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Captain Beefheart From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Captain Beefheart Captain Beefheart in Toronto.jpg At Convocation Hall, 1974 Background information Birth name Don Glen Vliet Also known as Captain Beefheart Bloodshot Rollin' Red Don Van Vliet Born January 15, 1941 Glendale, California, U.S. Died December 17, 2010 (aged 69) Arcata, California, U.S.[1] Genres Experimental rock, blues rock, avant-garde Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, musician, painter, poet, composer, author, record producer, film director Instruments Vocals, harmonica, saxophone, clarinet, oboe, horn, shehnai Years active 1964–1982 Labels A&M, Buddah, Blue Thumb, ABC, Reprise, Straight, Virgin, Mercury, DiscReet, Warner Bros., Atlantic, Epic, Major League Productions (MLP) Associated acts The Magic Band, Frank Zappa, The Mothers of Invention, Gary Lucas, the Tubes, Jack Nitzsche, Zoot Horn Rollo, Mallard, Jeff Cotton, Rockette Morton, Winged Eel Fingerling, The Mascara Snake, John "Drumbo" French, Ry Cooder, Eric Drew Feldman, Moris Tepper Website www.beefheart.com Don Van Vliet (/væn ˈvliːt/, born Don Glen Vliet;[2] January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. He conducted a rotating ensemble called the Magic Band, with whom he released 13 studio albums between 1964 and 1982. His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, and rock with avant-garde composition, idiosyncratic rhythms, and his surrealist wordplay and wide vocal range.[3][4][5] Known for his enigmatic persona, Beefheart frequently constructed myths about his life and was known to exercise an almost dictatorial control over his supporting musicians.[6] Although he achieved little commercial or mainstream critical success,[7] he sustained a cult following as a "highly significant" and "incalculable" influence on an array of new wave, punk, and experimental rock artists.[3][8] He has been described as "one of modern music's true innovators."[5] An artistic prodigy in his childhood,[9] Van Vliet developed an eclectic musical taste during his teen years in Lancaster, California, and formed "a mutually useful but volatile" friendship with musician Frank Zappa, with whom he sporadically competed and collaborated.[10] He began performing with his Captain Beefheart persona in 1964 and joined the original Magic Band line-up, initiated by Alexis Snouffer, the same year. The group released their debut album Safe as Milk in 1967 on Buddah Records. After being dropped by two consecutive record labels they signed to Zappa's Straight Records, where they released 1969's Trout Mask Replica; the album would later rank 58th in Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[11] In 1974, frustrated by lack of commercial success, he pursued a more conventional rock sound, but the ensuing albums were critically panned; this move, combined with not having been paid for a European tour, and years of enduring Beefheart's abusive behavior, led the entire band to quit. Beefheart eventually formed a new Magic Band with a group of younger musicians and regained contemporary approval through three final albums: Shiny Beast (1978), Doc at the Radar Station (1980) and Ice Cream for Crow (1982). Van Vliet made few public appearances after his retirement from music in 1982. He pursued a career in art, an interest that originated in his childhood talent for sculpture, and a venture which proved to be his most financially secure. His expressionist paintings and drawings command high prices, and have been exhibited in art galleries and museums across the world.[5][12][13] Van Vliet died in 2010, having suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years.[14] Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life and musical influences, 1941–62 1.2 Initial recordings, 1962–69 1.2.1 Safe as Milk 1.2.2 Recognition 1.2.3 The flipside of success 1.2.4 Strictly Personal 1.2.5 Mirror Man 1.2.6 The 'Brown Wrapper' Sessions 1.3 Trout Mask Replica, 1969 1.4 Later recordings, 1970–82 1.4.1 Lick My Decals Off, Baby 1.4.2 The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot 1.4.3 Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams 1.4.4 Bongo Fury to Bat Chain Puller 1.4.5 Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) 1.4.6 Doc at the Radar Station 1.4.7 Ice Cream for Crow 1.4.8 Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh 1.5 Paintings 1.6 Life in retirement 1.7 Death 2 Relationship with Frank Zappa 3 The Magic Band 3.1 Beginning 3.2 Beefheart takes the lead 3.3 The Magic Band post-Beefheart 3.4 Timeline 4 Influence 5 Discography 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links Biography Early life and musical influences, 1941–62 Van Vliet was born Don Glen Vliet in Glendale, California, on January 15, 1941, to Glen Alonzo Vliet, a service station owner of Dutch ancestry from Kansas, and Willie Sue Vliet (née Warfield), who was from Arkansas.[2] He claimed to have as an ancestor Peter van Vliet, a Dutch painter who knew Rembrandt. Van Vliet also claimed that he was related to adventurer and author Richard Halliburton and the cowboy actor Slim Pickens, and said that he remembered being born.[5][15] Van Vliet began painting and sculpting at age three.[16] His subjects reflected his "obsession" with animals, particularly dinosaurs, fish, African mammals and lemurs.[17] At the age of nine, he won a children's sculpting competition organised for the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park by a local tutor, Agostinho Rodrigues.[18] Local newspaper cuttings of his junior sculpting achievements can be found reproduced in the Splinters book, included in the Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh boxed CD work, released in 2004.[19] The sprawling park, with its zoo and observatory, had a strong influence on young Vliet, as it was a short distance from his home on Waverly Drive. The track "Observatory Crest" on Bluejeans & Moonbeams reflects this continued interest. A portrait photo of the school-age Vliet can be seen on the front of the lyric sheet within the first issue of the US release of Trout Mask Replica. For some time during the 1950s, Van Vliet worked as an apprentice with Rodrigues, who considered him a child prodigy. Vliet made claim to have been a lecturer at the Barnsdall Art Institute in Los Angeles at the age of eleven,[17] although it is likely he simply gave a form of artistic dissertation. Accounts of Van Vliet's precocious achievement in art often include his statement that he sculpted on a weekly television show.[20] He claimed that his parents discouraged his interest in sculpture, based upon their perception of artists as "queer". They declined several scholarship offers,[3] including one from the local Knudsen Creamery to travel to Europe with six years' paid tuition to study marble sculpture.[21] Van Vliet later admitted personal hesitation to take the scholarship based upon the bitterness of his parents' discouragement.[22] Van Vliet's artistic enthusiasm became so fervent, he claimed that his parents were forced to feed him through the door in the room where he sculpted. When he was thirteen the family moved from the Los Angeles area to the more remote farming town of Lancaster, near the Mojave Desert, where there was a growing aerospace industry and testing plant that would become Edwards Air Force Base. It was an environment that would greatly influence him creatively from then on.[20] Van Vliet remained interested in art; several of his paintings, often reminiscent of Franz Kline[23] were later used as front covers for his music albums. Meanwhile, he developed his taste and interest in music, listening "intensively" to the Delta blues of Son House and Robert Johnson, jazz artists such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor, and the Chicago blues of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters.[5][20][24] During his early teenage years, Vliet would sometimes socialize with members of local bands such as the Omens and the Blackouts, although his interests were still focused upon an art career. The Omens' guitarists Alexis Snouffer and Jerry Handley would later become founders of "the Magic Band" and the Blackouts' drummer, Frank Zappa, would later capture Vliet's vocal capabilities on record for the first time.[25][26] This first known recording, when he was simply "Don Vliet", is "Lost In A Whirlpool" – one of Zappa's early "field recordings" made in his college classroom with brother Bobby on guitar. It is featured on Zappa's posthumously released The Lost Episodes (1996). He had dropped out of school by that time, and spent most of his time staying at home. His girlfriend lived in the house, and his grandmother lived in the house, and his aunt and his uncle lived across the street. And his father had had a heart attack; his father drove a Helms bread truck, part of the time Don was helping out by taking over the bread truck route [and] driving up to Mojave. The rest of the time he would just sit at home and listen to rhythm and blues records, and scream at his mother to get him a Pepsi. Frank Zappa[27] Van Vliet claimed that he never attended public school, alleging "half a day of kindergarten" to be the extent of his formal education and saying that "if you want to be a different fish, you've got to jump out of the school". His associates said that he only dropped out during his senior year of high school to help support the family after his father's heart attack. His graduation picture appears in the school's yearbook.[28] His claims to have never attended school - and his general disavowals of education - may have been related to his experience of dyslexia which, although never officially diagnosed, was obvious to sidemen such as John French and Denny Walley, who observed his difficulty reading cue-cards on stage, and his frequent need to be read aloud to.[29] While attending Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, Van Vliet became close friends with fellow teenager Frank Zappa, the pair bonding through their interest in Chicago blues and R&B.[20][30] Van Vliet is portrayed in both The Real Frank Zappa Book and Barry Miles' biography Zappa as fairly spoiled at this stage of his life, the center of attention as an only child. He spent most of his time locked in his room listening to records, often with Zappa, into the early hours in the morning, eating leftover food from his father's Helms bread truck and demanding that his mother bring him a Pepsi.[27] His parents tolerated such behavior under the belief that their child was truly gifted. Vliet's "Pepsi-moods" were ever a source of amusement to band members, leading Zappa to later write the wry tune "Why Doesn't Someone Give Him A Pepsi?" that featured on the Bongo Fury tour.[31] After Zappa began regular occupation at Paul Buff's PAL Studio in Cucamonga he and Van Vliet began collaborating, tentatively as the Soots (pronounced "soots" [long double-o]). By the time Zappa had turned the venue into Studio Z the duo had completed some songs. These were Cheryl's Canon, Metal Man Has Won His Wings and a Howlin' Wolf styled rendition of Little Richard's Slippin' and Slidin'.[25] Further songs, on Zappa's Mystery Disc (1996), I Was a Teen-Age Malt Shop and The Birth of Captain Beefheart also provide an insight to Zappa's "teenage movie" script titled Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People,[32] the first appearances of the Beefheart name. It has been suggested this name came from a term used by Vliet's Uncle Alan who had a habit of exposing himself to Don's girlfriend, Laurie Stone. He would urinate with the bathroom door open and, if she was walking by, would mumble about his penis, saying "Ahh, what a beauty! It looks just like a big, fine beef heart".[33] In a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, Van Vliet requests "don't ask me why or how" he and Zappa came up with the name.[20] Johnny Carson also asked him the same question to which Van Vliet replied that one day he was standing on the pier and saw fishermen cutting the bills off pelicans. He said it made him sad and put "a beef in his heart". Carson appeared nervous and uncomfortable interviewing Van Vliet and after the next commercial break Van Vliet was gone. He would later claim in an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman that the name referred to "a beef in my heart against this society".[21] In the "Grunt People" draft script Beefheart and his mother play themselves, with his father played by Howlin' Wolf. Grace Slick is penned in as a "celestial seductress" and there are also roles for future Magic Band members Bill Harkleroad and Mark Boston.[34] Van Vliet enrolled at Antelope Valley Junior College as an art major, but decided to leave the following year. He once worked as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, and sold a vacuum cleaner to the writer Aldous Huxley at his home in Llano, pointing to it and declaring, "Well I assure you sir, this thing sucks."[35] After managing a Kinney's shoe store, Van Vliet relocated to Rancho Cucamonga, California, to reconnect with Zappa, who inspired his entry into musical performance. Van Vliet was quite shy but was eventually able to imitate the deep voice of Howlin' Wolf with his wide vocal range.[24][36] He eventually grew comfortable with public performance and, after learning to play the harmonica, began playing at dances and small clubs in Southern California. Initial recordings, 1962–69 In early 1965 Alex Snouffer, a Lancaster rhythm and blues guitarist, invited Vliet to sing with a group that he was assembling. Vliet joined the first Magic Band and changed his name to Don Van Vliet, while Snouffer became Alex St. Clair (sometimes spelled Claire). Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band signed to A&M and released two singles in 1966. The first was a version of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy" that became a regional hit in Los Angeles. The followup, "Moonchild" (written by David Gates, later of the band Bread) was less well received. The band played music venues that catered to underground artists, such as the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.[37] Safe as Milk After fulfilling their deal for two singles the band presented demos to A&M during 1966 for what would become the Safe as Milk album. A&M's Jerry Moss reportedly described this new direction as "too negative"[3] and dropped the band from the label, although still under contract. Much of the demo recording was accomplished at Art Laboe's Original Sound Studio, then with Gary Marker on the controls at Sunset Sound on 8-track. By the end of 1966 they were signed to Buddah Records and much of the demo work was transferred to 4-track, at the behest of Krasnow and Perry, in the RCA Studio in Hollywood, where the recording was finalized. Tracks that were originally laid down in the demo by Doug Moon are therefore taken up by Ry Cooder's work in the release, as Moon had departed over "musical differences" at this juncture. Drummer John French had now joined the group and it would later (notably on Trout Mask Replica) be his patience that was required to transcribe Van Vliet's creative ideas (often expressed by whistling or banging on the piano) into musical form for the other group members. On French's departure this role was taken over by Bill Harkleroad for Lick My Decals Off, Baby.[38] Many of the lyrics on the Safe as Milk album were written by Van Vliet in collaboration with the writer Herb Bermann, who befriended Van Vliet after seeing him perform at a bar-gig in Lancaster in 1966. The song "Electricity" was a poem written by Bermann, who gave Van Vliet permission to adapt it to music.[39] "Electricity" MENU0:00 While Safe as Milk mostly conveyed a blues–rock sound, songs such as "Electricity" illustrated the band's unconventional instrumentation and Van Vliet's unusual vocals, that guitarist Doug Moon described as "...hinting of things to come." Problems playing this file? See media help. Much of the Safe as Milk material was honed and arranged by the arrival of 20-year–old guitar prodigy Ry Cooder, who had been brought into the group after much pressure from Vliet. The band began recording in spring 1967, with Richard Perry cutting his teeth in his first job as producer. The album was released in September 1967. Richie Unterberger of Allmusic called the album "blues–rock gone slightly askew, with jagged, fractured rhythms, soulful, twisting vocals from Van Vliet, and more doo wop, soul, straight blues, and folk–rock influences than he would employ on his more avant garde outings." Recognition Among those who took notice were the Beatles. Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were known as great admirers of Beefheart.[40] Lennon displayed two of the album's promotional "baby bumper stickers" in the sunroom at his home.[41] Later, the Beatles planned to sign Beefheart to their experimental Zapple label (plans that were scrapped after Allen Klein took over the group's management). Van Vliet was often critical of the Beatles, however. He considered the lyric "I'd love to turn you on" from their song A Day in the Life, to be ridiculous and conceited. Tiring of their "lullabies",[42] he lampooned them with the Strictly Personal song Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' Stones, that featured the sardonic refrain of "...strawberry fields, all the winged eels slither on the heels of today's children, strawberry fields forever". Vliet spoke badly of Lennon after getting no response when he sent a telegram of support to him and wife Yoko Ono during their 1969 "Bed-In for peace". Van Vliet did meet McCartney in Cannes during the Magic Band's 1968 tour of Europe, though McCartney later claimed to have no recollection of this meeting.[43] The flipside of success Doug Moon left the band because of his dislike of the band's increasing experimentation outside his preferred blues genre. Ry Cooder told of Moon's becoming so angered by Van Vliet's unrelenting criticism that he walked into the room pointing a loaded crossbow at him, only to have Van Vliet tell him, "Get that fucking thing out of here, get out of here and get back in your room", which he did.[27] (Other band members dispute this account, though Moon is likely to have "passed through" the studio with a weapon.)[44] Moon was present during the early demo sessions at Original Sound studio, above the Kama Sutra/Buddah offices. The works Moon laid down did not see the light of day, as he was replaced by Cooder when they continued on material at Sunset Sound with Marker.[45] Marker then fell by the wayside when recording was moved by Krasnow and Perry to RCA Studio. This would have a profound effect on the quality of the Safe as Milk work, as the former studio was 8-track and the subsequent studio a 4-track. To support the album's release the group had been scheduled to play at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. During this period Vliet suffered severe anxiety attacks that made him convinced that he was having a heart attack, possibly exacerbated by his heavy LSD use and the fact that his father had died of heart failure a few years earlier. At a vital "warm-up" performance at the Mt. Tamalpais Festival (June 10/11) shortly before the scheduled Monterey Festival (June 16/18), the band began to play "Electricity" and Van Vliet froze, straightened his tie, then walked off the 10 ft (3.0 m) stage and landed on manager Bob Krasnow. He later claimed he had seen a girl in the audience turn into a fish, with bubbles coming from her mouth.[46] This aborted any opportunity of breakthrough success at Monterey, as Cooder immediately decided he could no longer work with Van Vliet,[27] effectively quitting both the event and the band on the spot. With such complex guitar parts there was no means for the band to find a competent replacement in time for Monterey. Cooder's spot was eventually filled for a short spell by Gerry McGee, who had played with the Monkees. According to French the band did two gigs with McGee, one of which was at The Peppermint Twist near Long Beach. The other was at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, August 7, 1967, as opening act for the Yardbirds.[47] McGee was in the group long enough to have an outfit made by a Santa Monica boutique[47] that also created the gear worn by the band on the Strictly Personal cover stamps. "Safe as Milk" MENU0:00 "Safe as Milk" from Strictly Personal, an album "...having little in the way of lyrics or chords beyond the most primeval stomp." Problems playing this file? See media help. Strictly Personal In August 1967, guitarist Jeff Cotton filled the guitar spot vacated, in turn, by Cooder and McGee. In October and November 1967 the Snouffer/Cotton/Handley/French line–up recorded material for what was planned to be the second album. Originally intended to be a double album called It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper for the Buddah label, it was released later in pieces in 1971 and 1995. After rejection from Buddah, Bob Krasnow encouraged the band to re-record four of the shorter numbers, add two more, and make shorter versions of "Mirror Man" and "Kandy Korn". Krasnow created a strange mix full of "phasing" that, by most accounts (including Beefheart's), diminished the music's strength. This was released in October 1968 as Strictly Personal on Krasnow's Blue Thumb label.[48] Stewart Mason in his Allmusic review of the album described it as a "terrific album" and a "fascinating, underrated release... every bit the equal of Safe as Milk and Trout Mask Replica".[49] Langdon Winner of Rolling Stone called Strictly Personal "an excellent album. The guitars of the Magic Band mercilessly bend and stretch notes in a way that suggests that the world of music has wobbled clear off its axis," with the lyrics demonstrating "...Beefheart's ability to juxtapose delightful humor with frightening insights."[50] Mirror Man In 1971 some of the recordings done for Buddah were released as Mirror Man, bearing a liner note claiming that the material had been recorded in "...one night in Los Angeles in 1965". This was a ruse to circumvent possible copyright issues. The material was recorded in November and December 1967. Essentially a "jam" album, described as pushing "the boundaries of conventional blues–rock, with a Beefheart vocal tossed in here and there. Some may miss Beefheart's surreal poetry, gruff vocals, and/or free jazz influence, while others may find it fascinating to hear the Magic Band simply letting go and cutting loose."