Read about the Beach Boys song “Never Learn Not to Love”, though the band never openly acknowledged it was written by Charles Manson. Dennis Wilson took Manson in for a time, gave him studio access, even reworked that song from Manson’s original, “Cease to Exist.” Reading it now, it feels like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood could have been Dennis’s story more than anyone’s, a man floating between the golden sun of California pop and the undertow of something rotten.

In grade 11, I knew a guy who played drums and had a bootleg tape of the Manson Family jamming. We didn’t know much only that they were “supposed” to be scary and mad. That, in our 17-year-old minds, made them fascinating. Somehow, we decided that being musicians and being in jail was proof of edge, authenticity. We confused notoriety with depth. Back then, darkness seemed like a kind of wisdom, as if being near it meant we knew something others didn’t. But that wasn’t knowledge, just a myth wearing sunglasses. Wisdom doesn’t need infamy. It lives quietly, where no one’s looking.