Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2021. It follows Brian and Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine as they drive around Los Angeles and visit locations from Brian’s past. The Rotten Tomatoes rating is currently 100%.

Here’s a tale of a brief encounter I had with Brian in ’74 — originally posted on 9.9.14:

I was living in an upstairs one-bedroom apartment at 948 14th Street in Santa Monica, doing nothing, working as a tree surgeon…my lost period. (I began my adventure in movie journalism the following year.) Right below me lived a guy named Eddie Roach and his wife Tricia. At the time he was working with the Beach Boys as a kind of staff or “touring” photographer. Dennis Wilson fell by two or three times and hung out a bit, and one time I was part of a small group that played touch football with him at a local high-school field. Dennis mocked me that day for being a bad hiker, which I was. (But Dennis was a dick… really. Insecure machismo, didn’t like him, felt nothing when he died.)

Anyway it was a cloudy Saturday or Sunday afternoon and I was lounging in my living room when I began to hear someone tooling around on Eddie’s piano downstairs. It sounded like the beginnings of a song. It began with a thumping, rolling boogie lead-in, complex and grabby, and then the spirited vocal: “Back home boogie, bong-dee-bong boogie…yay-hah…back home boogie, bong-dee-bong”…and then he stopped. One of the chords wasn’t quite right so he played a couple of variations over and over, and then again: “”Back home boogie, bong-dee-bong boogie yay-hah!” and so on. Then another mistake and another correction.

Then he stopped again and started laughing like a ten year-old drunk on beer: “Hah-hah, heh-heh, heh-heh!” and then right back into the song without losing a beat. Really great stuff. Who is this guy?

I grabbed my cassette recorder and went outside and walked down the steps leading to Eddie’s place, and I laid it down on one of the steps and started recording. I must have captured two or three minutes worth.

Then I decided to knock on Eddie’s door and pretend I needed to borrow a cup of milk or something. I had to know who the piano guy was. Eddie opened the door and I said “hey, man,” and in the rear of the living room stood a tall and overweight Brian Wilson. He was dressed in a red shirt and jeans and white sneakers, and was cranked and excited and talking about how great some idea might be, gesturing with his arms up high. Then he saw me and almost ran over to the doorway.

I suddenly knew who it was and it was a huge internal “whoa!” Wilson looked like a serious wreck. His hair was longish and sort of ratty looking. His unshaven face was the color of Elmer’s Glue-All, and his eyes were beet red. I didn’t mean to disturb the vibe but a look of faint surprise or shock must have crossed my face because Wilson’s expression turned glum. It was like he suddenly said to himself, “Wow, this guy’s some kind of downhead…everything was cool until he showed up.” Eddie spotted it too and said, “Sorry to disappoint you.” I said everything was cool and retreated back upstairs.

Way back in ’83 or thereabouts, I was acquainted with a pair of youngish film producers (man and woman, probably married) whom I’d met at an industry gathering or screening. Their names escape…sorry. But we were moderately friendly, on good terms. They lived in a beautiful, old-world, high-ceilinged apartment inside Harper House, a pre-war Spanish building at 1134-1336 No. Harper Ave.

And I distinctly recall that in their living room Marlon Brando‘s Royal Navy uniform and bicorn hat, from Mutiny on the Bounty, was on display. Made of seemingly authentic materials, it rested upon a white, Brando-sized mannequin. I was deeply impressed, and asked if I could sniff it. I was hoping it might have retained the aroma of Brando or Tahitian sand or coconuts or some organic remnant of that 1962 film. Alas, it smelled like Holloway Cleaners.

In any event here it is on iCollector — it sold in December 2019 for $10K. How much had my producer friends paid for it in the early ’80s? Maybe one-tenth of that. Who knows? Or maybe it’s a scam — maybe dozens of would-be Brando uniforms have been made and sold as Real McCoys.

Leos Carax’s Annette (7.6.21, France) is an English-language musical set in Los Angeles that will feature original music from the ’70s rock band Sparks. It’s a love story about a stand-up comic (Adam Driver) and an opera star (Marion Cotillard). Completed in November 2019, pic will be told almost entirely through song, in classic rock opera tradition — all singing, all of the dialogue (or 95 % of it), “but in a way that’s stylistically true to Sparks’ sensibility, so if you can imagine that, Adam Driver doing Sparks, that’s what we have.”

The architect, the construction foreman…somebody will have to swing for this.

The just-announced competition jury for Cannes ’21 (7.6 thru 7.17): Jury President Spike Lee + actors Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Song Kang-ho (Parasite chauffeur guy) and Tahar Rahim, plus actor-director Mati Diop + Austrian director Jessica Hausner and Kleber Mendonça Filho (Bacarau). Singer/songwriter Mylène Farmer is also on the team.

