Remembering the Captain

"Trout Mask Replica," considered by many to be Don Van Vliet's masterpiece, is No. 58 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The same year that the Beatles were tearing up the charts with their first American release, an oddly charismatic Lancaster man, Don Vliet, was playing dances at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds in the personae of Captain Beefheart, with a backing group dubbed the Magic Band.

Decades later, "Meet the Beatles," would be named Number 59 on the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. One place higher, at Number 58, is Captain Beefheart's breakthrough album, "Trout Mask Replica."

That year, 1964, I was deep in throes of that malady some people have never recovered from: Beatlemania. The Fab Four were ruling the airwaves and conquering American television. I was 10-years old, and the British Invasion totally shaped my rock and roll aesthetic. I like my songs to be 3 1/2 minutes long, with a hook and a bridge, and my collection is heavy on power pop.

So it was a huge leap for me when I transfered from Simi High School to Royal in 1970 and fell in with a group of boys totally dedicated to the weirdness that was Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and the GTOs.

I was Wendy among the Lost Boys, and they mocked my fondness for English trad-rock bands like Fairport Convention, the Strawbs, and Steel-Eye Span. When they put on "The Captain," as they called Beefheart, I groaned. His ranting and atonal noodling just gave me a headache. When they were done, I'd play some Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

I came to love Frank Zappa, but mostly the stuff that was less experimental and more pop, like "Hot Rats," or "Just Another Band from L.A." But I never could get into Beefheart, not that I tried too hard. When I protested yet another playing of "Trout Mask Replica" or "Lick My Decals off, Baby," the Lost Boys would say things like "But, he's a genius!" or "He has a four-and-a-half octave vocal range!"

For some reason they thought that I would be impressed by the Captain's odd time signatures, when really, all the music I liked was in 4/4.

I've always been somewhat of a reactionary when it comes to music. When I first heard the B-52s, Devo, and Sex Pistols, I believed that I had never heard such rubbish in all my life. Now, I love them all.

When I moved to the Antelope Valley and found out that Beefheart was a native son, if not a celebrated one, I was intrigued. I always planned to write a comprehensive story about Don Van Vliet, before I left the paper. My friend Lynn loaned me a DVD on him that sat on top of my bookcase for years.

But like so many things, it never came to pass. So yesterday, after I heard about his death, I finally watched the 2006 release, "Captain Beefheart: Under Review," which features many of the local musicians, biographers, and British rock critics talking about each LP.

I learned many things from that viewing: mostly that I still hate "Trout Mask," but there are more accessible albums that I'd really like to hear all the way through, like "Clear Spot." I love his voice now that I am older, probably because I was broken in by years of Tom Waits.

I called Congressman Buck McKeon's former field representative, Lew Stults, who knew Vliet before he added the "Van," and booked Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band back in 1964-65. He said that even then, the Captain could work a crowd.

"He was a bit of a con man," Stults said. "He had an air about him that was all for the stage." That was, when the Captain wasn't at his day-job selling shoes at Kinney's on Sierra Highway.

Stults was part of a car club called the Cordials when he went to Antelope Valley High School, and they put on dances at the Exposition Hall at the AV Fairgrounds. The club hosted a Battle of the Bands, which Van Vliet's band easily won.

"They were doing covers of blues songs, like Howlin' Wolf and Lightnin Hopkins, and somewhat edgy versions of popular songs," Stults remembers. "They did the Rolling Stones better than the Stones themselves."

On the DVD, someone recalled Van Vliet's vocals as being like "Howlin' Wolf on acid."

The Magic Band was a big draw when the Cordials booked them for dances, and "Captain Beefheart growled and prowled the stage. We'd get 200 or more people on a Friday night. We used to pack the place."

A 1975 promotional photo.

Eventually the band put out the "Diddy Wah Diddy" single, the "Safe as Milk" LP and started playing the Whiskey A Go Go. Then came the years of musical innovation and experimentation that gave Van Vliet and a revolving cast of band members notoriety and slavish devotion from legions of other Lost Boys, if not huge piles of money.

Ultimately, the visual art that Van Vliet had been doing since he was child, and practiced at Antelope Valley College, became a more sure source of income than rock and roll and he left music behind, at least professionally. His abstract art was very successful.

"He was a guy who refused to go mainstream," said Stults. "Now he's considered a genius."

Remembering Beefheart

I'm working on an appreciation of the late Don Van Vliet, AKA Captain Beefheart, who got his start in the Antelope Valley, and it is taking longer than I thought. Check back, and if you have any remembrances, leave a comment below, or email me at kim_rawley@hotmail.com

Thanks!

