound" productions and later  
found on about half of the top forty songs to come out of L.A.—The  
Monkees, The Mamas & The Papas,The Partridge Family, Simon &  
Garfunkle, Paul Revere and the Raiders to name a few. Terry Melcher  
was the producer of the Byrds  "Mr Tambourine Man" LP and related  
singles. Only Jim McGuinn played his own instrument—that famous  
Rickenbacher 12-string—all the other musicians on the Byrd's 1965  
debut were "The Wrecking Crew."  Terry Melcher and the Crew played on  
"Pet Sounds." During the years of the Beach Boys greatest successes  
Brian Wilson did not play with the band. The idea of Boards/Byrds/ 
Beach Boys leads to Terry Melcher and back to the Paranoids again.

Students: how would a phrase like "Inherent Vice" apply to this  
ubiquitous situation in top forty radio during the novel's transition  
from Hippie Sixties to Nixonland Seventies?