Bob Dobbs and guests explore Zappa scripts, including “Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt People”, Thing-Fish, “Hunchentoot”, and the book Them Or Us. They also probe the broader context of Zappa’s work and how he redefined the role of the composer in the age of electric media.
Bob Dobbs is a Zappa researcher and McLuhan scholar. He is joined by regular contributors Roxana Flores Larrainzar and Bert Hill.
Recorded November 28, 2015
00:00:00 – Introduction
00:05:03 – Frank & Gail’s CIA Connections
00:10:47 – Zappa’s Screenplays
00:18:15 – Zappa – McLuhan Connection
01:07:00 – Wagner’s Influence on Music
01:14:00 – Electric Media Eternity
01:17:50 – Redefining the Role of Composer
01:25:06 – Tetra-menstruation and Predictive Art
01:47:47 – Multimedia Innovations
02:26:08 – Xenochrony and Synclavier
03:00:00 – Early Creative Endeavors
03:20:00 – Views on Media and Pop Culture
03:37:17 – Impact of Music on Culture and Memory
03:48:00 – “Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt People”
03:59:07 – Rock & Sexual Liberation
04:06:37 – Zappa’s Theatrical Global Village
04:25:36 – Script Plot and Characters
04:44:18 – Protecting the Free World
04:49:20 – Beefheart’s True Identity
04:53:00 – Orgy on the Lunar Surface
05:04:54 – Thing-Fish – Harry & Rhonda
05:12:06 – Gender Dynamics and Feminism
05:26:19 – The Divine and Post-Human Entities
05:30:17 – Technical Aspects of Music and Performance
05:41:37 – Electronic Music: “Switched-On Bach”
05:53:12 – Audio Engineering Techniques
05:54:47 – “Hunchentoot”
06:20:42 – Themes in Zappa’s Musicals
06:23:37 – Tourism and Urban Dynamics
06:33:40 – Art and Religion
06:43:21 – Them Or Us book
06:46:31 – Zappa’s Early Life and Family
06:50:02 – Theatrical Aspects
06:55:41 – Reincarnation and Time
07:02:17 – Absurdity and Satire
07:19:55 – Conclusion
Okay, here we are. Roxanna, are you with us? Can you hear me? Yes, Magnitude. The fourlings are here. Hello, fourlings. That’s F-O-U-R, fourlings. F-O-U-R rather than F-O-R-C-E, lings. Yes. The members of the fourfield. Right. Now, here’s your question. F-O-U-R rather than F-O-R-C-E, LYNX. Yeah. I leave that to you.
The members of the force field. Right. Now, here’s the thing. What we were just listening to from the Freat Out album started to be recorded in late 65, early 66. So, we’re coming up to December 2015. That’s 50 years ago. What we 2015. That’s 50 years ago.
What we just heard was done 50 years ago. Today I was going through the list of the 179 names of Zappa’s influencers. Yes. Right. I recognize it. Wonderful. A great way to start by freaking out everybody. Which is what the Android Meme support. Or abuse of this mysterious, obscure Italian composer, Francesco Zappa.
You know your secret. That’s right, we do know and we’re going to go into that. That’s part of this book that Frank put out in 1984 called Them or Us. But back to this point, so on that, the voices we just heard doing Help I’m a Rock, and that’s
After McLuhan is pointing out and me,, Barry Nevitt and McLuhan were quoted before you know in that little interval. It was a CBC program on right after McLuhan died in last day of 1980 and Barry Nevitt
His buddy went on CBC and that was Barrington Nevitt talking first, and then Culkin from his early days at Fordham, like 20 years before, no, only 15 years before, Culkin and Barry Nevitt were probably the closest to people. You know, Culkin and McLuhan’s earlier career, Nevitt in the later part of the career.
So they’re explaining Marshall, and then I would come in and explain that they’re pointing to the everything’s disappeared for the chemical body so then it’s appropriate to play help I’m a rock you are reduced to rock status mineral status under angelic discarnate super angelic
Conditions so it was appropriate to have that just before Frank spelled it out very humorously. But one of the voices on there is Carl Franzoni, who was Vito’s right-hand man in The Freaks, The Dancing Freaks.
Remember, this freak-out is an expression of what Frank saw in Vito and his anarchistic dancers who were a scene for the birds, for Arthur Lee and Love and the mothers and the doors in 65-66. Well Carl Franzoni was one of the main wild dancers in that.
He even has a picture of him on the freakout cover on the inside sleeves. And what I just discovered last night and and I posted on my Facebook page, is he’s made a tribute to Gale. And he was probably born in the early 40s, so he’s getting 73 or so years old.
Or maybe he was born in the late 30s, but he’s pretty old. He put together these pictures of Galeail all ages that he had from his own archive i guess from his own experience because he was a a part of the mothers of invention auxiliary you know he traveled around
He went to uh… london when frank first went to london in september sixty seven and there’s that famous italian art actress something cardinale angela cardinale or claudia cardinale, Angela Cardinale, Claudia Cardinale, I think her name was. Cardinale. Cardinale, Cardinale. And she’s dancing with Frank. Cardinale.
Cardinale, right. And he’s dancing around with her in the New Music Express or Melody, whatever music, pop music magazine therein and there’s conference only he’s a he’s included in the picture with frank and and claudia some other guy at one of the mother so
It’s very easy to look at his video and what he uh… what he said will gail but the main thesis carol is that gail was the prettiest young woman in hollywood and uh… yet you and of course you look like you
So uh… she was the extension of uh… the tv body of connie into hollywood but the uh… they show some really good pictures uh… but in the course of looking at that i got a very mild’ book on Frank Zappa. He was one of the first intelligent journalists investigating and interviewing Frank.
And he writes out a pretty detailed history of Gale. Now this guy who died the other day, who wrote the book that Laurel Canyon and the Byrds and Neil Young and Steven Stills and Crosby were the world military brat who were part of a conspiracy on behalf of cia and they include
Frank zappa’s log cabin which he did move into a total ninety sixty eight and when he took it over sixty eight who moved out veto and carl fred zoney the dancers they had lived in that building uh… tom makes a famous nineteen twenties cowboy uh… hollywood star
Uh… he owned that place and had a secret tunnel over to who dvd’s home nearby frank occupies that sixty eight but the birds conspiracy according to the the laurel canyon guide dave mcgowan that writer he says it started uh… sixty six sixty seven to distract uh… the protest the anti-vietnam protest movements
By getting the kids in their sex rock and drugs sex rock and roll drugs and uh… and uh… it was symptomatic that all these kids who were the stars of those bands were sons and daughters of the military
Well jim morrison and uh… gail Zappa knew each other as four year olds wherever it was in Florida some place because their fathers were in the higher levels of the military and Jim Morrison’s father was a key conspirator in the Gulf of Tonkin hoax thing that started sort of officially the Vietnam War.
And so you’ve got Jim Morrison and Gail Zappa together and she hits him over the head with a hammer at that point. But the family, her father moves to London and um… she got a gig through her father for the Office of Naval Intelligence.
So it just came out a month before Davidid died when gail died back october seventh this year uh… at a memorial in some situation in public where her son omit says that gail worked with the c i a and save the world
And he uh… misses his uncle told the mat so i don’t know who is uncle is and uh… so this uh… talking about gail as a cia asset or something rubbing up against tells agency supports david mcgowan’s and uh… and of course mcgowan had to be stopped uh… month later
But what’s interesting is that i’d read barry miles book years ago, but I had forgotten that. If she is in the Office of Naval Intelligence as an employee, as a young person in 63, 64, 65 before she goes to LA, because the family moved back to the New York area, he had a
New military posting, her father did, that could explain how she had intelligence connections just by whatever she did in the Office of Naval Intelligence. Being a young pretty girl, the higher-ups would definitely want her around and nurture her or have her do something. We met Gail way back there in 1970,
Is one of the more prominent times, and she certainly came across as a hottie, snobbish person who did not seem to tolerate people talking to Frank. She didn’t tolerate us at that point. And you remember her hottughty body language? Yeah? So was she a handler for Frank?
I don’t think so, but there’s lots of food for somebody to develop that idea. Yeah, because back then when we were visiting with Frank, we were sitting down in the basement and that’s how… Well, that’s 1988. I’m talking about 1970. Well, even 1988… I’m talking about 1970. Well even 1988. She
Kept interrupting. Yeah I mean and she was so detached from him and his work and his people and his his friends and his influences she couldn’t be bothered even saying hello to us or getting to know us and what wonderful people we are. Right. She missed out.
She poked her head in and said, it’s 45 minutes, Frank. In other words, she had a deal, well, I’ll come down and interrupt you every 45 minutes so that you don’t have to keep talking to whoever’s there as an interviewer or something. But Frank said, no, no, I’m okay.
And then she came down a couple of times and then she finally came down and said, Beverly’s here. And Frank said, yeah, yeah. and she came down a couple times and then she finally came down and said Beverly’s here
And Frank said yeah yeah so when Frank put on the album at the end of uh… the first three and a half hours uh… he put on broadway the hard way which was just going to be released a week later in the end of october nineteen eighty eight
And uh… so we listened to it with him but i noticed after about i closed my eyes and then about you know twenty minutes into it i opened my eyes and he’d gone, he’d left. So he went up to see Beverly
D’Angelo, the actress who eventually married Al Pacino, but she is famous for playing Patty Klein in Coal Miner’s Daughter I think, the movie about Loretta Lynn. She has a good walk-on part. But she was a singer I think think, in Ronnie Hawkins’
Band up in Toronto, even though she was an American in the 60s. And Ronnie Hawkins’ band became the band for Dylan. So she became a good friend of Gail. And so I guess Frank
Was supposed to go up and see Beverly while he had a break with us. Then he came back down and we then did three and a half hours talk, not recorded, and got into the paranoid stuff. So I recommend people go and look at this collage that Karl Franzoni put together.
He’s a voice on there that we just heard. Help him, Iraq. OK, Roxy, is there some things you want to begin with? Of course. Yes, there’s many people saying Frank Zappa was infiltrating the rocks into sort of avoid or impede that the hippies reach their goal of love and peace.
But I think it’s not true. If one studies Zappa’s life, he was actually bullied by the authority from the beginning. I don’t think he was working for them. 1967 about Ronald Reagan who was governor of California and he was saying that that
Reagan was the CIA’s man CIA agent and that he would be promoted to become president eventually and that was the big discovery made Brussels made in 1973 after Watergate and Then McLuhan talked about Reagan inevitably becoming a president in 75 76 for bottom-up reasons not conspiratorial reasons.
So you have these holy officers, May Brussell, Frank Zaffin, Marshall Cohn, all zeroing in on the role Reagan would play. May Brussell said that to the degree that there would be a police state in the United States, it was rehearsed in California first. Things were tried out, out like even had a m
Fema camp thing called the garden plot where reagan wondered about as governor reagan wondered about them how to implement an arrest the radicals running around in berkeley and in los angeles and the communists an anarchist and negroes uh… so uh… anarchists and Negroes. So Zappa is right about it. Yes, and still…
He’s wrong about it. We should not forget that Frank’s father was also working for the chemical war industry. Well, that would mean what David McGowan would emphasize that, like Stephen Stills and all these other guys. Yes, but I think, like, I understand things.
It’s like, in a way, he needed to be inside that environment to understand from the inside that there is no… You say Frank needed to or Frank’s father? Frank or Frank’s father? Yes, he’s non-physical Frank. Yes, Frank.
Non-physical, came forth like that because he needed to be an insider of these things. And see that many of the things he was talking about are not conspiracies, are real experiments. And even his father was affected by those and his family. Right, let me tell you what, in relation to that,
The new book by Frank’s brother, Bobby Zappa’s book, he says that his father worked with a lot of military uh… projects for many years and he would stay in a town and work there for a year or so he did this a lot in california from like nineteen fifty one on
Of virtue of kate will it burden that you, Bert? Yes. Okay. So, in California throughout the 50s, Frank’s father would get a job in some military aspect, and he’d last about a year, and then they’d have to move somewhere else.
And it was really upsetting to Frankie and Bobby that they had to move all the time every year and lose their friends and not even be able to have time to make any friends. So it was very hard on them as kids.
And I guess on Candy, their younger sister, and Carl, the younger brother. But Bobby raised the question, we don’t know if her father had integrity and that he would be asked to go into top secret stuff eventually and he would refuse it.
So he quit and go try to get a job somewhere else. Or he was an incompetent guy and he was quite an asshole, Bobby presents him that way, admits it, he may have caused trouble and was laid off because he wasn’t trusted.
So it is something that as a family they thought about and talked about, like why was their father always losing it once a year and was it based on a good reason or a bad reason? The good reason is that he would not compromise himself and get into dangerous black projects
Or he just couldn’t do it. So what happens is that Frank writes this Uncle Meat movie in 68, 69 and I read that interview in the first show from Rich York, it’s the only interview where Frank talks about this.
I was looking at some other people and they were saying we never knew what Uncle Meat was about. Frank was talking about it but we never saw really what the meet was about with frank was talk about it but we never saw really what moves about but he spells out to rich york
In the gold mail or a tron a star paper and he’s about it it’s obviously but his mother’s father who uh… gets involved with the top secret stuff and then quit and it’s pissed off at the fired but frank makes that the whole question was father part of this movie uncle meet
And uh… and then it gets uh… overlaid with another plot by a guy named uncle meet who’s a former government scientist who’s now gone rogue it is using new knowledge to uh… beat back to government now these this being is in
All the screenplays that i read this week to get prepared for this show. I read the 1964 screenplay treatment called Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People. Then five years later, Frank updated it in 1969 where he was going to have Grace Slick and Jim Morrison
Play the characters that were just local people in 1964. And then he does Hunch and Toot in 72, I read that, and then I read Demaras, his monster masterpiece, where he bundles all these previous treatments into one huge massive book with
A lot of the conceptual continuity. But it’s always about a government scientist, an inside guy getting fired. It’s always about that. Every play, pretty well. This links perfectly with what I would like to talk about tonight or today.
Yes, because for me, it was a big revelation to understand the concept of artist for Marshall McLuhan is so expanded. And he would say an artist is a man of any field, it can be humanistic or scientific, who grabs the implications of his actions and of the new knowledge, the new technology.
So he sees an artist as a hybrid and his work is not only the single pieces of work he produces, but himself, the artist, is the medium. And that’s like he’s already embodying this new hybrid of scientist, artist. And that’s why he was criticizing… You mean Frank is embodying that.
Yeah, you’re right. And I understand now from reading McLuhan and learning from Bob, to understand Frank Zappa fully, completely, you need to understand what Marshall McLuhan and Bob are saying. Because Frank Zappa is not only about the music. He was really this new type of post-literate, tactile artist.
He’s a new type of forceling. He’s a new type of forceling. Yes, and he himself understood. On the one side, the continuity of his work has with the past, but also that it’s not only about entertaining music or being famous.
I mean, he could have been just a rock star, but he pushed all boundaries in every aspect of what he was doing. For example, one of the things he will criticize about the industry and the entertainment, he said, it’s very good we need this thing called art or entertainment music because
Living is so tough and people need this relaxing. But he saw how you could be programmed by the environment created, for example, in the hippie freak scene of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It’s just a destruction while the bankers, as he said, they’re really working and you’re just having fun.
And he also criticized a lot the disco scene because that was the music of cocaine. And he said, this music is not about the music. It’s just about getting together in a dark place and have sex. And he was trying to present- He was saying it was about lifestyle.
He would say it would be audio wall for your lifestyle. Yes, and also a way of promoting substances that go with that music. And one of the things that, he never got aired in mass media. He will be a guest in many talk shows,
But he will be always presented as a type of freak or entertainment and something. He was always being blasted by the people. And he reacted with this attire. tire instead of fighting back he will show his intelligence and be funny and
People will react good he will they will be maybe curious who’s this crazy guy He’s not only about the music, that’s the main point I would like to do today. I mean the music is amazing. And I’m reading the laws of media, and this book made me understand more aspects of Frank,
Because Maturin was being criticized that he was not scientific. He was, like Pierre Schafer said, just making slogans and obscure metaphors. And many people will not see that what he was saying was so deep and was the only real explanation of what was going on. Yeah, I agree with what you’re saying.
And you will see this in the screenplays. I’m reading these screenplays closely. He makes great metaphorical cartoons about this very thing you’re talking about, being a scientist and an artist, a comprehensive person who has a small day job of being an entertainer, only a small part job of being an entertainer,
Only a small part of his work. Yes, but McLuhan also said in Understanding Media, in a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message.
It’s like, what is this medium? The media and she saw this is a new type of science that really erases everything else as science is saying. And this erasing that started with artists like Winsome Lewis and Joyce that were already being this type of hybrids.
And maybe that’s the thing that many people don’t understand about Bob because he can talk about medicine and healing and then politics and then Zappa and the matrix and using that he is a new type of artist, scientist, this new hybrid that was the archetype.
The thinkers in the Renaissance and during the going to get to this point where we finally have all of our senses working as one, not only one being dominating like during the fall of the Fallen Star the visual has been dominating and we will get back the new wing.
But in the meantime, yeah, Marshall McLuhan discovered the four laws of media. He says he was influenced by reading Bacon and Vico. We had this, they can have the novum organum, which means the new organ, and we go had the chinsanuova.
And they were already seeing there needs to be another type of science which doesn’t fragment, divides. Both of them had these four principles but Marshall McLuhan went to develop the threat management. And it’s very interesting because one of the reasons Bob was sent to infiltrate Marshall
McLean and Frank Zappa was that they were using Tetra Manage. And you would like to say something? Well, I’ve said a lot about that. Let’s just hold that for a minute. Bert, you weren’t with us last week, were you? Or were you? Did you come in late? What happened?
I don’t remember you saying much. No, I was there last week. I was there last week. Bob, this week I listened to, on your Vimeo page, the Living in Acoustic World, and I found a link, I thought, of the connection of McLuhan and Zappa, because in that video, Zappa,
I mean, McLuhan brought out that rock music is like an oral form of education, that rock music, even though Frank was not really a rock musician, he was just a musician using music for his own weapon. But it blew me away. I never heard McLuhan speak about rock music in that way.
I always heard that, you know, he said rock electronic music shattered the universe and everything. But what he said in there, I took a note. He said that rock is a kind of a central oral form of education that threatens the whole educational establishment.
And that’s, if you look at what, last week you read a lot of the screenplay, you read some screenplays, and Frank was using that as a tool and what Frank used as a complete tool is that he had the SYNCLAV which was sort of like the technology, you know, the musical instrument used.
He used all those different sounds to actually get his message across. To really teach people, open people, those who had ears to hear. You could say if you wanted to use that type of cliche. What was our new take on? We say those who have the autonomic systems,
Because we don’t have ears and eyes anymore. We’re inside our gut, the extension of our central system. So those who have the autonomic system that can respond resonantly to the frequencies of us. That’s who this is for. I never thought of that before. We don’t have eyes and ears.
We got autonomic systems and we’re inside each other’s guts. I was describing on a What Youth a couple of weeks ago, Jermaine was online, so I started to describe the inner lining of her vagina. And then I started to describe the elementary canal,
As it’s called, where the shit comes down. So I was describing her shit in her bowels. Now, that’s pretty rude and disgusting, but that’s actually what we have to realize, that in the electronic and discontent position, we’re looking through the chemical body,
We’re inside the chemical body. That’s why Burroughs and Joyce McLuhan said, would have a lot of digestive processes as a metaphor in their books. Like Joyce, all too often you’re inside a body. And that’s how much we’re inside every part of each other’s bodies. So, you know, Jermaine could describe my scrotum
If she wanted to, you know, as she’s in there. So, that’s what it means to be discarnate. You have to change your eyes and ears., your inside the guts of the other person. So anyway, so you were saying, if you have the eyes and ears to hear it, what do you hear?
