Name: Fan Request: Captain Beefheart's Last Appearance With Dave | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-11-17T16:00:46.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fan Request: Captain Beefheart's Last Appearance With Dave | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-17. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fan Request: Captain Beefheart's Last Appearance With Dave | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-17. Transcript available.

My next guest is an accomplished painter and sculptor, also a published poet,
and known to music fans around the world as Captain Beefheart.
He also happens to make the finest entrance in television.
Please welcome Don Van Vliet.
Hello.
Nice to see you.
Nice to see you.
You have a lot of, we know that a lot of people requested special tickets to be
here tonight to see you.
They really enjoy you and your work.
Thank you.
Do you always have the hat on?
Not now.
No, that's...
Yeah, I do. Not now.
No, well said. No, I take it off quite a bit.
Yeah.
About what percent of your life are you without a hat, do you think?
Well, I don't shower with it.
Yeah.
I don't shave with it.
So there you go.
Yeah.
All right, good.
Now you, I was reading about you this afternoon, and a staggering bit of
information about your life hit me.
That you, it has to do with your early schooling.
Oh.
Yeah.
And I tell you what we're going to do.
We have to go away for station identification, but when we come back, I want
you to tell us about your school experience, and we'll get to the bottom of
that.
All right?
You want to be a different fish, you're going to jump out of the school.
That's right.
No.
That's right.
All right.
Now, tell me about your early schooling.
Is it true what I read?
Half a day of kindergarten.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Had somebody tell me that I stay too long.
Was this the extent of your formal education?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, what went wrong there?
I was a sculptor, and I...
At a very early age, obviously.
Yeah, real young.
It doesn't apply.
Yeah.
I mean, it's good for some people, but it wasn't good for me.
So instead of going kindergarten, grades one through eight, high school, and so
on and so forth, what did you do?
I smarted the truant officers.
Yeah.
And you worked on your sculpture.
Yeah.
Now, I also read that you were isolated in a room.
Oh, I just went in the room and sculpted, and they had to feed me under the
door.
How would you only have a child like that?
Now, wait a minute.
You were just in this room by yourself sculpting.
Yeah.
And periodically, Mom and Dad would slide food under the door?
Oh, yeah.
And if I liked it, I'd eat it.
If I didn't like it, I'd throw it out.
Yeah.
That's an abnormal upbringing, isn't it?
Yeah, I had them trained.
Mm-hmm.
I was an only child, you know.
They thought I was wonderful.
Mm-hmm.
So they'd let me do what I wanted.
But you were kind of a prodigy because you received a scholarship to go study
art where?
From Knudsen Creamery, the millionaireess, the milk millionaireess.
Oh, sure.
Out in the West.
Yeah.
Sure.
She said she was going to give me a six-year paid tuition.
Paid tuition?
Paid tuition.
Paid tuition.
I'm nervous.
No, no.
You're not nervous.
No, I'm not nervous.
No.
Thank you.
Paid tuition scholarship to Europe.
Right.
My folks moved, when I was 13, my folks moved me to Mojave, the desert where
they kept the
Oriental Americans prisoner during World War II.
I mean, I was out there and there.
No, they didn't want you to go.
To get me away from art.
Oh, really?
Oh, yeah.
Why didn't they want you to be in art?
Uh, I don't think they understood it.
Mm-hmm.
But do you ever regret being deprived of that opportunity?
Not really, because I wouldn't have let anybody tell me something to do anyway.
Yeah, but a 13-year-old kid going to, was it Italy, to study?
Marble.
Oh, that's, yeah, that's your major league sculpturing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
Now, you've lived in the desert pretty much ever since, haven't you?
Well, no, I've been in Northern California, and then I came back to the desert,
and I went
back to Northern California, back to the desert.
I was touring quite a bit, and I wasn't in the desert that much.
Yeah, but you live there now.
Yeah, but I'm going to go to Arizona, as I said last time, because it's hotter.
And do you like the desert?
Should I tell you the truth?
I like the desert, but I can't go out in the sun.
Yeah.
My skin won't take it.
So I'm just saying that so that people don't know that I'm really not going to
be in Arizona
or up where I am now.
I'm going somewhere else.
Yeah.
Fooling them.
So you don't want to...
I mean, in case somebody cares, it becomes...
Mm-hmm.
In case.
You don't want to be easy to get a hold of, I guess, huh?
Reckless.
Reckless, yeah.
Now, you live in a trailer in the desert?
Oh, yes.
It's hot.
Yeah.
Now, what is it like when you come to New York, Don?
Do you enjoy the city?
Wonderful.
Yeah.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like all of the museums.
What's your favorite part?
All of the museums.
Museums?
Yeah.
They don't have many of those where you're...
No.
They're in the desert.
Now, we have some of your artwork, one of which is right here on the cover of
the magazine
Conjunctions, and if you can just take a look at the monitor, and we're going
to show...
Well, I guess we've got about a half a dozen of your paintings here, Don.
Now, when you're in music, you're Captain Beefheart, right?
As an artist, you're Don Van Vliet and a poet and a writer?
All right.
What is this, Don?
V-top.
V-top.
Well, acrylic and a pencil and cigarette ashes.
And yeah, that's about it.
All right.
All right.
The next one.
Oh, that's the corn thief.
Yeah?
These are very nice.
These are...
That's the corn.
Yeah.
All right.
And do we have...
And that is a button-down fashion bow.
So...
What does that mean exactly?
Exactly.
I don't know.
I had fun doing it though.
I was able to turn myself inside out.
Yeah.
And that's all I'm trying to do.
Well, that's very impressive.
But that's very impressive stuff.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Are these on exhibit anywhere or for sale anywhere?
Sure.
I'm going to do that soon.
Yeah.
And that's what I'm paying for an exhibit in New York.
Mm-hmm.
Now, I understand also that your voice has an incredible octave range.
Is that how they describe it?
And you can actually break glasses with your voice?
Oh, yes.
I wish I had enough money to use my voice around the house.
I mean, but I don't want to break any glasses.
Okay.
Now, it goes...
Seven.
Can you give us an example of how low you can get it?
Is that what we're talking about here?
Low and high?
Is that...
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, can you go the other way?
Ah!
No.
Well, I can't.
You know.
I'd have to have a bongo or something.
A bongo.
No, but you actually have broken...
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why don't they let me do a Memorex commercial?
You could do that too.
That I can afford to break up your glasses.
Yeah.
What are you...
Now, you're a multi-talented artist.
Music, painting, sculpting, writing.
What are you doing next?
What's the next project for you?
Hmm.
Having this exhibit in New York.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you mention the museum where this is?
Or the gallery?
I can't.
I'm not at liberty to mention where it's going to be yet.
Oh, okay.
Until everything is set up.
Okay.
But that's in the near future.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we'll look forward to...
Thank you.
Thank you for being back.
Yeah, nice to see you again, John.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for coming out of the desert.
Nice to see you here.
Thank you.
We'll be right back folks to take a look at your...