Living with the ghost of Brian Wilson

I first talked to Brian Wilson in February of 2010.

My first date with Andy was January 7, 2010. I went out with friends for my birthday the next evening, and from January 9 on, I saw him every single day. After about 5 weeks of dating, he asked me to move in with him, and I told him I didn’t want to move any with anyone unless they were interested in marriage and having kids, and he said, “OK. Then will you marry me?” And I said yes.

I’d already heard a lot about Brian Wilson in those first few weeks. I knew the “folk music’s Bob Dylan” story; the Tonto/Toronto story; the Bono and Coke story (the drink, not the drug); the Don Henley story (or maybe that was another Eagle?); and so many more.

After I said yes, Andy decided we should call Brian and tell him. Andy was the first person Brian and Melinda called when they got engaged, so he thought Brian should be the first person we called.

I was more comfortable with that idea than calling my parents first. I was afraid to tell them I was marrying someone I’d known for 5 weeks and put off telling them for a few more days while I worked up the courage to do so.

And so Brian and Melinda were the first to know. We only talked for a few minutes and the weird thing is that it didn’t seem weird. I was just talking to an old friend of Andy’s.

We invited Brian and Melinda to our wedding but they didn’t come – probably because it was in my hometown in Kansas. And then we invited them to a party that Tom and Jill Kenny threw for us after we got married where we celebrated with Los Angeles friends. Brian and Melinda said they couldn’t make that one either, but they asked us to come over for dinner the next day. We asked for a rain check because we’d already planned to have dinner with my parents and Andy’s sister Debby and her husband and daughter, who were in town from Kansas and Maine.

I talked to Melinda on a handful of occasions after that, and gently suggested having dinner sometime, but we’d missed our chance. Melinda never extended the invitation again, or took us up on our invitations. They did send a wedding gift, and about a year later, an enormous bouquet when Jackson and Charlie were born. And they sent Christmas cards every year. We were acknowledged, but kept at arms’ length.

Despite the limited contact, it felt like Brian was part of our lives. Many of Andy’s friends were Brian Wilson/Beach Boys nuts and so Brian was often a topic of conversation on phone calls, email threads and dinner parties.

There were Brian stories for every occasion – sometimes Andy even told stories I hadn’t heard before.

A few years ago, Andy found his copy of what I call the Landy Letter – a letter than Dr. Landy wrote to Seymour Stein and Lenny Waronker while Andy was producing Brian’s first solo album.

An image of the letter is at the end of this post, but this is the passage that gets me every time I read it:

“Brian called his psychiatrist, Dr. Steven Marmer, the day before yesterday and asked him to call Andy Paley and set up an appointment.

The way Brian explained it to me was that he and Dr. Marmer agreed that he should meet Andy because Brian is having trouble as he put it ‘….figuring out where Andy begins and where I end.’

Brian says Andy is the only collaborator he’s ever worked with who writes music as well as lyrics. He feels that they have E.S.P. and are in constant communication even without the phone.

He wanted Andy to meet Dr. Marmer in person so that his doctor would see that it wasn’t all in Brian’s imagination.”

I knew Brian and Andy had a close relationship and it was obvious that Brian was one of the most important people in Andy’s life. And I understood how devastated Andy was at losing his spot in Brian’s inner circle, even as he claimed it didn’t bother him. But I didn’t quite grasp how deep their connection was until I read that letter.

Throughout the 14 years we were married, Andy wanted to get the Paley Sessions material out and be able to work with Brian to complete it and release the bootlegged version in their proper form. Occasionally he would come up with plans on how to approach it, but he was always afraid that one wrong move could lead Melinda to cut off those options forever.

Then Melinda died.

Andy flew out to the funeral and saw Brian for the first time in years. He was so happy to have reconnected with Brian, even though he was no longer the same Brian. And Brian’s smile in the photo with Andy tells me that he was thrilled to see his old friend too.

I know Andy was hoping to visit Brian in 2024, and talk about getting their old songs released….but then Andy was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer of the throat. The doctors said it was very treatable, so Andy thought he’d pursue Brian/Andy music after he finished the cancer treatment. The recovery from radiation was brutal, but we later learned that maybe it wasn’t just the recovery that was causing Andy so much pain. It was also the cancer that was metastasizing to his lungs, ribs, sacrum and liver.

Fifteen days after Andy was diagnosed, the oncologist said he needed to go on hospice. And two days later I realized he was going downhill so fast that I should try to reach Brian. And so I called Brian’s assistant Gloria, and for the second time in my life, I talked to Brian Wilson. I told him that Andy wasn’t talking much but he could still hear, and so I put Brian on speaker phone and he kept saying “Andy! Andy! It’s Brian Wilson. I love you Andy!”

Andy didn’t say anything – he hadn’t been able to say much that day - but I’m sure he heard Brian. He tried to smile when Brian was calling his name.

Andy died a few hours later.

This grief has been the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life. My friends always tell me I’m the strongest person I know, and I believe them because I feel pretty damn strong most of the time, even when things are hard. There have been times on this grief journey when I start doing better, and then times when I get worse.

Brian’s death knocked me down again.

I knew Brian wasn’t in great health yet the news of his death was a shock to me, as was the discovery that it felt like losing part of Andy all over again.

Andy talked to Brian every year on Brian’s birthday, without fail. I remember Brian’s birthday – June 20 – better than I remember some of my friends’ birthdays. Recently I had been thinking how sad it would be that Andy and Brian wouldn’t have that annual chat, never imagining Brian wouldn’t make it to his 83^rd birthday, just 9 days away.

Rest in peace, Brian. I never really knew you but I love you because you loved Andy. I hope you two are making some beautiful music together somewhere.