Sitting here on a Saturday listening to John Cale’s “Mr. Wilson,” his 1974 ode to Brian Wilson, and realizing that in a short time we’ve lost Brian Wilson, Roger Corman, and David Lynch - among many others, of course, but just those three losses represent an immeasurable deduction from the American psyche.
Looking back, I think the full measure of these losses didn’t get through to me at the time because I go through life now pretty much knocked off-center and the news shocks me every goddam day. One gets inured to it. And no, I’m not forgetting Udo Kier… Somehow the news of his passing penetrated the steel wool I’ve gathered around my barest nerves; I couldn’t write a proper farewell post in his honor because the loss was too immense, too unreal - the measure of what a difference his work (and I think especially, his humor) made in my life.
The loss of Roger is more mixed-up with my personal memories of him and Julie; he was real to me as well as a pillar of my moviegoing, so I miss the person he was more than the monument. But the losses of David and Brian I still haven’t been able to acknowledge to myself on some level. They were both among my top cultural heroes. I still believe that David Lynch is out in LA, cooking up something new and mind-bending. I suppose I’ll feel his loss when his films begin to look old to me, but that still hasn’t happened with his earliest work.
As for Brian, I’ve read a lot about him of late in back issues of Paul Williams’ CRAWDADDY and, while it’s been insightful and properly laudatory, it has also reinforced my feeling that he was too pampered and overindulged by those closest to him and his outstanding followers and interpreters. His illness has been lionized in too many films and documentaries as much as his great talent. I don’t ever want to hear his life story again, frankly, but I’ve got all his music (even his recording sessions) and someday I need to go through it all again in a mindset that is apart from his earthly struggles and purely embracing of his transportive gifts.
All three of these men I have mentioned I see as the discovers of California as we know it today.
(C) 2026 Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
