BAD VIBRATIONS

All things that live one day must die you know
Even love and the things we hold close
Look at love look at love look at love
Look what we've done

1983

When he looked in the mirror all he could see was Charlie staring right back. It scared him how much he had come to resemble the man he'd so casually befriended over a decade ago.

Every time he tried to block him out of his mind, he'd find a way to crawl back in through the cracks of his consciousness like some kind of insidious phantom. Booze, drugs, sex, none of them held any sway over Manson, the murderous cult leader, whose modus operandi had become synonymous with the zeitgeist mantra, "Live freaky, die freaky".

For Dennis Wilson, the man he originally just knew as Charlie had exposed both his best and worst flaws as a human being but none of it mattered anymore. This ageing beach boy was now broken beyond all repair.

He hated to admit it to himself but looking back at that disturbingly epoch-making time, Dennis knew he had been cuckooed by Charlie and his followers who had near permanently moved into his house during the summer of 68, using it for various nefarious purposes, many of which he himself had happily indulged in. It was his own weakness for pleasure that had kept him in thrall to Charlie, who was like a combination sugar daddy and Willy Wonka of pure vice. Aside from just keeping him in constant supply of chemicals and girls, Dennis was also drawn to Manson's famously mesmerising personality which could be scary and funny in equal measure: part clown, part prophet - a Wizard of Oz of cosmic paranoia.

But now, in 1983, the price for all the decadence Manson and his gang had provided for Dennis back then was a heavy one and he was paying it back in instalments each and every day he remained on earth. He was stuck in an interminable present where he was unable to forsee a brighter, more hopeful future and unable to forget his dark, sinful past. As a member of a band that had represented the youthful bliss of a generation at its most pure, the irony hadn't eluded him that he now made music that sounded like the total inverse of what he started out creating with his brothers. It was the soundtrack of a ruined life. Only a few decades separated the sweet music of unalloyed brash innocence, the life affirming anthems, with the deathly wailing he now recorded. Even when he did attempt a more upbeat track, he knew he couldn't disguise the inherent sadness that existed in his soul. It was like he had been given a slow poison that had been activated from that first ever encounter with Charlie.

"Can you imagine if instead of Snow White it was Mickey Mouse that had taken that bite from the Evil Queen's magic blood-red apple?" Manson once speculated. "Would be some trip, right?"

Mickey Mouse destroyed by venom was how Dennis felt about his own life, the innocent beach boy corrupted by dark satanic forces. And yet he could blame no-one but himself. His open heart was easily exploited by criminals and sociopaths and now he was a tumbleweed, blowing from one bar or party to another. He was a nomad addict now who didn't recognise his own beach front home as home anymore.  

Any experienced alcoholic or drug addict worth his salt will tell you it takes a shit tonne of alcohol and drugs to completely forget your past which Dennis was learning the hard way. He was practically drowning himself with liquor 24/7, ending up in either a hospital or a therapy center, eventually discharging himself and returning to the bottle wherever he could find it. Through all of this suicidal drinking he felt like he was trying to return to the ocean somehow. The sea kept calling him with its siren song. Sometimes, when floating in the Pacific Ocean, he'd enjoy the feeling of being reborn, resurfacing from beneath the deep blue water and gasping for breath just like a new born baby until returning to shore, where this surfer boy turned man would be hit with the terrifying reality facing him.

The spectre of Charlie was stalking him everywhere he went and there was just no way of getting away from the mad man, like a psychotic Jiminy Cricket living inside his tortured mind.

Carrying the American dream on your shoulders can sometimes be a heavy burden as Dennis's brother, Brian, also found out to his own cost, hiding away in his bedroom for a decade, lost in a fog of catatonic depression. With his murders, Manson had killed the dream they had created with their music. And it was Dennis who had forged the link between the Beach Boys with Manson and The Family. He was the one who had danced with the Devil. This was why he could never forgive himself. He had sullied the beauty of what they'd created - the soundtrack of idyllic Californian summer days and nights.

Late at night, staring at the ocean, he could see the ghost of his younger self out there riding the waves, free of experience. With tears in his eyes he would ask himself where it all went wrong. What he would give to be that young boy again. Getting obliterated with booze and drugs felt like a way to reduce all the baggage of his tarnished adult consciousness which had imprisoned him over the decades. But it was hard set, like cement in his brain and no amount of abuse could undo it.

Only music helped, but even then, only intermittently.

Sometimes he was just about sober enough to fully appreciate being on stage with his brothers, singing "Surfer Girl" or some other wholesome anthem from their early years. It broke his heart endless times to be singing such pure music, remembering the pain that had descended upon them years later after their initial global success, like a dark, violent storm cloud. As their harmonies floated through the night air into stadiums, Dennis would close his eyes and for a moment or two genuinely believe in the perfect innocence of what they expressed back then.

Before those Good Vibrations turned bad.

Gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations a-happenin' with her
Gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations a-happenin' with her
Gotta keep those lovin' good vibrations a-happenin'

Let the love I have for you
Live in your heart
And beat forever (together my love)
Forever
Forever
I've been so happy loving you

The 60's ended with a literal bang, the 70's with a slow drawn out whimper and the 80's had now begun with a corporate makeover.

Dennis instinctively felt he didn't belong in this new decade. It was too clean and shiny and flew in the face of all he had come to define himself. The morality of the 1950's was returning, which was strangely what the kids of the 60's had been attempting to break free from. Reagan's America was being branded as pure Americana and although the President was a fan of Dennis and his brothers, there was a distinct gulf between their visions of America somehow. One was utopia by any means necessary and the other patriotic supremacy.

So what was left for Dennis now, apart from recyling memories of the past for a generation that was growing old fast? As he looked out at the audiences in front of him, he saw people who were clinging onto a dream that had been torpedoed by the reality of time.

Atonement.

Finding ways to repair the past can be an endless obsession and an even harder one if you're not fully in control of your senses.

An incident between Dennis and his ex-wife had taken a firm hold in his mind and caused him to obsess unhealthily about how to reverse his bad behaviour from that day three years earlier on his yacht, The Emerald, when he threw all of her belongings into the Marina del Ray harbour.

Convinced he now had to recover those same belongings from the water, Dennis could think of no other way currently to redeem himself. Making amends, trying to forgive himself for all his mistakes was the right intention but perpetually hammered, he was unable to be properly rational anymore, especially in carrying out any gesture or action without the risk of something going wrong.

Found drowned in 12 feet of water, it had been suspected that Dennis Wilson had experienced shallow water blackout, a condition in which the brain doesn’t signal the body to breathe while holding your breath underwater at shallow depths.

The beach boy had finally succumbed to the water in the most lethal way and yet, he was at least now finally free of Charlie. In the end, perhaps it was only death that could defeat the power of the demon himself.