he screams and takes his sledgehammer

This watermelon will haunt your dreams. From here.

John Martyn, Solid Air (Deluxe Edition)

Wow. It's not like me to re-report things like this but I have context. For my twelfth birthday, my mom took me to to see Gallagher in concert at the Saenger in New Orleans, at the height of his powers and it was the funniest thing I ever saw. I was rolling on the floor despite knowing all the jokes already. He was state-of-the-art participation comedy then - people brought rolls of Visqueen and raincoats - and I wore that teal Gallagher t-shirt until it was too small for me. I didn't really expect him to maintain velocity all these years, and I remember hearing about material theft by his brother touring as Gallagher II, but I was not prepared for the OG watermelon smasher to have become a paranoid, racist boor who turned his trademark act of timeless humor into

Then Gallagher gets a tin pie plate. He opens a giant can of fruit cocktail and pours it in. He opens a can of some Asian vegetable—water chestnuts, maybe—and pours that in, too. "This is the China people and queers!!!" he screams and takes his sledgehammer to the thing with a fury that is no fun at all.

Was he always like that and I just don't remember? Read more in this similarly pained realization in the Stranger if you dare, but it is a little like finding out Speed Racer was a Nazi or something. Speed Racer wasn't a Nazi, was he?

Dear old departed John Martyn will make it all better, deluxe edition style.