Family photos take a holiday

 

Kim's Santa photo taken at John Wanamaker's in Philadelphia, circa 1959.

Editor's note: End of the semester classes and grading left me exhausted, so my loving husband, Jim, offered to pinch hit for me this week. I hope you enjoy his offering.

The other day we took boxes of Christmas decorations out of storage and brought them home. Although this will be our third Christmas together, it is the first we will celebrate in our own place. Kim eagerly began decorating our apartment. I, not quite in the holiday spirit yet, was content to watch her almost childlike joy, pulling things out of boxes she had not seen in quite awhile and finding appropriate spots for them in the living room.

As decorations went up on our bookshelves, photos came down. Down came photos of my daughter Kat, one taken of her at a Sea World summer camp getting a kiss by a Beluga whale, another of her with a chattering lorry perched on her shoulder. Down came pictures of Megan and Allison, my two stepdaughters, looking very much like they do today – tall, pretty, and smart – only a few years younger. Down came a cute picture of the granddaughter Charlotte, who seemingly can only be captured looking cute.

The author's daughter, Kat, with her charge "Mama Llama," at Moorpark's Exotic Animal Training and Management teaching zoo.

I was actually appalled at the removal of those photos. Surely the decorations and the photos can co-exist, I asked my wife. “Oh, don’t worry, they will go back when the decorations come down,” Kim said.

It’s only been a couple of days, but I truly miss those photos. I love photography. I am a big fan of the Hollywood glamour portraits of George Hurrell done in the 1930s. I often find myself spellbound by the photos in National Geographic of the wonders of the world.

I appreciate good photojournalism, including the work of my colleagues at the Antelope Valley Press. I admire the work of good family portrait and wedding photographers, including our friend Valeri Estrada, whose work, including shooting our wedding, is fantastic. And I love family snapshots, even the cringe-worthy ones of myself and my loved ones.

One of the things that I’ve noticed about our family shots is that the really good ones are of people being happy, or in their element, or both. The photos from our wedding, for example, are fantastic – the result of a terrific photographer shooting people having a great time.

A photo by Valeri Estrada, Little Blue World Photography, of the Rawley clan having a good time at the Rawley/Skeen wedding.

My wife hates having her picture taken and that disdain is often evident in the photos. Now put her with someone or something she loves, her granddaughter or her MG, for example, and the results are remarkable. One of the items Kim pulled from the Christmas boxes was a photo of her, about age 5, I think, on Santa’s lap. It’s a great shot – who doesn’t love Santa?

A photo of the author's wife that she doesn't hate, by Valeri Estrada.

With my daughter Kat, photos work best when she’s with animals – which is most of the time. All my photos of her the last few months have been at her school, Moorpark’s Exotic Animal Training and Management program, where she’s with animals virtually 24/7. The shots I’ve taken there show a young woman at ease, confident, and having the time of her life.

Charlotte? Well, I’m biased here, but I think she is naturally photogenic. The best shots of her are the ones where she has a mischievous smile, making you wonder if she’s up to no good and masking it with cuteness.

I, like Kim, am not fond of the camera, but I submit to it a bit more willing. I try to bear the cringe-worthy shots with good humor. The best ones of me, I believe, are when I’m with the people I love – my beautiful Kim, Kat, Megan, Ally, Megan’s Chris, and, of course, Charlotte.

I am getting into the Christmas spirit and do love the decorations Kim has put up. Now, I just need to find temporary homes for those photos.

To Santa or not to Santa?

Jolly Old Saint Nick sleeping off a bender?

Pity poor Santa Claus. I mean, being morbidly obese is bad enough, but having only one suit of clothes (shapeless red velvet, at that) must be depressing. And then there are all those kids asking you for stuff. I don't think I'd ever leave the North Pole, if I were him.

The newest insult to the jolly fat gent is that some in the new generation of parents have decided they don't want to "lie" to their children about where their gifts really come from. They figure that kids will say, "Well, if you were lying about Santa, what else isn't true?"

In the religion section of the paper this week, a reverend recounted the story of a woman trying to console her young grandson who had experienced the death of his friend. She told him what Christians believe about death, and he asked if that was a just a make-believe story, like Santa Claus.

The author's take was that grown-ups would not be seen as "trustworthy" to children when they talked about Jesus, "if we have hyped a belief in mythical figures."

Uh huh.