Well, it just changes your pattern. It just changes your pattern of what you’re using. Yeah, the metaphor is that Frank is, he couldn’t get a top hit. He would present music to Clive Davis and these big guys who became moguls in the music world. And he would stick to his principles.
And they would say, well, that has no commercial potential. We’re not going to do it so he was basically fired from the music industry even though at Paul Buff’s studio they were making hit records a few hit records and they were very talented
Uh… yet the establishment would not let them in there so he was basically fired like he’s always saying about uncle meade and his father were fired from government contract work and he knew that the entertainment for the government so it’s a metaphor for him
Finding a way to get to use the lyrics in the uh… mother people song uh… i think i’m well for the money he said we found a way to get to you and he said in some interviews we read a couple weeks ago
We can use rock to become a new kind of teacher a new kind of educator like for the high school or an antidote to the high school world and he said that freak out he says drop out forget the senior prom drop out of school and go to the library
So he’s actually got the agenda uh… uh… radicalizing people but not any political sense in the sense of uh… left right center and he’s on a teaching mission and nobody list a9 people as these people have influenced me. First of all, people don’t even tell who influenced them.
And he lists 179 of them, and they’re an inventory of the great teachers in music and in other topics in other fields in the 20th century. It was an education, as Roxy was saying, she was going through a list. I got this book. A guy named Scott Parker writes a book on
The making of freak out. And he lists all 179 people and tells you who they are. Now there used to be a list that I had, but I haven’t looked at it, so it’s been updated.
So if you want to later go into that list it’s it’s pretty interesting who he uh… who we were who we include on it but uh… including john wayne yes john wayne that came up with that line sober uh… that that is becoming a teacher
Right i mean i don’t think you’re going to infiltrating but McLuhan called the global classroom the city with a classroom without walls and uh… presenting a curriculum that’s worth it. Yes. Yes. And it’s, back then, it was probably kind of oddball for most, but he was really
Touching on or surveying the whole environment of the counter the counter environment that he really saw that was that sort of like the may brussel approach of the conspiracy so he used uh… his music in his presentation to raised raise that point in a you sometimes you’re not on the spot
He was a he was a journalist He said he was a journalist. And one of his most popular songs, Trouble Coming Every Day, it has different titles, about the Watts riot song. That’s still a very powerful riot that he watched in August 1965 in Los Angeles. And he was writing about,
He was criticizing the TV coverage of it as one of many things, but that’s a tremendous song. And he said, that’s me being a journalist. He talks about it, I think, in our interview with him. But he also said he was an anthropologist.
And he, of course, was a physicist, and he had a grand unified theory. He covered it all. He was being HCE and fitting his wake. He was doing everything, as covered it all. He was being HCE and fitting his wake, he was doing everything
As McLuhan was. So it’s remarkable that you have McLuhan, I call King Lear, he’s an old guy who has to divvy up the legacy of Western man to his kids or to the next couple of generations and that’s King Lear’s dilemma. And Frank is a King Lear, because he’s in the McLuhan quadrant.
How is he a King Lear? He’s 10 years older than the audience that he’s teaching, that he’s infiltrating. You know, he’s 26, 27, 28, and communicating to 50, 60, 70-year-olds. That’s a king layer. And he’s trying to figure out what of the musical history of the 20th century is worth
Bequeathing to the next generations. You know, that’s the job he’s taking on. To understand the phenomenon of Frank Zappa, it’s like when you understand the laws of media, you see the logical result of what was going on and why would an artist like
That appear in the horizon. With the loss of media McLuhan saw all alterings are like words, also technologies. And this erased the boundaries between everything, between the metaphysical and the physical sciences, between art and technologies, between high culture and low culture.
He saw all human alterings have the same value and all human alterings can show us all the time by making quotes from media and making us listening to three chord songs. And this is something that is a very important part of the style of Frank Zappa. He mentions in this list the…
Let me say something so I don’t forget it. You know, they have that joke, if somebody didn’t exist, then we would have invented them. So you’re exactly right. If Frank Zappa had not existed, we would have to have invented him as a necessary anthropomorphic end environment to the global theater of the 60s.
There would have to be someone like that come forth to be an end environment to the new renaissance of music and sound experience that was happening. So yes, we would have had to invent… And I say, after Bach, I talk about how he created the tonality that was a system that
Had a focal point, like the tonality, the main note was like the sun, and all the other notes around that were planets, because he was biased by the Gutenberg galaxy and the visual space, and he wanted to translate this understanding of the power of God in the music.
And this tonality, the harmony, the system was expanded and developed and used by Mozart and Beethoven. But then when the electric environment comes forth, the artists start getting away from the tonality. And it’s a logical sequence when we understand the laws of media, that because we’re in a post-literate age,
The things that were created for thousands of years by the Gutenberg Galaxy, by the alphabet and the books, are destroyed in a few decades. And the artists go away from tonality because they are again immersed in the acoustic all at the same time, simultaneous. Hard island tactile and kinetic. Multisensory sound.
Yes, and they start to expand not only. For example, there’s the use of chromatic, which is like halftones. And for example, Schoenberg develops the system of the 12 tones in which all notes have the same importance. In the tonal system, there is hierarchies. The tonality is like the king, like the sun.
All the other notes are subjected to this tonality and have different harmonic functions, for example, for modulation or to move from one chord to other. There are these laws to create tension and then release. But Schoeneberg makes a system where all the notes have the same importance.
And Stravinsky also starts using a lot of chromatism, and they also become somehow kinetic. I think many of the contemporary composers were also influenced by movies because many also made soundtracks. And the music becomes this type of narration with a lot of drama and sound effects,
And they create big clusters and different types of instrumentation, different, not, they stopped using the traditional orchestra as it was. You know, these families of the strings and metal wings and the percussions, and they expand that group of instruments and they start exploring other sound landscapes like traditional music, because in traditional music,
There are very weird harmonies and melodies and rhythms. And many come from, for example, shamanic traditions that have another function of getting you into a trance or having another type of effect. It’s not only like for dancing or for having a nice music.
His name is Shona Verven, Verven Stockhausen, Vervensky, Cage, Vervensky, Vervensky, Vervensky. That’s his influence. That’s why I say after Bach, Zappa will be the most important, because it’s not only about the music, it’s how he’s presenting the new ground and what’s coming.
And he had his own core Bible. And yeah, there are many aspects of his music that like microtonality and the importance of rhythm, multi-rhythms, and then also the importance of technology as part of his musical language. He’s not only composing with notes, but also with all sound landscapes,
Like everything he could get from radio, TV, and movies. Like he did all the tones of the three. You may not know this term, Roxy. He called it harmonic climates. Talk about media, hot and cold. You know, media is weather systems, was McLuhan’s definition. He used the same term, harmonic climates.
Yes, and there… Carry on with what you were saying. He gets into this new dimension, new hybrid. He could have become an academic experimental composer. I mean, he was then played by Boullée and respected by Baréas and Cage and everybody, but he wanted to reach
A wider audience and he didn’t want it to be limited by the environment of the academic elite. He wanted really to infiltrate the entertainment and present this new music, this new patterns, this new idea to everybody. And he said, everything is happening all the time.
Remember, everybody, a lot of people know this video. The first time he’s on TV is the Steve Allen show, 1963, a week before the world’s greatest singer is gonna have a showing in LA. What does he do? He goes on and instructs Steve Allen and the orchestra of how to play the bicycle.
He takes the teacher role in his first appearance on TV. He’s told how to play the bicycle. You’ve seen that video, right? Another thing Hugh will quote, yes, I love that. Because he asked, the presenters later asked him, how long have you been playing the bike? And he says, oh, a week.
And he’s already on TV. Two weeks, he says, yeah, a couple weeks. And yeah, all the time, Steve, who’s a comedian, he’s saying, oh, we’ve got a put-on guy here, and so I’ve got to counter his put-on. So he kept saying,
Well, he turns to the audience and he says, this is pretty neat, this guy who studies, how can I get on TV? You hear that? You remember that part? He goes, he starts thinking, imitating Frank’s mind, he goes, how can I get on TV? OK, I’ll teach him how to ride a bike.
He was making fun of Frank doing that. And Jerry Hopkins worked for Steve Allen. And Jerry Hopkins, we read some of his articles on Vito and the LAC that were in the LAP press in the first show. He says that Steve Allen, I read this somewhere else later,
Steve Allen told him after Zappa was on, and you know Steve is very cordial, but he said after, do not allow any more put-on artists on our show. Because Jerry was in charge of guests and he got a little, almost lost his job having Frank on.
But Steve Allen called Frank a put-on artist. Well that’s what it’s kind of parallel to what I observed when I did The View. They wouldn’t let me be funny. That’s right. The host had to be the comedian. Yeah. And the guest was the dupe. Yeah.
So Frank switched roles. Yes. He out Steve Steve. Yep. Okay, back to what you were, so you were saying Roxy, we were sidetracked into… Yes, that one thing he quote often was the phrase, the present-day composer refuses to die. I mean, now that we know he’s Francesco Zappa.
We knew he was telling us that he hadn’t died. He had not died. For 200 years. Yes, but in a way that’s completely ionic because in a way, with the discovery of the loss of media that everything is like a language and speech, it’s a type of music,
Has the same characteristics of any musical discourse. It’s really music. Yeah. It’s like we are all composers and that’s what Diane is saying with this new song And that’s what Diane is saying with this new song of the… And you being the teacher that is going to teach us how to speak right.
Right. Now McLuhan in 1964 is explaining that. Carl Orff and these composers bringing sound into their compositions. The same year that McLuhan, who is 30 years older than Zappa. Now, Marshall de Chomps said an art phase lasts about 30 years, and then it becomes public property.
So it’s 30 years later, Zappa’s born, late 40, early 41, 30 years after McLuhan’s born, and he represents the next generation who’s going to create a whole different art. But that’s why Frank is writing about speech and music in his screenplay, Captain Beefheart versus the grunt people, grunt, you know, grunting with speech.
Beefheart meets the speech people. He’s talking about it in his art the same year McLuhan’s becoming famous, writing about it, you know, metaphysically. So it’s very interesting the parallel between the two of them. And McLuhan’s saying that young people can influence global consciousness now.
He said that in 1964 in a National Film Board documentary. Well, for him, Zappa’s a young person. So here’s Frank creating a whole movement, sexual revolution and the freak out thing as a young person, you know. And… Yes, because the market of Jews was a novelty. It was… Right.
It started with the rock and roll in the 50s. The corporations saw there is a big market and they had to start producing things for younger generations. And they coined the term teenager. They were called adolescents before that, you know, back in the 19th century and they
Were meant to be seen and not heard. But now they could be heard, and so they had become a market niche, so they were called teenagers. So everybody was of some age, they were the teen age. That meant everybody was a human being. That’s what Zappa says,
Debbie is taking the chance of the music you are going to hear. Debbie controls the world. as uh… debbie is that they can get jennifer music you’re going to hear that because those the world this is the only way that it is revolve around it uh… let me get there
Now let let me at this point of other the president composer refused to die McLuhan said that the good bird press agreeing with iON the uh… three or four hundred years of print was a dark age, where people’s lives were short and brutal and limited, very
Limited and only had one little dimension and you died. That’s what the printing press brought in and it created history or time. Then he says the electric age creates and retrieves eternity. So no longer have you got history under electric conditions, what he called the Marconi Galaxy,
You know Marconi inventing the wireless broadcasting, wireless technology. It’s moved into eternity. That’s another part of iON’s message. That we’re moved out of the Gutenberg limiting effect of one life and very prescribed proscribed into an expanding multi-access to many worlds, synesthesia, to eternity. So the present
Day composer refused to die and that’s because we’ve retrieved the eternal in the world of language and electric media you’ve becoming and started to experience eternity. So just want to supplement what you’re saying there. Yes, and I think he was really, or he is really aware of the real meaning of that phrase.
Right, right. Now, Bert, what ideas do you get from what we’re saying at this point? I see that the electronic approach that Frank took, because Roxanne said a week ago that it struck a thought pattern for me is that Bach developed the piano. Is that correct?
And he used the 12 tones in the piano to create that. Not the piano there. The key work, the clavier. Clavier, okay, okay, the clavier. And what I see is with Frank with the Synclavier, he really opened up a whole new world of electronic communication,
Because that Synclavier, I don’t think they’re still using that or if there are they’re not using as complex as he Did because like when I read in the mother’s mother of all in interviews He was experimenting and discovering things that the the company
Couldn’t even figure out and my question the to Roxana is that, is there… because, ok, the clavier had 12 tones, now in electronic music, I’m probably using the wrong language, but are the 12 tones magnified or increased? I mean, sort of like… No, we are not limited to the 12 tones. That’s something.
At the beginning of the last century, the Russians and the Germans started to create other types of instruments that will generate sounds in an artificial way. Then that was developed with music on credit and electronic music. But at the beginning there were no real technologies for a studio for recording.
There were other techniques like Edison made cylinders of wax and that’s how the first recordings were made. But then other technologies developed. to control these sound generators artificial, like the one of the first responses of the engineers was to use a keyboard.
I think it has to do with the fact that during the 19th century the keyboard was so popular, but maybe it also has to do with non-physical things, like this tonal system was there until the electric environment. And it’s a very easy way to say, I want this frequency.
I want do, re, mi, fa, whatever you want, you just press the key. And it was funny that before, I remember all these organs and the first synthesizers were also made like wood looking. Like maybe it was part of the marketing that they wanted to make it something familiar
That you could write for your living room, like a keyboard or an organ. But there are many, many other types of, we call them controllers. Now the trend is to make this finger percussion. You just press different buttons, and you assign different types of events to each button.
Like I want to hear a sequence, I want to hear this sound, I want this effect, or just percussions, whatever. And it was just that the SYNCLAVIA was one of the first. When there was the personal computer that allowed like people to have recording studios
At home before it was so expensive you had to be in a school in an institution to have these machines. Like when I wanted to start making electronic music, they will not allow me to go inside the studio because they told me you need to be a composer, a mathematician,
A programmer, everything, just to see if you can start composing. And that’s how I landed with the DS guy because he was a composer. His family was very wealthy, and he had a house with a studio. And he found it very nice that I wanted to make electronic music.
And he became like my mentor. And I got my own equipment, because at the time we had the Apple 2 Plus. You could have your own computer at home. And the Synclavier was one of the first systems which had a sequencer, some pureur, Digital Recording Studio.
But it was very, very expensive at the time. Like, not everybody could afford to have that. And there was after that also an instrument called Fairlight. But I don’t even remember how much they will cost. They were very, very expensive. They had not much memory.
One would laugh because now we have so much storage in any computer but at that time it was like nothing and they were so expensive. Did you say the same clavicle didn’t have much memory? What? Was it the same clavicle that didn’t have much memory? Is that what you’re referring to?
Yes, in comparison with what we have now. You know, we will see down that such an instrument costs so much with so little memory in comparison with what we can access now. And she’s talking about when she’s 11 years old, which is 1979. She’s talking about 79, 80, 81 when
She’s working with this Gurdjieffian, you know, Gurdjieff mentor. She’s just a kid, not even a teenager yet. I will play the key words and then I will go play Vare with the daughter of… Did you say you would go play barbies? Did you know about barbies? No.
Yes, I knew about barbies and about… But I mean, I was making electronic music and also playing barbies at the time with the daughter of Antonio Rusek. You knew about barbies when you were 11? You knew about Verez when you were 11? You knew about Verez when you were 11 years old, Rocco?
Wow. We had like an independent electronic music multimedia center. And all the composers, the most important composers, will come and record or they needed PA or we also did some festivals because we were the only ones.
Everybody will come and one of the things we will do is like if they had a new piece, we will listen to that or we will go record them and that was a sort of training of education because they will, for example, say, yes,
In this piece it was influenced by John Cage and Luke, here the harmonics and this and that. I don’t… Roxy started listening and listening, but she was… What? What did you say?
Yes, I think if you have access, like Frank Zappa had to discover all this music music and by himself he will go to shops and look in this obscure part of the shop, electronic music or contemporary composers or whatever. And he was really impressed that this wonderful music, wonderful ideas, wonderful composers
And sonorities were not on mass media. And look at the list he has. He even has like Silvestre Revueltas, he’s a Mexican composer and many others. Who did he have? What name? Silvestre Revueltas. Oh yeah, we were talking about that the other day. There’s someone, hisd even knew about him.
Now, let me say this, Roxy, before I forget the… Yeah, he was aware of contemporary music, not only in Europe, but in other countries. That’s really amazing. Yeah. He goes to libraries, I suppose, and research these things. Okay. And he puts these literature…it’s amazing. But he… and research, and he put this little…
It’s amazing. But he… Right, now I just want to say what’s amazing about your situation is that you’re sitting there at 11 years old and you’re the only kid around the adults and these are accomplished musicians in the Mexican culture. And so Roxy sat for 80, let’s see,
What is that nineteen seventy nine we had a year to be a thousand nine years nobody who sat because you went to berlin is that in classes and you still go and sit she’s still listening to people present their new high-tech uh… compositions at thirty years later,
You know, from 79 to 2009, until Ayaan got her off her ass, and now she’s here co-creating. But she got into this. This was her sport, her hobby, was listening to new developments in electronic technology, electronic music. That’s what she did since she was 11 years old. She did it in Berlin.
She still goes to that group. In the University of the Technician University, there are auditions every Thursday. And you get to listen to new technologies, because there’s a lot of engineers developing instruments and doing apps and programs. And also, main studios from France or India, anywhere, come and they have changes or different
Things. Okay, Lourdes, I want to say this. Back to the Bach theme, Walter Bowers said, Bob, there’s only two people in the world are going to understand you and you haven’t met them yet. Well, I’m inclined to think that Roxanne is one of them because she’s the first
Person to support what I say. I say Zappa is the greatest musician in the history of the world. Now, most people think that’s an absurd statement. But the more you know what he did, is that the idea that an individual genius could influence the culture comes in with
The printing press. So Bach did that. And he sets out something that goes on for hundreds of years. You have to have a new technology, a revolutionary technology that actually obsolesces music to get away from the influence of Bach. And Zappa came along to be as significant in music as Bach was.
It’d take this long to get to that point. But that’s like saying Zap is completing music. It’s now just in everybody’s hands to make music. It’s no big deal. It’s just cooking. Anybody can cook. That’s why Zap is showing the cooking glove on his hand.
He’s mirroring what everybody’s becoming, a cook. Music is made by anybody. This is the dilemma Dave Neufeld has as a producer. It’s hard to stand out when everybody doesn’t want to listen to anybody else. They want to make their own stuff. It’s symptomatic that when the after image of the Android Meme
Comes in in the early 90s, Frank dies. He’s obsolete. He will go down in history as the standard of someone who took what could be done and create something like McLuhan said. We had John Colkin saying earlier about McLuhan that we haven’t even begun to understand what McLuhan’s about.
And he was saying that when McLuhan died in 1980. Now we do. It’s been quite rapid, the updating of… I understand McLuhan only lasted 15 years for people because be environment disrupts in their faith but the uh… and i would say that the idea the media that the message that McLuhan’s point
And people are now understand that because it’s obsolete the media is not the message humans are not influence anymore and that’s the bob aspect of the clue was bach i’m zappa i’m completing the park at the start of a clue in bach
Uh… back to back to this point the rock that the first person ever met he didn’t understand this a year ago but over the past year she now makes this statement if you could take to any of her friend she has a few artist friends are in
Touch with their and they say well i listen to the that they i don’t know what you guys are talking about either smart artist they don’t understand what you think because he’s saying what what I’m saying is that you’ve got to look at Zappa as a major historical phenomenon like Bach was.
