FTW, 10.31.2020

1) The great Scottish actor Sean Connery has passed. While he's best known as the original (some of us would say "the real") James Bond, my two favorite roles of his are Daniel Dravot in The Man Who Would Be King and Malone, the pragmatic but honest Irish cop from De Palma's The Untouchables. Malone's ghost calls out to us from Prohibition-era Chicago: "What are you prepared to do now?" 

2) Next Tuesday is the most important election of my lifetime. Ninety million Americans have already voted early. Here in Texas, 53% of registered voters have already voted -- more than the total number who voted in 2016. With nine million Covid cases, 230,000 deaths, and climbing, the Trump regime is claiming victory over the pandemic while using means both legal (court challenges, procedural rules) and illegal (armed thugs intimidating people at the polls) to suppress the vote. The whole world is watching.

3) Joel Bakker's Trout Mask Replica podcast is a wrap, and I can't be too effusive about how much I enjoyed listening to (and briefly, being a participant in) this deep dive into Captain Beefheart's 1969 masterpiece. Some collateral benes of listening to Joel's 'casts: discovering conductor Samuel Andreyev's magnificent Beefheart scholarship (which includes a musicological analysis of "Frownland," as well as in-depth interviews with all of the musos from the Trout Mask-era Magic Band); Professor Peter Silberman's scholarly article "Form and Time in Trout Mask Replica" (available in truncated form via Google Books); and the yeoman work of Beefheart Project Toronto, whose YouTube page includes a useful explication of "Doctor Dark" (accompanied by a cheery invitation to "learn the song with your band and post your video here" -- as if!).

4) Speaking of which, I've been inspired to continue learning the guitar parts from Trout Mask songs and posting videos on YouTube against the possibility of having to remember this material in the unlikely event I ever find musos near me who want to play Beefheart music, in a hypothetical future where Covid-19 is no longer a threat. If you don't have good dreams, as Mickey Rourke said in Diner, you have nightmares. So far, I've got eight of 'em down, more or less, which leaves another 14 to go (nothing to learn on the three acapella tracks, "Hair Pie: Bake 1" is the same on guitar as "Bake 2," "China Pig" is just a John Lee Hooker-style blues, and "The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica)" features a Mothers of Invention track). Through the wonders of social media, I've enjoyed the privilege of receiving feedback from Magic Band drummer/musical director John "Drumbo" French, who gave my musical illiterate's transcription of "Hair Pie: Bake 2" an accuracy rating of 85%. Hooray!