Please take a minute out of your busy schedule today to salute the late Captain Beefheart.

Don’t get me wrong; the man who was Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet, is still with us and turns 65 today. But there’s been no Captain since 1982, when Van Vliet decided he’d had enough of the Long Plastic Hallway and gave up the music business to become a painter. Which seems to have worked out well for him; he’s been far more successful in the art world, at least in standard career terms.

But still, we miss the Captain, don’t we? From psychedelic space boogie to avant-garde art-skronk, he stomped a terra all his own. Today I am listening to a song from his out-of-print album Lick My Decals Off, Baby: “I Love You, You Big Dummy.”