I can understand how the idea that Jesus isn't mythical might be confusing, what with all the raising from the dead, walking on water, and mass-replicating foodstuffs, but there was plenty of room in my childhood for Jesus and Santa Claus.



Jesus was the one born in a manger, visited by wise men; who grew up to die for our sins and lives in our hearts. Santa flies around the world in one night, has a naughty/nice list like some metaphysical hall monitor, and lives at the North Pole with his wife in a house that smells like gingerbread  24/7.

My daughter is still on the fence. She figures she's still got time before Charlotte figures it all out. She's feeling a little squeamish about the lying part, too. Frankly, I think it's impossible to be 100% honest with children— hell, with anyone.

There are lies we tell to grease the skids of civilization: for example, how do you really feel about the new partner of your friend and/or family member or the bratty children of your acquaintances? And then there's the infamous "does this outfit make me look fat?" If you answer that with unflinching, withering honesty, you're just evil, a fool or barking mad.

I guess what I'm saying is that I have no compunction about telling the Santa Claus story. I made a Santa Claus video for Charlotte at the Portable North Pole website and any Christmas Eve she's with me, we're totally tracking Santa with NORAD. The video message is free, but you can buy a download. I regret not buying the video I did last year, because Santa has apparently been feeling the results of the recession.

Last year, Santa's office was opulently decorated. This year, there's a tree, but otherwise, the background is a little bare. Guess he had to lay off the art director.

You can send a Santa Claus message of your own by going here. It's free and very fun.

In the December issue of Vogue, there's an article about a food event held in Lapland. Master chefs and yuppie food writers preparing and eating reindeer and other Lappish delicacies are not very interesting to me, but the part where the author's wife gets two Amanita muscaria mushrooms confiscated because they are psychotropic made me pay attention.

Apparently, Santa Claus in the Arctic is an aboriginal shaman-like being, and the idea for his flying reindeer came from hallucinogenic visions seen under the influence of amanita muscaria, those red mushrooms with the white spots you see in fairy tales. Man, I'm a product of the 60s, and this is the first I've heard of Santa doing shrooms.

I guess I never really thought too much about Santa when my kids were growing up. I was too busy coaching them to ask for something I could afford, that the grandparents hadn't already bought. All I know is that after I found out that Santa wasn't real, some of the magic went of the holiday for me, and things were never the same again.

Some people never really get over the kindly old gent in red. When I asked students to write about a "significant event" in one of my classes, I got more than I bargained for. Among the papers recounting assaults, devastating car accidents, and deaths of family members, some by violence, was a 20-something who write about the day she found out there was no Santa Claus.


A decade later, and she was still disturbed by it. So maybe the mommy-bloggers have a point. I just hope that incident continues to be the worst thing that's ever happened to her.

High-level holiday negotiations

Thanksgiving is only one holiday I have to share my children.

I’m good at sharing.

It’s a trait we learn in the sandbox, and I took to it easily. I will share my home, meals, music, clothes (if you are unfortunate enough to be my size), Scotch (if I think you will appreciate it), and maybe, just maybe, if you are a person of good character and hygiene, my books.

One thing I’m not so gracious about sharing is my children on holidays.

I had to share with their father. That’s the law. But sharing with people just because my daughters are in love with their sons? Not so much.

Both kids were with their respective partners this Thanksgiving, and I didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

You think the G20 undergo high-level negotiations? You should see my family at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The last thing my younger daughter’s fiancé, the oenologist, said before he whisked her off to Long Island to make whatever kind of wine you can make in some place that isn’t Napa, is that she could fly back for holidays.

His parents, who live in Rhode Island, would alternate with us: this year they got Turkey Day, and we got Christmas; next year we switch.

Which is good, because my older daughter and son-in-law finally evened the holiday score this year, and we get them all day Christmas. Ever since they have been together, holidays have been a sticking point.

When they were first a couple, it was easy (for us): they just split up. However miserable this may have made them, we were down with it. I mean, we missed Chris, of course we did, but missing his wife also would have been too painful.

But he comes from a huge Mexican-American family with 30 first cousins. I think after awhile they started to doubt he really had a girlfriend. And once the two got married, the pressure was really on to make a joint appearance.

Chris’ family has their big gathering on Christmas Eve, so ostensibly they got the couple that night, and our tiny little Anglo family got Christmas day. Which was fine in theory, but in practice, a little sticky.

What threw a spanner in the works were kids. Go figure.

Chris’ brother had small daughters, and he and my daughter wanted to see them open their presents at their grandma’s house. So they would go there and wait for the nieces to arrive. While we were waiting for them to arrive at our gathering place so we could open our presents.