And so I am impressed with the proxy. She’s first. Because Zappa is showing the new ground that’s the main function of an artist. Like in the laws of media, McLuhan explains it, every medium concentrates in one sense. Yes, enhance one sense. That’s a tetrad.
It expands, extends one sense. That’s a tetrad. It expands, extends one faculty. But Zappa is doing what Joyce did for the book. He’s doing… Yeah, yeah. Yes. He’s presenting the new ground and showing… Right. He’s presenting the new ground and showing all the implications of the work of the new hybrid.
The new hybrid is not limited to just the music. It’s all his altering. You probably know more about this than me. You get Wagner, who wanted to create the total artwork. And so the idea of synesthesia, I don’t know if he used that term, but he was trying to mix his media
And make this big theatrical, comprehensive multimedia scene. Wagner starts it and it influences the pose of his time. And you have every generation is trying to express the multidimensional nature of sound, not just sound for the ear. They want to get into what turns out to be
Synesthesia, and Frank completes that synesthetic process because the Android means technology. The computer can simulate synesthesia instantly. So when you’re saying that he’s not just a musician, he’s not just an ear guy, you have to look into the fact that he’s a tactile synesthesic. Synesthete,
If you’ve got anesthetic, what do you, anesthete, so he’s a synesthete, you know, anesthete. Anyways, I wanted to mention that. That’s what I would say you’re trying to say. That Zappa is a multi-modal… Go ahead.
His genius of just to jump into the electronic, like the SYNCLAD, it would be interesting to hear what… I mean, he really… I mean, that was an unknown instrument at the time he jumped in there.
Yeah, but that’s a later developer. What he did on Lumpy Gravy and World’s Mid-Mining, I mean that was an unknown instrument at the time he jumped in there. That’s a later development, Bert. What he did on Lumpy Gravy and World’s With Money, he makes a statement on the back of the album.
He points out that this is not electronically something, it is electronically altered. He makes a distinction, he’s basically describing virtual reality. That he is making up sounds. He is not using electricity to enhance them or amplify them and he makes that statement on the back of we’re only for the money.
Maybe if we could Google it, somebody has the album in detail, they might tell us. You have to read it carefully. He points out that he is altering things in the studio that nobody would understand because they didn’t have access. The normal consumer didn’t have access to what was going on.
He was trying to make a very technical point that he was actually making up music. Yes, for example, Wagner is very interesting because he was trying to expand also the possibilities of what you could make with music. And like you said, he was already trying to include the multimedia.
But what he did, he will use like double orchestras. Yeah. And his pieces last like eight hours or six hours. To develop his ideas, he needs amazing… I mean, the resources just to present such operas. I mean, I think only here in Germany there is this festival of Wagner music.
I mean, where can that be done with double orchestras and choirs and all these? He was trying to expand. Right. So he’s doing this at the time the telegraph comes in. His dates are May 22, 1813 until 70 years later he dies on February 13, 1883. That’s right when Joyce, Stravinsky, Picasso,
And Lewis are born, 1881, 1882, 1883. So I’m looking at the… And maybe it’s like the climax of the tonal music because he was trying to achieve the most complex, technically, that you could with this system, with the Western system. Carol’s asking Richard Wagner. Yeah. What was those last words?
The last bit you said there? With the environment of the orchestra and the opera house. I mean, he was like the climax of the most you could do in that environment. And I think… He’s a, like, a challenge. What?
Yeah, he said, I challenge the next generation to come with something new, like innovative, after me. So that’s why Weber and Schoenberg and Stravinsky, what they could do is to go away of the tonality to explore the chromatic and micro tonalities and multirhythms,
Because in that sense he had reached the climax. Right, so here’s what it says, he described the aesthetics of drama in this essay he wrote in 1851 called Opera and Drama, that he was using to create the Ring operas. Before leaving Dresden, Wagner had drafted a scenario that eventually became the Four
Opera Cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. He initially wrote the libretto for a single opera in 1948. After arriving in Zurich, he was no longer in Germany, he was in exile. After arriving
In Zurich, he expanded the story with the opera Der junge Siegfried, which explored the hero’s background. He completed the text of the cycle by writing the libretti for the Valkyrie and then the Rheingold, and reversing the other libretti to agree with his new concept, completing them in 1852. The concept of opera expressed
In this essay called Opera and Drama, and in other essays, effectively renounced the operas he had previously written, up to and including Lohengrin, which was… I don’t know what the meaning of that is, Lohengrin. Partly in an attempt to explain his change of views, Wagner published in 1851 the autobiographical quote titled,
A Communication to My Friends. This contained his first public announcement of what was to become the Ring Cycle. He says, I shall never write an opera more, as I have no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works, I will call them dramas.
I propose to produce my myth in three complete dramas preceded by a lengthy prelude. At a specially appointed festival, I propose for future time to produce those three dramas with their prelude in the course of three days and a four evening, emphasis in original, the way he emphasized three days and four evening.
So he is expanding and doing this huge and many-hour experience when the telegraph comes in. He’s responding to the telegraph, unconsciously or consciously, we don’t know. But that’s the point. Ray, when the telegraph is coming in, he feels the pressure of something new is required.
He’s actually starting to express the electric eternity. He’s saying the opera refuses to die. He’s going to make it last forever, in hours. And ours! He had also a bigger agenda. He influenced Nietzsche and Nietzsche influenced him also. They were trying to make art for this new era, for the new Ubermensch.
The new gods! Yeah, the Ubermensch, the superman. Yeah, in other words, the response is that somehow the electric environment, the telegraph, is extending people into a whole new area and they felt it and said, we are bigger now. We have more organs. We
Have new environments attached to our chemical body and we got to communicate to that. So chemical body, and we’ve got to communicate to that. So Zappa ends that cycle. He comes in and completes the potentials of what one can do with this new technology and our new organs. So that’s our philosophy.
Yes, and in a way, Dr. Zappa had also this idea of his work being like a big cycle that presented the philosophy, the ideas. Like there was this retrieval of the antique. Antique, yeah. Yes, they wanted to present the mythic to the little man.
Mythic. present the mythic to the little man and to educate them and to make them connect to the sublime, to the divine. Right. In a way they had Gnostic ambitions and nothing wrong with that, but that’s why both were abused by the Nazis as part of their Program both of their
Were used by the Nazi for propaganda purposes like this is our car How about this, the Nazis, living in the radio environment which would be invisible to them, they wanted to use the more recent older technologies but were electric, so the thinkers of that
Were Nietzsche and Wagner. And if they were living in the present and aware of the electric effect of the radio, they would have used Joyce or Verez. Yes, and it’s very interesting how the radio activated this tribal thing in Germany was the First Nation with the Volksradio, Volkswagen, Volks…
Right, the Volks. Volks means the folks. Yeah. And they responded… Yeah, they had the Volkswagen, also the Volksradio. Like, it was part of the program that everybody had to be infiltrated with these new technologies to program.
Yeah, they knew the tribal drum. Radio was the tribal drum. But I just want to say kudos for Roxy. What do you think of that, Bert? She is catching up to me by saying Zappa is the new Bach. That’s a very big statement but you can
What we’ve presented so far i mean she’s spot on i mean with her musical background she’s she could she did she had two credentials to make such a statement because it’s uh… it’s i think i i i support her uh… presentation he is i mean frank zappa is the new Bach.
And a question for Ronsana, are you, in your spare timing, are you considering composing yourself electronically? Yes, I always do. Yes, now we have a new secret project. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, you’ll be part of the content of it, Bert. You’re going
To be part of the content of it, Bert. You’re going to be massaged. She’s going to take like the Nazis who took Nietzsche and Wagner as their content, well she’s going to take
Bert as her content and massage it in some new non-physical manifesto. Okay, okay. Okay, so she, Roxy wanted me to talk about tetra-menstruation. So this is the background to that and then… Yes, because the thing with Zappa is he’s translating
What McLuhan said, men have the same value And he’s the first one that dares to go and take things from popular culture, like this type of speech and phrases and cliches and archetypes, and mix it all together. And he takes all sound landscapes from the environment, with samplers, but also from media,
And from the musical traditions. He really knew about music. Right. And he would say he never read, for example, but he did read a lot. Yeah, Mike Willis tells us that. A lot of Masonic books but I’m sure he was aware of everything that was going on.
Mike Willis and my dialogue with Mike Willis about AIDS and ThingFish, he was a close friend, dropped in a lot on Frank in the 80s, and he said there was always books and manuals and technologies there. You know, it was a laboratory. And it’s like, Frank, we’re gonna get into this.
The difference between Frank Zappa as the public TV body icon, and then the actual Frank Zappa, he discusses that, the difference, in this 1984 tome called Them or Us. He talks about the difference. And I’m going to do that. Let me see. Like everybody says he’s a big revolutionary innovator,
But nobody explains really what’s going on from the point of view of the evolution of the media and the environment and why he appears and what he’s doing all this mix and already showing the new hybrid of the artist scientist that sees all creations as a type of music.
He was already trying to make the new song. Right. And, you know, the band was called The Mothers in 1965, and radio programmers knew that was the slang term for a very good musician or a rough musician or a wide open powerful musician else you can refer to motherfuckers.
So maybe that’s what they meant. That guy’s a motherfucker and they compliment his musical ability. So the radio programmers, when the company signed him in 65, 66, I think he was signed in November 65, so it was the 50th anniversary month. They said, you’ve got to change your number, your name.
Your record won’t get played as Mother’s. So they either suggested Mother’s Invention or he came up with it. So I’m not sure. The point is, what a perfect name because you might as well just say Marshall McLuhan. To say mothers of invention, you’re studying the technique of inventing. You’re looking
At the effect of invention. You’re looking at what comes before invention. The mothers, the birth of invention. It’s so appropriate, he was so lucky to get that name, you know, Mothers of Invention. It’s language having its say. So… We have now the Matrix of Invention. Beg your pardon?
We will do the Matrix of Invention. We are the magic of invention. Matrix? The matrix of invention. Matrix of invention, yes. M-A-T-R-I-X is what you’re saying, Roxy? Yes. Yes. So, it’s very interesting, like, this is the first time I’ve had a chance to have someone
Else who knows something about music to support my statement of the importance of Zappa. I remember when I used to look at him, pictures of him in the 60s, he would have a profile picture and he’d have this long flowing hair. He looked like Mozart.
He looked like a Beethoven, you know, the cliche we had of these long-haired guys two hundred years ago he actually, there’s this guy a rock musician but if you had a silhouette of him he was uh… a mozart he was a beethoven a uh… a Chopin and that’s the the face he had
You know and it looked very odd probably to people probably so odd they said oh i’m not going to listen to this guy. This is some guy, a classical composer. I don’t know why he’s in Melody Maker or Rolling Stone, but certainly not a rocker. So I’ll ignore that article.
And the people, the mass mind always ignores what’s really going on, unwittingly. So I would like to now develop this whole stuff we’re saying by going through the screenplays. And the… Is that okay with you guys? Is there any… develop this whole stuff we’re saying by going through the screenplays?
And the, is that okay with you guys? Is there any? But maybe you could play the first video of the, you’re talking the Sapanale, because there you explain very well this Frank Zappa being a tactile artist, and because this is being heard by other musicians
And people that maybe it’s new for this environment, I think it’s important to have it there. Yeah, so I’ll bring up, so I have to go over to ianandbob.com, because… Yes, in the meantime, I would like to say in the brief space of the loss of media, Eric
McLuhan says, this is new food for thought, and this is a new science. And that’s the thing… Is it new food for thought? Yeah. For thought and meditation. Wow. Right. Yeah, for food and meditation. Right. Yeah, the new science is the new food for all the bodies. Yes, yeah, correct.
And that is what we’re doing. This is the Mr. Require Garry stuff I was talking about last week. Yeah, we are a new kitchen here with Iundum and with Carol and Dean and making new foods. They’re not supplements, they’re not vitamins or minerals or something extra new to it and
That’s why we call them completements. They complete the body and the cellular structure. So, iON is predicting, no, Zappa, McLuhan and Joyce are predicting the new cook, the new kitchen. The new song is partly a new kitchen. So, here is the video. Let me, now what’s happening?
Now what’s happening, this is in August 2011, Ben Watts and I are at the Zappen Alley in a place in Germany called Bad Doberand. It used to be in East Germany, the Eastern Bloc.
Bad Doberand and near it is Peenemunde where the Nazi rocket scientists did their rocket experiments before, I guess, and during World War II. So we’re into that dark area, which Thomas Pynchon writes about in his various novels, in Gravity’s Rainbow especially.
So there’s lots of bands playing Zappa music, and they give us a tent where Ben and I can present our verbal critical statement, know-it-alls, particularly by the intellectuals, that would be how we’d be perceived. And there was so much noise coming from the concert nearby
That Ben said, I can’t talk with this noise in the background, nobody hears us. I said, well, fuck that, I’m going to talk. I didn’t come all the way over here not to do it because it’s a band in the background and the band, I think they eventually did
Stop. So Ben let me speak first. I don’t know if he spoke before me, but basically I took over. So I hope you hear how I introduced myself to the Zappa fanatics. What I said led to several of them walking out immediately.
I think the biggest thing I want to do is to insult people being a Manipian by training, by habit. And knowing it was being taped, I had to preserve it for the posterity and for my audience here. So I was performing not for them, but for the cash flow.
So we bring up the – click off this, open the mic. And if it’s not so clear, audible, I’ll explain it after. So, have I got everything on? Sound. Yep, SoundCloud is ready. Okay, let’s see if it starts here. There it goes. So just aim that towards us. You see? Okay.
Okay, so what I’m doing is Ben’s wife is there, and I’m showing her how to hold the camera and which way to position it. You know, just a side thing. her how to hold the camera and which way to position it.
You know, just a side thing, Walter Boehrig said that to me back in 1990. I think he says it on that video up in the cabin in Paradise, New Mexico, or New Mexico and corner of New Mexico to Arizona and whatever else is around there is where
This place called paradise so now if I told I would talk about Zappa to Walter he wasn’t interested he didn’t have much he just would say look I interviewed Zappa or he did yeah we interviewed him in 1967 for the East Village other and
He thought that we were CIA it’s all he would say it’s all he could say you never get over that. And he didn’t listen to Zappa, so he didn’t know. So here is Walter Bowden, an expert on MK-Ultra, and I’d have to tell him that,
Well, Frank is doing a new form of expose of the new kind of MK-Ultra. So he didn’t want to explore Zappa very much. So he says, I had met him. Well, he could have been one of these people. He’d gotten a little more clued in to what was going on.
But if I said stuff about Zappa in this big, huge way, he thought it was ridiculous. So there I was, walking around being in an invisible environment. My mouth was an invisible environment back then. So I’m telling Ben, showing Ben’s wife how to position the camera, how I would like it.
You hear that, Roxy? He says, we think about that talking about music is the next stage. That’s what we do. We don’t play that, but we talk about them. Yes. Oh, are you guys here? Yes. That’s part of what Iyunk has been saying. It’s all about the frequency. Right.
And this understanding of the environment, of the ionic, he’s talking all the time about the frequency. Talking about talking. Yes. And the effects of talking, not just what the verbal meaning is. So Ben’s right on there. He says, I like the way he says, we think it’s the next phase, talking, after consuming
Music. So great statement by Ben. Civilization phase number three. What’d you say? Phase number three. Phase number three, right. Okay, just move it back a bit. Here we go. And you guys, I didn’t mute you, so you guys got to be quiet.
Next stage. Phase number three, right. Okay, just move it back a bit. Here we go. And you guys, I didn’t mute you, so you guys got to be quiet. Next stage, after music. Because I frequently interrupt Bob, I promised him to give him… Jesus, he says it’s the next stage after music.
Music in general. That’s pretty fucking amazing. The next phase of art is talking. Music, music in general, that’s pretty fucking amazing. The next phase of art is talking. And definitely I’m the greatest talker going today. He was channeling Nyon. Yes, Ben’s not even gonna talk, but he knew what he’d hoped to do,
But he doesn’t like the conditions. That’s the thing, it’s not about only the music until now all musicians went to develop that. What about the music? Yeah, the great musicians, the great composers were just expanding on Bach to the most.
But then Zappa, it’s the new hybrid of infiltrating the popular culture, high culture, old technologies, and erasing old boundaries and showing the new ground. That’s the thing. Yeah. Zappa is probably the first composer composer I’ve heard many people say that. You know, on YouTube there’s many appearances by Frank on C-SPAN and interviews.
They don’t talk about music. They say, I love listening to him talk. That’s what they say. And his reputation has come back in a new way thanks to YouTube, where people who never heard him, never got involved with him, but just happened to, maybe because I advised them to, they start listening to
His interviews and they’re very impressed. Hey, Carol, that thing is beeping over there. So this is what Ben agrees. We’re Zappa-philes, Zappatists. We’re saying talking is the next art. That doesn’t mean talking that everybody does on talk shows and blah, blah, blah. It’s a new kind of talking that’s required,
And Frank was a prophet of it. Are you noticing what I’m doing there? I’m claiming that the episode of 1971, what you guys all know, was the most in 1929. So I start off with a lie. I’m quoting Lewis in 1929. I’m saying Frank said this in 1971.
I’m saying no one noticed that Frank said it, everybody missed it, and even there Ben doesn’t even notice that I’m lying. This is awesome. I forgot I did this. Okay, so we’ll carry on. There’s a four way interplay of relationships there there. You got monarchism in his Marxism,
Anarchism in his healthy passion for order, and he’s a communist, sometimes fascist at other times. Now, the hidden pattern for this is the sensory interplay known as tactility. Tactility is not the sense of touch. It’s the interplay of the senses, not a particular sense in itself.
And the main pattern for the electric environment is the extension of the tactile sense, an interplay, not any particular senses. So what we have, thanks to Ben, he pointed out to me once that the renaissance of the 1920s was painting. That was the revolutionary form
That got a lot of attention in reaction to movies, radio, and automobiles, and newspapers. So we can see the 20s were emphasizing the eye. The eye was the first reaction to the interplay of electric tactility. Then we have the next revolution we’re going to point out in the 60s, where it shifts to
The ear. Rock music, avant-garde music, all kinds of experiments with sound around ears. That was the ear’s response, a familiar sense, as people encountered the tactile interplay of the global theater, which means satellite, computers, radio, newspaper, television, and the beginning of the digital.
That interplay retrieved a renaissance in ear experience, just like the 20s retrieved a renaissance in eye experience. Now, Ben has wondered what comes next. Well, with the digital computer world, where people actually have a chance to speak back to the media that’s presented to them, it’s not a one-way broadcasting situation,
That essentially is a tactile interplay, but with more and more consumer control of what the content of that interplay is. So we have the tactility becomes a figure in the 80s and 90s until now. Think of this interacting by digital extensions and digital extended people playing with the eye
And all the archive of media that the eye created in the 20th century, mixing with the archive of media around the ear, and then newspapers, and then books, and video images. So this whole mixture that people can start to edit and play with since the 90s is technically
Itself becoming the form of response to whatever you call this weird media world that people have been in for 30 years. So I see that the third renaissance is the retrieval of tactility itself since the 90s, where people can play with any sensory modality and have a sense of editing themselves and
Have a sense of editing themselves, and have a sense of autonomy. The autonomy happened more in Web 2.0 than it did in Web 1.0. So in this tactile situation that we have extended all around us over the last 25 years, I propose that Frank Zappa was not an I-man,
Was not an ear-man, he was a tactile man. And he could use any form of experience and call it music. He could compose with his asterisk. Now when you look at his statement in Hot Rats, this movie for your ears, 1969, he is still reacting to the ear dynamic of
The 60s, but he has a heavy visual bias, being an artist himself, a designer, drawing since he was a kid, drawing his scores. There’s Frank reacting to the tactile environment, but it apparently seems that he’s a musician working with visual editing schemes. You can
See this in his interview with F Gary Miles in the International Times Magazine, August, September 1969. That’s a good explanation of the phase, but little people realized that Frank was going to drop the Mothers, move into a new phase in the 70s.
