Sunday, October 19, 2003
Why Frank Zappa was a hard act to follow
I feel obliged to add this note: What kind of stories do you want to read? Lists of famous people doing their small strange things? Read about their sex? Of course, being human we all have some element of the prurient about us.
If you think there was lots of sex in rock and roll, there undoubtedly was a whole lot of that going on, but don't make too many assumptions about me.
I have to tell you that Zappa was a little mean, too, but he was more angry and intolerant of human stupidity. And because there is so very much of that in the world, that meant he could easily be angry much of the time. I wouldn't know how he went on developing as a person, I'm guessing, as I don't recall seeing him in the flesh to even say hello to since about 1965.
But here's where knowing "famous" people can be a real disadvantage. I try not to name drop because that's just empty and boring to listen to. Christ, who cares, really, which Costco it is where Madonna buys her cigars or any of these other personal details of famous lives?
But decades ago I had mentioned once to a friend at college that I had known Frank. So he, knowing this, later suggested we see a flick when it came out. “The new Frank Zappa movie ...”
The producer/director (I guess Frank) was able to encourage a drunk and dimwitted Peter Tork (famous for being a "Monkee”) to be filmed dipping his weinie into a bucket of plaster and start pumping, which says volumes about the basic common sense possessed by musicians of that era. That film when I saw it back in the early 70’s embarrassed me and cut me to the quick because I couldn’t believe someone I had known (namely Frank) would make something like that. Seeing it was like
part of the embarrassments of being human, like watching people you know lose complete control of themselves.
Sometimes, the only thing I find comforting when dealing with some of the realities surrounding those I have mentioned is that most of these people are dead. What bothers me more today is that musicians and entertainers in general have allowed their world to become a steadily increasing, faster running open sewer and are inviting everyone to jump in. If you don’t jump, they just try to foist it off on you in some other way to show how “worldly wise” and sophisticated or elemental they are.
Who gives a shit about your version of things? You’ve allowed your world to become even a worse place than it was when you first entered it, and shame, shame on you.
¶ 10/19/2003 10:02:00 AM
I feel obliged to add this note: What kind of stories do you want to read? Lists of famous people doing their small strange things? Read about their sex? Of course, being human we all have some element of the prurient about us.
If you think there was lots of sex in rock and roll, there undoubtedly was a whole lot of that going on, but don't make too many assumptions about me.
I have to tell you that Zappa was a little mean, too, but he was more angry and intolerant of human stupidity. And because there is so very much of that in the world, that meant he could easily be angry much of the time. I wouldn't know how he went on developing as a person, I'm guessing, as I don't recall seeing him in the flesh to even say hello to since about 1965.
But here's where knowing "famous" people can be a real disadvantage. I try not to name drop because that's just empty and boring to listen to. Christ, who cares, really, which Costco it is where Madonna buys her cigars or any of these other personal details of famous lives?
But decades ago I had mentioned once to a friend at college that I had known Frank. So he, knowing this, later suggested we see a flick when it came out. “The new Frank Zappa movie ...”
The producer/director (I guess Frank) was able to encourage a drunk and dimwitted Peter Tork (famous for being a "Monkee”) to be filmed dipping his weinie into a bucket of plaster and start pumping, which says volumes about the basic common sense possessed by musicians of that era. That film when I saw it back in the early 70’s embarrassed me and cut me to the quick because I couldn’t believe someone I had known (namely Frank) would make something like that. Seeing it was like
part of the embarrassments of being human, like watching people you know lose complete control of themselves.
Sometimes, the only thing I find comforting when dealing with some of the realities surrounding those I have mentioned is that most of these people are dead. What bothers me more today is that musicians and entertainers in general have allowed their world to become a steadily increasing, faster running open sewer and are inviting everyone to jump in. If you don’t jump, they just try to foist it off on you in some other way to show how “worldly wise” and sophisticated or elemental they are.
Who gives a shit about your version of things? You’ve allowed your world to become even a worse place than it was when you first entered it, and shame, shame on you.
¶ 10/19/2003 10:02:00 AM
