band's Smile era, a circle that Siegel later referred to as the "Beach Boys marijuana-consumption squad". By early 1967, Wilson had run into issues completing Smile and grew suspicious of his surrounding associates, including Siegel. Siegel said that Wilson "had forgotten that I was a journalist, and the reason he got rid of me was because Anderle reminded him of that – because of a disagreement that David and I had about what I would and wouldn't write ... After that [my girlfriend], I and Pynchon went to Studio A and [Michael] Vosse was there, and he said, 'No, you're barred.'" As Siegel claims in his piece, The Saturday Evening Post ultimately rejected his story due his overly enthusiastic depiction of Wilson's material. It was instead published in the first issue of the magazine Cheetah in October 1967. The article subsequently propelled the mythology of Smile and the Beach Boys. It is the origin of several of the project's legends, including Wilson's fear of the film Seconds, his cancelling of a $3,000 recording session due to "bad vibrations", and his irrational fear of an acquaintance whom Wilson believed practiced witchcraft (Siegel later revealed that it had been his girlfriend). Writing in his 33⅓ book about the album, Luis Sanchez commented: Among the other topics discussed in Siegel's article: Wilson's race against Bob Dylan and John Lennon for the title of "genius", the formation of Brother Records, the moment Wilson decided to place a sandbox under the grand piano in his home, Wilson's collaboration with Van Dyke Parks and the tensions that ensued, and Carl Wilson's arrest for draft evasion from the previous April. In 1971, Carl told Rolling Stone that Siegel's writings "and a lot of that stuff that went around before really turned [Brian] off." Anderle later alleged that Siegel had inflated the myth through writing falsehoods so that he could appear more "important". Siegel rebuked Anderle's allegation: "If it weren't so stupid, it would be libelous. ... I admired Brian a lot and I also liked him. ... I wasn't aware of him as a myth. I just wrote down what I saw and heard. ... It was fun hanging out with Brian and getting stoned but it was hardly important in the sense that David means." Later years In 1977, Playboy published Siegel's article "Who Is Thomas Pynchon and Why Is He Taking Off with My Wife".