You have this lull with the Turtles, producing more theatrical events, which is another part of high visual culture. He does that for a year and a half or so. Then he has his accident. with the turtles, producing more theatrical events, which is another part of high visual culture.
He does that for a year and a half or so. And he has his accident. And then he goes bursting forth in 73 and 74, featuring work with video. He was hoping to get on the Playboy channel the piece called The Token of My Extremes. Now here’s Frank beginning to play with interactivity
And to wake up not the eye or the ear around the movie dynamic or even the radio dynamic, he’s moving into tactility as presented by television and that’s where Bruce Bickford comes in. Any Baby Snake or any Bickford production is nothing but fluidity, metaphoric and metamorphic and playing with all the sensory
Dynamics of his clay work. Now the shifting and mutating is the best the eye can see of tactility. You can’t see the interplay of sensory work known as tactility, but the best expression
Of that is constant movement shifting, shape shifting almost, that Bruce Bickford presented. So there’s a whole new aesthetic that Frank is presenting in the 70s, featured and emphasized around Bruce Bickford. And he also gets more fluid in the way he, as Ben calls it,
His corporate rock phase in the 70s and early 80s. Then what does Frank do? In the 80s he moves into digital work, retreats from active performance and starts playing with what he called digital dust. Now he’s really getting into technically
The virtual form of technology. So that’s what I’m proposing here. That the way to understand Frank is conceptual, philosophical background to the degree there could be any, since any form of human expression would be the content of his presentation. The actual form is the tactile interplay
Of anything, for what is that, open, anything available, any words, blah blah blah, God, composition, or remember 1969, did that book, did you know it? The first one, the NSA can stall any time, any available, if you know it. The first one, the… And as he had sold any time… Any available medium.
With no excuses. I can’t remember either. Not any big anytime, not anywhere. No, no, no, not a lot. Yeah. Any available medium, the big note, God, he said, he lists all the same. A couple of big things. That’s his first mixed media statement from 1969. It’s in Dave Wally’s book.
He wrote nearly seven years. The point is that we see that the revolution of the last 30 years, the extension of tactility itself, Frank was in the foreground of that. This is how you understand Frank in the 70s and 80s and 90s. Is Frank, the tactile engineer, more and more
Making tactility the metaphor for how he saw what was happening to everybody. He’s not an I-man anymore, he’s not an ear-man. Now, there’s a very good quote by Carl Radek, who, discussing James Joyce’s Ulysses, said something.
This is how I adapt that quote. Carl Radek’s quote would apply to this, to Frank, at least in the early 70s period. A heap of junk crawling with musicians photographed by a television apparatus through a microscope. Okay?
That quote done 60 years before, let’s say, by Carl Radek, who died about 1947, killed in a gulag or whatever. That quote leads to the point, Ben has discussed the movie Two Animal Tales as about rubbish. Now Ben likes to point out Theodore Adorno as a conceptual parallel to Zappa.
I propose Marsh McQuown because Marsh McQuown was a philosopher who explained tactility and how it was extended to television. So if you look at Marshall’s work, Frank did not play with time. He discussed decorating time, but that was not really what he was
Doing. He was shaping time, in other words, shaping space. And this is where Ben brings up the word Eastern Classic as shaping of things into one. That is exactly what tactility could be. It’s shaping all the senses into a coherent sense of consciousness. That what you see is organized by your tactile interplay.
So, the organizing of spaces that the different senses create, the playing of the ear space, the eye space, and then later tactile space, is the essence of Frank’s agenda. So that he would include these ideas, these phrases. Frank Zappa makes people dumb.
He does that with cellular signaling. He eschews, he does not focus on the univocal approach of bias. And every Zappa concept, percept, and musical rhythm comes from Phineas Wake. Phineas Wake is the first book that is full-blown technology in print. You cannot read with your eyes Phineas Wake.
You can mix your senses, eye, ear, touch, smell and tinnitus with spinning his way and you get the rhythm of it. There’s so much of what Frank did in the 70s and 80s as a translation of the dynamics of spinning his way. Ben wrote recently that,
No, maybe this was 2008, he wrote that, that he, Bob Dobbs, has the advantage of recognizing that Frank Saffa is the James Joyce of electronic media. And that’s a very accurate statement if you understand electronic as a tactile apparatus
Playing with all the senses and their extension. When you get into some of the theatrical elements like Cyborg or the robotic or some of the virtual characters in Never Us that’s being played, you start to see Frank working not just with the senses but whole landscapes of technology.
And the digital, the Sinks Library was the best way to do that. And I think if you look at the cover of Civilization Phaze III, you see big rock, you see UFOs, sort of things coming in, you see a photo of New York City, you see whales
Banging, you see Roman stuff. It’s a mixture of landscapes. And so it is, has a patina of blackness because Marshall McLuhan said since tactility is not a color the only way you can present tactility visually is use the image of black. Black is the absolute color.
My perception of phase three is it’s all Egyptian, scarabs, pyramids. I don’t see much other civilization that seems to be almost entirely Egyptian. No, you see the, I live in New York City, you recognize the aerial view of New York City
Embedded in the cover. But the Egyptian is very, that’s relevant. Marsha McCluhan said that the pharaohs, they shaped both cultures. He said the arc of the 20th century tends back towards the Egyptian. Now this is very interesting, young Frank Zappa, I mean he was born 30 years after Marshall McLuhan
But many of Frank’s ideas were like a popular translation of Marshall McLuhan even though Frank did not have that detailed acquaintance of Marshall McLuhan. He had read a couple of his books and nobody talked about it with other than me, but he picked up on this activity.
And the Egyptian nature, this is the thing that’s always promoted. The Egyptian takes, the Egyptian art takes the whole environment and programs it. France, Intercontinental Observer Days, United Mutations, and his emperor, aristocratic demeanor, was him processing the whole range of content in the Golden Theater.
Just as Joyce had been putting his weight, just as Burroughs tried to do, Frank was the only one doing it. Everybody got consumed and absorbed into Frank’s dynamic. That is, Macomb said, an Egyptian style of art, programming the whole world. Now, I don’t know if Frank knew as much as I do,
But again, he picked up on the point of being Egyptian. Programming the whole environment. And that is what I call a satellite conductor. The popular mythology. I’m going to come in soon. Okay. This is what I did. I worked that up. It just, ah, started swinging, you know, so it’s coming close.
I’ll just just I have other parts I’ll develop later but to end I’ll quote TS Eliot’s definition of the auditory imagination and I’ll put in Zappa’s name what I call Frank Zappa is the feeling for syllable and rhythm penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling invigorating every
Word sinking to the most primitive and forgotten, returning to the origin of being something back, seeking the beginning and the end. It works through meanings, certainly, but not without meanings in the ordinary sense, and fuses the old with obliterated, and the trite with the current,
And the new with the surprising, the most ancient, Egyptian, and the most civilized mentality, Los Angeles. That is the auditory imagination which would become ordinary awareness, McLuhan said, by 1970. What was not Frank’s ordinary awareness was the imagination of Phineas and Frank. But Frank started to sculpt that in the 70s, 80s, 90s.
He’s starting very early in his career. I don’t want to compete with music on stage, I mean this is going to be too hard so… Mr Bob Dobbs, thank you very much.
I’ll continue, I’ll compete a bit on stage. Yeah, they’re just fiddling around, just in that ego thing of musicians showing that they can tune their instruments for us. Okay, what an awesome statement. I can see it. It’s fucking incredible what I said there.
And Ben sitting there, I’m not sure if I’m reading his face right, but he’s not used to having someone else talk and dominate beside him. He’s sitting there like gritting his teeth the whole 16 minutes and then he refuses to
Say anything at the end because somebody’s tuning up in the background but I guess the recording stopped. His wife stopped the recording at that point. I guess not much was said but man that is a coherent statement. That’s incredible. We’ll have to take it and transcribe it.
The amazing thing for me was to see how that connected to your chart. There is this transcription. You can go to iON and Bob’s memo to Prince Charles. And it’s from the Revelations transcription in which iON is saying the tiny chart, it’s the angel perspective of what Bob is explaining.
He says Bob actually influenced Zappa in his concept of the big note because Zappa had the big note and Bob has the tiny note. And for me, just to read that, I was like, ah! Because since Zion appeared, he started to point out the importance of the chart and what’s
On the chart is part of the revelation Joan was trying to bring forth. And this is the Ionic aspect of what we are talking about here, that this was showing the new environment coming with the ionic technologies. Right. Did you say Jung, meaning Carl Jung? Sorry? You said Jung, meaning Carl Jung?
You said Jung, Carl Jung, the psychologist. No. Oh, okay. No. But the, when you say revelation, you’re talking about the book of revelation, and it’s singular, book of revelation. Ayan says, and what she’s reading from is a transcript of a postgraduate seminar that I was running for rewrite number, session number five,
November 17, 2010. So this is being said many months before, almost a year before I go to a bad Doberon and say this to the Zappa public. And I’ll have to tell you the environment. It’s a tent. There are people at a bar behind us. There are people walking around.
I don’t know if there was more than two people listening. It’s a tent. There are people at a bar behind us. There are people walking around. I don’t know if there was more than two people listening. People were talking, engaging, and it’s interesting how they are so involved
In what they’re talking to, they don’t seem concerned that this other thing is going on. They don’t look over and say, why are those two guys sitting there in the middle of the tent talking? Who are they talking to? There’s no curiosity. So we even show in this video a post-information society.
I’m there making this astounding communication to the Zappa fans, and not too many are paying attention to it. So is that a PR problem? Do I have to shoot somebody to get somebody’s attention? Bob, did some people actually leave when you started all this?
Yes, my insulting statement, I said, my opening statement was, never have I seen so many stupid people celebrating a stupid composer and having such a great time. Yay! And then immediately I saw three guys in the back get up and walk out. And occasionally there’s an occasional person after that,
But those three guys walked out with a sense of incomprehension or being pissed off. You know, either one. They weren’t going to put up with that kind of statement. But it was an incredible statement. I was actually complimenting them. I was saying, yeah, they’re proving here
That stupid people can have a good time. I never have seen so many stupid people celebrating such a stupid composer and having a great time at it. So I covered myself. I sort of put in the contradictory emotion by saying, hey, you guys are having a good time. It’s nice.
But so in that context, this amazing statement, victory in motion by saying, hey, you guys are having a good time. It’s nice. So in that context, this amazing statement, and Ben for the first time has to shut up
For 10 minutes. Man, was he gritty as teeth. That’s how his facial expression looks. He may not be. And he goes on later to disagree with me. I don’t think Ben doesn’t get it. And Kevin Currier wrote a book on
Zappa called The Dangerous Kitchen. And he objects to Ben’s book, which I find a really good stimulating book. But you know, I can tolerate all kinds of depth because I know so much. So yeah, the average Zappa fan hates Ben’s book. And they don’t think it has anything
To do with Zappa. But Ben’s talking about Wyndham Lewis and James Joyce and Fiddy’s Wake. So Kevin Currier said, Ben doesn’t understand American culture. Growing up in England, they just don’t get the subtleties that Zappa’s talking about. So he objected to that part of Ben’s book.
And I said, well, the man you used to explain Frank, who understood American culture and lived it, was Marsh McLuhan. And I said, I think I should do something to go to do it do it it’s got to be done it’s incredibly good knockoff and we must knock off and at the uh…
Over intellectual guide come up with a better thing and i forgot that i actually said that right in front of and i think that talked about the franklin school in theater adorno i think mccall is a better explainer of Frank. And then I proceeded to do it.
But I said that right in front of him. Maybe that’s why he looked pissed off. But it’s actually interesting that we’re supposed to enjoy panel and he doesn’t say anything. That’s what’s happened the past 20 years. I’m the only guy who can talk.
Nobody else can talk about what’s going on intelligently or perceptively and so no matter what whenever i showed up under donald trump everybody shuts up and bob’s perspective insults all around the room and everybody doesn’t nobody said that it is let bob do
That though ben was showing that there was no audience for me even he wouldn’t interact uh… so again at the monologue continues showing that there was no audience for me even he wouldn’t interact uh… so again the monologue continues until we met roxy and then roxy can actually dialogue
Actually knows more than i do in certain areas that prove my case which is what ben’s complimenting her about so congratulations all of you ben for noticing it and Roxy for doing it and me for creating it.
This is the, for me it’s amazing how all these pieces of this big puzzle fall together and fit together and because we have this tradition of grammarians explaining the Bible, trying to understand the book, trying to understand what God is.
And also in the laws of media, they talk about how optics were very important because the scientists wanted to understand what we were talking about, about the glory, about the light.
And these first things that made the creation, the words at the beginning, what was the word and the light were like the motivation for all these people to go and try to understand this thing we call God. Light in the book. Yeah, in the book of Scripture science refuses to acknowledge the non-physical.
And they’re starting to get into points like parallel worlds and the particles and the genetic in which they somehow to go further have to recognize the non-physical, because otherwise there is no more progress. And this is what more fragmentation. Everything is synesthetic, tactile, simultaneous. And, yes, Zappa was already a tactile, post-literate artist.
And Bob is also… I’m a post-literate tactile talker. A little non-physical. Rob shows. A little non-physical. A tactile talker. Well, the thing is we are expanding into not making any more paintings or music. It’s a new environment, and it’s funny how now, not making any more paintings or music. It’s a new environment.
And it’s funny how now that it’s already the post-literary age, for example, the West are defending the values of the enlightenment, of the people that wanted to have all the knowledge in a collection of books and are fighting against the one book people.
The manuscript people. Call them manuscripts. The Muslims are devoted to a manuscript culture. Yes, it’s the retrieval of the crusade. And Matulin always, he talked many times about the new crusade. And he would say the crew, like the day in which the Templars order was dissolved
Was Friday the 13th, was the same date as the Paris attacks and the dissolution of the Templars was called by the King of France, I think was Philippe Lecatriem. And it’s very interesting how these things are like a retrieval of this situation where now with the post-liberal possibility and the new environment coming
Forth, the people trying to make sense of solving the thing, the environment they know. Yeah, I think we’re on a delay. Do you hear me a bit on delay, Roxy? No. No. No. hear me trying to interrupt you. She’s just on a roll. I don’t know. That’s alright.
That’s okay. I’m trying to let you go. But sometimes I have an idea then you’ll bring in another interesting idea and I’ll forget the previous one like I’m doing now but I think I just remembered it. I don’t know if you heard a couple months ago, the Everines said
There are six hundred year cycles. That’s the basic cycle in the universe, 600 years. Well, the Templars were wiped out in 1307. And 600 years later, it comes up to 1907, 1989, 10. That’s when Wyndham Lewis comes back to London. But it’s now 100 years after that.
But I’m saying the 600 year cycle is from the massacre of the Templars on Friday 13th and then you have the Paris thing and it is an operation happening in Paris in 1307 you know it’s the same country so maybe the 600 year cycle is applicable here to whether your pattern rocks because
It may not be actually 1307. Ayan says our calendars are all screwed up and not accurate at all. So it may be actually 600 years from a couple of weeks ago and back 600 years to whenever that was in the 1300s or 1200s, approximately, whatever it was.
Could have been more precisely than the numbers indicate. You know, 1307 and then 2007 is 700 years. Anyways, it’s interesting, it’s 600 years. And also, the President Hollande, it was like an homage to the victims of the attacks. And he said, La musique est insupportable au terroriste.
The music is insupportable to the terrorists and they make a big deal that they attacked their culture and this culture is 200 years old. So I found it. Did you say, you’re saying,’re saying music is terrorism? Is that what he said? Music is terrorism? I don’t think he said that.
I didn’t get what you said. The world cannot stand the music. Terror cannot stand the music. It’s an attack on the culture, on the music. Of music? Are you saying on music? Yes. He said that like, they’re attacking the values of the encyclopedias the enlightenment
And uh… they may well use them as not dead the the that guy you know the guy at one of the terrorist and his girlfriend with the uh… with the one that they blew up a couple days later uh… busy young kids how about the fact that those fucking guys were prozac
We’d say american snipers, listen to this Carol, American snipers, American high school terrorists are on Prozac and drugs like that. What if these guys were on Prozac? No one ever would think of that, they just think they’re just a manic bunch of barbarians from another world.
But maybe they’re on meds and they didn’t take their meds that day and they went nuts. What do you think of that? No, they’re on religious drugs. There was an article in the German press that they are on a drug called Captagon. It’s an amphetamine. Oh, so they did name a drug.
They did name a drug. Yes, they used it in combat to be… Combat. Yeah, to be able to… To be braver. To be braver and to have the energy to combat for longer periods and they’re in this state of aggression. It’s very exciting. Right, right. Like speed. It’s called captachor.
Right, but it’s like speed in the 60s. Musicians would take speed to be touring. So Carol, is that one with fluoride in it? Do you know how to… No, it’s… It is an amphetamine, but also a theophylline, which sort of pumps up the lungs. So, it’s a double drug,
And who knows what a double drug will do, but no fluoride in it, but it’s still pretty stimulating. And dangerous? Huh? stimulating. And dangerous? Huh? Would you say dangerous? Would you give it to somebody? Well, you know, a lot of women used to take amphetamines to lose weight.
You know, it makes you very hyper. Yeah, that’s interesting that there is a medical aspect to it. Right. And did the guy, they showed this guy, he said he stood around and watched and then he went back to Afghanistan or went someplace and then he came back in.
But I think later, he got killed, right? He eventually got caught. No, they’re still looking for him, Al. They’re still looking for him. The main one they show with the long name, you know, many A’s and B’s. They haven’t got him, eh? No, they’re still looking for him.
Right. And the woman who got blown up was his wife or girlfriend or something. Did you know that? Yes, that’s what they’re claiming. Yeah. something. Did you know that? Yes, that’s what they’re claiming. Yeah, yeah. Even in Wiki, they’re, sorry Bert, even in Wiki they talk about this drug, Captegon, as
Being a drug playing a central role in the Syrian Civil War. In Syria? It’s made in Syria, yeah. Wow. Oh wow. So this is well known in Berlin journalism, right? You read this several times, Roxy? Yes, it’s everywhere. And… Oh, even the successful terrorist, he’s got
To be on medication. It’s a pretty rough with it. Yeah, it’s a tough profession, you know, it can’t be healthy. That’s what Park expanded the definition of what is an artist by Matthew and he said the artist has to bring balance into this new situation that causes discomfort because they are
The only ones that can see before everybody else what’s coming and with the work of art people start to to see and understand and it sort of changes the sensibility of the group. And it’s a type of medicine, like a type of massage. A type of what? Massage and medicine, yeah. Massage. Yeah.
It’s reiki. Yeah. The knowledge. The science. You look at a book of Finnegans Wake, and it’s exactly what Marshall says. The artist is aware of new changes in our sensory ratios long before anybody else does because they’re tuning in at least semi-consciously into the effects of the new environment.
Back when he’s writing, you know, in the 20s and 30s, he’s writing Finnegans Wake, which looks like a chaotic book, but it wasn’t even a book he was showing digital culture of the world of instagram and email and uh… is the communication
Which would show up a hundred years later he actually painted what was coming i mean that’s a pretty amazing technical achievement that someone to take the future and the book can only be understood now. So, Zappa in music
Is somebody that they didn’t know what he was doing, and he was expressing the present hyper-tactility and maybe iON, he’s predicting the ionic. Now, Roxy posted this incredible video I’d never seen before of Zappa conducting in Paris in December 15, 1970, and showing his technique real close up. It’s really good footage.