[51] The album's "miss-credit errors" also state band members as "Alex St. Clare Snouffer" (Alex St. Clare/Alexis Snouffer), "Antennae Jimmy Simmons" (Semens/Jeff Cotton) and "Jerry Handsley" (Handley). First vinyl was issued in both a die-cut gatefold (revealing a "cracked" mirror) and a single sleeve with same image. The UK Buddah issue was part of the Polydor-manufactured "Select" series. During his first trip to England in January 1968, Captain Beefheart was briefly represented in the UK by mod icon Peter Meaden, an early manager of the Who. The Captain and his band members were initially denied entry to the United Kingdom, because Meaden had illegally booked them for gigs without applying for appropriate work permits.[52] After returning to Germany for a few days, the group was permitted to re-enter the UK, when they recorded material for John Peel's radio show and appeared at the Middle Earth venue, introduced by Peel on Saturday January 20. By this time, they had terminated their association with Meaden. On January 27, 1968, Beefheart performed in the MIDEM Music Festival on the beach at Cannes, France. Alex St. Claire left the band in June 1968 after their return from a second European tour and was replaced by teenager Bill Harkleroad; bassist Jerry Handley left a few weeks later. The 'Brown Wrapper' Sessions After their Euro tour and the Cannes beach performance the band returned to the US. Moves were already in the air for them to leave Buddah and sign to MGM and, prior to their May tour – mainly in the UK – they re-recorded some Buddah material of the partial Mirror Man sessions at Sunset Sound with Bruce Botnick. Beefheart had also been conceptualizing new band names, including 25th Century Quaker and Blue Thumb,[53] while making suggestions to other musicians that they might get involved. The thought-process of 25th Century Quaker was that it would be a "blues band" alias for the more avant-garde work of the Magic Band. Photographer Guy Webster actually photographed the band in Quaker-style outfits, and the picture appears in The Mirror Man Sessions CD insert. It would later transpire that much of this situation was transient and that Buddah's Bob Krasnow was to set up his own label. The label that was unsurprisingly named Blue Thumb launched with its first release Strictly Personal, a truncated version of the original Beefheart vision of a double album. Thus "25th Century Quaker" became a track and a potential band-name became a label. In overview, the works for the double album in this period were intended to be packaged in a plain brown wrapper, with a "strictly personal" over-stamp and addressed in a manner that could have connotations of drug content, pornographic or illicit material; As per the small ads of the time: "It comes to you in a plain brown wrapper." Given that Krasnow had effectively poached the band from Buddah there were limitations on what material could be released. Strictly Personal was the result, contained in its enigmatically-addressed parcel sleeve. The raft of material left behind eventually emerged, firstly on CD as I May Be Hungry, But I Sure Ain't Weird and later on vinyl, implemented by John French, as It Comes To You in a Plain Brown Wrapper (which has two tracks that are missing from the former release). Both Blue Thumb and the stamps on the cover of Strictly Personal have LSD connotations, as does the track Ah Feel Like Ahcid, although Beefheart himself refuted this (claiming that this is a rendering of "I feel like I said"). Trout Mask Replica, 1969 This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Critically acclaimed as Van Vliet's magnum opus,[54] Trout Mask Replica was released as a 28 track double album in June 1969 on Frank Zappa's newly formed Straight Records label. First issues, in the US, were auto-coupled and housed in the black "Straight" liners along with a 6-page lyric sheet illustrated by the Mascara Snake. A school-age portrait of Van Vliet appears on the front of this sheet, while the cover of the gatefold enigmatically shows Beefheart in a 'Quaker' hat, obscuring his face with the head of a fish. The fish is a carp – arguably a "replica" for a trout, photographed by Cal Schenkel. The inner spread "infra-red" photography is by Ed Caraeff, whose Beefheart vacuum cleaner images from this session also appear on Zappa's Hot Rats release (a month earlier) to accompany "Willie The Pimp" lyrics sung by Vliet. Alex St. Clair had now left the band and, after Junior Madeo from the Blackouts was considered,[55] the role was filled by Bill Harkleroad. Bassist Jerry Handley had also departed, with Gary Marker stepping in. Thus the long rehearsals for the album began in the house on Ensenada Drive in Woodland Hills, L.A.,[56][57] that would become the Magic Band House. The Magic Band began recordings for Trout Mask Replica with bassist Gary "Magic" Marker at T.T.G. (on "Moonlight on Vermont" and "Veteran's Day Poppy"),[58] but later enlisted bassist Mark Boston after his departure. The remainder of the album was recorded at Whitney Studios, with some field recordings made at the house.[56] Boston was acquainted with French and Harkleroad via past bands. Van Vliet had also begun assigning nicknames to his band members, so Harkleroad became Zoot Horn Rollo, and Boston became Rockette Morton, while John French assumed the name Drumbo, and Jeff Cotton became Antennae Jimmy Semens. Van Vliet's cousin Victor Hayden, the Mascara Snake, performed as a bass clarinetist later in the proceedings.[59] Vliet's girlfriend Laurie Stone, who can be heard laughing at the beginning of Fallin' Ditch, became an audio typist[60] at the Magic Band house. Van Vliet wanted the whole band to "live" the Trout Mask Replica album. The group rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally in their small rented house in the Woodland Hills suburb of Los Angeles. With only two bedrooms the band members would find sleep in various corners of one, while Vliet occupied the other and rehearsals were accomplished in the main living area. Van Vliet implemented his vision by completely dominating his musicians, artistically and emotionally. At various times one or another of the group members was "put in the barrel", with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission.[61] Guitarist Bill Harkleroad complained that his fingers were a "bloody mess" as a result of Beefheart's orders that he use heavy strings.[62] Drummer John French described the situation as "cultlike"[63] and a visiting friend said "the environment in that house was positively Mansonesque".[5] Their material circumstances were dire. With no income other than welfare and contributions from relatives, the group barely survived and were even arrested for shoplifting food (Zappa bailed them out).[64] French has recalled living on no more than a small cup of beans a day for a month.[27] A visitor described their appearance as "cadaverous" and said that "they all looked in poor health". Band members were restricted from leaving the house and practiced for 14 or more hours a day. John French's 2010 book Through the Eyes of Magic describes some of the "talks", which were initiated by his doing such things as playing a Frank Zappa drum part ("The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)") in his drumming shed, and not having finished drum parts as quickly as Beefheart wanted. French writes of being punched by band members, thrown into walls, kicked, punched in the face by Beefheart hard enough to draw blood, being attacked with a sharp broomstick.[65] Eventually Beefheart, French says, threatened to throw him out an upper floor window. He admits complicity in similarly attacking his bandmates during "talks" aimed at them. In the end, after the album's recording, Beefheart ejected French from the band by throwing him down a set of stairs, telling him to "Take a walk, man" after not responding in a desired manner to a request to "play a strawberry" on the drums. Beefheart replaced French with drummer Jeff Bruschel, an acquaintance of Hayden. Referred to as "Fake Drumbo" (playing on French's drumset) this final act resulted in French's name not appearing on the album credits, either as a player or arranger. Bruschel toured with the band to Europe but was replaced by the next recording. According to Van Vliet, the 28 songs on the album were written in a single 8½ hour session at the piano, an instrument he had no skill in playing, an approach Mike Barnes compared to John Cage's "...maverick irreverence toward classical tradition,"[66] though band members have stated that the songs were written over the course of about a year, beginning around December 1967. (The band did watch Federico Fellini's 1963 film 8½ during the creation of the album). It took the band about eight months to mold the songs into shape, with French bearing primary responsibility for transposing and shaping Vliet's piano fragments into guitar and bass lines, which were mostly notated on paper.[67] Harkleroad in 1998 said in retrospect: "We're dealing with a strange person, coming from a place of being a sculptor/painter, using music as his idiom. He was getting more into that part of who he was instead of this blues singer."[66] The band had rehearsed the songs so thoroughly that the instrumental tracks for 21 of the songs were recorded in a single four and a half hour recording session.[67] Van Vliet spent the next few days overdubbing the vocals. The album's cover artwork was photographed and designed by Cal Schenkel and shows Van Vliet wearing the raw head of a carp, bought from a local fish market and fashioned into a mask by Schenkel.[68] "Moonlight on Vermont" MENU0:00 "Moonlight on Vermont" from Trout Mask Replica, that well illustrates the album's sound and composition. "Pena" MENU0:00 "Pena"; An example of the album's avant-garde instrumentation and bizarre lyrical content. Problems playing these files? See media help. Trout Mask Replica incorporated a wide variety of musical styles, including blues, avant garde/experimental, and rock. The relentless practice prior to recording blended the music into an iconoclastic whole of contrapuntal tempos, featuring slide guitar, polyrhythmic drumming (with French's drums and cymbals covered in cardboard), honking saxophone and bass clarinet. Van Vliet's vocals range from his signature Howlin' Wolf-inspired growl to frenzied falsetto to laconic, casual ramblings. The instrumental backing was effectively recorded live in the studio, while Van Vliet overdubbed most of the vocals in only partial sync with the music by hearing the slight sound leakage through the studio window.[69] Zappa said of Van Vliet's approach, "[it was] impossible to tell him why things should be such and such a way. It seemed to me that if he was going to create a unique object, that the best thing for me to do was to keep my mouth shut as much as possible and just let him do whatever he wanted to do whether I thought it was wrong or not."[27] Van Vliet used the ensuing publicity, particularly with a 1970 Rolling Stone interview with Langdon Winner, to promulgate a number of myths that were subsequently quoted as fact. Winner's article stated, for instance, that neither Van Vliet nor the members of the Magic Band ever took drugs, but Harkleroad later contradicted this. Van Vliet claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and Boston to play their instruments from scratch; in fact the pair were already accomplished young musicians before joining the band.[69] Last, Van Vliet claimed to have gone a year and half without sleeping. When asked how this was possible, he claimed to have only eaten fruit.[15] Critic Steve Huey of AllMusic writes that the album's influence "was felt more in spirit than in direct copycatting, as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless experiments in rock surrealism to follow, especially during the punk and new wave era."[70] In 2003, the album was ranked sixtieth by Rolling Stone in their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: "On first listen, Trout Mask Replica sounds like raw Delta blues," with Beefheart "...singing and ranting and reciting poetry over fractured guitar licks. But the seeming sonic chaos is an illusion—to construct the songs, the Magic Band rehearsed twelve hours a day for months on end in a house with the windows blacked out. (Producer Frank Zappa was then able to record most of the album in less than five hours.) Tracks such as "Ella Guru" and "My Human Gets Me Blues" are the direct predecessors of modern musical primitives such as Tom Waits and PJ Harvey."[11] Guitarist Fred Frith noted that during this process "forces that usually emerge in improvisation are harnessed and made constant, repeatable".[71] Critic Robert Christgau gave the album a B+, saying, "I find it impossible to give this record an A because it is just too weird. But I'd like to. Very great played at high volume when you're feeling shitty, because you'll never feel as shitty as this record."[72] BBC disc jockey John Peel said of the album: "If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work."[73] It was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry in 2011. Later recordings, 1970–82 Lick My Decals Off, Baby Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) continued in a similarly experimental vein. An album with "...a very coherent structure" in the Magic Band's "...most experimental and visionary stage",[74] it was Van Vliet's most commercially successful in the United Kingdom, spending twenty weeks on the UK Albums Chart and peaking at number 20. An early promotional music video was made of its title song, and a bizarre television commercial was also filmed that included excerpts from Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop, silent footage of masked Magic Band members using kitchen utensils as musical instruments, and Beefheart kicking over a bowl of what appears to be porridge onto a dividing stripe in the middle of a road. The video was rarely played but was accepted into the Museum of Modern Art, where it has been used in several programs related to music.[75][76] On this LP Art Tripp III, formerly of the Mothers of Invention, played drums and marimba. Lick My Decals Off, Baby was the first record on which the band was credited as "The" Magic Band, rather than "His" Magic Band. Journalist Irwin Chusid interprets this change as "...a grudging concession of its members' at least semiautonomous humanity".[69] Robert Christgau gave the album an A–, commenting that, "Beefheart's famous five-octave range and covert totalitarian structures have taken on a playful undertone, repulsive and engrossing and slapstick funny."[72] Due to licensing disputes, Lick My Decals Off, Baby was unavailable on CD for many years, though it remained in print on vinyl. It was ranked second in Uncut magazine's May 2010 list of The 50 Greatest Lost Albums.[77] In 2011, the album became available for download on the iTunes Store.[78] He toured in 1970 with Ry Cooder on the bill to promote the album. The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot Beefheart performing at Convocation Hall, Toronto, in 1974. The next two records, The Spotlight Kid (simply credited to "Captain Beefheart") and Clear Spot (credited to "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band"), were both released in 1972. The atmosphere of The Spotlight Kid is, according to one critic, "definitely relaxed and fun, maybe one step up from a jam". And though "things do sound maybe just a little too blasé", "Beefheart at his worst still has something more than most groups at their best."[79] The music is simpler and slower than on the group's two previous releases, the uncompromisingly original Trout Mask Replica and the frenetic Lick My Decals Off, Baby. This was in part an attempt by Van Vliet to become a more appealing commercial proposition as the band had made virtually no money during the previous two years—at the time of recording, the band members were subsisting on welfare food handouts and remittances from their parents.[80] Van Vliet offered that he "got tired of scaring people with what I was doing... I realized that I had to give them something to hang their hat on, so I started working more of a beat into the music".[81] Magic Band members have also said that the slower performances were due in part to Van Vliet's inability to fit his lyrics with the instrumental backing of the faster material on the earlier albums, a problem that was exacerbated in that he almost never rehearsed with the group.[81] In the period leading up to the recording the band lived communally, first at a compound near Ben Lomond, California and then in northern California near Trinidad.[82] The situation saw a return to the physical violence and psychological manipulation that had taken place during the band's previous communal residence while composing and rehearsing Trout Mask Replica. According to John French, the worst of this was directed toward Harkleroad.[83] In his autobiography Harkleroad recalls being thrown into a dumpster, an act he interpreted as having metaphorical intent.[84] Clear Spot's production credit of Ted Templeman made Allmusic consider "why in the world [it] wasn't more of a commercial success than it was", and that while fans "of the fully all-out side of Beefheart might find the end result not fully up to snuff as a result, but those less concerned with pushing back all borders all the time will enjoy his unexpected blend of everything tempered with a new accessibility". The song "Big Eyed Beans from Venus" is noted as "...a fantastically strange piece of aggression".[85] A Clear Spot song, "Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles", appeared on the soundtrack of the Coen brothers' cult comedy film The Big Lebowski (1998). Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams In 1974, immediately after the recording of Unconditionally Guaranteed, which markedly continued the trend towards a more commercial sound heard on some of the Clear Spot tracks, the Magic Band's original members departed. Disgruntled and past members worked together for a period, gigging at Blue Lake and putting together their own ideas and demos, with John French earmarked as the vocalist. These concepts eventually coalesced around the core of Art Tripp III, Harkleroad and Boston, with the formation of Mallard, helped by finance and UK recording facilities from Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson.[86][87] Some of French's compositions were used in the band's work, but the group's singer was Sam Galpin and the role of keyboardist was eventually taken by John Thomas, who had shared a house with French in Eureka at the time. At this time Vliet attempted to recruit both French and Harkleroad as producers for his next album, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Andy Di Martino produced both of these Virgin label albums. Vliet was forced to quickly form a new Magic Band to complete support-tour dates, with musicians who had no experience with his music and in fact had never heard it. Having no knowledge of the previous Magic Band style, they simply improvised what they thought would go with each song, playing much slicker versions that have been described as "bar band" versions of Beefheart songs. A review described this incarnation of the Magic Band as the "Tragic Band", a term that has stuck over the years.[88] Mike Barnes said that the description of the new band "grooving along pleasantly", was "...an appropriately banal description of the music of a man who only a few years ago composed with the expressed intent of shaking listeners out of their torpor".[89] The one album they recorded, Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974) has, like its predecessor, a completely different, almost soft rock sound from any other Beefheart record. Neither was well received; drummer Art Tripp recalled that when he and the original Magic Band listened to Unconditionally Guaranteed, they "...were horrified. As we listened, it was as though each song was worse than the one which preceded it".[90] Beefheart later disowned both albums, calling them "horrible and vulgar", asking that they not be considered part of his musical output and urging fans who bought them to "take copies back for a refund".[91] Bongo Fury to Bat Chain Puller By the fall of 1975 the band had completed their European tour, with further US dates in the New Year of 1976, supporting Zappa along with Dr. John. Van Vliet now found himself stuck in a web of contractual hang-ups. At this point Zappa had begun to extend a helping hand, with Vliet already having performed incognito as "Rollin' Red" on Zappa's One Size Fits All (1975) and then joining with him on the Bongo Fury album and its later support tour. Two Vliet-penned numbers on the Bongo Fury album are "Sam with the Showing Scalp Flat Top" and "Man with the Woman Head". The form, texture and imagery of this album's first track, "Debra Kadabra", sung by Vliet, has 'angular similarities' to the work he would later produce in his next three albums. On the Bongo Fury album Vliet also sings "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead", harmonizes on "200 Years Old" and "Muffin Man", and plays harmonica and soprano saxophone. In early 1976 Zappa put on his producer hat and, once again, opened up his studio facilities and finance to Vliet. This was for the production of an album provisionally titled Bat Chain Puller. The band were John French (drums), John Thomas (keyboards) and Jeff Moris Tepper and Denny Walley (guitars). Much of the work on this album had been finalized and some demos had been circulated when fate once again struck the Beefheart camp. In May 1976 the long association between Zappa and his manager/business partner Herb Cohen ceased. This resulted in Zappa's finances and ongoing works becoming part of protracted legal negotiations. The Bat Chain Puller project went "on ice" and did not see an official release until 2012.