'Beautiful Freak'

Mark Oliver Everett is a man, a musician, that named his "band" Eels so its albums would be near his solo work (Everett) in the CD racks in stores. 

That's probably one of the more normal bullet points for Everett's life. 

His music, most notably those of Eels, is dark and very 1990s indie rock. It's very good and Beautiful Freak is an understated and often too-ignored chapter of the genre and time. 

Listening to it, you understand a lot of themes and lyrics when you understand exactly what Everett is going through. 

Everett is about to be 50 years old. A stalwart of indie rock in the 1990s and 2000s is nearly half a century old. Not that that means anything, it's just a bit telling as to how incredibly old we all are. 

His grandfather was Harold "Kid" Gore, the famed head basketball and football at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

Everett's father was Hugh Everett III. He was a renowned physicist and originator of the many words interpretation of quantum physics, which is highly complicated and I could never explain it even if I wanted to (he also believed in quantum suicide and quantum immortality, which is pretty fucked up). 

He died when he was 51 years old of heart failure, which means his ticker had had enough and just quit. His son was 18 years old at the time. Hugh's obesity, drinking and smoking were largely blamed for his rather premature death. His son had this to say: 

"I think about how angry I was that my dad didn't take better care of himself. How he never went to the doctor, let himself become grossly overweight, smoked three packs a day, drank like a fish and never exercised. But then I think about how his colleague mentioned that, days before dying, my dad had said he lived a good life and that he was satisfied. I realize that there is a certain value in my father's way of life. He ate, smoked and drank as he pleased, and one day he just suddenly and quickly died. Given some of the other choices I'd witnessed, it turns out that enjoying yourself and then dying quickly is not such a hard way to go." 

Considering he referred to death as a "way to go," makes me think less of Everett. Hugh requested that his ashes be thrown in the trash, a wish that was eventually fulfilled. His daughter (and Everett's sister) was a manic depressive and killed herself in 1996. She too wanted to be thrown in the trash. They believed they were "immortal." 

Finally, Everett's cousin was a stewardess on one of the planes that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Shit, if anyone has perspective and should be recording thoughtful rock albums, it's Everett.