It’s on the, it’s on your fellow musician on the stage watching Frank direct you, and the way he moves his hands around. So I coined this phrase inspired by Frank, Hand Signals for the Blind. I made a play called Hand Signals for the Blind in the early 80s.
And I had the play, it was sort of like discussing the different, what I call, holy offices, McLuhan, Beter, everybody. And I, at the end of it, the punchline is Zappa gets recognized as the most relevant present-day holy office.
So I give the Oscar to Zappa gets recognized as the most relevant present-day holy office. So I give the Oscar to Zappa and as I read these screenplays, it’s justified. One main point is that he’s using an instrument, the electric guitar, consciously as a composing
Tool but he’s using an instrument that is the instrument of the day. If you want to get to the masses, you’ve got to use what they can do and what they are into. And McLuhan couldn’t play the guitar. LaRouche doesn’t play the guitar. That’s the advantage Frank has.
He’s right there in the present, the invisible present and sculpting it with his guitar abilities. And he’s pretty well the best guitarist that we’ve ever heard. Not everybody agrees with that statement because they have different ideas of what a guitarist would do. But the fact that Zappa doesn’t rehearse,
Doesn’t play and practice, and then every couple of years goes out and does this incredible guitar, which is based on talking in the moment, conversationally. That’s how he’s playing. He’s doing guitar as conversation. So he didn’t have to rehearse musical technique,
Because he was gonna have to playarse musical technique, because he was going to have to play what he’s talking in his mind. That’s why he wouldn’t rehearse it, right? He has to talk it. Like, right now, I don’t know what I’m going to say next,
But based on what you say, that’ll evoke something. So the environment of the concert, of the audience, and on a particular day, determined the kind of conversation Frank was going to do through his music, through his guitar. Improvisation.
Improvisation. Yeah. determine the kind of conversation frank was going to do to his music who’s guitar improvisation that’s pretty much it yet and different and referring back to program pre-planned stuff he was just about you know the signals that the guys followed orders on certain parts and then there’s other is where
They could improvise but he didn’t favor one of the other you can’t uh… i mean it was listening to one of… I remember the name. I never remember names, but he was saying part of the job of being in the modus of inventions is that you have have to make the performance entertaining.
But they had to entertain the conductor, actually. They were not really thinking about the audience. When you have a silence, you have to come up with something, because he will not allow you to just stand there and count the bars that you are not going to play. You have to do something.
You have to make something funny, act, dance, do some movement, whatever, and then be there on time and do what you have to do. And also be there if he makes a sign or something and you have to perform a solo or whatever. And I found that very interesting.
And another thing he said is he would also like this type of entertainment. They had to make quotes of things they knew from their classical jazz or from pop. They had to make quotes and insert them as jokes, as very sophisticated types of jokes.
And Frank will recognize, for example, oh, he’s playing Holst or Stravinsky, and he will find that very funny that they were putting all these quotes. Like you say, they’re speaking and they’re quoting. It’s part of the conversation. I’ve never seen that said. What interview is that in? Where did you read that?
Or did he say it on the recording? There is a documentary called Freak Out. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s in there, right? All right. Yes, I think it’s in there. Yeah, I mean, he’s training them to be comprehensive like himself. And this is what Carolyn Gorton talks about, the remix culture.
They must remix what they know and apply it in a new situation, or the cultural references that they can make fun of or supplement or praise. I mean, he was turning them into mini Zappas. That’s what he was doing.
Yes, and for example, there is this cadenza, it’s called the Alleluia Cadenza, it’s used for religious music for ending, to to say, hallelujah. He will allow this type of formulas only as jokes. You know, like, okay, you’re doing this formula, but it’s a joke.
But he will not allow the musicians to just use these formulas to play. They have to go beyond, explore possibilities of their instruments in all ways, in the melody, in the rhythm, in the sound textures, what they could produce. Was this particular to the…
Roxana, was this particular only to the Mothers of Invention or all of Frank’s bands? Which you were describing. All the bands. All the bands. Wow. It’s a high quality dream. Maybe not so… The Mothers of Invention, he eventually dropped them because they weren’t skillful enough
To do the new demands that the 70s were bringing in. That’s part of the reason he broke them up, is that he had new complexities and they couldn’t read music and they weren’t as good as the later musicians that came. And so I don’t know if he demanded the Mothers, some of it.
I mean, he did have Roy Estrada do Doo-Wop. He was a Doo-Wop singer, so he’d make fun of that. But as he got more and more amazing musicians, he could draw on their training, on their background. The first guys in the Mothers were working class guys
Who didn’t have much education, just were good singers and musicians, Jimmy Carl Black and Roy Estrada. So they had no musical training, but they had the pop culture just were good singers and musicians, Jimmy Caleb Black and Roy Estrada.
So they had no musical training, but they had the pop culture down of the world that Frank came out of, you know, doo-wop and R&B. So they could play off and improvise on that. But once Frank had better instruments and more complex compositions, he required more training in his musicians.
And the other thing was… He liked just all types of music and he was not into, oh, this is classic, this is jazz, this is this and this is that. He liked any type of music, I think.
Well, I just read where he explains he saw the R&B guys when he was young having great fun. He saw some classical musicians having great fun. And so he said, what’s the difference? The key is to have fun. If you’re having fun, then you’re a valid creation, you know?
And not some boring dogmatic thing. So the classical guys were equal to the R&B as long as they were having fun. There was another point. Oh, yeah, here’s something that people don’t know, is that another factor that got musicians in the band is their name.
So Frank had a neighbor in Lancaster when he was in high school named Denny Wally, and Denny Wally was a musician musician so he knew Frank since they were teens but it wasn’t until many years later that Denny Wally got to play in Frank’s band
But the reason Denny Wally, one reason he would get in there, the subliminal puppetry that Frank was doing is that he wanted to make fun of David Wally who wrote the first book on Z but i had a falling out with frank denny wally get in the band
Because it evokes the uh… the whole drama with denit david wally all right same last name that the sergeant the cop in kookaburra that busted uh… frank uh… for that fake bullshit porno tape
With a guy named sergeant willis well that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s why i think that’s a lot of biographical stuff in Finney’s Wake, but you can’t, you have to really know Joyce’s like
To find it and see it, but it’s only one level. It’s like having your chemical body in there. And then you have your TV body, which would be making fun of musical fads like the Beatles. And then you have your chip body, which would be this digital tactility of hyper whatever,
Maybe electronic stuff. The different bodies are in Frank’s work as they are in Finney’s wake. And so the story of Frank’s life and his own synchronicity in his life of names showing up again would be a pattern that he would include.
And you would have an advantage over someone else if you had a name that Frank had already encountered in his life. It’s like these things at the end of the movies or TV programs. If somebody is similar to a real person, it’s just a coincidence.
Right. What about at the end of the movie, you mean the credits? Yeah, sometimes they put this sign, like, any similarity to a real life character is a coincidence. Yeah, I don’t think Frank says that at the end of his movies. There’s lots of similarities to real and living people that he intends.
So it’s like Frank doing a… He’s playing with… So it’s like Frank doing a motel? Yeah, it’s like his song album was like a collage. Okay, first of all, what are you saying, Roxy? Sorry, no, I just said that he liked to play with that like in 200 motels.
The band is hisd and bring voice up Yes Ringo, that’s right and then what were you saying Bert I Would say it seems like what you just laid in there that about Wally and Lewis I mean a Willis is that it’s almost like his song each album or each
Part was like a collage of so many different elements that he wanted to project onto the audience or anyone he was reading. Yes, it’s a collage of levels. It’s a collage of levels which can reference to multi-sensory, synesthesia, to technical environments, to sociological patterns countries, like Lewis in his book Tar,
Came out in like 1918, the characters represent countries and he was showing how World War I happened by the clash of the Russian and the French and the German and the British and so he would show that clash among the artists
In this novel and the artists is that set before were one, right? So each person, each character represented a corporate entity, a nation, a tribe. So that was part of modernism. He really was a general, a strategic, he’s very strategic. I mean, just to put that little quirk
On someone who wrote a bad article about him to inviting the guy into the band, it’s just like a left hook, you know? Ah, there you go. Yeah, like Frank had incredibly talented people auditioning to be in his band. All kinds of people wanted to play with Frank. It was like an honor.
It’d be great to have on your resume. And also, you could get known. If you got in the band and traveled around for a couple years you’d be seen. So, but Frank says I don’t care about your talent, you have to have a sense of humor, you have
To have some eccentricity, and he didn’t say it, and you gotta have the right name. You know, because there’s lots of good singers probably competing with Ike Willis, but he had the name. And so he got picked.
And then Ike, I’m not saying Ike, you know, was not worthy of being in the band. It was only because of the name. He was very talented anyways, but he had that extra little accident of nature, the accident of language. I mean, look at the name Zappa. What is a word that
Dominates the 60s? Everybody over the 60s unfold, they all talk about being zapped. Zap, you know, that became part of the language in the global theater. Everybody’s being zapped. And here’s this guy with the name Zappa who did zapping kind of music. He had the dilemma himself. Or the stigma.
And we have the apps after Zappa. Oh yeah, good point. After Z, the last letter in the alphabet, then you have the apps. And then you have the PA, which is anthropomorphic physical, backwards. Actually, it’s not backwards, it’s just you go in the opposite direction. It’s an anodyne.
What do you call those things? Anagrams that go back? BOV is one of these. Enneagrams, yes. A term. Enneagram. No, no, that’s Gurdjieff. Enneagram. Enneagram. No, no, that’s Gurdjieff. Enneagram. This is an acronym. Enneagram. Enneagram might be it, but it’s not the word I’m thinking of. There’s a simpler word. Just a minute.
Bert, talk to Roxy. I’ve got to do something. Okay. I think it’s really amazing to see how many people are watching. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert.
I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert.
I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert.
I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Bert. I’m going to go ahead. I got to do something. Okay. Yes.
And I think it’s really amazing how artists are prophetic, like Nostradamus, because in a way, they knew how to use the laws of media that they tried to mention. And that’s how Bob Wood tend to infiltrate McLuhan and Zappa.
And also, for example, when we were listening to the audience that week, Bob Wood’s so prophetic. It’s a way of seeing the new ground that is coming. And maybe we can explain this idea of the ground in the Gestalt theory.
There is this figure, it’s what is in the foreground and the background is the ground, like in a painting. You have the character, for example, in a portrayal. That’s the figure, and behind is the background, the ground. And McLuhan went to explore the ground of media.
And he said, it’s not important what the content the ground is what is affecting us and it’s affecting the environment. I enjoyed I enjoyed Bob’s statement he said in that with the Zappa Nelly that Frank Zappa is like the modern took the modern modern version of what McLuhan was doing
Because he really presented a lot of, a lot of material that was shake, that was presenting the figures of what was going on in the time, in the 60s and 70s. And it shows why he was outlawed on the so-called popular media landscape.
Because he presented a lot of teaching tools for those who weren’t going with their… It was like an anti-environment. He was more of an anti-environment, just put it that way. Yes, and that’s part of his style in his songs. He presents the familiar
Satire as figure, you know, he has these jokes and this type of language you see in the radio, tv, and movies. That’s a figure and the ground, is this complex music. And the people are digesting this figure and the ground without being aware of the food they’re getting.
So he would play with both figure and ground to make his music. I think he’s a genius. Is it also true that he mixed totally different pieces of work and somehow programmed that it all came out to some form of harmony. Is that true?
Well that’s what Bob is talking about when he’s talking about the Sinokwim. Yes, because he was mixing all sound landscapes, not only from all medias, from environment, from the musical traditions, all music and genres, but also his own music, he will remix and repaste and to create very complex, to be innovative,
That was one of his techniques. He will mix things or for example he will take the bass of a song and put it with another song or a rhythm or different tracks. He will, the different tracks that were in different tonalities or in different rhythms.
And then he would translate that, transcribe it in a score, and that will be a new thing, much more complex. Was that part of his Sinclair research?
Was that part of his Sinclair research? Was that part of his Sinclair research? Well, the Synclavier was an extension of that because it made it easier. At the beginning he would just, for example, cut and paste with these tapes, like in the
Concrete Music, or mix different tracks. For example, something he did in the studio with something he did in a concert, different solos and not only of the same song, different, complete different songs.
So he was getting a remix or replay of much more complex, you know, in all aspects. But he was always surprised that instead of being chaotic and dissonant, it was musical. And that was, he’s surprised because he said this is a type of alien synchronicity that he could
Not explain how come things in different tonalities, different rhythms, would sound so good. And with the synclavier he had the opportunity to experiment faster and it was easier because he said he doesn’t have to pay the musicians for rehearsals. He has all these instruments, these virtual instruments in his library of electronic and
Sample. And he can program all these things. He doesn’t have to write the score. He will just put them in and he will be able to cut and paste and remix and reverse, do
All these things we are so familiar now with computers and he said I just need electricity, these musicians never get tired, they don’t have to rehearse and they can do very complex things in tune and in the right tempo. Yeah, that was a very good explanation by Roxy. Yeah.
You know, xenocriny means, xeno means strange. So strange synchronization would happen when he didn’t intend it. He’d take something from one scene, one harmonic climate, mix it up with an obviously not resonant, another harmonic climate mixed up with an obviously not resonant another harmonic climate,
Then he’d be surprised to see patterns of complementarity or whatever his standard was. And so it was synchronized and he was impressed with that. So and he was trying not to have synchronicity. It’s like when iON spoke through the GW. The track, the track of a solo from one song
And put it in a completely different song. Right. It would sound great. That’s right, now listen to this. So when Ben talked to Zappa through iON, Ben was very reluctant, but the main point iON was saying that Frank was constantly making music that would upset people.
He wanted to upset people. He hated it if it became popular. So the very fact that he was looking to create dissonance in a way is shown in his theory of Xenocriny. He was trying to create dissonance and he wouldn’t want it to synchronize.
And it would. It strangely would synchronize. So he called that Xenocriny. Strange synchrony. And that’s what… You asked the right question. I think it’s the perfect way to use technology to make something new, because what can you do that aware.
He’s feeding this machine with information and now we have programs that can do all types of variations of a theme. You can make all types of, for example, baroque music or classical and this. And you just enter some information and the computer programs different variations.
Or you can enter a melody and the computer makes the harmony. And you can make different types of alterations of what the machine is proposing. But he was already doing that with his synth clavier. But he did also with his musicians, he will just give some ingredients
And then they had to cook something with that. And he would put these ingredients in the machine or from his tapes and then he will mix them and have a new recipe, a new song.
He was the last great composer, really. I mean, just you sharing that, it’s a sign that he really, he used all the different, I mean, he was self-taught classically, but then he got into the electronic music and then saw or experienced so much and he just threw it all in there.
Because that, the Civilization Phaze III is amazing if you listen to it again. I mean if you listen to it, listen to it. He mixed so much in there that you could, each time you listen to it, just like listening to Ayaan, you hear something else, just the whole mix. It’s amazing.
Yes, and it’s like Ayaan, he has these very serious things going on, very experimental, but then you hear the lyrics and they’re all funny. Yeah. Okay guys, here’s something. Yeah, go ahead. I see that very Ionic, the satire and the humor into all of this work.
He’s always trying to trick you up or set you up or make you aware of a shift. That’s what Ryan’s always trying to trick you up or set you up or make you aware of a shift that’s what Ryan’s always doing too
Uh… going along setting you up and all of a sudden he’s praising you and all of a sudden he turns on you and points out what you’re really screwing up with but I found the quote on we’re only for the money so he’s making this in sixty seven
He’s not going to get the Synclavier Vier for another fifteen twenty years and uh… he’s not going to get the Synclavier here for another 15 20 years and He’s already it’s like he invented the Synclavier here what he was working out in the 60s
Was the idea of something that then could be made by humans later? Is responding to Zappa’s vision? So it says on the album cover, it says, all the music heard on this album was composed, arranged, and scientifically mutilated by Frank Zappa.
And in brackets, with the exception of a little bit of surf music. Then he says, this is what I’m going to ask Roxy Bo, none of the sounds are generated electronically. They are all the product of electronically altering the sounds of normal instruments. So what’s the difference there?
Sounds are, what’s a generation sound electronically? What’s that? Yes, because you can program a synthesizer to sound like a violin for example. Yeah. But people who really know about music and instruments can see the difference. It’s like
You have in these organs, you have flute and strings and whatever that are supposed to be those instruments. But you can hear immediately this is not the real thing. It’s an artificial sound generation instrument trying to be the instrument.
And the thing with the instrument is when you play, for example, a violin, you have different types of attacking the instrument. For example, play legato or staccato, and you can do many different types of things as you play. And in the electronic instrument, all notes sound the same.
So that’s one of the things that many people were criticizing about electronic music, that they were trying to imitate the acoustic orchestra, but I think that’s not the point with electronic music.
It’s to go on and explore other sounds. was also part of selling the synthesizers and the organs to have these libraries that were supposed to be orchestra sounds or pianos. And you have now, the Synclavier already had digital recording that’s the sampler. So you have a digital recording of an acoustic instrument.
Or there are new technologies of synthesis. You have the waveform of an instrument. And you can, it’s like a digital recording. You have like the ground of the sound of the timber. And then you can alter some of the parameters or values. Parameters. Parameters, yeah.
To make them change, to edit this fabric sound for fabric libraries. But people who work with acoustic instruments and electronic instruments can hear the difference immediately. This is from a sound library or this is a real orchestra. Right, so listen to this. When he says none of the sounds are generated electronically,
That’s what the first instruments would do. They would make an orchestra happen by generating them electronically. Right? They try to match an orchestra. He says none of the sounds are electronic. Generated electronically. I suppose. No, he says are generated electronically. What does that mean? What does it mean to be generated sound electronically?
Yes, you have the synthesizer or the sampler. Okay, right. And you make the instrument. You have many different values, parameters to program an instrument. We call them patches. Right. And you’re doing it to stimulate. You want to fool people that they’re listening to an orchestra. You make it sound like an orchestra.
That’s not what he’s doing. He’s saying the sounds are the product of electronically altering the sounds of normal instruments. So they’re not generated electronically.
I think, no, he will make recordings with real musicians. and then you can have, for example, a filter in a guitar like a wah-wah or a reverb for the voice or different types of electronic manipulations that you can do in the studio with the effects.
So the instruments were real, real musicians, but they were altered. Right, so what you heard in the end on the LP was not what the musicians made. He would alter what the musicians made. Now, most people would say, wow, you can’t, how are you going to perform that in a live audience,
You know, a live concert? Like the bands had to sound like what the album sounded like, but Frank’s making the the guys not able to sound in live concerts what was done in the studio. Most people would not do that. He did what you shouldn’t do. He was fucking with the music.
Yes, but I think we want to develop the… We know that these are two different environments. And for example, Francois Bell, one of my teachers, he was the director of the group that research musicality in Paris. He made very complex compositions with many, many, many tracks
And he said the performance of that piece was the composer mixing live the different tracks. And that was his concept of performing electronic music. You remix live. Right. You mute or add effects or it’s like a type of very
Sophisticated DG. Right. Now would he then make it into an album? Would he then record that and make an album of it? Yes, but one thing is the album, because that’s only one interpretation, and another will be in the concert every time it’s different.
And Sapan, you have the studio environment, the clavier, but the live concert is another environment and he will do other things. Maybe he has like a basic musical idea. But that was the problem, for example, his song was talking about when they were trying to make a repertoire.
There is so many different versions of each song that it was hard to decide which solo, which version they should learn and play. And in some of the songs, he will do the solo from this version and then take the bass from
Another version. But the music of Zappa is not like a final song forever. Every time he played… Are you talking about Zappa or your professor? Are you talking about your mentor or Zappa? No, I’m talking about Zappa because… Right, okay. He was just trying to reproduce what he did in the studio.