[92][93] After this recording John Thomas joined ex-Magic Band members in Mallard. Prior to his next album Beefheart appeared in 1977 on the Tubes' album Now, playing saxophone on the song "Cathy's Clone",[94] and the album also featured a cover of the Clear Spot song "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains". In 1978 he appeared on Jack Nitzsche's soundtrack to the film Blue Collar.[35] Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) Having extricated himself from a mire of contractual difficulties Beefheart emerged with this new album, in 1978, on the Warner Bros label. Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) contained re-workings of the shelved Bat Chain Puller album and still retained its original guitarist, Jeff Moris Tepper. However, he and Vliet were now joined by a whole new line-up of Richard Redus (guitar, bass and accordion), Eric Drew Feldman (bass, piano and synthesizer), Bruce Lambourne Fowler (trombone and air bass), Art Tripp (percussion and marimba) and Robert Arthur Williams (drums). The album was co-produced by Vliet with Pete Johnson. Members of this Magic Band and the "Bat Chain" elements would later feature on Beefheart's last two albums. Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) was described by Ned Raggett of Allmusic to be "...manna from heaven for those feeling Beefheart had lost his way on his two Mercury albums".[95] Following Vliet's death, John French claimed the 40-second spoken word track "Apes-Ma" to be an analogy of Van Vliet's deteriorating physical condition.[96] The album's sleeve features Van Vliet's 1976 painting Green Tom, one of the many works that would mark out his longed-for career as a painter of note. Doc at the Radar Station "Bat Chain Puller" MENU0:00 "Bat Chain Puller" from (Shiny Beast) Bat Chain Puller, the album that marked Van Vliet's return to prominence and form. "Ice Cream for Crow" MENU0:00 Ice Cream for Crow, the title track of the final Beefheart album Problems playing these files? See media help. Doc at the Radar Station (1980) helped establish Beefheart's late resurgence. Released by Virgin Records during the post-punk scene, the music was now accessible to a younger, more receptive audience. He was interviewed in a feature report on KABC-TV's Channel 7 Eyewitness News in which he was hailed as "the father of the new wave. One of the most important American composers of the last fifty years, [and] a primitive genius"; Van Vliet said at this period, "I'm doing a non-hypnotic music to break up the catatonic state... and I think there is one right now."[97] Huey of Allmusic cited the Doc at the Radar Station as being "...generally acclaimed as the strongest album of his comeback, and by some as his best since Trout Mask Replica", "even if the Captain's voice isn't quite what it once was, Doc at the Radar Station is an excellent, focused consolidation of Beefheart's past and then-present".[98] Van Vliet's biographer Mike Barnes speaks of "revamping work built on skeletal ideas and fragments that would have mouldered away in the vaults had they not been exhumed and transformed into full-blown, totally convincing new material".[5] During this period, Van Vliet made two appearances on David Letterman's late night television program on NBC, and also performed on Saturday Night Live. Richard Redus and Art Tripp departed on this album, with slide guitar and marimba duties taken up by the reappearance of John French. The guitar skills of Gary Lucas also feature on the track Flavor Bud Living. Ice Cream for Crow Van Vliet and the new Magic Band. The final Beefheart record, Ice Cream for Crow (1982), was recorded with Gary Lucas (who was also Van Vliet's manager), Jeff Moris Tepper, Richard Snyder and Cliff Martinez. This line-up made a video to promote the title track, directed by Van Vliet and Ken Schreiber, with cinematography by Daniel Pearl, which was rejected by MTV for being "too weird". However, the video was included in the Letterman broadcast on NBC-TV, and was also accepted into the Museum of Modern Art.[99] Van Vliet announced "I don't want my MTV if they don't want my video" during his interview with Letterman, in reference to MTV's "I want my MTV" marketing campaign of the time.[100] Ice Cream for Crow, along with songs such as its title track, features instrumental performances by the Magic Band with performance poetry readings by Van Vliet. Raggett of Allmusic called the album a "last entertaining blast of wigginess from one of the few truly independent artists in late 20th century pop music, with humor, skill, and style all still intact"; with the Magic Band "...turning out more choppy rhythms, unexpected guitar lines, and outré arrangements, Captain Beefheart lets everything run wild as always, with successful results."[101] Barnes writes that, "The most original and vital tracks (on the album) are the newer ones," saying that it, "...feels like an hors-d'oeuvre for a main course that never came."[5] Michael Galucci of Goldmine praised the album, describing it as "the single, most bizarre entry in Van Vliet's long, odd career."[102] Promotional work proposed to Beefheart by Virgin Records was as unorthodox as him making an appearance in the 1987 film Grizzly II: The Predator.[103] Soon after, Van Vliet retired from music and began a new career as a painter. Gary Lucas tried to convince him to record one more album, but to no avail. Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh Released in 2004 by Rhino Handmade in a limited edition of 1,500 copies,[19] this signed and numbered box set contains a "Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh" CD of Vliet-recited poetry, the Anton Corbijn film of Vliet Some YoYo Stuff on DVD and two art books. One book, entitled Splinters, gives a visual "scrapbook" insight into Vliet's life, from an early age to his painting in retirement. The second, eponymously titled, book is packed with art pages of Vliet's work. The first is bound in green linen, the second in yellow. These colors are counterpointed throughout the package, which comes in a green slipcase measuring 235 mm × 325 mm × 70 mm. An onion-skin wallet, nestling at the package's inner sanctum, contains a matching-numbered Vliet lithograph on hand-rolled paper, signed by the artist. The two books are by publishers Artist Ink Editions. Paintings Throughout his musical career, Van Vliet remained interested in visual art. He placed his paintings, often reminiscent of Franz Kline, on several of his albums.[23] In 1987, Van Vliet published Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush, a collection of his poetry, paintings and drawings.[104] In the mid-1980s, Van Vliet became reclusive and abandoned music, stating he had gotten "too good at the horn"[12] and could make far more money painting.[105] Beefheart's first exhibition had been at Liverpool's Bluecoat Gallery during the Magic Band's 1972 tour of the UK. He was interviewed on Granada regional television standing in front of his bold black and white canvases.[27] He was inspired to begin an art career when a fan, Julian Schnabel, who admired the artwork seen on his album covers, asked to buy a drawing from him.[13] His debut exhibition as a serious painter was at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York in 1985 and was initially regarded as that of "...another rock musician dabbling in art for ego's sake",[16] though his primitive, non-conformist work has received more sympathetic and serious attention since then, with some sales approaching $25,000.[13] Two books have been published specifically devoted to critique and analysis of his artwork: Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh: On The Arts Of Don Van Vliet (1999) by W.C. Bamberger[106] and Stand Up To Be Discontinued,[107] first published in 1993, a now rare collection of essays on Van Vliet's work. The limited edition version of the book contains a CD of Van Vliet reading six of his poems: Fallin' Ditch, The Tired Plain, Skeleton Makes Good, Safe Sex Drill, Tulip and Gill. A deluxe edition was published in 1994; only 60 were printed, with etchings of Van Vliet's signature, costing £180.[108] Cross Poked Shadow of a Crow No. 1 (1990) In the early 1980s Van Vliet established an association with the Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne.[citation needed] Eric Feldman stated later in an interview that at that time Michael Werner told Van Vliet he needed to stop playing music if he wanted to be respected as a painter, warning him that otherwise he would only be considered a "...musician who paints".[27] In doing so, it was said that he had effectively "succeeded in leaving his past behind".[13] Van Vliet has been described as a modernist, a primitivist, an abstract expressionist, and, "in a sense" an outsider artist.[13] Morgan Falconer of Artforum concurs, mentioning both a "neo-primitivist aesthetic" and further stating that his work is influenced by the CoBrA painters.[109] The resemblance to the CoBrA painters is also recognized by art critic Roberto Ohrt,[23] while others have compared his paintings to the work of Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Antonin Artaud,[13] Francis Bacon,[3][23] Vincent van Gogh and Mark Rothko.[110] According to Dr. John Lane, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in 1997, although Van Vliet's work has associations with mainstream abstract expressionist painting, more importantly he was a self-taught artist and his painting "has that same kind of edge the music has". Curator David Breuer asserts that in contrast to the busied, bohemian urban lives of the New York abstract expressionists, the rural desert environment Van Vliet was influenced by is a distinctly naturalistic one, making him a distinguished figure in contemporary art, whose work will survive in canon.[27] Van Vliet stated of his own work, "I'm trying to turn myself inside out on the canvas. I'm trying to completely bare what I think at that moment"[111] and that, "I paint for the simple reason that I have to. I feel a sense of relief after I do."[110] When asked about his artistic influences he stated that there were none. "I just paint like I paint and that's enough influence."[16] He did however state his admiration of Georg Baselitz,[13] the De Stijl artist Piet Mondrian, and Vincent van Gogh; after seeing van Gogh's paintings in person, Van Vliet quoted himself as saying that, "The sun disappoints me so."[112] Exhibits of his paintings from the late 1990s were held in New York in 2009 and 2010.[citation needed] Falconer stated that the most recent exhibitions showed "evidence of a serious, committed artist". It was claimed that he stopped painting in the late 1990s.[109] A 2007 interview with Van Vliet through email by Anthony Haden-Guest, however, showed him to still be active artistically. He exhibited only few of his paintings because he immediately destroyed any that did not satisfy him.[12] Life in retirement Van Vliet in Anton Corbijn's 1993 Some Yo Yo Stuff After his retirement from music, Van Vliet rarely appeared in public. He resided near Trinidad, California, with his wife Janet "Jan" Van Vliet.[12] By the early 1990s he was using a wheelchair as a result of multiple sclerosis.[5][113][114][115] The severity of his illness was sometimes disputed. Many of his art contractors and friends considered him to be in good health.[114] Other associates such as his longtime drummer and musical director John French and bassist Richard Snyder have stated that they had noticed symptoms consistent with the onset of multiple sclerosis, such as sensitivity to heat, loss of balance, and stiffness of gait, by the late 1970s. One of Van Vliet's last public appearances was in the 1993 short documentary Some Yo Yo Stuff by filmmaker Anton Corbijn, described as an "observation of his observations". Around 13 minutes and shot entirely in black and white, with appearances by his mother and David Lynch, the film showed a noticeably weakened and dysarthric Van Vliet at his residence in California, reading poetry, and philosophically discussing his life, environment, music and art.[112] In 2000, he appeared on Gary Lucas' album Improve the Shining Hour and Moris Tepper's Moth to Mouth, and spoke on Tepper's 2004 song "Ricochet Man" from the album Head Off. He is credited for naming Tepper's 2010 album A Singer Named Shotgun Throat.[116] Van Vliet often voiced concern over and support for environmentalist issues and causes, particularly the welfare of animals. He often referred to Earth as "God's Golfball" and this expression can be found on a number of his later albums. In 2003 he was heard on the compilation album Where We Live: Stand for What You Stand On: A Benefit CD for EarthJustice singing a version of "Happy Birthday to You" retitled "Happy Earthday". The track lasts 34 seconds and was recorded over the telephone.[117] Death Van Vliet died at a hospital in Arcata, California on Friday, December 17, 2010[1]. The cause was named as complications from multiple sclerosis.[118] Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan commented on his death, praising him: "Wondrous, secret ... and profound, he was a diviner of the highest order."[119] Dweezil Zappa dedicated the song "Willie the Pimp" to Beefheart at the "Zappa Plays Zappa" show at the Beacon Theater in New York City on the day of his death, while Jeff Bridges exclaimed "Rest in peace, Captain Beefheart!" at the conclusion of the December 18 episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live.[120] Relationship with Frank Zappa "Willie the Pimp" MENU0:00 Van Vliet's idiosyncratic vocal on Zappa's "Willie the Pimp" was among their collaborations. Problems playing this file? See media help. Van Vliet seated left on stage with Zappa in 1975 Van Vliet met Frank Zappa when they were both teenagers and shared an interest in rhythm and blues and Chicago blues.[30] They collaborated from this early stage, with Zappa's scripts for "teenage operettas" such as "Captain Beefheart & the Grunt People" helping to elevate the Van Vliet persona of Captain Beefheart.[121] In 1963, the pair recorded a demo at the Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga as the Soots, seeking support from a major label. Their efforts were unsuccessful, as "Beefheart's Howlin' Wolf vocal style and Zappa's distorted guitar" were "not on the agenda" at the time.[30] The friendship between Zappa and Van Vliet over the years was sometimes expressed in the form of rivalry as musicians drifted back and forth between their groups.[122] Van Vliet embarked on the 1975 Bongo Fury tour with Zappa and the Mothers,[123] mainly because conflicting contractual obligations made him unable to tour or record independently. Their relationship grew acrimonious on the tour to the point that they refused to talk to one another. Zappa became irritated by Van Vliet, who drew constantly, including while on stage, filling one of his large sketch books with rapidly executed portraits and warped caricatures of Zappa. Musically, Van Vliet's primitive style contrasted sharply with Zappa's compositional discipline and abundant technique. Mothers of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black described the situation as "two geniuses" on "ego trips".[27] Estranged for years afterwards, they reconnected at the end of Zappa's life, after his diagnosis with terminal prostate cancer.[124] Their collaborative work appears on the Zappa rarity collections The Lost Episodes (1996) and Mystery Disc (1996). Particularly notable is their song "Muffin Man", included on the Zappa/Beefheart Bongo Fury album, as well as Zappa's compilation album Strictly Commercial (1995). Zappa finished concerts with the song for many years afterwards. Beefheart also provided vocals for "Willie the Pimp" on Zappa's otherwise instrumental album Hot Rats (1969). One track on Trout Mask Replica, "The Blimp (mousetrapreplica)", features Magic Band guitarist Jeff Cotton talking on the telephone to Zappa superimposed onto an unrelated live recording of the Mothers of Invention (the backing track was later released in 1992 as "Charles Ives" on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 5 ).[125] Van Vliet also played the harmonica on two songs on Zappa albums: "San Ber'dino" (credited as "Bloodshot Rollin' Red") on One Size Fits All (1975) and "Find Her Finer" on Zoot Allures (1976).[126] He is also the vocalist on "The Torture Never Stops (Original Version)" on Zappa's You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 4. The Magic Band Don Van Vliet and Gary Lucas, 'Doc at the Radar Station' sessions (May 1980) The members of the original Magic Band had come together in 1964. At this time Van Vliet was simply the lead singer of the group, which had been brought together by guitarist Alex St. Clair. As in many emerging groups in California at the time, there were elements of psychedelia and the foundations of contemporary hippie counterculture. Thus, it seemed quite logical to promote the group as "Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band", around the concept that Captain Beefheart had "magic powers" and, upon drinking a "Pepsi", could summon up "His Magic Band" to appear and perform behind him.[127] The strands of this logic emanated from Vliet's Beefheart persona having been "written in" as a character in a "teenage operetta" that Zappa had formulated,[32] along with Van Vliet's renowned "Pepsi moods" with his mother Willie Sue and his generally spoilt teenage demeanor. The name "His Magic Band" changed to "the Magic Band" in 1972. Beginning In late 1965, after numerous car-club dances, juke joint gigs, appearances at the Avalon Ballroom and winning the Teenage Fair Battle of the Bands, the group finally bagged a contract for recording two singles with the newly created A&M Records label with Leonard Grant as their manager. It was at this time that musical relationships had also been struck with members of Rising Sons who would later feature in the band's recordings. The A&M deal also brought some contention between members of the band, torn between a career as an experimental "pop" group and that of a purist blues band. Working with young producer David Gates also opened up horizons for Vliet's skills as a poet-cum-lyricist, with his "Who Do You Think You're Fooling" on the flipside of the band's first single, a cover of the Ellas McDaniel/Willie Dixon-penned hit, "Diddy Wah Diddy". Fate and circumstance, not for the first time, would befall the band's success upon its release – which coincided with a singles cover of the same song by the Remains.[128] The initial line-up of the Magic Band that entered the studio for the A&M recordings was not that which emerged by the second release, "Moonchild", also backed by a Vliet-penned number, "Frying Pan". A 12" vinyl 45rpm mono EP/mono mini-cassette tape was later released in 1987, with the four tracks of the two singles, plus "Here I Am, I Always Am" as a fifth previously unreleased song. This release was titled The Legendary A&M Sessions, with a red-marbled cover and (later) members Moon, Blakely, Vliet, Snouffer and Handley seated in a "temperance dance band" photo-pose. The original Magic Band was primarily a rhythm and blues band, led by local Lancaster guitarist Alexis Snouffer, along with Doug Moon (guitar), Jerry Handley (bass), and Vic Mortenson (drums), the last being rotated with and finally replaced by Paul Blakely, known as "P. G. Blakely". For the first A&M recording Mortenson had been called up for active service and Snouffer stood in on drums, with a recently recruited Richard Hepner taking up the guitar role. By the time the single was aired on a pop television show P. G. Blakely was back in the drum seat. He then left for a career in television and was replaced by John French by the time the band cut their first album, as the first release on the new Buddah Records label. Personnel in the Magic Band for Beefheart's first album, Safe as Milk, were Alex St. Clair, Jerry Handley and John French. Earlier meetings with the Rising Sons had also secured them the guitar and arranging skills of Ry Cooder, which also brought about input from Taj Mahal on percussion and guitar work from Cooder's brother-in-law Russ Titelman. Further guests to this line-up included Milt Holland on percussion and the all-important and controversial theremin work on Electricity by Samuel Hoffman. It was perhaps this track, above the others, which caused A&M to view the band as "unsuitable" for their label with what was seen as weird and too psychedelic for popular consumption. Thus, this album was recorded for Buddah, with the band signed to Kama Sutra, which left them close to penniless after extricating themselves from A&M. A large proportion of the tracks on this album were co-written with Van Vliet by Herb Bermann, whom Vliet initially met up with at a bar gig near Lancaster. Part-time Hollywood television actor and budding scriptwriter Bermann and his then wife Cathleen spent some time in Vliet's company prior to this release.[39] Bermann would later write for Neil Young and script an early Spielberg-directed television medical drama. Gary "Magic" Marker (the "Magic" added by Beefheart) was involved in early session work for this release, and his involvement with Rising Sons was also instrumental in acquiring the skills of Cooder, upon an unfulfilled suggestion that Marker might produce the album.[129] Marker would later lay down two uncredited bass tracks for Trout Mask Replica before being replaced by Mark Boston. French worked on five more Beefheart albums, while Snouffer worked with Beefheart on and off on three more albums. Bill Harkleroad joined the Magic Band as guitarist for Trout Mask Replica and stayed with Beefheart through May 1974. Beefheart takes the lead While appearing humorous and kind-hearted in public, by all accounts Van Vliet was a severe taskmaster who abused his musicians verbally and sometimes physically. Vliet once told drummer John French he had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and thus he would see inexistent conspiracies that explained this behaviour.