Captain Beefheart Playlist!

All y'all shut-ins are sick of your record collections - admit it! Well, earlier in the time of social isolation I came to your rescue with this beast (you're welcome!), and now I've got another for you: a Captain Beefheart playlist! That's the good news. The bad news: Troutmaskreplica is not on Spotify, so this is not a proper Beefheart playlist. It does include some Troutmask instrumental tracks from the Grow Fins box set - which are either rehearsals or instrumental tracks from the actual album, I can't remember and my box is downstairs, and stairs are not really my friends right now - so the album is not totally unrepresented. But hey, don't let that bother you! Plenty of goodness in these three hours. BTW, I did go to the trouble to sequence this & I think I did a good job, but shuffle is always your friend in these situations.

Enjoy! I'll try to hit you with one more playlist before I go back to work . . . we'll see.

BEST CAPTAIN BEEFHEART ALBUMS
(an unassailable list thing)

1. Troutmaskreplica
2. Lick My Decals Off, Baby
3. Safe As Milk
4. Ice Cream for Crow
5. Doc at the Radar Station
6. Bat Chain Puller
7. Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
8. Clear Spot
9. Strictly Personal*
10. Mirror Man
11. Spotlight Kid

*would have jumped at least three spots
if they had gone with the It Comes to You
In A Plain Brown Wrapper mixes

does not include compilations or the Tragic Band

RONA Fragment #4

time, day, what is that?

lie across the bed at odd angles

in various states of undress

& listen to noise on shuffle

sun sketches the house next door

in glaring relief, so it’s day

early-ish day

a little later clouds will show up

to wash time

off the neighbor’s siding

random meandering walks divide

the infinitely divisible into chunks

of indeterminate timelessness

pomegranate, tequila, and simple syrup

spell an endless parade of bourbon & sodas

in the kitchen washing a stray plate

a moment sudden and crystallized

I become inexplicably emotional

& cry during a Bob Dylan song

I’ve heard passively for 40 years

the rage I have lived with since the age 16

feels now diffuse and unearned

even if circumstances suggest the opposite

            flit moment to moment

            of incredible & subjective vision

            is this the world now?

            is it even different

            in any qualitative way?

RONA Fragment #3: Recasting an Elliot Prelude

Recasting an Elliot Prelude

emerging, swimming up to dark

shake

shake

shake

nothing’s moving

then move

and everything hurts

slowly merge w/body

tentatively roll shoulder, it hurts

then moves

other shoulder same,

though less so

first one leg, then the oth—

oh, right

as sparks shoot

& lightning tears up the thigh

reach for the dim lamp

quarter to three

close enough for the next Percocet

swallow, chase with tepid water

from the coffee mug bedside

toss sheets

& roll back

staring, soul projects itself

onto the ceiling

be those shadows

or the face of a cop

where am I

that the room surrounds me

& what is this movie, this vision

ghostly string quartets

- is the Bluetooth still on? –

abstract frescos

paint themselves around the ceiling fan

dirt browns & steely blue grays

whiffs of fascism & de-evolution

things are getting worse

as shadows pirouette

as my body shrinks back

slowly settling into a dark haze

sparks & lightning in my body fade

film rolls on

I lay back

warm but uneasy

not conscious, not asleep

in gently shifting brown/black stasis

until the sun sketches

the white siding of the house next door

through the louvres of the window

as the line of illumination

renders the top of the triangle stark white

& moves slowly down

slotting the siding as it goes

the awareness comes that,

as the line clears the attic room window

four hours have passed

& my throbbing leg confirms

time for another dose

sit on the edge of the bed

staring at the wall on the other side

of the window

grab the walker

take a piss

move around the house

repossess the body

take another dose

settle back

the movie's over now

the disquiet lives on

RONA Fragment #2: Darkness & the Percocet In-Between

Darkness & the Percocet In-Between

a small sheet of plain white rectangular card stock

imperceptibly split edge reveals flat

faceted garnet, cut in the form of a lozenge

giving the appearance of the ace of spades

                        INCANTATION

            the apparatus proposed is the distinctive

            trademark of Enlightenment thought

            Empiricist & Idealist currents, Transcendentalism

            event inspired a cycle of struggles

            desires and needs cannot be translated

            into different contexts – so it happens potential

            revolutionaries around the world cannot

            invest in actions around the world

            Beijing

            Nablus

            Los Angeles

            Chiapas

            Paris

            Seoul

To clarify this relation it must be understood

that the class struggle is over the way

the capitalist class imposes the commodity form

on the bulk of the population by forcing people

to sell part of their lives as the commodity

“labor power” in order to survive –

            after choosing various points

            by examining the red strokes

            he held the engraving point vertically

            in his right hand and made

 seven superficial marks

linked together as a globally expanding chain

institutional, political, and scientific rhetorics

became absolute on this terrain

and every conceptual formation

came to be marked by it

it is not either/or

difference

hybridity

mobility

are not liberation, not in and of themselves

and neither are

truth

purity

stasis

real revolutionary practice

refers to the level of production

truth will not set us free

but taking control of the production of truth will

            diametrically across the earth

            always remaining visible amid vague

            geographical indications, descending

            a long way without deviating and

            ended, at a treble stave showing

            high C accompanied by three “f”s

            in the center a cluster of stars

            where the word “Nadir” is written

these struggles often fail to communicate context

lack even local communication

and burn out in a flash

the exclusive horizon of ideology

a hugely distended mouth

a vertical line of dots

a flash point

the formalization of politics

the instrumentalization of science and technique

for profit

the pacification of revolt

source texts: Hardt & Negri, Raymond Roussel, Harry Cleaver

RONA Fragment

it started like concern that nags

you every morning before you are even awake

          and evolves into something, Tony sez

          it’s the Ballard endtimes,

          the soft apocalypse

vines grow lush over concrete block & brick

powering over whole neighborhoods, swallowing

settlements as it grows, desert sands river-like slowly

flowing to reclaim the Vegas strip & beyond

dissolution, slow-motion disintegration, de-evolution –

the bourgeois anti-rapture where everything

rots in place, gently drifting away on yr front porch,

cold cocktail in hand, drifting bodily apart, atom by atom,

molecule by molecule, socially distanced into anti-social

non-being, less death than slow motion atomization