True, we were adults and should have been more patient, but doesn’t Christmas make children of us all? So we would wait impatiently, and threaten to open gifts without them (well, some of us would…)

My poor kid was torn: she would annoy us by making us wait, annoy Chris’ family by leaving early, and at some point there would be tears.

Having my granddaughter Charlotte, of course, upped the ante.

So this year they have arrived at détente. They, also, will alternate: one family will get Christmas Eve and the other Christmas Day. Exclusively. Oh, and by the way, whoever gets Christmas Eve also gets Thanksgiving, because an “eve” is not a complete day, what with people having pesky jobs and such.

So that’s the plan, and this is the year we get the younger sister and the winemaker for Christmas too. Except they are finding out that flying from the East Coast to LAX or Burbank is not as cheap as from the Bay Area, so it looks like we may just see my daughter.

And even this may prove unworkable once they tie the knot and start having kids.

I’m finally realizing why my mother’s only bit of marital advice was to “Marry an orphan.”

The politics of toys

A

Christmas Morning, West Covina, 1960
Copyright Charles Phoenix

Okay, that is not me in photo above, but it might as well be, except I had a dreaded "pixie" cut, so I had less hair. The snapshot is from humorist and pop-culture historian Charles Phoenix's website. He finds old Kodachrome and black and white slides and gives shows, where he cleverly points out details in them that no one else notices.

In 1960 I was six years old and I got this identical set of toy household appliances. They were pink (hadn't you already guessed that?), and the wringer washer actually worked. You put water and soap in it, plugged it in and it agitated your doll clothes. It was the same year I got my Revlon doll.

What brought this all to mind is my daughter's wish list for Charlotte. Like most children, Charlotte loves
watching videos and pushing buttons on electronic toys, and her mom sees the potential for addiction. Already C. is obsessed with the recent Disney movie starring Princess Tiana, which she calls "Pincess Fog," and "Nightmare Before Christmas," and asks to see them daily.

So, her mom asked for low-tech toys, like "pretend stuff, like play food or tools are good. Wooden blocks would be fantastic. Puzzles are great, too." My mom went looking for the food and dishes, without much luck.

The Disney "Pincess" tea set that started it all.

I had seen a Disney princess tea service for four in a Big Lots ad, so I went in looking for it and struck the motherload. There, I found a cooking utensil set, a box of pots and pans, along with the tea set. 

Look, it even has pot holders!

I found a gigantic set of play food, but it included junk food, so I opted for a smaller one that only had fruits and vegetables in it. My daughter is very particular about what she feeds her family, and tries for 100% organic. 

Play food in a plastic shopping basket.

After I check out, I'm looking at this pile of pretend domesticity (which I would have loved at that age), and it hits me: I know Charlotte loves to imitate mommy, but is this the message I want to send? That she should prepare for a life of cooking and cleaning? If play is about rehearsing future careers, shouldn't I buy the astronaut Barbie instead?


The idea of stay-at-home moms is rather a sore point between my daughter and me. She accuses me of not valuing what she does: staying home with her daughter to give her the best possible beginning in life. Nothing could be further from the truth: I admire her, if only because I was constitutionally unable to stay at home. 


Our little family really needed me to work, but I suppose we could have made sacrifices and muddled through, as so many families have. My daughter and son-in-law have to do without a lot of luxuries to survive on one income.


But after being the sole support of my household for years, I was suddenly unemployed when we moved to Lake Los Angeles. I was isolated in the middle of nowhere with no car, and two kids: a two-year-old and a four-year-old. No adults to talk to all day, and an endless round of breakfast, lunch and dinner preparation and clean-up. I was washing load after load of cloth diapers and hanging them on a line every day because I didn't have a dryer.


I couldn't find a part-time job fast enough, which is how I ended up carrying a .38 as a security guard at Edwards AFB. Not exactly stimulating, but it got me out of the house.


I never bought my children play stoves, washers, or refrigerators. They had dolls of course, closet floors full of them, but I never bought them cooking or cleaning toys, because I wanted them to believe they could be anything they wanted when they grew up. Yes, including wives and mothers, but I consider those roles to be states of being, not substitutes for meaningful, paid work. You stay home for periods of time for caretaking, but not your whole life.


Call me a product of the 60s, but I don't believe that keeping house should be exclusively women's work. Men should help cook and clean, or the couple should hire help. Staying home to raise children is admirable, but it's a life passage, not a lifetime career. After you've dedicated your life to your children, what do you have left when they leave you? If you're encouraging them to live up to their potential, shouldn't you be modeling that behavior?