[130] The band were reportedly paid little or nothing. French recalled that the musicians' contract with Van Vliet's company stipulated that Van Vliet and the managers were paid from gross proceeds before expenses, then expenses were paid, then the band members evenly split any remaining funds—in effect making band members liable for all expenses. As a result, French was paid nothing at all for a 33-city US tour in 1971 and a total of $78 for a tour of Europe and the US in late 1975. In his 2010 memoir Beefheart: Through The Eyes of Magic French recounted being "...screamed at, beaten up, drugged, ridiculed, humiliated, arrested, starved, stolen from, and thrown down a half-flight of stairs by his employer".[131] The musicians also resented Van Vliet for taking complete credit for composition and arranging when the musicians themselves pieced together most of the songs from taped fragments or impressionistic directions such as "Play it like a bat being dragged out of oil and it's trying to survive, but it's dying from asphyxiation."[132] John French summarized the disagreement over composing and arranging credits metaphorically:[133] If Van Vliet built a house like he wrote music, the methodology would go something like this... The house is sketched on the back of a Denny's placemat in such an odd fashion that when he presents it to the contractor without plans or research, the contractor says "This structure is going to be hard to build, it's going to be tough to make it safe and stable because it is so unique in design." Van Vliet then yells at the contractor and intimidates him into doing the job anyway. The contractor builds the home, figuring out all the intricacies involved in structural integrity himself because whenever he approaches Van Vliet, he finds that he seems completely unable to comprehend technical problems and just yells, "Quit asking me about this stuff and build the damned house."... When the house is finished no one gets paid, and Van Vliet has a housewarming party, invites none of the builders and tells the guests he built the whole thing himself. The Magic Band post-Beefheart The Magic Band finishing off a gig at Band on the Wall, Manchester, 29 May 2014 Receiving only a "grumpy" reception from Van Vliet,[131] the Magic Band reformed in 2003 with John French on drums, lead vocals and harmonica, Gary Lucas and Denny Walley on guitars, Rockette Morton on bass, and Robert Williams on drums for the vocal numbers. The initial impetus came from Matt Groening who wanted them to play at the All Tomorrows Parties festival he was curating. For their subsequent European tour, Williams left and was replaced by Michael Traylor. John Peel was initially skeptical about the re-formed Magic Band. However, after he aired a live recording of the band playing at the 2003 All Tomorrow's Parties festival on his radio show, he was lost for words and had to put on another record to regain his composure. In 2004 the band did a live session for him at his home "Peel Acres".[134] They played over 30 shows throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, and one in the United States.[135] They also released two albums: Back to the Front (on the London-based ATP Recordings, 2003) and 21st Century Mirror Men (2005). The group disbanded in 2006 but reformed in 2011, with Lucas and Traylor replaced by Eric Klerks and Craig Bunch respectively, to play at ATP once again (which was due to take place in November, curated by Jeff Mangum).[136] The festival was postponed until the following March but they honoured the other UK and Ireland dates which had been booked around it, the new line-up being dubbed "The Best Batch Yet" by Beefheart song-title-referencing commentators. They returned to play the rescheduled ATP and more UK gigs in March 2012, followed by a European tour in September and October. They toured Europe again in 2013 and 2014. The reformed band's repertoire was initially drawn mainly from the Clear Spot and Trout Mask Replica albums, with some of the latter’s songs performed as instrumentals, allowing the intricacy of the instrumental parts to be heard, where they had previously been obscured by Beefheart’s vocals or sax. During subsequent tours the setlist has been expanded to include a more representative selection of Beefheart's repertoire. French has described the set as "a play which should be rolled out from time to time". Timeline Influence Van Vliet has been the subject of at least two documentaries, the BBC's 1997 The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart narrated by John Peel, and the 2006 independent production Captain Beefheart: Under Review.[137] According to Peel, "If there has ever been such a thing as a genius in the history of popular music, it's Beefheart ... I heard echoes of his music in some of the records I listened to last week and I'll hear more echoes in records that I listen to this week."[103] His narration added: "A psychedelic shaman who frequently bullied his musicians and sometimes alarmed his fans, Don somehow remained one of rock's great innocents."[27] Mike Barnes referred to him as an "iconic counterculture hero" who, with the Magic Band, "went on to stake out startling new possibilities for rock music".[5] Lester Bangs cited Beefheart as "one of the four or five unqualified geniuses to rise from the hothouses of American music in the Sixties",[138] while John Harris of The Guardian praised the music's "pulses with energy and ideas, the strange way the spluttering instruments meld together".[7] A Rolling Stone biography described his work as "a sort of modern chamber music for [a] rock band, since he plans every note and teaches the band their parts by ear. Because it breaks so many of rock's conventions at once, Beefheart's music has always been more influential than popular."[54] In this context, it is performed by the classical group, the Meridian Arts Ensemble.[139] Nicholas E. Tawa, in his 2005 book Supremely American: Popular Song in the 20th Century: Styles and Singers and What They Said About America, included Beefheart among the prominent progressive rock musicians of the 1960s and 1970s,[140] while the Encyclopædia Britannica describes Beefheart's songs as conveying "deep distrust of modern civilization, a yearning for ecological balance, and that belief that all animals in the wild are far superior to human beings".[8] Many of his works have been classified as "art rock".[141] Many artists have cited Van Vliet as an influence, beginning with the Edgar Broughton Band, who covered "Dropout Boogie" as Apache Drop Out[142] (mixed with the Shadows' "Apache")[143] as early as 1970, as did the Kills 32 years later. The Minutemen were fans of Beefheart, and were arguably among the few to effectively synthesize his music with their own, especially in their early output, which featured disjointed guitar and irregular, galloping rhythms. Michael Azerrad describes the Minutemen's early output as "highly caffeinated Captain Beefheart running down James Brown tunes",[144] and notes that Beefheart was the group's "idol".[145] Others who arguably conveyed the same influence around the same time or before include John Cale of the Velvet Underground,[146] Little Feat,[147] Laurie Anderson,[148] the Residents and Henry Cow.[71] Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV,[149] and poet mystic Z'EV,[150] both pioneers of industrial music, cited Van Vliet along with Zappa among their influences. More notable were those emerging during the early days of punk rock, such as the Clash[105] and John Lydon of the Sex Pistols (reportedly to manager Malcolm McLaren's disapproval), later of the post-punk band Public Image Ltd.[151] Frank Discussion of punk rock band The Feederz learned to play guitar from listening to Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals Off, Baby. Cartoonist and writer Matt Groening tells of listening to Trout Mask Replica at the age of 15 and thinking "that it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me—and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard."[152] Groening first saw Beefheart and the Magic Band perform in the front row at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in the early 1970s.[153] He later declared Trout Mask Replica to be the greatest album ever made. He considered the appeal of the Magic Band as outcasts who were even "too weird for the hippies".[27] Groening served as the curator of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that reunited the post–Beefheart Magic Band.[153] Another devotee from the film industry is Woody Allen, who was found singing along to Beefheart's music in the audience in New York.[154][155] Van Vliet's influence on post–punk bands was demonstrated by Magazine's recording of "I Love You You Big Dummy" in 1978 and the tribute album Fast 'n' Bulbous – A Tribute to Captain Beefheart in 1988, featuring the likes of artists such as the Dog Faced Hermans, the Scientists, the Membranes, Simon Fisher Turner, That Petrol Emotion, the Primevals, the Mock Turtles, XTC, and Sonic Youth, who included a cover of Beefheart's "Electricity" which would later be re-released as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of their 1988 album Daydream Nation. Other post-punk bands influenced by Beefheart include Gang of Four,[7] Siouxsie and the Banshees,[156] Pere Ubu, Babe the Blue Ox and Mark E. Smith of the Fall.[157] The Fall covered "Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones" in their 1993 session for John Peel. Beefheart is considered to have "greatly influenced" new wave artists,[8] such as David Byrne of Talking Heads, Blondie, Devo, the Bongos, and the B-52s.[148] The post-punk group, Dalis Car, took their name from the song "Dali's Car" from Trout Mask Replica.[158] Tom Waits' shift in artistic direction, starting with 1983's Swordfishtrombones, was, Waits claims, a result of his wife Kathleen Brennan introducing him to Van Vliet's music.[159] "Once you've heard Beefheart", said Waits, "it's hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood."[160] More recently, Waits has described Beefheart's work as "glimpse into the future; like curatives, recipes for ancient oils".[161] Guitarist John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers cited Van Vliet as a prominent influence on the band's 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik as well as his debut solo album Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994) and stated that during his drug-induced absence, after leaving the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he "would paint and listen to Trout Mask Replica".[162] Black Francis of the Pixies cited Beefheart's The Spotlight Kid as one of the albums he listened to regularly when first writing songs for the band,[163] and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana acknowledged Van Vliet's influence, mentioning him among his notoriously eclectic range.[40] The White Stripes in 2000 released a 7" tribute single, "Party of Special Things to Do", containing covers of that Beefheart song plus "China Pig" and "Ashtray Heart". The Kills included a cover of "Dropout Boogie" on their debut Black Rooster EP (2002). The Black Keys in 2008 released a free cover of Beefheart's "I'm Glad" from Safe as Milk.[164] The 2002 LCD Soundsystem song "Losing My Edge" has a verse which James Murphy says, "I was there when Captain Beefheart started up his first band". In 2005 Genus Records produced Mama Kangaroos – Philly Women Sing Captain Beefheart, a 20-track tribute to Captain Beefheart.[165] Beck included Safe as Milk and Ella Guru in a playlist of songs as part of his website's Planned Obsolescence series of mashups of songs by the musicians that influenced him.[166] Franz Ferdinand cited Beefheart's Doc at the Radar Station as a strong influence on their second LP, You Could Have It So Much Better.[7] Placebo briefly named themselves Ashtray Heart, after the track on Doc at the Radar Station; the band's album Battle for the Sun contains a track, "Ashtray Heart". Joan Osborne covered Beefheart's "(His) Eyes are a Blue Million Miles", which appears on Early Recordings. She cited Van Vliet as one of her influences.[167] PJ Harvey and John Parish discussed Beefheart's influence in an interview together. Harvey's first experience of Beefheart's music was as a child. Her parents had all of his albums; listening to them made her "feel ill". Harvey was reintroduced to Beefheart's music by Parish, who lent her a cassette copy of Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) at the age of 16. She cited him as one of her greatest influences since. Parish described Beefheart's music as a "combination of raw blues and abstract jazz. There was humour in there, but you could tell that it wasn't [intended as] a joke. I felt that there was a depth to what he did that very few other rock artists have managed [to achieve]."[168] Ty Segall covered "Drop Out Boogie" on his 2009 album Lemons. Discography Main article: Captain Beefheart discography Safe as Milk (1967) Strictly Personal (1968) Trout Mask Replica (1969) Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) Mirror Man (1971) The Spotlight Kid (1972) Clear Spot (1972) Unconditionally Guaranteed (1974) Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974) Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978) Doc at the Radar Station (1980) Ice Cream for Crow (1982) Bat Chain Puller (2012) References "Captain Beefheart". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Retrieved December 18, 2010. "Don Glen Vliet's birth certificate at Beefheart.com". Retrieved 2011-07-18. Ankeny, Jason. "Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band". Allmusic. Retrieved 2007-03-17. Commonly reported as five octaves (Captain Beefheart. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 28, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition), though reports have varied from three octaves to seven and a half: "Captain Beefheart: Biography : Rolling Stone". www.rollingstone.com. Retrieved 2017-10-26. 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"Meridian Arts Ensemble – About Us", meridianartsensemble.com, retrieved February 28, 2010 Tawa, Nicholas E. Supremely American: Popular Song in the 20th Century: Styles and Singers and What They Said About America (Lanham, MA: Scarecrow Press, 2005), ISBN 0-8108-5295-0, pp. 249–50. "Art Rock".The Grove Dictionary of American Music. 2nd ed. 2014. Print. http://www.discogs.com/Edgar-Broughton-Band-Apache-Drop-Out/release/2333986 Barnes 2000, p. 325 Azerrad 2001, p. 69 Azerrad 2001, p. 71 "John Cale – Producer". Xs4all.nl. May 2, 2006. Retrieved 2011-07-18. "Little Feat". Johnston, Graham (September 28, 1980). "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Doc at the Radar Station". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on July 9, 2011. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Reynolds, Simon. Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. Chapters 9: "Living for the Future: Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League and the Sheffield Scene"; 12: "Industrial Devolution: Throbbing Gristle's Music from the Death Factory"; and 25: Vale, V.; Juno, Andrea (1983). Re/Search No. 6/7: Industrial Culture Handbook. San Francisco: V/Search. ISBN 0-9650469-6-6. Reynolds, Simon (2005). Rip it Up and Start Again – Postpunk 1978–1984. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-21570-6. Johnston, Graham. "The Captain Beefheart Radar Station – Plastic Factory". Beefheart.com. Archived from the original on October 14, 2009. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Payne, John (November 5, 2003). "All Tomorrow's Parties Today". LA Weekly. Retrieved 2010-06-05. Captain Beefheart Takes Up Cudgel Against Catatonia, Enlists Brave Shiny Beast Archived February 4, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.. "Genius or madman – the jury is still out on Captain Beefheart" Archived April 3, 2004, at the Wayback Machine., Beefheart.com. Johns, Brian. Entranced : the Siouxsie and the Banshees story, Omnibus Press, 1989, p.11. ISBN 978-0-7119-1773-6 Blincoe, Nicholas (April 26, 2008). "Mark E Smith: wonderful and frightening". London: Telegraph. Retrieved 2010-02-11. Buckley, Peter, ed. (2003). "Dali's Car". The Rough Guide to Rock (3 ed.). Rough Guides. p. 264. ISBN 978-1-84353-105-0. ...Mick Karn, ex-bassist with arty New Wave band Japan, and Peter Murphy, ex-vocalist with arty gothic punks Bauhaus. They took their name from a Captain Beefheart... Simmons, Sylvie (October 2004). The Mojo Interview: Tom Waits Speaks Archived March 20, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.. Mojo. "Reid, Graham ''Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica (1969)'' at". Elsewhere.co.nz. November 23, 2009. Retrieved 2011-07-18. Robinson, John. "Archive: Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band – ‘Trout Mask Replica’". Uncut Dec. 2013 : 90. Print. Rotondigic, James (November 1997). Till I Reach the Higher Ground. Guitar Player. Sisario, Ben. (2006). Doolittle. Continuum, 33⅓ series. ISBN 0-8264-1774-4. "The Black Keys Cover Captain Beefheart – MP3". Stereogum. May 18, 2008. Retrieved 2010-02-11. US, Amazon. "Mama Kangaroos: Philly Women Sing Captain Beefheart". Retrieved March 4, 2011. http://www.beck.com Planned Obsolescence Archived May 4, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. No 11: Broken Glass Blues. Retrieved 2010-06-06. "Vanguard Records: Joan Osborne". Archived from the original on August 6, 2009. "MOGTv: PJ Harvey & John Parish on Neil Young, Captain Beefheart". Mog.com. Archived from the original on June 6, 2009. Retrieved February 11, 2010. Further reading Azerrad, Michael (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991. Little Brown. ISBN 0-316-78753-1. Bamberger, W.C. (1999). Riding Some Kind of Unusual Skull Sleigh: On The Arts Of Don Van Vliet. ISBN 978-0-917453-35-9 Barnes, Mike (2000). Captain Beefheart: The Biography. London: Quartet Books. ISBN 1-84449-412-8. Retrieved 2010-01-27. Beaugrand, Andreas and various (1994). Stand Up to Be Discontinued. (Paperback) ISBN 3-9801320-2-1. Courrier, Kevin (2007). Trout Mask Replica. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-2781-2 Delville, Michel & Norris, Andrew (2005). Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and the Secret History of Maximalism. Cambridge: Salt Publishing. ISBN 1-84471-059-9. French, John (2010). Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic. ISBN 0-9561212-1-7. Harkleroad, Bill (1998). Lunar Notes: Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience. Interlink Publishing. ISBN 0-946719-21-7. Miles, Barry (2004). Frank Zappa. Atlantic Books. ISBN 1-84354-091-6. Van Vliet, Don (Captain Beefheart) (1987). Skeleton Breath, Scorpion Blush. (All poems in English, preface in German and English.) Bern-Berlin: Gachnang & Springer. ISBN 978-3-906127-15-6 Zappa, Frank & Occhiogrosso, Peter; The Real Frank Zappa Book, Poseidon Press (1989), ISBN 0-671-63870-X External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Captain Beefheart. Book: Captain Beefheart Wikiquote has quotations related to: Captain Beefheart Wikinews has related news: Don Van Vliet, best known as "Captain Beefheart", dies aged 69 Beefheart.com – The Captain Beefheart Radar Station "Captain Beefheart collected news and commentary". The Guardian. Captain Beefheart at AllMusic Captain Beefheart at Rolling Stone Some Yo Yo Stuff by Anton Corbijn [hide] v t e Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band (1964–1982) Captain Beefheart Alex St. Clair Jerry Handley Gary Jaye Cliff Martinez Doug Moon Gary 'Magic' Marker Vic Mortenson Ry Cooder Drumbo Rockette Morton Zoot Horn Rollo Winged Eel Fingerling The Mascara Snake Antennae Jimmy Semens Moris Tepper Indian Ink Black Jew Kitabu Gary Lucas Ed Marimba Wait For Me The Magic Band (2003–present) Drumbo Rockette Morton Feelers Rebo Eric Klerks Andrew Niven Wait For Me Gary Lucas Michael Traylor Craig Bunch Studio albums Safe as Milk Strictly Personal Trout Mask Replica Lick My Decals Off, Baby Mirror Man The Spotlight Kid Clear Spot Unconditionally Guaranteed Bluejeans & Moonbeams Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) Doc at the Radar Station Ice Cream for Crow Bat Chain Puller EPs The Legendary A&M Sessions Live albums Bongo Fury I'm Going to Do What I Wanna Do: Live at My Father's Place 1978 Compilations Grow Fins: Rarities 1965–1982 Singles "Diddy Wah Diddy" "Moonchild" "Yellow Brick Road" "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do" "Zig Zag Wanderer" "Plastic Factory" "Electricity" "Pachuco Cadaver" "Click Clack" "Too Much Time" "Upon the My-O-My" "Hard Workin' Man" "Ice Cream for Crow" Other songs "Advance Romance" "Muffin Man" "Party of Special Things to Do" "Willie the Pimp" Related articles Discography Frank Zappa Fast 'n' Bulbous – A Tribute to Captain Beefheart Peter Meaden Mallard Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 117619223 LCCN: nr89010378 ISNI: 0000 0001 0775 1374 GND: 118978047 SELIBR: 213391 SUDOC: 161696015 BNF: cb13946983d (data) BIBSYS: 1063915 ULAN: 500329822 MusicBrainz: 8dcd04e4-7695-4d80-bae9-1d7d680a38ef BNE: XX1596199 RKD: 81463 Categories: Captain Beefheart1941 births2010 deaths20th-century American paintersAmerican male painters20th-century American sculptors21st-century American painters21st-century American sculptorsAmerican male sculptorsAbstract expressionist artistsAlbum-cover and concert-poster artistsAlter egosAmerican classical composersAmerican environmentalistsAmerican experimental filmmakersAmerican experimental musiciansAmerican experimental rock groupsAmerican harmonica playersAmerican male classical composersAmerican male composersAmerican composersAmerican male poetsAmerican poetsAmerican male singersAmerican multi-instrumentalistsAmerican people of Dutch descentAmerican rock saxophonistsAmerican rock singersAntelope Valley High School alumniArt rock musical groupsAvant-garde singersBands with fictional stage personasBass clarinetistsBlues rock musiciansCounterculture of the 1960sDeaths from multiple sclerosisExperimental composersFrank ZappaLiberty Records artistsMercury Records artistsMusical groups disestablished in 1982Musical groups established in 1965Musicians from Glendale, CaliforniaOutsider musiciansPainters from CaliforniaPeople from Arcata, CaliforniaPeople from Lancaster, CaliforniaProgressive rock musiciansProtopunk groupsProtopunk musiciansPsychedelic rock musiciansReprise Records artistsSongwriters from CaliforniaVirgin Records artistsWarner Bros. 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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years

