Forgive me for not being as excited about the Beach Boys coming to Saskatoon on March 27 and Regina on March 28 as I was in 1978 in Regina, and in 1990 at Evergreen Park, just west of Saskatoon. The band is now a Beach Boy, with Mike Love the only founding member after he won the rights to the name in 2008. It’s a travesty that Brian Wilson, the talent behind the band, doesn’t have the rights to the name. Hence, Wilson and Al Jardine are no longer playing with the group. Carl Wilson, who was the unsung hero of the band, and Dennis Wilson have died. Having one member is kind of like Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr picking up a couple of schmucks and calling themselves the Beatles.

The first time I saw the Beach Boys was from a front-row seat in Regina. The concert was with the full lineup. To see all five was rare, although I didn’t know it at the time. Brian Wilson, who suffered from mental health issues, came on stage for three songs, lying on the floor to sing them, according to those with memories better than mine. He was beyond quirky, if that is possible. As an example, he had eight tons of sand put into his house to create an atmosphere for writing. His piano sat on the sand. It has been reported that Wilson wrote those classic beach songs without ever dipping his toes in an ocean. Dennis Wilson, who suffered from addictions and was clearly on something that night in Regina, came out alone for the first encore. He sang – or tried to sing – You Are So Beautiful, a song Joe Cocker made famous. Wilson started to sing it a second time, when the rest of the band returned to the stage to bail him out. Dennis had a horrible moment of infamy, which is an understatement, in 1968. He picked up two female hitchhikers, and invited them to his home. They told him about their spiritual leader – one Charles Manson.

Not long after meeting the hitchhikers, a bus rolled up to his house, and Manson, a sadistic cult leader as the world found out, and his “family” of about 20 young women moved in. This wasn’t the Partridge Family. In 1969, some time after they moved out of Wilson’s home, three members of Manson’s family murdered Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and four others at her home. The next night, they murdered two more people.

The second time I saw the Beach Boys was in a field west of Saskatoon. Carl Wilson, Jardine and Love played that day. John Stamos played the drums which was pretty darn cool. And did you know that Glen Campbell was once a member of the Beach Boys? Ticket prices are all over the map for the upcoming show, depending on the site you use. It appears as though only the lower bowl will be used, with the stage close to the centre of the SaskTel Centre. I am sure it will be a good show, but I won’t be there. I am going to hang onto my memories from a time when they were a complete band.

*****

I have the Shell app on my phone. This means when I pull up at a service station, I can enter the pump number, a pin number and not have to use my credit card at the pump. On a cold day, it is nice not having to insert a card while outside. It is a small convenience. I get a receipt by email. Where is this going?

On a recent day, I pulled into a Shell station. I entered my info into my phone; it was accepted and I got out of my vehicle to pump gas. A voice crackled over the speaker, saying, “Sir, we are out of gas.” So was I. When I checked my email later that day, there was a charge of 6 cents on the receipt. Here is what my receipt looked like: V-Power, Pump 02, Litres 0.035, Price $1.599, Fuel Total $0.06. If someone from Shell is reading this – which I highly doubt — you owe me six cents. Rounded down it is five cents. It baffles me that something like this could happen, but life is full of surprises – even six cent ones.

– Cam Hutchinson