He knew it’s another environment. And even every night when they have like two concerts or they are different concerts during the week, the musicians will complain that there were things being changed and the things they learned were never the same. Yeah. They always had to keep it. So like Carolyn Guertin’s book says,
It’s not the final product that we’re looking for. It’s this endless process of tactile interplay with the environment he’s engaging, either the live concert or the studio. That’s the art, the ability to interact and stay involved, not producing something. It’s a replay. Everything is a replay and a remix,
And it’s how we engage in conversation. We need to replay patterns. We need to replay experiences or whatever. Right, now he says after that statement, none of the sounds are generated electronically. They are all the product of electronically altering the sounds of normal
Instruments. Then he says the orchestral segments were conducted by Sid Sharp under the supervision of the composer. Then he says this whole monstrosity there’s your monster, this whole monstrosity, there’s your monster, this whole monstrosity was conceived and executed, he’s calling the album a monstrosity, was conceived and executed by Frank Zappa
As a result of some unpleasant premonitions, August through September 1967. So, these unpleasant premonitions. Then he says, all premonitions continuing to come true she’s and then he says it just phase one of lumpy gravy now he was i think he was intending and having lumpy gravy come out first
But there was contractual different uh… companies were putting it out and so get all bogged down took another year to get out so it came out i think after were only for for the Money, though I have to check that.
So that on We’re Only for the Money I think it says is this phase one of lumpy gravy. So the interplay between lumpy gravy and We’re Only for the Money is united by the electronic altering. That’s what’s in common. united by the electronic altering. That’s what’s in common. So, um…
Yes, I think it’s very interesting because it’s not only the music being affected by the electronic environment, it’s the whole environment, the whole society, the whole, the whole, the whole, that is affected by the electronic zone. That’s Egyptian. That’s Egyptian. And, you know, all the kids who would come across Frank
And just hear the entertainment part of it, they had no idea of what I’m going to talk about and what he was doing with the technology. He really was an invisible environment. He was known for a guy who ate shit on stage, which he never did, but that’s what circulated.
He actually, somebody shit on stage and Frank went over and ate it. That’s the Orson legend. Right. And he begins his autobiography, I think, with this story. He says, that legend is not true. The only time he ever ate shit was at a buffet at a holiday inn someplace in Arkansas.
That’s the only time he ever ate shit. So now I’m going to explain to you what is the continuity. Why is he a satellite conductor? So, in the early 60s when he starts practicing and rehearsing in Paul Buff’s studio in Cucamonga,
He eventually buys it in August 1964 when he gets some money for a movie he scored, I think it’s Run Home Slow, which was made by a high school teacher of his. And they were friends, so Frank did the music and it took a while for the guy, I guess,
To complete it or to get out there to make some money from it. Or I’m thinking he got access to equipment. OK. I’m not trying here to be accurate. It’s the idea. So what happened is he eventually got the money to buy the studio.
But before August 64, when he bought the studio, he was hanging out with Paul Buff for a couple years and learning his very complex, he had a very avant-garde advanced studio so he’s learning all this neat stuff that would
Serve him well. At one point he buys a bunch of props sold you know in Hollywood and he’s able to make a rocket ship in this studio. There’s an area where he puts together a rocket ship. Now, what’s happening in that period, 1962, 1963, 1964,
Is the American Mercury Program, I think it was called, they were just starting to catch up to the Russians and have John Glenn go around the planet a couple of times or something. So they’re doing early tentative experiments with their rocketry. So here’s this, it’s a figure.
The American population knows that Kennedy’s laid out the space dream of getting to the moon by the end of the decade. So it’s a figure of what McLuhan would call industrial kinetic space, you know, jumping on some place and having a goal and trying to get there, while missing
The simultaneous travel that people were experiencing under TV conditions, live TV conditions, or on the radio. They were transporting themselves all over the place electronically through radio. So they didn’t need a rocket. So to get an old tin can and set it up and land someplace was a pretty 19th century project.
So Frank, I call him a satellite conductor. So you go back to what was he doing when he first got access to a studio. He mimes a satellite conductor and he writes a screenplay about what he’s doing.
So you have this rocket set up in his lab there, in the studio, and he’s going to write a play called Captain Beefheart Meets the Grunt People. So I’m going to go through it and show you different aspects, conceptual continuity, overlappings with iON and us, and whatever other things I note.
So it begins, this is the, it’s dated, see at the end it says, the date of this, completion of this screenplay, August 20th, 1964. If it was one more day, August 21st, this uh… completion of this screenplay august twentieth nineteen sixty four
It was one more day august twenty first it would have been reverend stang’s birthday uh… i’m not sure maybe are the cokers birthdays august twentieth but uh… uh… there it is august twenty nineteen sixty four uh… he had just bought
The studio i think in august sixty four so he just got acquired the studio buff moves out bought the studio I think in August of 64. So he just acquired the studio, Buff moves out and now he’s inspired to do what he was as a creator, he’s going to make a movie,
Not necessarily going to make an album, he’s going to make a movie. So I read it in detail, you know every line, and I ticked off points. So we talked about the repeating theme of somebody who worked for the government, some kind of project, maybe secret, getting fired and they’re pissed off.
So on the first page of Captain Beefheart Meets the Grunt People, it says there’s this desert town called Happy Valley, elevation 37 feet, population 2 and that’s Billy Sweeney and his nephew, what’s his nephew’s name, Cecil. So Billy and Cecil are occupying a kind of place where Charles
Manson hung out, he hung out in Death Valley and occupied the Spahn Ranch. So it’s interesting. It’s kind of a bleak scene. It was a town, but 10 years ago, it was all of a sudden suffered the government taking
Away the big contract that employed the people in the little town, and then everybody went away. everybody went away and only billy sweeney who i think was the janitor at the uh… that the wherever the industry was and people is this retarded nephew so uh… zipping through
At what i take off little things they say that the government took the big contract away and gave it to a machine shot in Chukaloghe, Alabama. Gave it to a machine and it shot. Like did the machine get shot? What is that
About? It’s like he gave the contract to the Android Meme to some non-human scenario. Took the contract away and gave it to a machine shot in Chukalagi, Alabama. A movie? Was it for a movie shot? Things are a lot quieter down there now in Happy Valley.
Now remember Zappa in 1970, according to Barry Miles, has a sign on his basement studio before he gets the big high-tech studio ten years later. He has a sign saying Dr. Zircon, Secret Lab in Happy Valley, something like that. I could actually look it up.
It’s got Dr. Zircon, it’s got lab, and it’s got Happy Valley. But he’d already written a screenplay six years before based in Happy Valley. So it’s autobiographical. There’s an autobiographical level here. So moving along, it says Captain Beefheart is the host. He is narrating the story.
And he says, this is Billy Sweeney, and it’s just as he appeared on that happy day 22 years ago when he first started work at the plant. So there’s your 22 right there. So that means 1942. That’s when the World War II began, late 1941, early 42.
So 42 and 22 would be 1964. So there’s the 22. And I’m just going to flip along here. The next thing is, Beefheart himself has a machine. It’s called the Watch All Machine. So Beefheart has some kind of secret hideout in the mountains and he can watch everything.
So that’s sort of like Captain Beefheart. And it says, talking about, let’s see, does Beefheart describe himself there? He talks about Billy Sweeney applying himself. What he did when he got laid off, he went sort of, Billy went sort of funny in the head.
No matter what, he planned to work his way to the top. And so even though the environment for him to go to the top was disappeared, he couldn’t be stopped. Not even the government could stop him. So the day he got laid off, he became a systematic plan of self-improvement.
First, he tore the cover off a book of matches and sent away for a course in space science. He studied diligently, applying himself with fierce determination to each little lesson as it came in the mail. And when he flunked, he kept right on trying. He kept flunking the mail course.
But he kept on trying, working his way to the lofty goal he’d set for himself. A goal you won’t believe when I tell you, says Captain Beefheart. Then he says, let’s make it up to my secret mountain retreat where I keep the files on this stuff, kids. And
Then he dematerializes and rematerializes in the secret mountain retreat. So there’s Captain Defart, Otto being this mysterious person that iON said he was, in actuality. So Frank is like, in a way, he’s like a strange non-physical situation, dropped in his lap.
He’s got this lab, he has a friend who’s a strange character, like a mini-iON, and he can do all these fantastic non-physical things and he’s just describing the movie about his buddy, Beefheart, dealing with the environment in Southern California. So Beefheart says to the kids, I didn’t lose any of you going
Through the dimension warp, did I? Real swell. Then he continues his narration. Now then, in order to understand this complex man, Billy Sweeney, and the unusual situation in which he is involved, I feel it would be best at this time to consult the watch-all machine.
And he pushes a big red button and a dossier marked Sweeney pops out of a convenient slot. We suddenly swish pan to a medium shot of Sue, that’s Don Van Vliet, Don Vliet, he added Van later, Don Vliet’s mother Sue
Is a character in here. Suddenly swish pan to a medium shot of Sue, scolding from the doorway. Now, she’s always yelling at Don, Don’s a totally spoiled kid, and all he does
When he gets yelled at is he just demands for her to get him a Pepsi. So this comes out in the script. So Frank is literally describing his buddy as a character using biographical information. So let’s see. Sue yells at Beefheart, Donnie,
How many times have I told you about bringing your imaginary playmates in the house? So the parent thinks that Don is fantasizing everything. Beefheart says, damn it, Sue, I’ll bring him in here if I want to. I told you to stay out of my room anyway.
So Sue says, is that any way to talk to your mother? No, is it? And he says, shut up and get me a Pepsi. So she goes and gets him a Pepsi. So that’s just a little background. So then it says here, the remainder of this dialogue
Is accompanied visually by a series of shots of the machine. That would be the watch on machine. Cut to the rhythm of the speeches. Hear that Roxy? Cut, the scene is cut to the rhythm of the speeches. Of the talk. That’s what we recognize when he’s playing.
He has this rhythm of a speech. That he’s miming, you know, electronically amplified music. So he says, the remainder of this dialogue is accompanied visually by a series of shots of the machine. And the shots are cut to the rhythm of the speeches, occasionally punctuated by the watch-all-machine-effects loop.”
So there he is spelling out how he composes. Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, the father complains that Don stinks, and he never washes in his socks or in his
Bedroom and they’re stinking out the place and he says, and you ought to tell Don for me, he says to his wife, that his little room smells like a camel who’s been eating peanut butter sandwiches. Okay?
Now when Gail reports in one of these books on Zappa, her first night with Frank in like August 64, August 66, two years later, right around the time Lenny Bruce dies, she says that Frank was the most ill-kemped, slovenly dressed guy she’d ever met. He smelled, but especially his mustache area around his
Mouth smelled of peanut butter, because he used to live on peanut butter when he had no money. So here’s Frank saying that Beefheart smells of peanut butter. So he must have known, this is two years before Gale notices, he must have known that he smelled like that, but he projected it on Don.
That’s a cute little autobiographical thing. Are you with me, guys? You still here? Yes. Right? Yes. Right? Yes. Yes. Yes. I feel like eating peanut butter now. I can’t make out what you’re on the speakerphone. What did you say? Yes. I said like eating a peanut butter sandwich. Oh, is that… Really?
Before I said that? No. As you’re saying… Now you will. Now you will. No. Okay. Oh, is that really? Before I said that? No, as you’re saying… Now you will. Now you will. Okay, it takes you to make a sound, so I know you’re still there.
Because if I get disconnected, I can go on for ten minutes before I knew it. I mute myself, I’m just leaving. That’s all right. You can mute yourself, but every now and then come in. So, under sound, at a certain point in the script, it says dynamo hum.
Now dynamo hum is an important part of the Uncle Meat play presented in the 1969 album called Uncle Meat in the booklet, dynamo hum. He also did a song called Dynamo Hum. So, you’ve got dynamo hum there in 1964. He doesn’t say anything about it, just that there is
Environmental effects around where Billy keeps his rocket, his launch room. It has a dynamo hum sound. So as you build up an awareness of all these different aspects and images in Frank’s work, you see that his album covers were showing you a fragment
Of the big album of the whole thing, of the whole environment. And so you’ll see Dynamo Humpstead here and then it’ll show up later as another use, but it is part of the whole, you’re looking at a huge, like an elephant and one album will
Give you the leg, another album will give you the neck, another album will give you the trunk, another album will give you the ears, you know, and once you know all this stuff, you see that his album titles are all aspects of the same scene, where a guy has a rocket, and he’s
Going to compete with the government and get to the moon first. This is this one, this old janitor is determined to make his own rocket and get to the moon first. This is this one, this old janitor
Is determined to make his own rocket and get to the moon. Now that’s a pretty lofty ambition, right? Yeah. But maybe he’s working on that. Zappa is. Yeah, well, we’re going to get to that. So I’ll say that.
There’s more to say, but I want to say a few more samples and then get to the next big statement. So you know that this guy’s pissed off and he wants to name, get to the moon and claim it for himself. Fuck the government.
In this movie it says, rock and roll fills the holly room, the hollow room. He listens, Billy listens for a moment and resumes his deodorizing. So you have this rock and roll fills the holly room, the hollow room. He listens, Billy listens for a moment and resumes deodorizing.
So you have this rock and roll environment. The transistor radio environment is always being pointed out in this situation. The ground of transistor radio to whatever the figure activities are as figure. So Beefheart says, yes kids, you’re right again. Billy has been saving Cecil for the final test.
Now what he’s going to do is he’s going to stuff Cecil in the rocket and send him to the moon. But first he has to test the Van Allen belt. He has to see if a person can
Survive, a human can survive the Van Allen belt. He said, he stopped he’s all he had nothing to do but care for these horses and he tries to offer uh… horse rides to kids but there’s nobody in the area so he doesn’t get any uh… any business uh…
You know having course right so every now and then he’d lose the horse he doesn’t know what happened with turdability stole the horse put in his rocket ship set it up there and uh… he died. And two horses
Did die going through the Van Allen radiation belt. So it didn’t look too good for humans. Three times Billy launched his proud ship, and three times it returned with a dead pony in it. It seems they always perish going through the Van Allen radiation belt. Billy has learned
All he can from the ponies. A stage has been reached now where a pony just won’t do. Billy needs a human.” And so Beefheart says, yes, kids, you’re right again. Billy has been saving Cecil for the final test. Cecil is still in the dark about the whole thing, of course.
After all, he’s got his mind on the business, and the business of his own non-horse ride business, and the terrible loneliness of his life in Happy Valley. So in Gravy’s Rainbow, the punchline is this Nazi rocket manager is putting a little kid
In, I think a sexually abused kid first, into a rocket and testing it. So Pynchon who becomes a big fan of Zappa, what he develops in a 1973 novel, Zappa lays out 10 years before the idea of stopping somebody without their approval or yeah, without their approval in a rocket.
So I don’t know, I don’t think Pynchon would know about Frank’s screenplay. It didn’t get out much. So, but it’s just an interesting parallel. It’s almost like, this new environment, Lisa, the horrible scenario, what would be the worst thing?
If they stuffed you, Bert, in the rocket ship and sent you out there and you weren’t sure you’d get back. That would be a nightmare for kids, right? To be put into one of these NASA spaceships without your approval. And it says, kids, you realize it’s been 10 years
Since Cecil has seen or talked to anyone except Billy. 10 years of isolation. Do you have any idea what that can do to a man? It’s almost a satire of Frank. He’s not really isolated, but he is spending a lot of time by himself in the studio
But Billy Sweeney fits more Frank’s project okay, so moving along to the next This okay, so Larry shows up you’ll hear on shake your booty one of some of the musicians talking It just is a little sound bite between
Musicians talking, it’s just a little soundbite between songs and they say something like yeah it’s been completely different ever since Larry left or we don’t know what happened to Larry, we don’t know if he’s having any fun. So there’s this comment on Larry in 1979.
You go back 15 years, turns out Larry is a loser who shows up and is obsessed with horse pony rides because his father owns a ranch, works with horses, but won’t let Larry have rides on them because I think the reason was that Larry would get
Dirty and track horse manure into the home. So the father didn’t tolerate Larry being near the ponies even though it was his father’s business. So Larry is frustrated and he wants to have a pony ride, so he finds out Cecil’s doing it in Happy Valley, so he shows up.
Well, quickly, Cecil doesn’t know this, but Billy decides to put Larry in the rocket ship, not Cecil. He’s the perfect guy. So you have this horrible murder scene going along in this silly environment where this guy is trying to create. So he’s kind of showing the sacrifices science makes,
The cruelty that science does, that’s not talked about, right? In doing their experiments, or some scientists. So, but Larry says, you wouldn’t believe it, but I hate my father, and that’s why I ran away. In a way, Larry is partly Frank, because Frank has, as it comes out in his brother’s book has
Real tension between Frank and his father. They really struggle to remain a family. They’re really bugged by each other. So this thing about hating my father and that’s why I ran away gets Larry in trouble. So it could be an aspect of Frank in that character.
So another point is to sound filtered music from transistor radio. I don’t know why it says filtered. Maybe it just means music comes from the transistor radio. But there’s the hidden ground of the radio again, or transistor radio. And whipping along here looking for the next ticked off point. If you have
Anything to say, Bert, you can speak, anything that comes to mind. I was thinking how he had to be a rock star because rock is tactile. The word rock and roll, meaning engaging sex, and this is like a new type of homily, the new type of cultus.
And in the Tetrad, Mattoon is doing at the end of the laws of media. He says, the rock star is like a person one wears. Something like that. You wear him as clothing, you mean. Yeah, he says, the rock sound bubble is not for listening to, but for wearing and participating in.
Right, that’s the, I thought he meant that we wear the rock star. Yes, we wear the rock music. We have, he’s in the Tony Swartz recordings, he says that. He says it’s like foam rubber. The music presses up against
You and you respond to it like as if you’re a big sponge pressing against, massaging your skin. Yeah, we put yourself in a space bubble. He also talks about the artistic environment being the type of clothes that surrounds you. Yes. Well, radio, he said radio provided a privacy bubble
For the kids at home. In the suburban homes, they’d want privacy, and they’d put on the radio. And that would shut out the rest of the home sounds, and they’d do the homework with the radio on, if they did the homework. And it was a privacy bubble that radio created after
It was superseded by television and computers and satellite. Like it wasn’t a privacy bubble really when it was the hidden ground in the 20s and 30s it was a tribal ESP experience of simultaneity but when it got displaced by the new preference
For TV then the teenager and rock and the rock and roll industry hijacked it for the space bubble, for the private identity, post-literal private identity of an acoustic space bubble, right? Your own little private space. So that’s a good point.
In a way, as my client said, all medias are amplifying one of our sentences. And the PA system, he puts in this picture the inflated persona for everyone to wear. Inflated persona? What’s persona? Like an individual. Persona. Oh, that means that you’re the content of the radio.
So you get on, you know, you’re Bob Hope, you get on the radio, Orison Wells, and you inflate yourself while putting on the whole world. Is that what it says? You inflate the result? Well, I understand it like, for example, we are all wearing Bob when we listen to Bob.