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OVER BUDGET - BEANS!

January 7, 1949

“Over Budget - Beans” (aka “Beans for Three Weeks”) is episode #25 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on January 7, 1949 on the CBS Radio Network.

Synopsis ~ Liz goes over her budget again by buying six cases of beans that were on special so George cuts off her allowance. Soon they're eating nothing but beans, and the electricity and telephone have been disconnected!

Episode Firsts!

This is the first episode of 1949.

This is the first episode in which the characters of George and Liz are named Cooper, instead of Cugat, to avoid comparison with the Latin bandleader.

This is the first episode to be sponsored by General Foods’ Jell-O, which will continue their sponsorship for the rest of the series.

This is the first episode in its new time slot - 8:30pm.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benadaret was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

REGULAR CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born as Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz (above right), a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury) and Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) had not yet joined the cast as regular characters.

GUEST CAST

Frank Nelson (Mr. Taylor, an Important Client) was born on May 6, 1911 (three months before Lucille Ball) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started working as a radio announcer at the age of 15. He later appeared on such popular radio shows as “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Burns and Allen,” and “Fibber McGee & Molly”. This is one of his 11 performances on “My Favorite Husband.” On “I Love Lucy” he holds the distinction of being the only actor to play two recurring roles: Freddie Fillmore and Ralph Ramsey, as well as six one-off characters, including the frazzled train conductor in “The Great Train Robbery” (ILL S5;E5), a character he repeated on “The Lucy Show.” Aside from Lucille Ball, Nelson is perhaps most associated with Jack Benny and was a fifteen-year regular on his radio and television programs.

Parley Baer (Mr. Rafferty, the Grocer) played MGM’s Mr. Reilly in “Ricky Needs an Agent” (ILL S4;E29) and the furniture salesman Mr. Perry in “Lucy Gets Chummy with the Neighbors” (ILL S6;E18) which also featured Frank Nelson. He then made five appearances on “The Lucy Show” and was seen twice on “Here’s Lucy” as Harry’s psychiatrist. He is perhaps best known for his recurring roles as Mayor Stoner on “The Andy Griffith Show” and Doc Appleby in “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

Helen Burke (Radio Soprano / Telephone Operator) was seen in a 1955 episode of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”.

THE EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “Every day in each American home an old native custom takes place. An ancient tribal ritual called ‘getting up in the morning. Everyone has his own interpretation on how this is to be done!”

GEORGE: “Ahh! I’m glad I’m alive.” LIZ: “Bleh! I wish I was dead.”

It’s 7:45am and George tries to rouse Liz out of bed, but she rolls over and begs him to go away. George threatens to take a photo of her in curlers and cold cream and Liz instantly bounds out of bed.

In the kitchen, Liz asks Katie the Maid to make George an extra special breakfast to soften him up for looking at her January budget. She’s over budget - and it is only the seventh of the month. It was her New Year’s resolution to George to stay with budget. For his New Year’s Resolution, George promised to empty the ashtrays and not get any ashes on the rug - even though he doesn’t smoke!

George comes down to breakfast. Liz tries snuggling him and covering him with kisses. George is on to her games. He demands to know what happened to the money. Liz claims she’s bad at arithmetic. Liz has her own bill-paying system. She separates her bills into three piles:

Have To Pay

Ought To Pay

Doubt If I Ever Will Pay

She tosses Group 3 into the air. She picks them up by a system developed by Hoover - the vacuum cleaner, not the president.

Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) was the 31st President of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933, during the Great Depression. The Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Company was founded in Ohio in 1908. They dominated the electric vacuum cleaner industry so much so that their name was synonymous with vacuums and vacuuming in England and Ireland. When not using the fictional Handy Dandy brand, Lucy Ricardo used a Hoover upright.

George freezes her household accounts and tells her they will spend no more money for the rest of January - even for food.

In “The Business Manager” (ILL S4;E1), Lucy Ricardo’s food budget is also frozen - but clever Lucy thinks she has found away around the restriction by doing the marketing for the entire neighborhood on credit!

Unfortunately, Liz has just bought six cases of beans, despite the fact they both hate beans, simply because they were on special!

Liz asks for a loan from her banker husband - putting up six cans of beans as collateral. But George says her credit is no good.

LIZ: “George Cooper, you’re a fiend!” GEORGE: “Meet George Cooper, King of the Fiends!” LIZ: “Meet Liz Cooper, Queen of the Beans.”

In a 1966 episode of “The Lucy Show” titled “Lucy The Bean Queen” (TLS S5;E3), Lucy Carmichael buys cases of beans on special in order to cash in on their double money back guarantee.

When George gets home from work that night (and for the next several days), Liz rattles off the menu for dinner:

Bean Soup

Bean Salad

Baked Beans

Bean Meringue Pie

Bean Burgers

Bean Sundae - Beans with Beans over them

Beanies - Beans frozen into the shape of little hats

One day, George comes home and tells lunch that he had a big lunch bought for him by a client, Mr. Taylor. Liz wants the details - not of the client - but of the lunch! George taunts her describing big, thick, mouth-watering pork chops. Liz suggests a movie, but they can’t afford it. George says they could get free passes to the regular theatre. They are presenting “The Late Christopher Bean.”

The Late Christopher Bean opened on Broadway in 1932 and played more than 215 performances. There was a London production in 1933. An MGM film version starring Lionel Barrymore premiered in November 1933. In 1955 there was a television version starring Phil Ober (husband of Vivian Vance).

They can’t even afford to play bridge with the Sturms’ - but George facetiously suggests staying home and playing “beanochle”!

Pinochle (aka pinocle or penuchle) is a card game for two to four players and played with a 48-card deck. It is derived from the card game bezique; players score points by trick-taking and also by forming combinations of cards into melds.

GEORGE: “Whatever happened to the fine art of conversation?” LIZ: “Conversation? We couldn’t possibly have anything to say to each other. We’re married!”

They reminisce about staying out late at Inspiration Point. George laughs about the time they went skiing and were snowed in at the lodge all night.

LIZ: “George! You never took me skiing in your life!”

Oops! Just in time, the lights suddenly go out! Liz hasn’t paid the electric bill!

END OF PART ONE

A recorded public service announcement touts the Great American Dream. This was a post-war effort to boost industry, enterprise, and morale with the American public.

ANNOUNCER: “Liz Cooper has spent all her household money for January. Liz is beginning to crack under the strain.”

Liz realizes they have run out of candles and they are still in the dark. Katie understands George’s stubbornness thanks to her first husband Clarence. She decides to call Rafferty’s Grocery and charge all her items, telling George she found the money in an old purse.

MR. RAFFERTY (on the phone): “Rafferty’s Grocery and Delicatessen: If you can eat it, drink it, chew it, slice it, or smell it, we sell it!”

Liz asks Mr. Rafferty (Parley Baer) to send over six lamb chops, two potatoes, corn, peas, sugar, bread, butter, and milk. But Mr. Rafferty tells Liz that George has stopped her credit.

MR. RAFFERTY (on the phone): “Too bad, too. We got a real deal on beans!”

Liz hangs up and the phone immediately rings again. The operator (Helen Burke) informs Liz that her phone service is being disconnected.

The phone rings a third time and it is George. He has called a truce for the night because Mr. Taylor, an important client from the bank, is coming home for dinner. Liz is angry and is determined to teach him a lesson by keeping the lights off, wearing an old house dress, and gluing beans to sticks and calling it “bean on the cob”!

George and Mr. Taylor (Frank Nelson) pull up to the Cooper home and notice all the lights are out.

MR. TAYLOR: “I can’t wait to get a home-cooked meal. You know how it is when you’re traveling: beans, beans, beans!”

When they get inside, Liz is huddled weakly in the corner in the dark, claiming she is going mad with starvation. Liz gives Mr. Taylor the impression that she never leaves the house.

LIZ: “Tell me, what happened to Dewey? MR. TAYLOR: “He lost.” LIZ: “What a shame. I was sure he’d take Manila.”

This is a complicated joke that relies on Liz conflating Admiral George Dewey (1837-1917) with New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey (1902-71). Mr. Taylor (and the audience) think that Liz is referring to Governor Dewey, who ran for president against incumbent President Harry S. Truman and lost, despite a history-making headline to the contrary in the Chicago Daily Tribune the next day. Instead, Liz reaches back even further to reference Admiral Dewey, who is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish–American War in May 1898. If it wasn’t so obviously a joke, it would mean Liz hadn’t been outside in more than 50 years!

Mr. Taylor is indignant stating that he would never do business with a man who would treat his wife so shabbily. George tries to explain that it is all Liz’s joke. He summons Katie, who pretends to be George’s poor old, starving mother! In bed that night, Liz asks if George if he is still mad at her. After all, she fixed Mr. Taylor a delicious steak dinner after she confessed to the joke. She tells George that she also got her accounts in order and has paid all the bills. George asks how she did it.

LIZ: “I wrote an article and sold it to the daily paper: 100 Different Ways to Fix Beans!”

END OF EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “Lucille Ball will soon be seen in the Paramount Picture ‘Sorrowful Jones’.”

#My Favorite Husband #Lucille Ball #Richard Denning #Frank Nelson #Ruth Perrott #Bob LeMond #Radio #Beans #Dewey Defeats Truman #Herbert Hoover #Hoover Vacuum Cleaners #George Dewey #Thomas Dewey #The Late Christopher Bean #Pinochle #Parley Baer #Helen Burke #The Lucy Show

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anidiotwithnolifebehindthescreen · 5 years

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13th Doctor x OC x 6th Doctor

Oneshot

Ellie and her Doctor (13th) are on earth in the year 1980 and let’s say the Doctor had a run in with herself literally.

It was a quiet day in the Tardis, as the Yaz, Ryan and Graham have taken the weekend off see their families. So the remaining people were the Doctor and Ellie, who is getting prepared for their adventures in the 80s. Ellie, wanted to have a go at the classic 80s arcades and the Doctor, well, she just wanted the Machine parts at this point, to fix something in the Tardis again.

Hey Doctor, should I change my outfit or is what I’m wearing ok ? The Doctor turned around and looked at Ellie's clothes thoughtfully and Grinned.I think they are absolutely fine for the 80s, if you must know, I reckon you could blend in quite well. Ellie looked at the Doctor she smiled brightly and nodded. I agree Doctor and I think my hair helps too as well, Ellie shook her head which made her curly, bright, ginger hair move too. The Doctor chuckled and ruffled Ellie's hair gently, before pressing some buttons to get to their location.

Once they had arrived, the Doctor stepped out of the Tardis, to check where they have landed. which seemed to be an old alleyway. A few seconds later, Ellie stepped out of the Tardis and looking around in awe. Alright then let’s get going and have a look around. The Doctor said excitedly and Ellie looked even more excited, as she will be able to use the old arcade games. Like Pac Man and many other classics.ok then Doctor, what should we do first then Eliie said. I know that I will need parts for the Tardis. but for now, let’s find an arcade to explore in and maybe some games.the Doctor said and Ellie nodded, as she listened to the time lady eagerly.

The two women looked at different places. like the comic book store, Record store and many other places, until they had finally found an arcade and they entered the building. Ellie soon enough make a pin line, for the Pac Man game and managed to beat the high score and the Doctor beat the high score while playing Galaga and after that, they both went to the claw machines. The Doctor managed to win 6 Teddy bears while Ellie had won 1 But she was happy as it was huge and Ellie was struggling to carry it. The two women,decided to drop their prizes off in the Tardis and head out for some food, which was a pizza restaurant.

While at the pizza place, Ellie was looking out the window while waiting for her pizza. The Doctor was happily rambling away, when the pizza had arrived and been eaten. They were both on their way to the Tardis, when they saw two arguing people in the alleyway. They both looked at each other and slowly walked down the dark alleyway, the ladies were very distracted when suddenly. The doctor ran into a very colourful man, who basically looked like a bag of skittles and Ellie tried to contain her sniggers, at the mans most outrageous coat.

