This is a photograph of the late Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet), one of my more prized possessions. I found it while searching music memorabilia on Ebay late one night. I saw the auction was ending soon, I put in a bid, and went to bed thinking I would get blown out of the water by someone else. I woke up the next morning and—much to my surprise—I saw that I had won. I think I paid $40 total including shipping for two photographs. I can’t remember what the second one was but I ended up giving it to a dear friend and fellow Beefheart fanatic.

I love this photo for a million reasons, but one noteworthy detail is who it arrived from. When I received the envelope of photos in the mail, the return address belonged to “Pamela Des Barres”. For those unfamiliar, Pamela Des Barres was a notorious rock and roll groupie, writer, musician, and actress. She wrote a book in the eighties called, I’m with the Band, which is a wild exposé on the L.A. music scene of the 1960s and 1970s. She was childhood friends with Zappa and Beefheart, which makes sense why she could have such a candid photo. She was also in the GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) who released a wild album called Permanent Damage in 1969 on Frank Zappa’s label Straight.

Regardless of the image’s provenance, I’m always struck by how casual and intimate this photo is. It has a familiarity to it. Almost as if it could have been taken out of  my family’s own scrapbook. I keep the photo on my desk and always have a chuckle when I see him staring at me,  nonplussed, taking a sip from his drink. A reminder to approach things with gentle caution and not take anything too seriously in the realm of art.