Update: This nine-member jury promises to be one of the most miraculous, heart-stopping, ultra-restorational and soul-tingly in the 74 year-old history of the Cannes Film Festival. I love these members…all of them! Perfect! Glorious! I’m so excited that I’m almost having an anxiety attack. Somebody hand me a small brown paper bag,

The four-men, five-women composition seems reflective of what the usual progressive suspects would probably prefer. Rest assured that once the festival kicks off there’ll be incidents and accidents, hints and allegations.

Who’s predicting an Annette win besides myself? Perhaps an acting trophy for Adam Driver or Marion Cotillard? And don’t forget the anticipation factor favoring Wes Anderson‘s The French Dispatch.

The Cote d’Azur gathering will have fewer top dog journalist-critics in attendance — that’s for sure.

The anxious accountant is played by Trent Moore. The way his character attempts to explain to Anton Chigurh the motive embraced by his just-murdered boss…”he feels…uhm, he felt that the more people looking…”…is perfectly delivered. I was wanted to say that in case nobody else has.

Posted on HE-Plus on 7.1.19 / money exchange rate updated: In North by Northwest Cary Grant‘s Roger Thornhill drops a lot of cash on a lot of random expenses — cabs, beverages, tips, bus tickets, dry cleaning. I’ve calculated that he spends a minimum of $275 in 1958 dollars, which comes to roughly $2522 in the 2021 economy. That’s a lot to be carrying around.

The film was shot in the summer of ’58, when the only credit card was Diner’s Club and no one had ever heard of debit cards. Thornhill, on the run from the law and unable to just stroll into a local bank for a withdrawal, had to pay for everything with pocket cash.

Roger Thornhill’s NXNW expenses / final accounting:

(1) Pays for cab from Madison Avenue to the Plaza hotel — call it $10 with tip as he’s also paying the driver to take his secretary to another destination; (2) Tips Plaza Hotel/Oak Room bellboy — another $5; (3) After the DUI adventure in Glen Cove and the visit to the Townsend estate, he and Jesse Royce Landis (his “mother”) somehow get back to Manhattan, presumably by cab — probably $25 or $30. ($45 so far)

(4) Back at the Plaza, he gives his mother $50 as payment for persuading the concierge to slip her a key to George Kaplan‘s room in the Plaza ($95); (5) Tips Plaza Hotel valet, looking for information — $5; (6) Takes cab from Plaza to U.N. building — call it $10 to be safe; (7) Presumably takes another cab to Grand Central following the U.N. knifing — $5 to $7. ($117.) (8) Doesn’t buy coach seat on 20th Century Limited, but once in Chicago Thornhill takes a bus to somewhere in southern Indiana farm country. Probably $12 or $15. ($132.)

After surviving the cropduster attack, Thornhill returns to Chicago with a free “ride” (i.e., stolen pick-up truck). Visits Eve at the Ambassador East. Pays AE cleaning service to have his dusty suit “sponged and pressed” — probably $10 or $12. ($144) Probably buys fresh dress shirt, underwear and socks — figure another $20. ($164)

Flies from Chicago to Rapid City with Leo G. Carroll‘s CIA “professor” — air fare covered by government.

Pays for coffee in Mount Rushmore cafeteria — a dime. Escapes from Rapid City hospital, takes longish cab ride up to Van Damm’s Mount Rushmore rental (a Frank Lloyd Wright original) — probably at least $20 or $25. And then pays for his and Eve Kendall‘s train fare back to NYC (call it $60 for two, maybe more).

Wait…I forgot about the Gibson and the brook trout Thornhill ordered in the dining car while chatting with Eve.

That’s a grand total of $250 minimum. Add $25 in random incidentals (penny-ante stuff) and you’re talking $275. In 2021 the value of a single 1958 dollar is $9.17, which translates into $2522 but let’s call it $2600….hell, make it $3K.

Who walks around with the equivalent of $3K in their wallet or money clip?

There’s no question that I saved my life when I embraced sobriety on 3.20.12. A growing sense of calm, moderation and spiritual clarity began to manifest within a year or so (certainly by early ’14), and I shudder to think of where my life would be if I was still slurping down the old Pinot Grigio on a nightly basis, not to mention the likelihood that my face would have acquired the shape of a saggy beach ball.

But if I’m being really honest, bathing in a nightly buzz-on used to be a fairly enjoyable thing. It always delivered a “wow, this feels good and I’m happy” attitude…a sense of excitement, good humor, irreverence, When I was younger, that is. In my 20s, 30s and 40s that settle-down feeling of warmth and fun and laughter that wine and the occasional mixed drink used to provide…that felt like a fairly blissful thing.

A friend told me six or seven years ago that I was funnier when I was drinking…that I laughed more, etc. I don’t doubt it.

Pete Hamill‘s “A Drinking Life” led me to sobriety, but it also contained eloquent passages about what a joy it was to drink with friends and share in that spiritual mirth.