The Doctor looked up at the man, who was glaring down at her and groaned. Ellie looked at the Doctor with confusion on her face and helped the Time lady up, the man spoke. Who are you and do you mind, where you are going, the colourful man said rudely. The Doctor was speechless,at the man rudeness and apologise profusely. While then Ellie burst out laughing and everyone looked at the young woman. I’m s so sorry, but it’s the coat Ellie said before giggling and the woman who was with the man nudged him. she has a point you know Doctor she said while looking at the two women. Ellie’s giggled had ceased and the confused look, returned on her face. Hold on a second, what do you mean Doctor she’s the Doctor Ellie said with her thumb pointing towards the Doctor. no he’s the Doctor the woman said now hold on Peri the Doctor said

Ellie the man and the woman looked at her in utter shock how do you my name the woman said looking worried the Doctor smiled I’m the Doctor from the future this is my friend Ellie excuse her laughing at the....... the Doctor paused for a moment to look at the coat the man was wearing at the coat the Doctor eventually said and Ellie sniggers so you’re telling me that joseph here is a younger you Ellie said yes The two Doctors said and at this point Ellie howled with laughter you used to look like a talking bag of skittles Ellie said breathlessly with tears in her eyes and Peri joined in with the laughter and so did the Doctor while the man looked very unimpressed at being the butt of Ellie’s joke

The younger Doctor with the bright coat walked towards Ellie and took her hand and kissed it gently hello my dear even if you don’t quite approve of my coat I can certainly say that you ate very beautiful Ellie blushed at the compliment and he carried on flirting with her while Peri and the Timelady had a chat so Peri how are you the Doctor said happily I’m fine thank you but I can tell you now no offense but what were you thinking at the time to choose that coat peri said going quieter at the end of her sentence I don't know to be honest it’s been so long that I can’t even remember what my personality was like now I’m actually glad that I don’t the Doctor said with a guilty smile looking over her shoulder to see poor Ellie who’s cheeks were crimson red from her younger self being charming

Look Doctor you are very kind but wouldn’t you want to talk to yourself Ellie mentally slapped herself and The younger Doctor laughed at her wording knowing what she actually meant Yes Ellie I shall give you a break from my charm and my coat which you have kindly claimed to look like skittles before Ellie blushed at that and went to talk to Peri while the Doctor spoke to herself

Time skip

• Everyone was now at the arcade again after Ellie made a bet with Peri that their Doctors could beat the high score of Galaga the two women stood by their Doctor and it the moment Ellie’s Doctor seemed to be winning with the top score of 5,000 while her younger self wasn’t far off with 4,569 the women standing on the sides cheered until Ellie’s Doctor won I can’t believe you won that Doctor but how did you do it if you are both the same person Ellie said while messing with the controls of Pac man

I might of picked something up from watching you as you are so skilled at arcade games so I decided to try your way I hope that’s ok the doctor said while looking a bit worried that she had upset Ellie that’s fantasies Doctor I didn’t even know you could pick up skill that quick Ellie said smiling widely how did you even convince my younger self to play anyway the Doctor said curiously well have you noticed he’s quite easy to charm so I just tried to charm him the best I could and eventually he agreed Ellie said with a giggle think back on how she did it

They played a couple more hours before it was time to head back to the Tardis but the younger Doctor might of taken a little longer to let go of Ellie erm Doctor as nice as this is and I do enjoy being hugged but could you loosen your death grip before I suffocate Ellie said struggling to move away the younger time lord did but not without a kiss to Ellie’s and when others were not looking a quick peck on the lips before winking at her good bye Ellie I do hope I see you again the Doctor said I don't the older time lord said and they all waved good bye to each other before walking away to their Tardis

Back in the Tardis

Ellie was now snuggled in her pjarmas after a nice warm bubble bath she settled in and read a Stephan king’s book called pet semetery and 2 hours later and Ellie half asleep the Doctor bounded into the room and took her shoes off and jacket before jumping into Ellie’s bed and snuggled into Ellie’s side alright Doc Ellie said voice groggy the Doctor was quiet Ellie looked down at her and found that the Doctor had fallen asleep so Ellie decided it was best for her to go to sleep too

The End

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albasko · 5 years

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Female Editors from the Sixties

The sixties was a very interesting time for editing. The emergence of the French New Wave influenced editors of this era to move away from the traditional style continuity editing. They began using more experimental and creative editing techniques that weren’t supposed to provide a seamless experience, but they were meant to be emotionally charged with the intention to excite the audience.

Anne V. Coates

Birth/Death: 1925 - 2018

Years Active: 1947 - 2018

Nationality: British

Editing Career: She initially worked as a nurse at a plastic surgery hospital where second world war pilots and children injured on bombsites were treated. In the 1940s she got a job repairing prints of religious films known as Sunday Shorts. in 1948 Coates then got a job as an assistant film editor at Pinewood Studios, which eventually led to her first credit as an editor in 1952. In 1962 she was recognised for her work on David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, which contains one of the most famous cuts in film. Coates remained in demand throughout her career and went on to collaborate with many other famous directors. Her career as an editor was over 60 years long with 54 credits, and she never retired.

Notable Works: To Paris With Love 1955; Lawrence of Arabia 1962; Murder On The Orient Express 1974; The Elephant Man 1980; In The Line of Fire 1993; Congo 1995; Out of Sight 1998; Fifty Shades of Grey 2015.

Awards/Nominations: Academy Award Nominations: Becket 1964; The Elephant Man 1980; In The Line of Fire 1993; Out of Sight 1998. Academy Awards: Lawrence of Arabia 1962; Honorary Award 2017. BAFTA Nominations: Murder on the Orient Express 1974; The Elephant Man 1980; In the Line of Fire 1993; Ellen Brockovich 2000. BAFTA award: Academy Fellowship 2007.

Notes: She was Cited as an inspiration by female film editors like Thelma Schoonmaker, Sally Menke, and Margaret Sixel. In an interview Coates said "In a way, I’ve never looked at myself as a woman in the business. I’ve just looked at myself as an editor.” Both Coates had an affinity for the French New Wave, though, and the resulting cut was so jolting that (minus two frames) they kept it.

Dede Allen

Birth/Death: 1923 - 2010

Years Active: 1948 - 2008

Nationality: American

Editing Career: During the second world war, Allen started working as a sound librarian and then as an editing assistant (at Columbia Pictures) until the soldiers returned in 1945. She then followed her husband, the documentary producer Stephen Fleischman, to New York, where for 15 years she cut commercials. It took sixteen years working in the American film industry before Dede Allen edited her first important feature film, Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). She worked closely with and was mentored by film director Robert Wise, who had also been a film editor himself (most notably having cut Orson Welles' Citizen Kane). In 1992 she received an offer from Warner Bros to become a creative consultant, and accepted, despite having been fired in the past by Jack Warner himself for her unorthodox Editing style.

Notable Works: Odds Against Tomorrow 1959; The Hustler 1961; America, America 1963; Bonnie and Clyde 1967; Dog Day Afternoon 1975; The Breakfast Club 1985; The Adams Family 1991; Wonder Boys 2000.

Awards/Nominations: Acadamy Award nominations: Dog Day Afternoon 1975; Reds 1981; Wonder Boys 2000. BAFTA awards: Dog Day Afternoon 1975

Notes: Allen pioneered the use of audio overlaps and utilised emotional jump cuts that brought energy and realism to characters that until that point had not been a part of classic Hollywood film editing technique. She was heavily influenced by the French new wave and cared little about continuity editing.

Verna Fields

Birth/Death: 1918 - 1982

Years Active: 1954 - 1975

Nationality: American

Editing Career: She was the sound editor for several television shows in the 1950s. She worked on independent films (including The Savage Eye (1959), on government-supported documentaries of the 1960s, and on some minor studio films such as Peter Bogdanovich's first film, Targets (1968). For several years in the late 1960s, she was a film instructor at the University of Southern California. One major studio film, El Cid (1961), gave her recognition as an editor.

Notable Works: El Cid 1961; What’s Up, Doc? 1972; Paper Moon 1973; American Graffiti 1973; Sing a Country Song 1973; The Sugarland Express 1974; Jaws 1975.

Awards/Nominations: Academy Nominations: American Graffiti 1973. Academy Awards: Jaws 1975. BAFTA nomination: Jaws 1975.

Notes: Fields quoted from a seminar at the American Film Institute 1975: "There's a feeling of movement in telling a story and there is a flow. A cut that is off-rhythm will be disturbing and you will feel it, unless you want it to be like that. On Jaws, each time I wanted to cut I didn't, so that it would have an anticipatory feeling — and it worked.” She was nicknamed Mother-cutter.

#unheardvoices #theory

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randomrichards · 5 years

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MOVIES (THAT MIGHT BE) WORTH CHECKING OUT IN JANUARY 2020:

January 3:

THE GRUDGE

We begin with an attempted reboot of the hit horror flick based on another hit horror film.

Based on the Japanese import Ju-On, the film centres around a curse born from a fit of anger that attacks anyone who dares to enter a house. The pale boy ghost and the contorted woman became instantly iconic, especially when they made that crackling sound. Of course, people in North America are more likely to recognize its remake The Grudge. While not on the same level as its predecessor, the American was still a hit. It has become so iconic that there was a crossover movie where it faces off against the ghost from Ringu.

This time, the target is Peter Spencer (John Cho), a real estate agent who intended to sell a house not realizing it contained the title curse. Believing a homicide occurred, Spencer calls on Detective Muldoon (Andrea Risborough) to investigate. But they fail to realize the curse inside dooms all who enter it with a violent and it’s coming for them.

Here’s another of a long list of Horror remakes Hollywood has been peddling in the last decade. For every good one (It, Child’s Play), there are three times as many failures (the recent ones being Pet Semetary and Black Christmas). I’m not having much hope for this one. It can still be good, but it needs a director with as creative a vision as Takashi Shimizu’s.

THREE CHRISTS

Based on The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach, Three Christs tells the real-life experiment involving three men who claim to be a certain savior.

In Michigan’s Ypsilanti State Hospital in 1959, Dr. Alan Stone (Richard Gere) conducts a revolutionary experiment where he brings together three men (Peter Dinklage, Walton Goggins and Bradley Whitford) who each claim to be Jesus Christ. He hopes to use this experiment to force them to confront their delusions. It would certainly be preferable to electroshock therapy.

A real-life story like this comes with a lot of potential. But with the director of Fried Green Tomatoes helming this project, it looks like this will be a typical biopic. This is a shame with 4 great actors working together.

January 10:

1917

Sam Mendes, the director of American Beauty and Skyfall, takes us back to World War One and hopes to enter the Oscar Race with his latest war movie 1917.

Generla Erinmore (Colin Firth) tasks young British soldiers Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) with a difficult mission. 1,600 of their fellow soldiers are heading into a fatal trap and the two soldiers must deliver a message calling off the raid before tomorrow morning. And one of them is Blake’s brother. Racing against time, Blake and Schofield are forced to rush through enemy territory to deliver the message on time. Benedict Cumberbatch also

The film is already garnering high praise for its gripping suspense and graceful camera. It’s already garnering nominations at the Golden Globe Awards for Best Dramatic Motion Picture, Best Director and Best Original Score. It’s especially getting praise is how it makes the film look like one long camera shot following the two leads through their mission.

CHHAPAAK

All the way from India is a film inspired by real life acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal.

This film looks at Malti (Deepika Padukone), a woman horribly scared after an acid attack. The film follows her through her physical treatment and eventual trial. It looks like the core of the film will be her journey of emotional healing, regaining her self-worth with the help of loved ones.

Unless you know films that show Bollywood movies, I suspect this film will be hard to find for many people. Kind of a shame

JUST MERCY

Writer/Director Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) brings ups the real-life story of a lawyer who battled systemic racism to free an innocent man.

Harvard graduate Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) heads to 1980s Alabama to assist advocate Eva Ansley (Brie Larson) to defend those wrongfully convicted. His first and most important case is Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), who was sentenced to death for the notorious murder of an 18-year-old girl despite evidence proving his innocence including a group of people who could vouch for him.

As Stevenson works prove McMillian’s innocence and those of other death row inmates, he faces up against an uncaring political maneuvers and systemic racism. But neither he nor Ansley will let this stop them.

Audiences love and underdog story and this one is sure to satisfy, especially with Jordan, Larson and Foxx starring in the film. It’s also sure to offer some catharsis for those frustrated with current systemic racism. But this could by a typical biopic forgotten by the end of the year.

January 17:

BAD BOYS FOR LIFE

I’m going to be brief because I don’t think we’re going to get anything special from this movie. This film is pretty much a checkmark of every plot element you see in every Buddy Cop movie. Cop considering retiring. Check. One last job? Check. Training arrogant young upstarts? Check. A forever disapproving superior throwing a tantrum of our heroes. Check. It doesn’t matter how flashy the trailer is, a cliché is a cliché.

But then again, the original two film were also piling of buddy cop clichés. The only thing they had going for them was Will Smith’s charisma and Martin Lawrence’s over the top delivery. Only the second movie was memorable thanks to some well shot, over the top action scenes. But I highly doubt this one will be memorable when Michael Bay has backed out of the film.

We don’t really need another Bad Boys movie, especially when we have the Fast and Furious series and the John Wick movies.

DOLITTLE

The famous physician who can talk to animals returns in a new reboot. This time the Doc is played by Robert Downey Jr, fresh from retiring his iconic role of Tony Stark after 10 years. It also looks like it will be going back to its roots as a fantasy story set in the Victorian era. There’s not much plot summary to go on, but judging by the trailer, it will have him setting sail on an adventure alongside his animal friends. At the core of the film seems to be his friendship with two kills. Also, among the cast are Jessie Buckley as Queen Victoria and Antonio Banderas as a pirate.

There is an all-star cast voicing the animals, including Tom Holland, Emma Thompson, Ralph Fiennes and Rami Malek just to name a few.

This film seems to rest its shoulders on Robert Downey Jr, hoping his charm will do for Dr. Doolittle what he did for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But the film lives and dies on writer/director Stephen Gaghan, who is an unusual choice for a family fantasy considering that his resume consists of gritty war movies like Syriana, Traffic and Rules Engagement and crime drama tv shows like The Practice and NYPD Blue. He’s even written for the video game Call of Duty: Ghosts. It’s strange that someone with this resume would be chosen to reboot this franchise. It’s especially risky considering the original attempts to adapt Hugh Lofting books for the big screen. But if Martin Scorsese can make Hugo, there’s a chance Gaghan can make Dolittle work

The first one was a musical that tried to bank on the Sound of Music’s success but was an epic flop. It didn’t help that lead actor Rex Harrison was a notoriously difficult drunk who couldn’t sing. In fact, his behind the scenes shenanigans were way more interesting than the actual movie as proved by Mark Harris’ non-fiction book Pictures at a Revolution. Decades later, 20th Century Fox reboots the franchise was a hit thanks to Eddie Murphy as the title character and a variety of comedic voice actors (especially Albert Brooks, Chris Rock and Norm McDonald) voices the animals. No matter the quality, there’s a weight of nostalgia for both movies with many people growing up with these movies. This film will face the challenge of pushing past the nostalgia.

WEATHERING WITH YOU

From beloved anime writer/director Makoto Shinkai comes another romantic fantasy about two teens.

Teenage boy Hodoka (voiced by Kotaro Daigo) runs away from his isolated island home for Tokyo. Homeless and desperate, Hodoka takes a job as an assistant for journalist Keisuke Suga (Sun Oguri). His job involves finding “The Sunshine Girl”, a local teen girl who can control the weather. He soon finds her in Hina Amano (Nana Mori), a cheerful teen girl living with her brother. He is in awe with her power when she freezes the rain and love soon sparks. But messing with nature comes with a price and soon Hodoka and Hina are fighting to stay together.

Of all the movies on this list, this is the one I’m most excited to see. Once I saw his recent his Your Name, I was in pure awe. Never has a sunset looked more beautiful than in Shinkai’s anime. Every environment in Shinkai’s films enchant you with their vibrant colours and stunning details. Just as beautiful are his fantastical stories of young people growing up. At the core of each story is teens in love kept apart by unusual circumstances, whether it’s distance or time or even being in each other ‘s bodies.

This film’s already a major hit in Japan, which is very encouraging for anime fans.

January 24:

COLOR OUT OF SPACE

And now for something a little weird.

Nathan Gardner (Nicholas Cage) has moved his family to a remote farm to escape city life and live a life of peace and quiet. Then God was like “LOL No!” and sends an asteroid down their way. Then weird shit starts happening, most with colours mutating everything.

With a crew like this, you know you’re getting into some crazy shit. First, the film is based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, the inventor of cosmic horror and the man who gave us Cthulhu. Then there’s co-writer/director Richard Stanley, known for his odd genre flicks including Hardware and Dust Devil.[i] And then there’s Nicholas Cage, whose as well known for his scenery chewing Kabuki acting as his acclaimed Oscar-nominated roles. Last year, writer/director Panos Cosmatos found perfect use of Cage’s Kabuki acting in the ultra-stylized revenge masterpiece Mandy. Let’s be honest, the only types of films Cage’s Kabuki acting can work are either stylized, unintentionally hilarious or tongue-in-cheek. With the producers of Mandy working on this film, there’s high hopes it will be deliver on the stylized goods.

THE GENTLEMEN

After remaking Aladdin (and making lots of money in the process), director/writer Guy Ritchie returns to his roots with his latest English crime comedy The Gentlemen.

From what I can gather, the films about an American Pot Dealer (Matthew McConaughey) who plans to sell off his Empire in London when a young gang led by Dry Eye (Henry Golding) starts a drug war. There’s not much plot to go on, but with a Guy Ritchie movie, the plot will be way too complicated to explain. What is guaranteed is that there will be lots of oddball gangsters with weird names, hilarious and gruesome deaths and shit blowing up.

The film features an all-star cast including Charlie Hunnam, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant continuing his streak of getting his groove back by playing against type.

So far, Ritchie hasn’t made a film that’s reached the same level as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch. For the most part, he has been unsuccessful stepping out of his comfort zone. Here’s hoping The Gentleman will bring his back on his A Game.

THE TURNING

This day concludes with a modern take of Henry James’ classic novella The Turn of the Screw.

Kate (Mackenzie Davis) is hired as a governess for care for her boss’s orphaned niece Flora (Brooklyn Prince) and nephew Miles (Finn Wolfhard). But as she cares for them in a secluded mansion, she comes to realize they are being haunted by hostile spirits. Can she protect them for what lies in the mansion?

The film has been remade multiple times, with the most acclaimed one being the 1961 classic The Innocents. This once changes it up by setting it in current times, with a notable scene of Miles creeping Kate out with drums. The film also gives some Conjuring vibes, especially with its cinematography. But it should be noted that similarity doesn’t equal copying and there could be some unique elements in this film.

There certainly is a good chance with director Floria Sigismondi will offer a unique vision. She has already directed episodes of stylized shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, Daredevil and American Gods, but she’s already well known for her stylized directing from her work in music videos. Since Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People”, dilating, jittery camera work has become her trademark, working alongside artists including David Bowie, Bjork, Christina Aguilera, Katy Perry and Justin Timberlake (just to name a few).

January 27:

BEANPOLE

Here’s the film Russia hopes will be nominated for Best Foreign Language film.

Set in Leningrad in 1945, Beanpole centres on Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina) and Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) struggling to trying to rebuild their lives in the ruins of a city demolished by war. At the core of film is the infertile Masha hiring Iya as a surrogate mother.

