Saturday, December 18, 2010

R.I.P. Don Van Vliet

From and essay by Lionel Rolfe, "Ape and Essence and Laura Huxley"

Along with my ex-wife Nigey Lennon, we were joined by Don Van Vliet, best known as the rock cult hero Captain Beefheart. We had been discussing drugs, the ‘60s and the high desert. Beefheart was talking about how people who live in the desert (where he was reared) are often far more eccentric than those who live on the L.A. side of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Once, as a young lad growing up in the desert, Beefheart had a part-time job selling Electrolux vaccuum cleaners in Pearblossom, which was not very far from Llano and Wrightwood, the desert and mountain communities that Huxley lived in. Beefheart explained it was known that the author lived in the desert, so when a tall, gangly customer came into the store where Beefheart was working, Beefheart recognized him immediately.

Van Vliet remembered being impressed by how down-to-earth Huxley was. Huxley explained that his wife Maria had sent him out to look for a vacuum cleaner. Huxley asked Van Vliet if he could recommend one. Since Beefheart was selling Electroluxes, it was, of course, an Electrolux that Huxley purchased. Then they talked a bit.

During the conversation at Denny's, Beefheart said that Huxley had seemed to him a man who was looking for something, that he was an eccentric among the eccentrics who inhabited the desert.