Or we wear Zappa when we listen to Zappa. It’s like we fuse with the amplified. You put on the artist. You put on the medium. You wear the medium and you’re the content. Your experience that you bring to it is the content, but you’re wearing the artist or the poem or the book
Or the radio as an environment, as clothing. But what is it, what does he say after persona? You inflate the persona, what did he say? For everyone to wear. Yes. The electric world allows you, this wearing aspect is revealed under electric conditions. Nobody thought of wearing books
But the fact that everybody is inside the electric environment, it suddenly occurs to people oh jeez, we’re wearing this thing, sharing the same space. Then you project that back on the history of media. Oh, people wore the alphabet, and they wore the book, and they wore the book and they wore
Speech, but they didn’t know that until they had a massive discarnate wearing session with radio environment. So it changed the perception of the past. And that perception came out, the television came. Is that what you’re saying, Mark? That whole, that wearing? Once radio and TV, once radio and TV, electric simultaneous environments beginning
With radio came in, it made people, some people, maybe artists, notice that they’re kind of wearing the whole population. It was like clothing. Then they said, oh yeah, that’s what we’re doing. People were wearing books, you know, 200 years ago. People were wearing
Manuscripts, people were wearing speech. They go back through media through the epiphany that radio gave them. They redefined it here. Yes, and I find this idea very interesting how we get addressed with the things we’re engaging like Zappa music or his ideas is part of another type of clothing
You’re putting on these patterns, these ideas in your other bodies. It’s how you dress the other bodies, not the physical but the others… The new organs. Okay. You’re addressing new extended ears, new extended mouths. In War and Peace in the Gold Village, McLuhan talks about fashion and calls it the Boer War.
And it’s spelled B-O-E-R. It’s a pun on the war in South Africa, you know, at the end of the 19th century, the colonists wiping out their natives, which Pynchon uses in his novels, especially in Gravity’s Rainbow, that scenario, the clash between the preliterate tribal people and the literate European countries.
But fashion, if you’re not into the fashion is the bore war it’s boring so uh… it’s a cc malaria bouncing with joy uh… that they’re going to think that they’re going to billy convinces larry that this rocket ship is a new kind of pony
And the pony right yet is uh… by getting inside the second weird thing that’s going to move it so if you don’t area bounty with joy at the fact uh… by getting inside the fucking weird thing that’s going to move hectic so it’s the only area bouncing with joy at the fact
That there is going to get his point right we can see billy re-entering the lab through a secret door he is wiping his hands on his coveralls and smiling now are coveralls that kind of farmer bib and shoulder straps you know what i mean alright they’re called coveralls
Well frank has a picture of himself with coveralls on the 1969 album, Uncle Meat, in the booklet. So you say, why did he present himself as a farmer? Well, he’s presenting himself as Billy Sweeney, as a metaphor, which no one would know because it didn’t have the transcript of the play.
The play had been written five years before, but I just noticed that he was wiping his hands on his coveralls and smiling. would know could have been have the transcript of the play uh… the play had been written five years before but
I just noticed that he’s wiping his hands on his cover all that’s my link okay uh… so moving along quickly to the next ticked off part a lot of the the the rocket ship is made of cardboard now not only to the process project to beat the government to go the move but
You’re going to do it by building a uh… a rocket ship out of cardboard the the she’s a big deal we’re looking at a retarded and apparently retarded person with a fantasy project. And you know McLuhan said television brought in people as content, started fantasizing.
So here’s this guy fantasizing under the TV situation. And Billy is explaining to Larry and Cecil what’s he saying. He says, ah, the world has no conception of my discovery. Cecil, what’s he saying? He says, ah, the world has no conception of my discovery. My children, this sleek space, or rather this slip,
He starts to say spaceship, and then he stops himself. This sleek space, this spirited steed, horse, right? This spirited steed is not made out of metal, nor is it made out of two bigger ponies. It only looks like metal
Because of the rivets I painted on it.” And Cecil says, not metal? And Billy says, in the manner of a TV pitchman, no, cardboard. It’s light, easy to work with. Metal and bigger ponies are definitely harder to manage. I simply take some old boxes, staple them together, and impregnate them with this liquid,
Giving to the material an unbelievable strength and resistance to adverse environmental conditions. That’s ionic. That’s what we do. We impregnate with our new ice cell into certain things. So here’s Frank picking up on an ionic invention. Wouldn’t you be surprised if you saw our Coldplay cold fusion
Machine and you saw a look on the surface it was made out of fucking crude cardboard? You’d go, what the fuck? So this is Billy doing Bob 50 years before, saying that we impregnated this cardboard with this liquid, giving to the material an unbelievable strength and resistance to adverse environmental conditions.
Now, somebody might say, well, science has done that since then, right? They probably have all kinds of stuff they inject into other stuff to make them stronger. Yeah, but it can be applied to us, too. That’s probably more applicable to this cheap rocket.
And he fools Cecil and Larry to be enthusiastic about it. And this script is made up of 107 pages, and we’re at page 41 already, so it’s pretty neat. So we’re going along pretty fast, if you’re bored. In the instructions on the side, it says, this develops into a, what is this?
He’s talking about a youth band plowing through a crowd. What is this? Oh yeah. Along this, the last 10 pages, what’s happened is they focus on a politician, Senator Gurney, who is responsible for getting the American spaceship on the moon. And he’s got an astronaut called Johnny Smith.
And Johnny Smith is the all-American athlete kind of guy. He’s described in the cast as a corn fed astronaut johnny smith extended gurney works for the government you hear about senator gary gurney and absolutely free sixty seven gurney’s the name of the attorney who straps on uh… the thirteen-year-old
Chocolate syrup smothers are in charge of i think it’s been a good i know the name gurney the attorney Gurney, the attorney Gurney shows up. So the name Gurney was already happening in 1964. So Gurney is organizing this official moon launch. So there’s a big celebration as they get ready to launch it
And it says there’s a band continuing to march and play through a crowd. They’re knocking down the crowd, mowing the crowd over, but they don’t even care. They just keep continuing marching and playing. The people with signs start whacking, signs supporting the launch, start whacking at the band for stepping on their feet.
In retaliation, the youthful musicians play louder and empty their spit valves on the enemy’s shoes. This develops into a minor riot as the crowd, still cheering, proceeds to beat the youngsters about the head and shoulders,
Rendering all of them unconscious except the guitar player, who, swinging his instrument like a machete, beats a path to safety. Now, it’s interesting, the guitar player survives. That’s a metaphor for frank using the guitar to beat off the stupid crowd he can use the latest technology to become a really good guitar player
Everybody else using obsolete tools dies but he gets to safety so it’s interesting how he singles out the guitar player and is surviving the riot uh… but this huge riot right. The one who gets the new frequency, the guitar player. Yes. The survivor. Did you say virus? No. Virus? The survivor. Survivor, right.
Survivor. Survivor, right. Survivor. So you have… So, so Billy and Cecil… So Larry and Cecil… So Larry goes out there and survives the radiation belt and comes back. And they’re all happy. Shit, Larry survived it. So now they’re going to make the official launch.
And this time it’s going to be Billy, Cecil, and Larry. Because Billy now thinks, okay, we can get through the Van Allen belt. We sacrificed Larry. He survived it. So we can do it. So Billy heads, you know, launches himself, and they head for the moon. And Senator Gurney is having big celebrations
To launch their thing, like, almost like the same day. And it says, the minutes tick by as the final stages are reached in the countdown, a mere three hours now until Johnny Smith makes history in his sleek modern vessel, which I understand, this is a newscaster saying this, which I understand is called,
And so appropriately, the spirit of Cape Smedley. So they’re at Cape Smedley, that’s Cape Canaveral in reality, but Cape Smedley. And I think the spirit of something was the name of Lindbergh’s plane when he flew across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927 or so.
So I think it’s, or maybe it’s a reference to the name of the plane, the Wright Brothers, when they created flight in 1904 or so. The spirit of something might have been on their plane. So it’s a historical reference actually by the clock it is two hours and fifty minutes to the lift-up
But the tension is getting to be wait wait we just been handed a special bulletin and uh… they don’t get to you right away it’s back to larry and cecil billy is sitting at the controls of the rocket ship and Cecil and Larry have to stand during the whole trip holding on
Like subway straps, holding on little straps, okay, bouncing about. So Billy is keeping the aristocratic distance between him and his assistants. Then Larry is saying, they’re talking about what happened, what they go through. Because, oh, when they go through, when they go to the moon, they start to distort.
Larry and Cecil become confident and Billy becomes a little kid. So they’re distorted when they go through the Van Allen belt. Which is pretty interesting. Like, where did Zappa get that idea from? Is that known physics, that that’s what happened? I don’t know. Yes, and actually, some of the conspiracy theorists
Say that’s impossible to go through this radiation. Right, right. You can’t do a moon landing. It’s impossible. That’s what they say, right? So it happened in Nevada. Yes. Okay, so, you know what the Evergreens was? Said it?
What happened is they did go to the moon, but the footage the people saw on TV was shot from Nevada someplace. So the TV show was not the actual moon, but the guys were on the moon and they didn’t want to take a chance of broadcasting
Some unforeseen disaster so they wouldn’t let the people see what the astronauts were actually experiencing. They couldn’t take that risk. So they faked the content. So you see, so people who notice this and have written books on it, look, the thing’s got shadows, they can tell it’s a fake set.
They figure out and kind of prove it. Well, it doesn’t mean they didn’t go to the moon. It’s just that they didn’t show us what they did in going to the moon. So that’s a pretty neat take.
They say Kubrick made the shootings. Who? Stanley Kubrick. Yeah, Kubrick, that’s right. bullshit yeah call breaks made that shooting yeah who Stanley Kubrick yeah Cuba that’s right I say Stanley Kubrick did it right so Larry saying they’re talking about the experience you know you see I think they’ve landed. Let me just check.
Yes, so they’ve landed and they’re reporting what they went through. And Larry says, well, I got this funny tingling in the back of my neck all of a sudden, and then bloop, I saw a whole bunch of colors blinking on and off
I guess it was just on a little daydream or something it’s like the ending of Kubrick’s 2001 where the guy goes in this weird psychedelic trip you know at the end of the movie well Zappa anticipated this he’s saying Larry went through a bunch of you know psychic hallucinations
A whole bunch of colors blinking on and off and he, I guess I was just on a little daydream or something. So isn’t that neat? Yeah. Yes, and he called his daughter Moon Unit. Moon Unit, I’m gonna explain that. We’ll explain that in a minute. That’s the next aspect of the big picture.
So as a result of, where was that? But I see this cardboard rocket. She was sort of seeing the illusion. Yeah, of the actual space race. Yes, and also the hologram on Hollywood. Everything is glamour. Glamour is the illusion of elegance. But everything is illusion. Everything is fake. Everything is a prop.
Everything is cheap so the newscaster says and senator gurney regrets to inform the public of this cancellation they’ve canceled the rocket launch due to the presence in the atmosphere above kate smedley of some sort of alien rocket vehicle so they’re saying something was seen and uh… they should repeat, due to this
Critical condition, the planned lunar landing mission has been temporarily postponed. So Senator Gurney is totally pissed off that something has gone out there and forced them
To cancel and they’re going to try to figure out what the hell was that. So the race to the moon is on and Billy has got the first jump. Let’s see. Okay. Billy says, who is he saying this to? So Billy is saying to Cecil and Larry,
We are about to embark on a perilous mission to outer space. Our destiny lies ahead. We shall conquer the moon, in the name of decency and all that is clean and good, in the name of Happy Valley, land of my youth and all that it has stood for in the past,
Its inherent rural cleanliness and strength of spirit, the true spirit of our great land. For this we risk our lives now, as did our forefathers at Bunker Hill and Anzio and Mount Suribachi, all those places.
For all this we now depart for the moon.” So I forgot to say that, that was his speech before they got in there and took off for the moon. So he’s going to claim it for him in his neighborhood. Okay, so moving along now, looking for the next…
I was thinking how this meme of the new frontier going further, it’s also the thing with the media, we were always trying to expand, to go further, and then with the visual bias, we thought it was going to the moon or going to space.
The real expansion was to go to the moon, physically reconnect something. And the first phase of that was the electronic retrieval. And so the electronic retrieval and wiping over the guff, we’re already traveling by TV before we go to the
Moon. And that’s a key point McLuhan uses to make fun of what’s going on. Everybody’s living in the rear view mirror and they’re doing an old 19th century replay with the rockets and ignoring a collective… Yeah, with Bonanza, we think it’s going to conquer new territory. Right. Yeah. Right. It’s still going on.
So, yeah. And the newscaster says, and it’s almost the launch of the Johnny Smith, the regular launch. And there he goes, folks, up through the troposphere, up through the stratosphere, up through the ionosphere. Up, up, up. What a man. What a ship. I remember iON, in one of the rewrites,
Laid out the seven spheres, the troposphere, the stratosphere, and the ionosphere. But there’s the ionosphere, right there. I mean, that’s technically a scientific place, but I project my own world into that word. No, that’s a science. That’s a science. That’s right, yes. You were showing the book.
Yeah, the troposphere is the electric age, the stratosphere is the Android Meme, and the ionosphere is the hexadic world we’re into right now with the eye cell. The troposphere is the electronic, analog, electric environment. Stratosphere is the digital environment. And the ionosphere is Dobstown. We’re on page 62, moving along.
He has as one of the sound effects, suitable electronic lunar ballet music. Suitable electronic lunar ballet. Alright, in all this time while Johnny Smith is going towards the moon, he’s reminiscing about his own life, his youth. It’s like he’s seeing his life flash before him.
He talks about, me and my three buddies took off about 7 a.m. in a little 39 Studebaker. Frank is always talking about this 39, he has a Chevy I think sometimes, and now a Studebaker, it’s always 1939. For some reason. He refers to that year in the car culture.
I think I jumped ahead at one point where Johnny’s talking about… It’s funny how Frank makes a parody on science in the whole space program. It’s funny. Yeah, he’s not being fooled by the new technology. He’s ready to show how stupid it is.
And there’s even more to this appropriate metaphor or appropriate strategy. Okay, so I guess I haven’t got to it yet. There’s a statement by Johnny which is interesting. Now, on the moon, there’s a problem. The moon is already occupied by Celestia. And Celestia is this… how is she described? This woman…
The spider woman? No, not the spider woman. Celestia, a queen from the moon with green skin. Now green is my color on the chart. A queen from… on the time note chart… A queen from the moon. So this is an odd mutation. Now, she’s scheming
To take over Earth. But she’s surprised when these humans end up on her planet. She doesn’t know where they came from. That was the same thing with the giant spider and the woman. What was her name? Uh, uh, Drachma. Yeah. The queen of cosmic greed. Now that’s going to be hunting food.
That’s the same story ten years later, eight years later. And I’m going to explain why it’s the same story. So Celestia says she encounters Billy, I guess. Who is this? Who is she talking to? Yeah, she’s talking. Wait a minute.
Yeah, sheil has landed, they’ve landed, successful landing, and now she confronts the humans. So she tells them, we are the last tragic remnants of a perishing race, a love starved race more highly developed than your earth women in the mysterious feminine arts.
We have waited many time periods, note that phrase, many time periods, not a lot of time, but timings, time spans. We have waited many time periods for a contact such as this. It seems as though our prayers have been answered.
Come with us, we have prepared a feast and Cecil goes feast like eating and We move through some other scenes with Senator Gurney and Johnny And then oh, yeah, here’s what Johnny says He’s remembering as a youth. He loved the the DJ named named howling hog man
So that’s a take off on Wolfman Jack, who used to broadcast out of Mexico, that Zappa would listen to in the 50s, I guess, early 60s. So Johnny remembers he loved this DJ called the Howling Hogman. That’s what they used to call him.
And he had a funny old voice, let me tell you, good mercy. I used to sit there and laugh till I was blue in the face, yuck, yuck, yuck. So he’s a really corny guy. Now here’s Frank in the sound column. He writes electronic rock and roll. Not electric rock and roll.
Not just rock and roll. He says electronic rock and roll. This is 1964. What’s electronic rock and roll in 1964? So, okay, carrying on. So, Celestia falls in love with Billy and she wants to fuck him and she’s trying to organize an orgy because she’s got a bunch of other women hanging around
Her team. And she wants Larry and Cecil to fuck the other women and she wants to fuck Billy because, as she said, she’s love starved. She hasn’t fucked anybody in years. Stuck if you want to larry and people to talk the other women and he went to fuck billy
Because as you said he’s love starved in fact anybody in years uh… stuck there on the moon uh… because the race got wiped out and missing the uh… still uh… here it is so here’s a decision statement by johnnie uh… he says
I suppose that each and every one of us as Americans has had or has right now or will have at some time or another a favorite disc jockey. That’s just said right out of the blue. What’s that about?
The guy is, has he landed yet? But it’s true because now, Gates doesn’t want to be a rock star anymore. Nowadays, everybody wants to be a DJ. Yes, a DJ or a Bill Gates. They want to come up with an app and start a computer empire.
But yes, they want to be a DJ. Even I became a DJ. Look at me, always adapting to the fads. You can look at my life. Bob was a trend monger all along. I mean, I did it without knowing I was doing it, but I ended up being a great DJ.
I didn’t know that’s what everybody wanted to be. I’m causing everybody wanting to be a DJ. That’s what’s going on. Yeah, there you go. I got there first. It’s the evolution. Zappa had to be a rock star and you had to become a DJ. Yeah, yeah. That was the next step.
I had to sample Frank. He’s my content. Sample him and everybody else. And remix him for your scenocracy. Right. That’s right. So Johnny says, for some reason, I suppose that each and every one of us, as Americans has had or has right now or will have at some time or another,
A favorite disc jockey. That’s Frank pointing out the programmed environment, right, which may not, might sound like an obvious thing to an engineer. Everybody knows that. But you have to look at the obvious and look at the figure-of-ground meaning of it. It’ll have relevance later. So that’s why he says,
The old howling hog man was my favorite, and still is for that matter, and I’ll probably never outgrow my love for him and the music he plays. Back in the late 50s, Frank talks about how it was a serious statement among intellectuals that rock and roll was a fad.
And Frank realized early on that it wasn’t a fucking fad, it was a new environment and it’s not going to go away. So he refers to that when he says he has this Johnny guy as a big insight, I’ll probably
Never outgrow my love for him and the music the DJ plays. That leads to the nostalgia industry. You know, all these companies that recycle all the old bands from the 56, 70s, 80s, 90s. You know, it’s an important part of the person’s being. It’s like keeping a person alive. They have to see.
Today I read there’s going to be a one year long festival in London because of the 40th anniversary of punk. Right, that’s because it’s an important part of their biology. It has to be done. Because it’s part of people’s… it’s like, we’re going to keep breathing.
We must keep breathing. We like it here, and we’re going to keep breathing. Well, you’ve got to have… you know, we’ve had punk, and we must keep it going. We can’t stop it. The wars happen when somebody wipes out a whole technical set up and then
Erases people’s memories and then they bring in a new technology, a new civilization. Which the Emmerich said will be the final Armageddon. When we invent a technology that we know, when we implement it, and press the button and it goes into action, we will forget everything we ever knew.
And that will be the price you pay for this new technology. And the war will be whether to do that or not. I don’t want to forget everything. You know, don’t press that button. The other idiots, the drunks and cocaine freaks will say, fuck, I don’t care. I had a lousy life.
I don’t want to remember it. Press that fucking button. All right? So there’s a spiritual battle right there. What did you say, Roxy? The caps are going to be added. Yes, the caps are going to be added. Yes, the caps are gone. Yeah. It’s still, they can still sell some safety pins.
So, yeah, it’s still a market there. Who did that? Who paid off the London mayor and the government to allow something to go on for a year? Maybe Prince Charles, probably Prince Charles did it. The least likely guy. So poor Johnny recognizes that he’ll never outgrow
His love for rock and roll or that DJ. So then Johnny a little later says, music expresses the heart and soul. So here’s Frank talking about the environment. Music expresses the heart and soul. So here’s Frank putting in, talking
About the environment. Music expresses the heart and soul of mankind whether he be exalted or humble or rich or poor. Then he says, and my life has been lived clean with a lot of music in it. And Frank would say, well you never heard any music, that’s just new life, that’s just
Muzak or ugly radio, whatever Frank would say. Because Frank said nobody knew what music was, even if it bit him on the ass. He says that in Time Magazine in October 1969. So here he’s pointing out that a person is now saying, yes, my chemical body has been lived cleanly,
But I’ve got my electronic self. And that’s expressed as my body has a lot of music in it. So it’s just an odd statement. In the middle of this corny drama of the space race, Frank is putting these statements in there. At one point when- He says, I got my electronic self.