There’s not much go on, but with the film winning Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, there’s good prospects for this film. It seems to be a character drama like Roma. Here’s hoping this film’s as quietly engaging as Alfonso Cuaron’s masterpiece.

January 31

THE TRAITOR

We conclude this with an Italian biopic about Tommaso Buscetta, the first Mafia Informant in 1980’s Sicily.

Tommaso (Pierfrancesco Favino) was a member of the Cosa Nostra. Then in 1983, half of his family is killed in a gang war. Now he intends to make them pay using the arm of the law. He knows the mob will do whatever it takes to stop him, but he’s more determined than ever. But as the trials continue, Tommaso will show the rabbit hole goes deeper than the law expected with political figures in the mafia’s pockets.

This is another film that may fall by the wayside, which is a shame because this film seems like a great biopic. It could certainly give overdue attention for director/co-writer Marco Bellocchio, who has remained a criminally overlooked director despite making acclaimed movies since the 1960s.

[i] And being fired from the Brando version of Island of Dr. Monroe.

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smoothshift · 5 years

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The Kremer K3 - A 740hp road legal Porsche 935 commissioned by Formula 1 team owner and businessman Walter Wolf. via /r/cars

The Kremer K3 - A 740hp road legal Porsche 935 commissioned by Formula 1 team owner and businessman Walter Wolf.

Quick Look https://i.imgur.com/zBnczEu.jpg

Extensive Gallery https://www.jamesedition.com/cars/porsche/935/porsche-935-kremer-k3-for-sale-10485394

Based on 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans winning car

740hp / 4 Speed

930 Turbo leather Interior

338km/h on Autobahn (210mp/h)

375,000 Deutsch Marks in 1980 ($800,000 USD)

2,100,000 Euros today ($2,340,000 USD)

Anyone wanna buy it for me?

Quite an interesting history, taken from listing.

Today, still many of us connect the name Walter Wolf mainly with oil business and self-made success, Formula One and the golden 1970’s. And rightly so. However, he was not only the spiritus rector of some of this world’s most fascinating supercars of their era but also their enthusiastic driver. Wolf was born in Graz, Austria on 5 October, 1939 and therefore directly into troubled times, at least in Europe. The family somehow managed to survive WWII meanwhile having moved to Yugoslavia which they left in 1951, heading up for Wuppertal, Germany. From there Walter Wolf emigrated to Canada in 1958, later obtaining Canadian citizenship. In Canada Walter Wolf first started a sporting career as a member of the Canadian Olympic ski equipe and participated in the Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria in 1964. Coming from a rather petit bourgeois family environment, Walter Wolf soon turned out to become a very successful self-made executive, first in the construction business, later in supplying oil-drilling equipment, while benefitting from the oil crisis early in the 1970’s. And like almost all “old-school” businessmen act when becoming tremendously rich: They look for the right toys to spend all the money, and Walter Wolf had ALL the toys in this world!

Walter Wolf was always highly interested in and a fan of the Formula One of that time and soon became a common visitor of almost every Formula One race in the early 1970’s. In 1976, the time was right for him to buy 60% of Frank Williams Racing Cars while agreeing to keep Frank Williams as the manager of this Formula One team. Furthermore, Walter Wolf bought the assets of the Hesketh team that had recently withdrawn from Formula One. The team, based in the Williams facility at Reading, used most of the cars, then called Wolf-Williams, and equipment once owned by Hesketh Racing.

Not being successful in their first year with the drivers Jacky Ickx and Michel Leclere, Walter Wolf decided that the team needed restructuring. Frank Williams was removed from the manager job and replaced by Peter Warr. Although it looked promising having hired Jody Scheckter from Tyrrell, nobody expected that Walter Wolf’s team would win its first race in Argentina for the 1977 season. Scheckter then went on to win the Monaco Grand Prix and also – very important for Walter Wolf - the Canadian Grand Prix, not to forget six other podium finishes which enabled him to finish second to Niki Lauda in the World Championship, giving Walter Wolf Racing a sensational 4th place in the Constructors‘ Championship of 1977!

In the following Formula One seasons Walter Wolf Racing could not repeat to the former success and finally Walter Wolf himself got tired of his toy at the end of 1979 and sold it Emerson Fittipaldi, while retiring completely from Formula One. Still being THE most illustrious Formula One team owner, Walter Wolf visited Kremer Racing in 1979 while searching for a new toy to satisfy his needs for a new super-, if not hypercar. Eventually his purpose-built Lamborghini Countach LP400 S had to be replaced by something more special and – of course – far faster.

After his strong personal Lamborghini episode he looked north over the Alps and found out that a Porsche 935, one of the most successful race cars ever and this year’s overall winner of the 24h of Le Mans, would be just enough for him to match the required profile. However, it seemed fully out of reach to convince the Porsche factory a) to sell him one of its evolution models and b) to try to make it street legal! And there Kremer Racing came into the scene. As Porsche hesitated to sell their Evolution models, some teams developed their own ideas, especially Kremer Racing from Cologne, Germany. Parallel to the factory, in 1976 they had built a 935 K1, and, in 1977, modified their customer 935 to the K2. For 1979, they introduced the 935 K3 (for „Kremer Type 3“; the derivative of the successful K2). Driven mainly by Klaus Ludwig, it won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1979, beating all prototypes even in the rain. Coming in second was a works 935, driven by Rolf Stommelen, and supported by team owner Dick Barbour and actor Paul Newman.

Kremer Racing, in collaboration with Ekkehard Zimmermann agreed to take this absolute crazy order from Walter Wolf and realized not only a look-a-like Kremer K3 race car which Walter Wolf never would have accepted, but really built a genuine Kremer K3 with 24h of Le Mans specs just for simple street use. When eventually taking delivery of his new one-off street-legal Kremer K3 Le Mans, it was according to Kremer - 98% identical to the K3, which won Le Mans in 1979. The car had (and still has) an 2,85-liter twin-turbo, twin spark 6-cylinder boxer engine slightly detuned to deliver “only” 740hp at 8,000 rpm to the 4-speed 930/30-gearbox with Le Mans gear ratio (!). For the bodywork, Kremer/Zimmermann used original K3 Kevlar body panels, adding only small blinking lights and side markers. The tires were hand built by Goodyear and mounted on original BBS race wheels in the dimensions 11x16 at front and 14,75x19 at rear.

Walter Wolf also asked for a speedometer in km, which could display the full range of the Le Mans gear ratio. Therefore, Kremer had to invent a special magnetic sensor for the rear axle. The development of the new exhaust system only took Kremer nearly six months! The suspension was also modified with special Bilstein dampers and the race chassis clearance was raised up to 10cm (instead of the original 5cm) because Walter Wolf wanted to use his new car for high speed travelling all over Europe. For the luxurious interior Kremer used Recaro seats and parts coming from the 930 Turbo. Everything was clothed in dark blue leather; the seats also had red piping. Although Kremer wanted to fulfill everything, he refused Walter Wolf’s wish for a second aircon for the passenger’s side, reputedly in answering Walter that, from a technical point of view, it would be better to wear just a polo shirt while driving in the summer months.

Painted in his special dark blue color with red stripes, Walter Wolf’s Kremer K3 Le Mans used also his famous logo on the rear fenders and at the back. Before delivery, Erwin Kremer tested this car on a German autobahn clocked with 338 km/h top speed, having a good argument then to send Walter Wolf the final bill. All in all the realization of his toy cost Walter Wolf not less than 375,000.- Deutsch Marks which was approx. $800,000.- in 1980. Walter Wolf, a man who always reaches his targets, indeed was able to obtain a Vehicle Registration Certificate from Alberta, Canada for his Kremer K3 Le Mans with plates “DJD 639”. Moreover, of course he used these license plates for travelling Europe with his rocket.

Walter Wolf sparingly used his Kremer K3 Le Mans and finally sold it in 1987 to Swiss ex racecar driver and car collector Angelo Pallavicini who directly put in on display in his private museum, while the street license had already expired on 31 January 1986. In the mid-1980’s, new toys had attracted Walter Wolf’s attention, especially a street-legal BMW M1 modified to Procar specs and then the Ferrari 288 GTO but this is another story. Becoming a lobbyist for arms manufacturers in later years, Walter Wolf is still good for newspaper headlines from time to time. However, this only adds to Walter Wolf’s mystic aura. In Angelo Pallavicini’s ownership, the Kremer K3 Le Mans lived an unmolested life in his private museum all the years before he sold it early in 2013 to Germany based CARTIQUE GmbH, domiciled in Pleidelsheim, part of the FRG Group of companies and specialized into high-end collector cars. Walter Wolf’s Kremer K3 has only original 10,124km on the odometer. It is exactly in the same condition as delivered to Walter Wolf in 1980. It still wears completely its original paint and it still has its original interior. Even the front tires are the original ones!

This Kremer K3 Le Mans comes with the original Vehicle Registration Certificate, the customs papers for Switzerland and EU import docs. It needs nothing but a technical inspection and a new caring owner who is man enough to bring it back on the street, handling 740hp at the back. No one can turn back time, of course. However, with this time capsule, one comes as close as possible to feel like being Walter Wolf himself in his very best days.

#reddit #autonews #auto #cars

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nancygduarteus · 5 years

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The Penance of Doc O

Well past seven one evening in 1988, after the nurses and the office manager had gone home, as he prepared to see the last of his patients and return some phone calls, Dr. Lou Ortenzio stopped by the cupboard where the drug samples were kept.

Ortenzio, a 35-year-old family practitioner in Clarksburg, West Virginia, reached for a box of extra-strength Vicodin. The box contained 20 pills, wrapped in foil. Each pill combined 750 milligrams of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, with 7.5 milligrams of hydrocodone, an opioid painkiller.

Ortenzio routinely saw patients long after normal office hours ended. Attempting to keep up with the workload on this day, he had grown weary and was suffering from a tension headache; he needed something to keep him going. He unwrapped a pill, a sample left by a drug-company sales rep, certain that no one would ever know he’d taken it. Ortenzio popped the pill in his mouth.

“It was a feeling like I’d never felt before,” he told me recently. “I’m tense and nervous, and that anxiety is crippling.” The pill took the anxiety away. The sense of well-being lasted for four hours, carrying him through the rest of the night’s work.

Back then, Ortenzio was one of Clarksburg’s most beloved physicians, the kind of doctor other doctors sent their own families to see. His patients called him “Doc O.” He made time to listen to them as they poured out the details of their lives. “To me, he wasn’t like a doctor; he was more like a big brother, somebody I could talk to when I couldn’t talk to anybody else,” says Phyllis Mills, whose family was among Ortenzio’s first patients. When Mills’s son was born with a viral brain infection and transferred to a hospital in Morgantown, 40 miles away, Ortenzio called often to check on the infant. Mills never forgot that.

As a physician in a small community with limited resources, Ortenzio did a bit of everything: He made rounds in a hospital intensive-care unit and made house calls; he provided obstetric and hospice care. Ortenzio loved his work. But it never seemed to end. He started missing dinners with his wife and children. The long hours and high stress taxed his own health. He had trouble sleeping, and gained weight. It took many years, but what began with that one Vicodin eventually grew into a crippling addiction that cost Ortenzio everything he held dear: his family, his practice, his reputation.

The United States is in the midst of the deadliest, most widespread drug epidemic in its history. Unlike epidemics of the past, this one did not start with mafias or street dealers. Some people have blamed quack doctors—profiteers running pill mills—but rogue physicians wrote no more than a fraction of the opioid prescriptions in America over the past two decades. In fact, the epidemic began because hundreds of thousands of well-meaning doctors overprescribed narcotic painkillers, thinking they were doing the right thing for suffering patients. They had been influenced by pain specialists who said it was the humane thing to do, encouraged by insurance companies that said it was the most cost-effective thing to do, and cajoled by drug companies that said it was a safe thing to do.

Opioid painkillers were promoted as a boon for doctors, a quick fix for a complicated problem. By the end of the 1990s, Ortenzio was one of his region’s leading prescribers of pain pills. It was a sign of the times that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.

Clarksburg sits atop rolling hills in northern West Virginia, halfway between Pittsburgh and Charleston. Lou Ortenzio came here in 1978, a recently married young resident out of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Small-town living seemed so much better than suburban life,” he told me as we drove around town one afternoon. “In Clarksburg, every block had something going. We had mom-and-pop grocery stores in every neighborhood. All these houses were occupied by teachers, downtown business owners, and people who worked in glass factories.”

Coal mining was the state’s dominant industry, but in Clarksburg, the glass business boomed. Glass manufacturing had arrived at the turn of the 20th century, drawn by the state’s high-quality river sand and rich fields of natural gas. Pittsburgh Plate Glass opened a factory in Clarksburg in 1915 and for years was one of the world’s leading plate-glass producers. Anchor Hocking employed 800 people making tumblers, bottles, fruit bowls. The city had family-owned factories too: Rolland Glass, Harvey Glass, and others.

Unlike simple resource extraction, glassmaking required sustained technological investment to meet new demands from the marketplace. The mass production of plate glass made skyscrapers possible. Picture windows and sliding-glass doors made small homes look bigger and more luxurious. The industry forged a middle class in Clarksburg and even gave the city a cosmopolitan air. The glass factories attracted artisans from France and Belgium; French was commonly heard on the streets for years.

Glass manufacturing helped forge a middle class in Clarksburg, but by the mid-1980s the industry, and the city, was in decline. Clockwise from top left: Lou Ortenzio; the abandoned Anchor Hocking glass factory; glass collected from the city’s streets; downtown Clarksburg. (Jason Fulford)

Each neighborhood was a self-contained world, with its own churches, grocery stores, and school; many had a swimming pool. High-school sports rivalries were fierce, and football games drew large crowds. When Victory played Roosevelt-Wilson, or Washington Irving went up against Notre Dame, people knew to arrive early to find a seat.

By the late 1970s, Clarksburg’s older physicians were retiring. Like many small towns at the time, it had trouble attracting young professionals. Ortenzio was among the few physicians who moved there to fill the void. He and two other young doctors opened a practice in 1982. Almost immediately, Ortenzio was seeing 40 to 50 patients a day.

The people who came to see him were mostly older; many had served in World War II. They had the aches and pains to show for a lifetime of hard work in the glass factories or at the gas company, but they had retired with something approaching financial security. They owned homes and cars, had pensions and good health insurance.

Ortenzio’s patients suffered from the ailments of the old—arthritis, diabetes, hypertension—and most of them did so stoically. This was partly generational and partly an Appalachian inheritance. One man, Ortenzio remembered, came to him thin and wasted away from cancer. “The disease was advanced, but he put up with it. I said, ‘Why didn’t you come in earlier?’ He said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to think I was complainy.’ That was the Appalachian line—‘I wouldn’t want you to think I was complainy.’ ”

Ortenzio grew into his adopted city. In 1992, he established a free clinic where Clarksburg’s uninsured could get medical care. The county chamber of commerce named him Citizen of the Year for that. He had been trained to treat patients holistically. Most of what a doctor needs to know to make a diagnosis, his professors had taught him, could be learned from taking time to listen to the patient. X-rays and lab tests were mostly to confirm what you gleaned from asking questions and paying attention to the answers. He’d also been trained to help his patients help themselves. Part of his job was to teach them how to take care of their bodies. Pills were a last resort. This careful approach endeared him to his patients, but it lengthened his day. “He would have office hours until 11:30 at night,” says Jim Harris, a friend and the director of the free clinic. “People waited until then because he was worth the wait.”

Drug salesmen visited him weekly. It was a stodgy profession back then. Ortenzio remembers the reps as older men who had grown up and lived locally and who cultivated long-term relationships with doctors. One of the reps for Eli Lilly was a deacon in a local Catholic church. Once a week, he would visit Ortenzio’s office in a business suit, with information about the drugs Lilly produced. Like many in his profession in those years, he avoided hard-sell tactics. Ortenzio grew to rely on the salesman’s counsel when it came to pharmaceuticals. Once, when the Food and Drug Administration removed a Lilly drug from the market, the rep dropped by Ortenzio’s office, embarrassed and apologetic.

Before long, Ortenzio and his wife saw Clarksburg as home. They found a two-story, three-bedroom house in the Stealey neighborhood, southwest of downtown and at the foot of a hill. They set off to the bank for a 30-year loan. To their surprise, they were denied. “The house won’t keep its value that long,” the banker told them. “The best we can give you is a 15-year loan.”

The banker was right. It wasn’t yet clear, amid the bustle of Main Street and Friday-night football, but the city’s prospects were fading. Newer glass technologies required large factories, which meant stretches of flat land rare in West Virginia. Mexico and Japan emerged as competition in glass manufacturing, and plastic and aluminum emerged as alternatives to glass. Pittsburgh Plate Glass had closed in 1974. Anchor Hocking left in 1987. Its hulking concrete plant is slated for demolition, but for now it remains, just off Highway 50.

By the mid-1980s, the city was in decline. Glasswork was replaced by telemarketing. Downtown, locally owned stores began to disappear. Homeowners yielded to renters, many relying on Section 8 assistance from the government. The city eventually had to destroy dozens of abandoned homes, leaving streets with toothless gaps. The swimming pools, too, slowly closed; resident associations lacked the money to maintain them.

Ortenzio drove me by the massive Robert C. Byrd High School, home of the Eagles. It was built in 1995 to consolidate two smaller high schools in Clarksburg, whose population had receded. Replacing neighborhood schools with one centralized school allowed for better course offerings. But Byrd is far from any student’s home. School consolidation extinguished the sports rivalries that had brought people together each week. Without local schools, neighborhoods lost their social centers.

When glassmaking departed Clarksburg, locally owned stores began to disappear as well. The city eventually had to destroy dozens of abandoned homes, leaving streets with toothless gaps. (Jason Fulford)

Lou Ortenzio began to see people in economic as well as physical pain. Many were depressed, worn out by work or the fruitless search for it. Obesity became a more common problem. Some patients began to ask whether he could get them on workers’ compensation or disability. Others left to seek job opportunities in New York, North Carolina, Florida. “I was always calling people out of state telling them how sick their parents or grandparents were,” he said.

