I can believe it, people of that level of creativity and vision are often very controlling and manipulative. Its a side effect of one of the traits that make him so great. He has a clear vision in his head and will stop at nothing to see the vision carried out. When somebody gets in your path, you're so absorbed in your work that you just have no time for it. A problem with people writing about genius's like Don is that it's so hard to understand what its like, that they can't really grasp their motives. It very well may be that Don didn't see any of his actions as cruel, but nessescary.

"Van Vliet implemented his vision by asserting complete artistic and emotional domination of his musicians. At various times one or another of the group members was put "in the barrel", with Van Vliet berating him continually, sometimes for days, until the musician collapsed in tears or in total submission to Van Vliet"

Without those traits, we wouldn't have all the groundbreaking music he has made. PJ is known to be controlling, perhaps less so than Beefheart lol but it goes with the territory often.

True enough, but Don's childhood friend Frank Zappa is also considered a genius by many and John French's "house building" comparison between the two of them when it comes to their bands is enlightening:
http://www.thegardenforum.org/viewtopic.php?p=5468#p5468

I've just received eMail from Amazon.uk telling that the vinyl delivery shifted from Aprl to July
did anybody else...?