At least I'm not as rabid a feminist as this person. She actually deconstructed a toy ad for gender-specific messages, and what she found was fascinating and not very pretty. I believe in unisex toys, and that boys should be allowed to play with dolls and girls with trucks, but I also believe that you can't fight nature. Boys like to blow shit up sometimes, and girls like to dress up from time to time. 


And after all, I am rather fond of the color pink.


If you want to take me to task, leave a comment.

Pots and pans. The author had a set of authentic RevereWare, with the copper bottoms, when she was a child.

Night at the dancehall

Detail from frontispiece to Thomas Wilson's Correct Method of German and French Waltzing (1816), showing nine positions of the Waltz, clockwise from the left.

You might notice that there are no pictures in this blog. That is for a very good reason: I don't want any photographic evidence. My husband and I took our paltry dance skills out on the town, and got schooled.

I'm not sure what we were thinking: we haven't danced since our wedding, and we were barely getting by then. Plus, performing on a dance floor that belongs to you (okay, it was rented, but still) is way different from a place where people are serious about ballroom dancing.

So, after six weeks of no practice, we have completely forgotten the foxtrot and the swing (on any coast), never learned the cha cha, and are left with a rusty waltz, tango and rhumba. Then we decide to drive down to Granada Hills to a weekly dance with live music.

The dance price includes a lesson at 6:30 (they were doing some very tricky cha cha steps this night), and boxed wine, soft drinks and snacks. Then about 8, the dance floor opens. These old people may look frail, but I'm tellin ya, they'll mow you down if you don't get out of their way.

Iris, our dance teacher, did a lot of talking about the "line of dance" and how you had to keep moving in a counterclockwise motion on the floor. She even tried to give us a taste of it by insisting we foxtrot in a circle. But nothing she said prepared me for the sheer terror of trying to hold on to your little bit of floor, not get run over, not bump into anyone else, and attempt to make a decent showing of your available steps.

We don't really know how to take our dancing out into traffic, so we contented ourselves with dancing in the middle of the floor, sort of a "kiddie pool" if you will. Of course, you often had couples using it as a passing lane, so we weren't really even safe there.

There were a couple of Antelope Valley people there that we recognized: a former coworker, and the attorney who did my parents' living trust.

Everyone was very nice to us. There seemed to be lots of regulars greeting one another, and cake appeared for two women who were celebrating birthdays. The atmosphere is part senior gathering, part high-school dance, and part ballroom dance classroom (without the glare of overhead lights).

If you prefer age-appropriate clothing on women of a certain age, steer clear of this place. There were great-grandmothers in skirts that barely covered their asses, and lots of rhinestone and sequined dresses and shoes.

One senior whipped off her coat, displaying a silver and black bubble-hemmed mini dress. She proceeded to dance with the partner she brought with her. Well, actually she did most of the dancing, moving around him, gesticulating in a very dramatic fashion, while he moved in place.

There were varying skill levels demonstrated on the floor, and a few fantastic couples meant to inspire us —or serve as a rebuke for not practicing— I'm not sure which.  One Filipino couple in dramatic costumes danced like they were patiently waiting for "So You Think You Can Dance" to call, although they never smiled.

That was in contrast to the middle-aged guy in the Capezio jazz shoes and aloha shirt dancing with a woman in a super-bright skirt. They grinned the whole time, like they were having the time of their lives. He even tried to do some Lindy-hop lifts, a valiant, yet unsuccessful  effort. Not that it was all his fault, if you know what I mean.

The really talented couples were good about teaching steps to others. They would switch partners with another couple and show them moves.

Everyone dances with everyone, and if you leave your dance partner unattended, he or she is likely to be swooped up by someone else. But it is a curiously non-sexual atmosphere. Previously in my life, the combination of dancing, music, and people of the opposite sex spelled romance, or at least hooking up. But this seems like a meritocracy: no matter what you look like or how old you are, it is your dance skills that make you popular.

The band called a "mixer" dance, with women on one side of the room, and guys on the other. They pair off and dance down the middle of the room, then part, and get back in line to await another partner. It allows couples to dance with other people, and unaccompanied ladies to have a partner. We couldn't participate, because we can barely dance with each other, let alone other people.

My husband looked at the line of ladies waiting their turn at grabbing a partner during the mixer and said: "Oh God, it's like junior high all over again." Yes, yes, it was, and some scars never fade, I guess.