BEWARE OF MR. BAKER

To his interviewer: "Don't be an 'intelligent' dickhead!"--Ginger Baker

Today I saw BEWARE OF MR. BAKER at the Bloor.  It's a perversely entertaining documentary about Ginger Baker, a pioneering rock drummer who's kept crash-landing through life. (The title comes from a sign he posted on his property in lieu of "Beware of the dog"!)

Baker is the kind of guy who made millions from a recent reunion tour of his 1960s group Cream then squandered it on polo ponies!  And he's still pugnacious after all these years. (He socked the documentary director on the nose with his cane.) But in his time he was a musical genius, inventing the drum solo and discovering Afro-western fusion music years before anyone else.  If I could magically get the talent to play one musical instrument at genius level, I think I'd choose drums.

The documentary interviews a lot of musicians, including his '60s bandmate Eric Clapton. (If Clapton is God, Baker must be Lucifer.) If they're still friends it's because Clapton's stayed away from him.  And they also interviewed Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols fame:  when I was a teenager, he was one of my few heroes.

Last night I had another night of extreme dreams and slept around the clock.  Among other things, I dreamed of being up on a roof and not knowing how I got there.