Monday, December 17, 2012

A One-Year-Old Post Composed of Three Two-Year-Old Posts - My Favorite Post Ever - Now with Updated Links, How I Solved *That* Stupid Bleggal Ethics Issue



1/15/41 - 12/17/10
UPDATE 12/17/11: Zen Dave remembers too.




I'll post more over the weekend. No eulogy from me, I promise.

UPDATE! Another song.




UPDATE!



Please read and listen to this.


That's 1   here's   2





Another broken promise: here's my eulogy -

Whatever truths, myths, fables, lies about Beefheart and Zappa's relationship - and I like Zappa, but I love Beefheart - in my cosmology they are bound, and it's apt that Beefheart died during Zappadan.

I love Beefheart, but I love love love Pere Ubu and all the other sounds that wouldn't exist if not for Don Van Vliet. No Beefheart, no Pere Ubu. I can't imagine.

And the uncanniness of serendipity - just as I'm falling in love again with Stanley Elkin, finishing up The Franchiser, the first novel in which he introduces his own battle with multiple sclerosis, Van Vliet's death from MS and the chance to fall in love again again.










3


I sent this email request yesterday morning (subject line = Beefheart) to the AM DJ of the station I listen to:

Get you to play a song or two? He's grandpa to at least half the bands you play.

All best.

No Beefheart, no return email.

Sent this email to midday host of the station I listen to:

Hi Chxryl, can I get you to play some Beefheart please, how about "Sue Egypt" off *Doc at the Radio Station* please and thanks.

I must confess, I'm shocked at how little air love Beefheart has got at KxXP. From what I can tell from looking at the playlists since the news of Beefheart's death there has been one song played (on Cole's show Friday).

I realize I'm older (by far) than many of the DJs there who may never have heard or heard of Beefheart, but half the bands and solo acts you all play are descended by some greater or lesser degree to Beefheart. Anyway, I dig the man and his music.

All best. Have a great holiday.

No song. No return email.

First, Sue Egypt:




I don't care they didn't play Beefheart - I'm old, they're young; they may know the name but not the music and don't feel comfortable playing something they've never heard; they may know the music and not like it; they may have had their sets planned out and couldn't find a good seque; whatever: I've never expected all my requests to be played; it's their show. Still, I've been listening to and interacting with and giving money to this station for a decade, these djs aren't friends by any means but they know that I'm a loyal listener. Acknowledge the motherfucking email.

I thought about bitching in a post then decided no, don't be petty, when into my mailbox came (I swear to St Benny of Olsen and will forward the time-stamped email to you if so requested):

’Tis the season. I watched A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott playing Scrooge as though it was the first time I’d heard the story, and thought, “Now there’s a great message, I’ve got to remember that!” (That guy can act!) So, now my heart is bursting with good cheer and thankfulness.

I’m thankful for KxXP listeners like Jenneviere from San Francisco, who recently wrote this to John Richards: “You routinely surprise me by seemingly reading my emotional landscape and playing music that is a direct reflection of how I'm feeling on any particular day… Without ever having met me, you, day after day, mix the soundtrack of my life, and have moved me to laugh, to cry, to dance, to sing...  I am most sincerely grateful.”

KxXP’s staff and volunteers work tirelessly to bring you these incredible music experiences. No matter where or how you listen, please support the music community that brightens your day and brings you hours of inspiration and enjoyment.

Why is it important to donate now?

Angriest year of my life. Every day a renewed apostasy, every day a replayed apostasy. I'm dumber today than yesterday. I can't see anything but angrier ahead.
   



  • Re: that last statement from two years ago? I sense a trend.











  • UPDATE! 




  • UPDATE! Today's links later today or tomorrow. Or not.







CALL ME ISHMAEL

Jackson Mac Low

Circulation. And long long
Mind every
Interest Some how mind and every long

Coffin about little little
Money especially
I shore, having money about especially little

Cato a little little
Me extreme
I sail have me an extreme little

Cherish and left, left, 
Myself extremest
It see hypos myself and extremest left,

City a land. Land. 
Mouth; east,
Is spleen, hand mouth; an east, land.


5 comments:

  1. I just finished The Franchiser last week. Insight Lady made me roar and her sex scene with Flesh is a kind of comic novel pinnacle. And then there's that line, that one line, pitilessly hilarious: "I want my remission back!"

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  2. I love the Colonel Sanders set piece. I love his godfather's monologue on the odds of being alive. But yes, it's Elkin's first major treatment of his multiple sclerosis, the electric shot up the arm feeling the grooves on the side of a quarter in a pocket. (And it has, I think, the only reference to another of his novels in all his work, when Flesh is driving in the midwest and hears The Dick Gibson Show). Love love love.

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  3. Brilliant collection of videos, and thank you for collating it, BDR.

    IMO, Zappa was a 'composer', using all the assimilated 'found elements' within his oeuvre that such a title might imply, not completely derivative yet not always succeeding in supplanting what came before - the curse, perhaps, of the autodidact...But van Vliet was an artist, and one who did eventually transcend his influences in enough meaningful ways to become viewed as original in his own right.

    Who can say which path was more effective...but if a unique statement is the goal, one should walk with the Captain.

    ;>)

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  4. Captain Beefheart. Includes an embed to a great documentary available on the YouTube. Good stuff here. Thanks.

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