I’m mentioning my history as a way of saying that I understand why Errol Flynn (1909-1959) ruined his life with spirits. He drank himself to death because he had a good time along the way. Alcohol allowed him to behave like…what, a reckless horndog, an elegant teenager, an international bon vivant? He liked going there.

Sometime in the mid ’40s Flynn was told by a doctor that if he didn’t cut back on his drinking he wouldn’t last the decade. Well, he made it to ’59.

Presumably Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris, Robert Mitchum, Tallulah Bankhead, Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Peter Finch, John Barrymore, Montgomery Clift and all the other legendary Hollywood drunks had just as good a time getting bombed on a daily basis. Or maybe they were stuck in a rut and didn’t know how to get out of it, or they figured the bad moods and headaches would go away or something.

All I know is that drinking is a young man’s game, and that you have to think about cutting back if not winding down by your early to mid ’40s, and certainly with the arrival of the big five-oh.

HE took exception to last year’s trashings of statues of generally admired, relatively benign historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, et. al. But I agree 100% with the American Museum of Natural History’s Theodore Roosevelt statue (the one facing Central Park West) being removed because of odious symbolism — the horse-mounted Roosevelt, a believer in white superiority and eugenics, flanked by a Native American and an African American on foot.

The statue is toxic and needs to be retired — no question. But what would Robin Williams say if he were still with us? Not to mention Brian Keith? And what about the possibly vulnerable reputations of the Night at the Museum guys (director Shawn Levy, producer Chris Columbus, star Ben Stiller)? They didn’t mean any harm by having fun with Roosevelt’s manly rough-rider + conservationist legend, but now they’re absorbing a certain amount of…what’s the right term, “shade”?

6.22 N.Y. Times story, reported by Laura Zornosa: “The New York City Public Design Commission voted unanimously at a public meeting on Monday to relocate the statue by long-term loan to a cultural institution dedicated to the life and legacy of…former president Theodore Roosevelt.

“The vote follows years of protest and adverse public reaction over the statue as a symbol of colonialism, largely because of the Native American and African men who are depicted flanking Roosevelt on a horse. Those objections led the museum in June 2020 to propose removing the statue. New York City, which owns the building and property, agreed to the suggestion, and Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed his support.”

Okay, Jill Biden didn’t say the word “assholes” when she addressed the Nashville booers, but that’s what she meant — trust me. The bumblefuck factor has resulted in Tennesseeans lagging behind the national vaccination average — only three or four in ten have been vaxxed. Jerks.

Having been tasked by President Biden to engage with the southern-border immigration crisis, Kamala Harris has been repeatedly criticized by rightie belligerents (including the Flatulent Florida Fatass himself) for not visiting the southern border and doing the requisite photo-op and press conference, blah blah.

Harris resisted at first, but now she’s finally caved — Politico is reporting that she’ll be visiting El Paso on Friday.

Do you want to hear a game-changing maneuver that will shut those cheap fucking righties up for good? Harris and a couple of tough security guards need to secretly do a Brubaker — she and the two bodyguards need to change into some tattered Target clothing and slip quietly into Mexico (Laredo, say) and then make their way by bus or foot toward the U.S. border and try to cross illegally, mixing with actual illegals and coyotes and really experiencing the reality of the situation. First-hand experience.

“Do a Brubaker” alludes to incoming prison warden Robert Redford anonymously pretending to be a prisoner and absorbing the situation as he never could through the usual official channels. I could have said “do a Sullivan’s Travels” but most of the readership wouldn’t recognize the title.

Kirk Douglas‘s last brawny action film was Jeff Kanew‘s Eddie Macon’s Run (’82), which he made in his mid 60s. He continued to play strong characters in challenging situations into the early aughts (The Man From Snowy River, Tough Guys, Final Countdown, Greedy), but the rugged action stuff seemed ill advised after Eddie Macon — why push it?

Harrison Ford (born on 7.13.42) was different — Douglas was Douglas but Ford had his own path to follow, and so he continued to make action films into his ’70s. Alas, he fractured his ankle (or was it his leg?) during shooting of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2014, when he was 71. (More bad luck than age-related.) And then those piloting mishaps occured — the Venice golf-course crash on 3.5.15 (the plane’s fault, not Ford’s), and two strategic landing errors — one at John Wayne Airport on 2.3.17, and a second at Hawthorne airport on 4.24.20.

And now he’s suffered a shoulder injury on the set of Indiana Jones 5, and is taking a break from filming while the wound is treated.

We all admire Ford’s spirit and gumption, but he’ll be 79 next month — it’s not exactly a surprise that he’s succumbed to injuries and errors of judgment, is it? Same difference when Robert DeNiro, a year younger than Ford, damaged one his quad muscles last month while working on Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Part of the syndrome is psychological, I’m guessing. When presented with a physical challenge of some kind, older guys will say to themselves “I might be in my 70s but I feel like I’m 47…fuck it, I can do this, no sweat.” And then they do the thing and the body — surprise! — doesn’t perform as expected.