Closing arguments of the prosecution

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: We are a nation of laws, of virtuous conduct that must be upheld for the strength and prosperity of all. Chief among these are rules simple and finite: do not murder. Pay your taxes. And do not kick Brian Wilson out of the Beach Boys. When such trust is violated, when we are left foundering in the absence of such decorum, punishment must be swift and abetted by all.

The defendant, Mike Love, would have you believe otherwise. In his recently released memoir, Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy, he argues vehemently that he is not deserving of his widespread reputation as the villain of the Beach Boys—the vindictive cloud over the band’s sun-dappled empire, the penny-clutching pedant whose sole agenda is to kick down Wilson, sensitive and maligned genius, at his quavering knees. Such is the legacy that has been ascribed to him through decades of unpopular behavior, from his oft-reported disdain for Pet Sounds through his hurling of various lawsuits at Wilson. Over these interminable 436 pages, you have read Love recount, seemingly in real time, his childhood hijinks in Southern California with his cousins Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson; the rise of their sonorous surf-pop band; and, most crucially to this trial of public opinion, the band’s 50th anniversary reunion tour and Love’s dismissal of Wilson from the Beach Boys’ touring lineup.

Incidentally, you’ve also read the defendant’s inexhaustible, smarmy fawning over Transcendental Meditation and his gleeful recounting of the various Asian ethnicities of his sexual conquests—not to mention a deployment of the N-word that lands, 16 pages in, with the blunt and pointless trauma of a surfboard to the head—but we’ve just got to set that aside for now, before the prosecution starts turning her rings around.

Ladies and gentlemen, in Good Vibrations, Love asks you to remove his black hat, to recast him as he views himself: the true, long-neglected genius of the Beach Boys, whose creative contributions equal and often eclipse those of Wilson, and an honorable pacifist whose only wish is to preserve the legacy of his treasured band.

But I implore you to examine the evidence presented herein and reach the only logical conclusion: Mike Love is still a dick.

performs onstage at the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards held at Staples Center on February 12, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. Kevin Winter

Brian and Mike, together again at the 2012 Grammys. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)