Surf's Up: on the Flight Deck with Brian Wilson

The one and only, the great Brian Wilson.

In 1994, I was being recruited for a CEO job with Luna Imaging, an L.A.-based start-up with Getty funding.  Before my visit to meet the entrepreneur, when I would stay at Shutters on the Beach and get the pitch, I first snuck out to the coast for a screening meeting during a half-day stop-over in LAX with Gary Hromadko, the VC backing the venture.

We met in the American Airlines Ambassador Lounge and sat in the big lounge chairs.  There, sunk comfortably into a huge chair ten feet away with a confidante?  Brian Wilson!

Although I'd resisted my band-mate Dave's proselytizing in college about the Beach Boys, I eventually could admit I admired Brian - much more for his ballads than for the Beach Boy surf rave-ups.  Especially because he was secure enough, whole enough (or crazy enough?) to write and sing with great emotional vulnerability about fear, and alone-ness, and crying, and doubt, and hurt - in songs like "In My Room,"  "Girl Don't Tell Me,"  "Caroline, No" and " 'Til I Die."

Brian Wilson at the Bridge - on Sunset

Flash forward to 1994 and by this point in my life, I was a confirmed fan, but had not yet developed a complete appreciation for Brian's production genius that would be fulfilled when I came late to Pet Sounds, and - finally - when SMiLE finally had its 38-years-late release.  Still I felt I had a kindred spirit in that he was the only other person I knew of who admired and openly praised the Four Freshmen - to others they were Squaresville, 'though not to me, and Brian has always honored them as his harmonic inspiration.

Perfect Pitch

Gary and I spent a little over two hours talking.  Sometime before we wrapped up, Brian and his friend stood up, shook hands and parted.  As he walked away from us, I thought of the anonymous silhouettes, receding against the day-glo horizon, in the classic key-art poster from the Bruce Brown film "Endless Summer."

I was too awe-struck, and too much captive of the interview moment, to get up and introduce myself.  But I felt the warmth of his sun* ... and knew I'd now truly been in California!

Precision Genius

 . . . "Lately, I'd been depressed and preoccupied with death...Looking out toward the ocean, my mind, as it did almost every hour of every day, worked to explain the inconsistencies that dominated my life; the pain, torment, and confusion and the beautiful music I was able to make. Was there an answer? Did I have no control? Had I ever? Feeling shipwrecked on an existential island, I lost myself in the balance of darkness that stretched beyond the breaking waves to the other side of the earth. The ocean was so incredibly vast, the universe was so large, and suddenly I saw myself in proportion to that, a little pebble of sand, a jellyfish floating on top of the water; traveling with the current I felt dwarfed, temporary. The next day I began writing "'Til I Die", perhaps the most personal song I ever wrote for The Beach Boys...In doing so, I wanted to re-create the swell of emotions that I'd felt at the beach the previous night."

'Til I Die - Surf's Up, 1971

* Something interesting here.