When Ortenzio had opened his practice, he’d tended to see young people only for pregnancies or the occasional broken leg. By the mid-1980s, younger people were showing up in larger numbers. They were coming in with ailments that their parents and grandparents had borne in silence—headaches, backaches, the common cold. “The new generation that came in the 1980s, those kids began to have the expectation that life should be pain-free,” Ortenzio said. “If you went to your physician and you didn’t come away with a prescription, you did not have a successful visit.”

The shift was not peculiar to Clarksburg. Americans young and old were becoming accustomed to medical miracles that allowed them to avoid the consequences of unhealthy behavior—statins for high cholesterol, beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors for hypertension and heart failure, a variety of new treatments for diabetes. Fewer patients showed up for annual physicals or wanted to hear what they could do to improve their wellness. They wanted to be cured of whatever was ailing them and sent on their way. Usually that involved pills.

The medical establishment, to a large degree, abetted this shift. In the 1980s, a new cadre of pain specialists began to argue that narcotic pain pills, derived from the opium poppy, ought to be used more aggressively. Many had watched terminal cancer patients die in agony because doctors feared giving them regular doses of addictive narcotics. To them, it was inhumane not to use opioid painkillers.

The specialists began to push the idea that the pills were nonaddictive when used to treat pain. Opioids, they said, could be prescribed in large quantities for long periods—not just to terminal patients, but to almost anyone in pain. This idea had no scientific support. One author of an influential paper later acknowledged that the literature pain advocates relied on to make their case lacked real evidence. “Because the primary goal was to destigmatize, we often left evidence behind,” he said.

Nevertheless, an alliance of specialists who saw their medical mission as eradicating pain was soon joined by the pharmaceutical companies that manufactured opioids. Medical institutions—the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, hospitals and medical schools across the country—bought into this approach as well.

By the late 1990s, medical schools, when they taught pain management at all, focused on narcotics. By the early 2000s, doctors were being urged to prescribe the drugs after almost any routine surgery: appendectomy, ACL repair, wisdom-tooth extraction. They also prescribed them for chronic conditions such as arthritis and back pain. Chronic pain had once been treated with a combination of strategies that only sometimes involved narcotics; now it was treated using opioids almost exclusively, as insurance companies cut back on reimbursing patients for long-term pain therapies that did not call on the drugs.

The U.S. drug industry, meanwhile, was investing heavily in marketing, hiring legions of young salespeople to convince doctors of their drugs’ various miracles. Nationwide, the number of pharmaceutical sales reps ballooned from 38,000 in 1995 to 100,000 a decade later. The old style of drug rep, grounded in medicine or pharmacy, largely passed from the scene.

“It went from a dozen [salesmen] a week to a dozen a day,” Ortenzio remembered. “If you wrote a lot of scrips, you were high on their call list. You would be marketed to several times a day by the same company with different reps.”

Most drug companies in America adopted the new sales approach. Among them was Purdue Pharma, which came out with a timed-release opioid painkiller, OxyContin, in 1996. Purdue paid legendary bonuses—up to $100,000 a quarter, eight times what other companies were paying. To improve their sales numbers, drug reps offered doctors mugs, fishing hats, luggage tags, all-expenses-paid junkets at desirable resorts. They brought lunch for doctors’ staff, knowing that with the staff on their side, the doctors were easier to influence. Once they had the doctor’s ear, reps relied on specious and misinterpreted data to sell their product. Purdue salespeople promoted the claim that their pill was effectively nonaddictive because it gradually released an opioid, oxycodone, into the body and thus did not create the extreme highs and lows that led to addiction.

[From April 2006: The drug pushers]

The reps were selling more than pills. They were selling time-saving solutions for harried doctors who had been told that an epidemic of pain was afoot but who had little time, or training, to address it. For a while, Ortenzio still suggested exercise, a balanced diet, and quitting smoking, all of which can alleviate chronic pain. But his patients, by and large, didn’t want to hear any of this, and he was busy. So he, too, gradually embraced pain pills. Nothing ended an appointment quicker than pulling out a prescription pad.

The number of people on pain pills grew from a tiny fraction of Ortenzio’s practice to well over half of his patients by the end of the 1990s. The shift was gradual enough at first that he didn’t recognize what was happening. Patients with medical problems unrelated to pain migrated to other doctors. Still, Ortenzio was working 16-hour days, seeing patients who had been scheduled for the afternoon at 9 p.m.

The more drugs Ortenzio prescribed, the more he was sought out by patients. Many would use up a month’s supply before the month was out; in need of more pills, they were insistent, wheedling, aggressive. Many lied. Some would curse and scream when Ortenzio told them that he couldn’t write them a new prescription yet, or that he wanted to lower their dosage.

The pills were soon on the streets of Clarksburg as well. They replaced beer and pot at many high-school parties. Phyllis Mills, Ortenzio’s longtime patient, had two daughters who abused the pills. Theirs did not come from Ortenzio, at least not directly, but the supply of pills was exploding, due in large part to doctors like him who were overprescribing them.

Ortenzio should have noticed what the pills were doing, to his patients and his community, but he was less and less himself. After his late-night encounter with Vicodin in 1988, he had begun his own slide into addiction. By the late 1990s, he was using 20 to 30 pills a day, depleting even the plentiful supply of free samples from the ubiquitous sales reps.

Desperate to get his hands on more pills, he found a friend he could trust, a middle-aged accountant and a patient of his. “I’m in some trouble,” Ortenzio told him. “If I write you this prescription, can I ask you to fill it and bring it back to me?”

“Sure thing,” the man said, without asking for an explanation. “If you gotta have it, you gotta have it. You’re the doc.”

Soon a dozen or so trusted patients were helping Ortenzio. He knew he was out of control and needed help—even the amount of acetaminophen he was consuming was toxic—but he feared that seeking treatment for his addiction might cost him his medical license. Around 1999, he found a new way to get his fix. He began writing prescriptions in his children’s names.

Ortenzio could plainly see that the claim that these pills were nonaddictive was untrue. He would try to quit and feel the symptoms of withdrawal. “I couldn’t be away from my supply,” he said. His patients, too, were terrified of going without. One, a nurse at a local hospital suffering from chronic pain as well as depression and anxiety, would approach him in his office parking lot, often bearing gifts of quilts or canned goods, insisting that she needed her pills that morning, that she couldn’t wait for her monthly appointment.

Ortenzio saw no way to break the cycle the pills had created for the people in his care. He never found a way to get his patients down to lower doses of narcotics. They rebelled when he suggested tapering; just cutting people off made them sick. The area didn’t have enough pain clinics or addiction specialists to refer them to, and insurance companies wouldn’t reimburse for many pain treatments that did not involve pills. Without good alternatives for his patients, he kept on writing prescriptions.

Top: A resident of the Mission, a shelter that opened in 1969 with a few beds, for alcoholics and homeless veterans. Today, many of its 120 beds are occupied by opiate addicts. Bottom: A set of house rules. (Jason Fulford)

Addiction and overwork had estranged Ortenzio from his wife and children. As Clarksburg declined, his wife moved the kids to Pittsburgh to find better schools. In 2004, after more than a decade of living in different cities, they divorced. Raised Catholic but without much feeling for the Church, Ortenzio joined a Protestant congregation. Ultimately, he found Jesus in his exam room. During an appointment one day, he and a patient, a Baptist, talked of his search for redemption. The patient knelt with Ortenzio on the linoleum floor and prayed for the doctor. Ortenzio marks that moment as his new beginning. He had advantages many addicts don’t have: a home and a car, financial resources, generous friends and colleagues, and, later, the support of a second wife. He managed to taper off the drugs. A couple of months later, he was baptized in a deep section of Elk Creek, where baptisms have taken place since the early 1800s.

Not long after that, federal agents raided his office. They interrogated his staff and confiscated hundreds of patient records. The investigation dragged on for nearly two years. His children had to testify before a grand jury that they knew nothing about the prescriptions their father had written in their names.

In October 2005, prosecutors charged Ortenzio with health-care fraud and fraudulent prescribing. That year, 314 West Virginians died from opioid overdoses, more than double the number of people five years earlier. By 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, physicians were writing 130 opioid prescriptions for every 100 West Virginians.

In March 2006, Ortenzio pleaded guilty. His sentencing occurred shortly after a 2005 Supreme Court decision made federal sentencing guidelines nonmandatory and individual sentences up to judges’ discretion. Despite what he’d done, Ortenzio was still beloved in Clarksburg. More than 100 people wrote to the judge on his behalf. He received five years of supervised release plus 1,000 hours of community service, and was ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution. He would serve no prison time, but he did lose his medical license.

At 53, Ortenzio was unemployed. A temp agency offered him a landscaping job at the Stonewall Resort, where, as a doctor, he had taken his family for Sunday brunch. He’d never worked outdoors in his life, but he took the job. It paid $6.50 an hour.

He worked at the resort for a couple of months, then as the janitor at a local community center before returning to Stonewall as a full-time groundskeeper. He also found a night job.

Tom Dyer is one of northern West Virginia’s leading defense attorneys; Ortenzio had been his client. One night in 2006, Dyer ordered a pizza from Fox’s Pizza Den in Bridgeport, a town near Clarksburg. When the doorbell rang, he opened the door and there stood Lou Ortenzio, holding a pie. It took a minute before Dyer realized: Doc O was now a pizza-delivery guy. “I was just speechless,” Dyer told me.

“I made pizza deliveries where I used to make house calls,” Ortenzio said. “I delivered pizzas to people who were former patients. They felt very uncomfortable, felt sorry for me.” But, he said, “it didn’t bother me. I was in a much better place.”

Ortenzio eventually left pizza delivery. But the way he told me the story, the job was an important step in his recovery: Every pie he delivered liberated him. He was free of the lies he’d told his colleagues, his family, and himself to hide his addiction. He liked hearing kids screaming “The pizza guy’s here!” when he knocked on the door. “You make people happy,” he said. “That was what I liked about being a doctor.”

Today, Ortenzio spends his days trying to atone. He does this through constant work. There are places in and around Clarksburg where addicts can get help, and Ortenzio can be found at most of them.

The Mission opened in 1969, in Clarksburg’s Glen Elk neighborhood, at the time a small red-light district with bars and backroom gambling. The shelter started with a few beds, intended for alcoholics and homeless veterans. A neon-blue jesus saves sign outside has remained illuminated for all the years since, as the shelter has expanded. Today, many of its 120 beds are occupied by opioid addicts.

One afternoon, I met Ortenzio in a small, windowless office at the Mission. Now 66, he is thin, gray-haired, and bespectacled; he dresses in a hoodie, blue jeans, and sneakers. He does a bit of everything at the Mission, from helping the addicted find treatment to helping them find a coat, or shoes for their children, or a ride to the probation department. He is a volunteer adviser there, too, and at the county’s drug court, where he guides addicts through the criminal-justice system.

Ortenzio is also involved with two newer initiatives, which suggest the challenges of repairing the damage done by opioids. A wood-beamed downtown church is home to Celebrate Recovery, a Christian ministry founded in Orange County, California. Celebrate Recovery has grown nationwide due in large part to the opioid epidemic. On the cold Tuesday night I visited, the service featured an electric band singing the kind of fervid new gospel music that is common to nondenominational Christianity: “You are perfect in all of your ways …”

Ortenzio is Celebrate Recovery’s lay pastor in Clarksburg, running its weekly services. The flock is about 100 or so strong. One evening, a young mother named Sarah stood before the congregation to give her testimony. Sarah’s story started with parents who married too young and divorced before she was 3. It featured father figures who were coal miners and truck drivers and a stepfather who molested her repeatedly, beginning when she was 8. Then a life of illicit drugs, marriage, divorce, and addiction to prescription pain pills.

Clarksburg’s traditional congregations have dwindled along with the city’s population; many rely on support from former residents who commute in from elsewhere on Sundays. The place these churches once held in this community has been taken by new churches proclaiming a gospel of prosperity, insisting that God wants us all to be rich. And by ministries such as Celebrate Recovery.

A regular devotional service held in the Mission’s cafeteria (Jason Fulford)

Ortenzio coordinates the training of recovery coaches at the church, people who can help addicts as they try to wean themselves from narcotics. Addiction, however, seems as present as ever in Clarksburg. At the Mission one day, I met a group of recovering young drug users. Several of them had started out on heroin but then turned to meth. In Clarksburg and many other parts of the country, meth is coming on strong, poised to be the fourth stage in an epidemic that began with prescribed pills, then moved to heroin, and then to fentanyl. Meth seems to reduce the symptoms of withdrawal from opioids, or maybe it’s just a way to get high when anything will do. Whatever the case, like the various forms of opioids before it, meth is now in plentiful supply in Clarksburg.

A couple of years ago, Ortenzio decided to open a sober-living house downtown, where recovering addicts could spend six months or more stabilizing their lives. He said God had instructed him to undertake the project, and had told him, in fact, where to do it—in a house right around the corner from the duplex where Clarksburg’s first resident overdosed on fentanyl. In 2017, more than two West Virginians a day were being claimed by opioids. Recovering addicts needed places where they could maintain sobriety. “We thought, This is going to be great. They’ll throw a parade for us,” says Ben Randolph, a businessman whom Ortenzio helped recover from pill addiction.

Instead, the idea of a sober-living house outraged many in town. The principals of two local schools were concerned that the house was too close to their campuses. Owners of local businesses worried that the house might further tarnish the city’s image. “The property value of the homes around it are going to plummet. You’re going to have both drug dealers and recovering addicts in one area, so they’ll have a captive market,” one resident told The Exponent Telegram.

But Ortenzio persisted, and a bank eventually granted him a mortgage. Since July 2017, he has run a six-bed home for men, with daily supervision and no problems—no spike in crime nearby, no complaints of loitering—reported so far. A similar home for women opened last May. Nevertheless, the episode showed where the city, perhaps even the country, was when it came to addiction: afflicted mightily and wanting it to go away, but not knowing how to make that happen.

Lou Ortenzio was the first Clarksburg doctor prosecuted for improperly prescribing pain pills. He was the first person most residents I talked with recall as putting a different face on addiction. He was the first to show that this was a new kind of drug plague, and the first to puncture the idea that the supply came from street dealers. He was also the first to publicly work at his own recovery without shame.

He was not, however, alone. In 2005, another local doctor, Brad Hall, gathered with members of the West Virginia State Medical Association concerned about addiction among physicians in a state that cannot afford to lose them. They started the Physician Health Program, which has helped some 230 West Virginia doctors with substance-abuse problems get confidential treatment and retain their license to practice. Many are overworked, as Ortenzio had been. Some were self-treating emotional and physical problems. About a quarter abused opioids.

Left: Lou Ortenzio beside one of Clarksburg’s abandoned neighborhood pools. Ortenzio managed to overcome his own addiction to narcotic painkillers and today spends his time helping other addicts recover, at the Mission (right) and elsewhere. (Jason Fulford)

Ortenzio managed to escape drugs, but he’s still living with the effects of his addiction. He is working to repair his relationship with his youngest son; Ortenzio didn’t attend his wedding and has yet to meet a young grandson. He leans on his faith to keep him going. Many of his encounters with addicts prompt sudden, public prayers, Ortenzio bowing his head as he clasps the person’s shoulder. His faith has humbled him, relieving him of a sense of hubris that got him into trouble as a doctor: the idea that he could heal an entire community, if he just kept the office open a few hours longer.

Doc O will never practice medicine again. Yet his work at the Mission doesn’t seem so different from his routine as a family physician, tending to the needs of one person after another. One morning, he took a resident to a clinic, then talked on the phone with an addicted doctor living in a halfway house. A pastor from the coalfields of southern West Virginia called to ask how to set up a Celebrate Recovery ministry in his large but dying church. A 24-year-old mother of four from a West Virginia mountain town was looking for $225 to pay the utilities for an apartment she was trying to rent. Ortenzio promised to reach out to the Mission’s supporters for a donation.

As the morning wore on, a gaunt 26-year-old man from North Carolina, a construction worker addicted to heroin and meth, showed up to report that he’d had five of his teeth pulled. The dentist had prescribed a dozen hydrocodone pills. The construction worker couldn’t fill the scrip without proper ID, which he didn’t possess. Ortenzio sat and listened as the young man, slumped beneath a baseball cap, stared at the floor and insisted on his need for the painkiller.

The dentist had probably figured that the fellow had lost a lot of teeth, that a dozen pills weren’t many. If that were the case, it would mark a change. Not that long ago, the dentist might have prescribed 20 to 40 pills.

Ortenzio offered the construction worker a prayer. The man clearly still wanted the drugs. Ortenzio, who as a doctor had prescribed pills by the hundreds each day, could only give him packets of ibuprofen.

“You want to stay away from hydrocodone,” he said.

This article appears in the May 2019 print edition with the headline “The Penance of Doc O.”

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/opioid-epidemic-west-virginia-doctor/586036/?utm_source=feed

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ionecoffman · 5 years

Text

The Penance of Doc O

[From April 2006: The drug pushers]

“Sure thing,” the man said, without asking for an explanation. “If you gotta have it, you gotta have it. You’re the doc.”

He worked at the resort for a couple of months, then as the janitor at a local community center before returning to Stonewall as a full-time groundskeeper. He also found a night job.

Today, Ortenzio spends his days trying to atone. He does this through constant work. There are places in and around Clarksburg where addicts can get help, and Ortenzio can be found at most of them.

A regular devotional service held in the Mission’s cafeteria (Jason Fulford)

“You want to stay away from hydrocodone,” he said.

This article appears in the May 2019 print edition with the headline “The Penance of Doc O.”

Article source here:The Atlantic

0 notes