Born Seventy-Three Years Ago Today

Love love love. Have a documentary. Please use the tag Beefheart to get more songs, stuff I've said that doesn't need rephrasing again. But this: I take My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game stupidly seriously (but not seriously stupidly). It started early: I remember getting into a slapfight with fellow seven year old Nadine Kneidler in 1966 when I insisted The Monkees were better than The Beatles and Mickey Dolenz a better songwriter than John Lennon. I was half right. So this: I've never included Beefheart - who rates a High Egoslavian Holy Day - in My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game. One of the three permanent members, David Thomas (he's over in the left column, Theme Song Two), wouldn't be the musician he is if he'd not heard Beefheart. I listen to Beefheart as much if not more than Pere Ubu/Thomas and the two other permanent members, Kate Bush and Guided by Voices/Robert Pollard, and I listen to Beefheart at least as much if not more than Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth and Sea & Cake and Tindersticks and Lambchop and Roxy Music and The Fall and The Delgados and Juliana Barwick and Throbbing Gristle and Nurse with Wound and  XTC (well, maybe not XTC, I'm always listening to XTC) and the several hundred other members of the Inner-Most Circle of Rotating Act/Bands that temporarily fill (a void in me) the two non-permanent seats in My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game. I don't give Beefheart a permanent seat, I don't rotate Beefheart, he's not a participant in the game. He never has been. Is weird, I don't know why. I've a Sillyass Deserted Island Five Reasons Beefheart Isn't in My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game, only two seats permanent, and an inner-circle of dozens of reasons rotating through the three open spots. No, I'm kidding. I think about it on his birthday briefly and laugh at myself then don't think about it again during the year, a very small but still significant reason today is a High Egoslavian Holy Day. I punctuate my life with italicized and bolded landmarks, want me to tell you? You don't want to get me started on the algorithms for ranking Egoslavian Holy Days, for instance. But Beefheart.