Reply #4: Zappa first...then Beefheart...opened up a whole new realm of possibilites to me.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

I knew pretty early in life that I wasn't going to marry my high school sweetheart, have 2.5 wonderfully behaved and genetically perfect kids, live in a house with a white pickett fence, and drive a luxurious air-conditioned station wagon with fake wood paneling on the side.

I don't know HOW I knew this...I just DID.

Both Frank and Don had short "songs" that they're remembered for, little two or three minute things that the sound bite crowd loved. For Frank, it might have been his "hit," "Valley Girl" (although that was longer than 3 minutes), and for Don, maybe "Diddy Wah Diddy."

But more often than not, they wanted you to sit back, shut the hell up, give them the keys, and let them drive the car.

Zappa's "Absolutely Free" and "We're Only In It For The Money" were terrifying, roller coaster ride excursions into the dark heart of America, populated with greasers and Pachucos and corrupt authority figures and "filthy hippies" and and "squeaky-clean" high school kids painting posters for the pep rally and the one common thread that held the whole mess together is that we're all expected to get through this life, somehow, in one piece.

For Don, "Lick My Decals Off Baby" is considered by many to be his finest effort, but the game-changer...the one that firmly established him as a force to be reckoned with...has got to be "Trout Mask Replica." Don actually petitioned Zappa's record label to pay for a round-the-clock tree surgeon so that the trees outside the session wouldn't be "disturbed" by the music. How the hell do you not love an album...or the musicians who made it...under those circumstances?

I've owned the complete Zappa and Beefheart catalogs for years, but like so many other people, set aside some quality listening time out of respect for Don in recent days. What struck me the most was one song from his next-to-last album, 1980's "Doc At The Radar Station"..."Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on my Knee."

It's filled with sex and anger and confusion and redemption...as well as lines like "Gnats fucked my ears 'n nostrils"...but it's the final lines from the song that, for me, were the ultimate eulogy for Don Van Vliet:

Take my hand 'n join me... too soon its clutches gleams
Making love to a vampire with a monkey on my knee
Death be damned... life

Bob Mould had a song on his second solo album, "Black Sheets of Rain," called "The Hanging Tree." It contains the lyrics "Is there a place for those of us who don't belong?"

Frank and Don answered that question. No, there isn't You make the place and you burn in it, like Kerouac wrote in "On The Road"...

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

...you burn, burn, burn and never look over your shoulder, never give a moment's thought to the man or woman others want or expect you to be...

...and in doing so, you become immortal.

And the pantaloon duck

White gooseneck quacked

Webcor.

Webcor.

R.I.P., Don.