Self? What did you say? Self? Yeah, what did you say? I said, he said, my life has been lived clean and with a lot of music in it. In other words, he’s talking about his listening experience. He’s a consumer like all Americans in the 60s of pop radio.
But why is it, why would a guy be written, I don’t know, any other character has ever said that. Yeah, I’ve had a pretty good life and I’ve had a lot of music in it. You ever said that about yourself? Well, you have, you’re a composer. Bert never said that about himself. No.
It’s like… It is odd. It’s a bit… What? I’m your composer, but Bert never said that about himself. No. It’s like- It is odd. What? It is odd to put that in the middle of this scene. Yeah, you have a lot of music in your life. It’s invisible environment.
You take it as a cliche, it’s a given. You don’t make a point, you don’t observe it. You don’t make a statement about it. It’s part of the cliché environment. So you see my point, right? That’s sort of odd. This is Johnny Apples, this all-American corn head, corn-grown, Midwest, corny guy, corn-fed,
He’s saying, my life has been lived clean with a lot of music in it. Yeah, I mean, is that what Donald Trump’s going to say when he accepts the presidential mantle when he wins the election? He’s going to say, yeah, it’s been a great life. I had
A lot of music in it, a lot of TV, a lot of video, which is a way of saying you still think your chemical body is the focus of your being. What Johnny’s really saying is that my physical body’s been cleaned and I have many other bodies made up of musical consumption.
He’s pointing to a multiple body experience, but said rearview mirror as if it’s just a chemical body. So at one point when the guys land, yeah, when Johnny Smith lands on the moon, he lands after Cecil. It says, rockets screaming in, the sound, rockets screaming in.
That is the opening line in Gravity’s Rainbow by Pynchon. A screaming comes heard across the sky. It’s a very poetic statement. So here’s Frank. You know, and Frank’s a manipulator. There’s like a similarity between Pynchon and Frank. Both born around the same time and they’re both sort of dealing with 50s America and
Promoting some release from it. And they’re both looking very interested in the history of the nazis and what happened to the nazis if you look on the album cover for the grand was do it shows uh… uh… whatever the guy’s name but uncle meet the evil scientist shows his laboratory
And it has the book arms of croppers got a bunch of books among them is that history of the German armaments industry, the Krupp family. And someone else, Barry Miles or somebody noticed that Frank was reading the rise and fall of the Third Reich or something, he had a fascination for that period.
But while he’s saying in his early early albums the Nazis are running your town he almost predicted what May would find out May Brussel, literal Nazis so moving along we’re getting close to the end you’re enjoying this right? going through these patterns
They say somebody calls uses the word Baccino. So Billy says, what’s this Baccino? She said Baccino. And she says, Celestia, the moon queen, says, I guess they monitor your late night TV shows. That’s a line from an old Zsa Zsa Gabor movie called Queen of Outer Space.
So there’s a media clip that is brought in. A phrase from a TV show that’s brought up on the… uttered on the moon. It’s actually… oh yeah. So while Celestia is trying to seduce Billy, all of a sudden they’re shocked because the Grunt people show up.
Yeah, remember this is called Cat and Beefheart versus the Grunt People and they’re some kind of alien race. So the grunt people take over and basically arrest everybody. And they go, with us you will come, cave-wise, or hide out to go, on the dark side of the moon.
It says moon, dark side. Ha, bachino. And then Billy says, what’s this bachino? Because the second grunt uses the phrase. So Celestia says, I guess the grunts monitor your late night TV shows. That’s a line from the old Zazier Gabor movie, Queen of Outer Space.
So a little bit of mixed media thrown into the scenario. OK. Beefheart is back home home and he’s listening, his mother and father are watching roller derby, entertaining some TV content and Beefheart gets pissed off at them that when they start watching,
A little later they start watching the moon landing and he he says what are you fucking doing? we’ve got something happening here on the moon and Beefheart through his watch all can see that something weird is going on on the moon so he’s trying to get Sue and her father to listen
But they won’t they’re too busy watching first roller derby and then the moon landing no sorry not the moon landing that’s five years later in the second script. So they’re watching roller derby. So now, another thing about Beefheart, he used to have these rashes. And if he got really
Bad, he’d have to go hang out at some relative’s house and lay low so that nobody saw him. So Frank refers to that. It says, Beefheart, we see him digging away at an imaginary nerve rash under his skin. Imaginary nerve rash. His eyes are rolling back slightly. He is muttering
Unintelligible things about a bread man. And the bread man was his father. His father was a bread man. So there’s a little exposure of Beefheart’s actual life or Don Vleet’s life with his rashes. Then it says the king of the grunts he has a torture room
And the king squats on a throne raised above the level of the others. The room is dark and dismal the stone walls ooze green slime which glistens in the eerie illumination dense putrid vapors rise from orifices in the floor hazing the scene.
So in the 70s there’s a song called The Torture Never Stops, and this evil prince is torturing people and other things in the basement. And I think it has green slime walls. So the torture chamber is a key motif that starts off in 1964. And it’s a putrid environment.
That’s how the evil prince is doing it in Virginia many years later in a later song. Okay, so we’re almost finished here. Um, uh, Billy says, uh, he says, shucks, here I thought all the time that you and your little buddies lived up here.
Well, you live and learn. This phrase, you and your little buddies, you hear Frank use that in another song or two. When he’s mocking Fazz, he says, you and your little buddies. So it’s already got it here in the script. And this is a year before the mothers of Invention are formed.
So Johnny, he’s now forced to deal with Billy. He meets Billy and Cecil and Larry. He says, uh, he says, wow, I’ll be dot dot dot, never in my wildest imaginings could I have foreseen anything of this magnitude. Here I am, back to back with a being from another world.
He thinks Billy and Johnny have been captured by the king of the grunts, and they’re tied up together back to back. And Johnny thinks Billy is an alien. Here I am back to back with a being from another world. I mean people up here on the moon I could have figured.
I had my suspicions about this place for a long time but as far as the other more distant worlds was concerned well I just never would have believed it. Say maybe we can work a deal. You got the spaceship and I got the brains. Maybe together the both of us could escape.
You ever hear of a place called Earth? Billy, Billy marveling at Johnny’s stupidity. Of course you idiot. Can’t you see that’s where I’m from? Johnny says, you from there too? Hot dog! Now we’re talking the same language. It’s a good thing you didn’t turn out to be one of them extraterrestrial beings.
And Billy goes, is that so? Or, is that so? No, it’s a question. Is that so? that so that’s a question is that so maybe billy is extraterrestrial i mean he managed to take a cardboard fucking uh… vehicle to the moon the special fucking liquid he may be
Maybe francesco zappa is not from here francesco zappa has not just been around for hundreds of years he’s a being from another world. So moving along here. So finally, of course, in the course of encountering Celestia, there’s a big spider.
So they have to deal with this big spider and it lives in a cave. There’s this cave motif Frank’s always describing a cave in these Screenplays and when he was interviewing the Rolling Stone in 68 He had himself photographed in front of a look like a cave and it was probably the secret
Tunnel to Harry Houdini’s house from the log cabin, but I’m not sure but he definitely had Frank presenting himself as a caveman The cage, okay. So the first grunt, the king opens the cage, which the first grunt didn’t
Know about, and the king says, the cage with the giant spider in it, of course. And then he tells him to push this button, and there’s an electrical crackle. And it gives the giant spider in it of course. And then he tells them to push this button. And there’s an electrical crackle.
And it gives the giant, this electrical crackle gives the giant spider a little electrical shock. It makes him mad. Remember, it’s usually best to starve the spider for a couple of weeks before using him on earth people. So the king of grunts wants the spider to eat Johnny, Billy, Cecil, and Larry.
But Celestia doesn’t want that to happen. So we’re moving along, coming close to the end of the script. Another case where Don, Captain Beefheart, he walks along. He looked back over his shoulder occasionally at Sue, his mother. He’s also scratching the nerve rash under his neck.
This one, and then Sue comes along and meets the spider who’s crawling on ready to eat whoever it encounters. So she managed to take a swatter and hits the spider in the eye, and it says, the eye, in reality a chicken egg injected with food coloring. The eye is crushed, releasing a quantity
Of multicolored goo. Now, the spider is identified with the eye. Center margin structures that came in with the printing press, what was it, in Bach’s image of the universe, of the solar system, you had the sun and then that’s the center, and then the planets going around it like they’re the margins.
So a center margin structure, a visual hierarchy comes in with the eye, and the spider, McLuhan has a picture of the spider in War and Peace and Gold Village, as a cartoon image of the Kaiser, either World
War I or World War II. This spider is reaching out over Europe. So the spider is a traditional image for visual space. Are you there? Are people seeing this? Yes. So Frank seems to be aware of that. The eye is where you nail the, if you kick out the
Eye, then the spider is diminished. So, Beefheart’s mother smashes the spider’s eye and all is fine. So, Larry and Caesar are not sort of noticed and they come along and they eventually beat up and kill the king of the grunts. So everybody is looking good.
The Celestia is happy because she, Billy’s paying attention to her. No, actually she dumped, when she thought Billy was dead, she jumped on Cecil. So she’s hanging out with Cecil and she’s saying, well maybe, she says, they’ve taken Billy away and killed him, my beloved one. He’s gone forever.
He was so kind, so tender, so mature. Cecil says, well maybe he’s not dead yet. Maybe he’s only hurt a little bit and bleeding. Celestia says, he must be. No man could, no man, he must be dead. No man could survive the terrible grunt tortures. He’s gone forever.
But she stops crying and abruptly lunges on Cecil. But I have you to love me for eternity, the two of us repopulating the moon. Come with me, you beautiful earthling. Let’s all return to the subterranean gardens and consummate our love feast so in the celebration of
That Billy and Johnny they can get back to the earth and Celestia still alive the grunt people are dead She inaugurates an orgy so it says, Beefheart, whenever he induces himself, I didn’t read this, I think I read it last week. I’m Captain Beefheart and this is my loyal assistant Sue.
I’m magic and I can make myself invisible and fly through time and space, another dimension. And that’s how I got here. So, yeah, Beefheart, he goes up to the moon and helps out. Well, that’s led to Sue being the person who knocks out the spider’s eye.
So basically you’ve got Billy, Cecil, and Larry land on the moon, meet Celestia, and then Johnny shows up. Then they have to deal with the Grunt people, have a battle with them, and they win, and then they go and have an orgy.
But, let’s see, Beefheart offers to take a couple people back with his interdimensional travel. Beefheart says, our work here is done now and we must be off to my secret mountain retreat to watch over good people everywhere and keep them safe from danger and harm and the forces of evil.
And so in parting may I say this, it’s been a real pleasure to save you two fellows and I know everything is going to work out fine for both of you. And so long for now fellows and God bless you.” And he dematerializes. One last little interruption. Yeah, somebody, is it the king?
The king of the grunts, somebody, but Billy and Johnny are still in trouble, but Johnny pulls out a concealed.45 and he refers to a little reference manual and he thumps through the book and reads aloud simultaneously shooting everything in the room Johnny says, it says here in the book, halt or I’ll fire
Who goes there? present arms! I now declare this bridge opened so he’s reading some the manual for public ceremony uh… to extort guide him in shooting at whatever is left over in the execution room uh… so billy and johnnie are uh… you know larry people gone off of the orgy but now
Little later billion johnnie get free so it says uh… where uh… johnnie close of the book blows the smoke away from his pistol, puts his arm around Billy and leads him off screen. We hold for a dissolve on a nearby grunt.
Johnny says, come on old timer, this sort of thing always tends to upset me. So as the credits are going up, you dissolve to the subterranean gardens that’s the place where Celestia has her orgy. So this full blood orgy is happening and it says the love feast is in full swing. We pan
The scene picking out interesting techniques here and there. We hold on Celestia kissing Cecil’s ear as a strange figure passes in front of the camera. We pull back slightly and bring it into focus. It’s Captain Beefheart.
We zoom in as he winks at Beefheart, beckoning to the audience, come on kids, what are you waiting for? So, there it is in 1964 in clean America, Zappa in his movie is inviting the young kids in school to join an orgy. Now that’s pretty radical. That’s pretty underground at that point, wouldn’t
You say? Are you guys muted? I have to wait a second. Or did you lose your bearings? Where are you guys? Oh, yeah. You’re blocked, right? Hello. Yeah. I dropped out a long time ago. Did you have anything to say? Yes, I’m here. Did you have anything to say?
Well, I don’t remember anymore, but it’s quite funny. Because today when we were making the video, we were making the video. We were making a video. We saw this Captain Beefheart thing. What was that? What did we see? Yes, there was a light in front of the screen.
Oh, yes, yes, yes, the apparition. Right, this apparition appeared right there on the screen. Captain Beefheart. Right, this apparition appeared right there on the screen. Captain Beefheart. Okay, now I’m looking at, did Bill, no, Bert should be here. I guess he just got knocked off and he’ll get back on.
Typing up a storm at the chat line. We might get to that. But now here’s my, I want Bert to hear this. What can I say? Where are you, Bert? I was also thinking about what he said. Music expresses the heart and the soul. I mean, now that we know what we know,
We know music cannot express the heart or the soul. I mean, now that we know what we know, we know music cannot express the heart or the soul. And I was thinking what does music really expresses? It’s the most harmonious version of social mortar. It connects people. Social mortar’s
Language is there to connect people, like non-physical. And the language is there to connect people like non-physical and the language is a little more complex than pure non-physical but music is the the best achievement of social mortar. It’s not doesn’t lead to salvation but
It is the perfection of human communication. Wouldn’t that be the role of it? I was thinking maybe it was like the first type of abstraction. Like we went to develop the phonetic alphabet with giving this phoneme’s symbol, a letter, and music.
And this was the first abstraction, but maybe music was the first type of abstract language. That’s something we could communicate with without mortar, without words. Yeah, without semantics. Semantic verbal interruption, verbal confusion. It’s pure language, pure social mortar. It’s social mortar and I am said that.
I am said that music is part of mortar. It’s not the communication that people, well that I am projects on transcension. You have it? It was never. that I am projects on transcension. I was thinking what type of creations we are going to have when the senses are no longer
Separated and we have the same aesthetic perception and we can see the sound and hear the light. Iain gave us that, right, Iain told us, he said, when you have an orgasm, your whole body will ripple. Your whole skin will ripple. That’s what people will be doing.
That would be their real rock and roll. Yes. Oh, and I wanted to say, the rock and roll. Right. And McLuhan said Joyce had stone and water in every line. Stone is rock, roll is water. So rock and roll is the basic dialectic between water and stone. It’s Finneganese in…
And you were saying at the beginning we are the stone, the rolling stone. Yeah, help… no, Zappasong, help I’m a rock. Where’s my role? But did I say we’re a stone? Did I say that? Something like that. Yeah, we are now the magnesium or stone or something like that.
Oh yeah, yeah, once we, I said we are mineral. You know, we’re not even human. There’s no chemical body. Everything’s been wiped out. Yes, we are just a slab of dirt. Or the rolling stones. The rolling stones, that’s right. So, Bert, any comment before I give the big summation?
Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Yes. Oh, I thought I was muted. I thought I was muted. No. No, I unmuted you as soon as you showed up. Oh, I didn’t hear. The music, iON said music is part of mortar, but also McCoon said that music is speech slowed down.
So is that what iON’s referring to, that music’s part of mortar? But we’re moving to, with payday, more of a complex or a collage of speech, music, actually including everything. Yes, synesthesia. That’s why people start having anomalies. There’s actually a synesthesia effect of iON. And they start mixing up.
Their brains and senses get addled, like on LSD. And they start having interesting experiences. So what iON, the big picture of what iON is doing is they’re changing our corpus callosum perhaps? They’re changing the whole physical body, the cellular structure so that you are not
Going to be made up of what medical anatomy says you’re made up of. You’re not going to be following those biological rules. And the more adept you are, you’ll be able to adopt any form. Yeah. That’s what’s fun about this, just before you go to recap, Zappa,
Is because from what I’m gathering, it’s like a large collage of all the experiences that most people have had involving music. And then if you include McLuhan with the print and the alphabet, Zappa covers it all. That’s why I agree with you and Rock Band Bandit that he’s the last great composer because
He included everything. A lot of people, just like most of the Zappa fans, would just look at Zappa as a musician. But what you’re presenting and laying out here, the dude was really a lot larger than just a musician. I mean, he’s a, like you said, a compo… What do you call it?
You had a word for it. Satellite conductor. Satellite conductor. Satellite conductor. Yes. Yeah. Two points. Remember when Michael Blake Reed, you know, channeling the Evergreens, when I talked to Frank through him and the Evergreens, when he came out of it, he says, holy shit, I was inside Frank’s brain. It was huge.
He had many projects going. I’ve never been in anybody else’s brain. This is what Michael is hallucinating in his dream state when he’s out, you know, unconscious, but he’s dreaming. And he dreamed of being inside Frank’s brain. I could probably read the transcript. You know, we have it here somewhere.
But that’s interesting, right? Yeah. Right. And… Because we know dreams are part of travel. I mean… Beg your pardon? Dreams are not dreams. It’s re-entropogy. That’s right. Yeah, he actually went somewhere. And maybe Zappa was this 500-year-old guy, brain was expanding.
He used to talk about Uncle Meat would expand the brain cells of Room of the Jets and it would show by their noses getting bigger. I think that’s what it was. He talks about extra cells. Holy shit, that’s the 144,000 double helix strands in the nose.
I’ll have to get the notes to that and read it precisely. But so… What? No, Michael Blake reading, he said he was in… he felt he was in Zappa’s brain. Inside Zappa’s brain. He said, I never was in anybody else’s brain. You know, people talk to people and Michael’s dreaming about the person.
He never dreamt of the person and experienced the inside of the brain. He never dreamt of the person and experienced the inside of the brain. He said there was all kinds of projects. And I think he says, why didn’t
You, he asked, yeah, in the dream he asked Frank, why didn’t you do all these other projects? And Frank says, well, it’s because of the name. I had a lot of bad association with
My name. People didn’t want to work with me or something. Then Michael said to him, ìWhy donÃt you change your name?î Frank said, ìYeah, I ainÃt proud of that.î Then it petered out. There was a conversation. Michael
Was just curious. YouÃve got all these other things you can do. The other thing is youÃve got Frank. HeÃs not only the last musician, he’s making the last grand humanist gesture. He’s running for president. That’s the final art form. Which happens in the movie, The World’s Greatest Sinner.
He’s acting out what Tim Curry presented in The World’s Greatest Sinner. You know, this insurance salesman gets bored. Elvis is happening in the late 50s, so he says, I’m going to do that. So he makes up a rock band and acts totally crazy on the stage, way crazier than Elvis,
Epileptic fits and everything, and he becomes very popular. And then he forms a religion, and then he seduces 14-year-olds and old women and gets the old women to give me their wills and testament and uh… they built up that empire and i doctor pika if he becomes president but eventually
He uh… decides to uh… go after god he challenges god and that i talked about that that ends up in a disaster i think uh… but he was the world’s greatest sinner. And he goes from, you know, working stiff to an entertainer to a politician. And Frank was doing the same thing.
And you know, Dr. Zircon, we’re going to find out, is a term for the devil. So here’s Frank calling himself Dr. Zircon. And remember, his brother, Frank, when he was like late teens, early twenties, he told his brother that he’d made a pact with the devil. So, that’s acted out in the
Song Titties and Beer, with Terry Bozio on drums. Okay, now here’s what Frank’s doing. He recognizes that the satellite environment will turn the planet into a concentration camp. That’s like the worst projections of what’s going to happen to the global village.
Now he’s coming up with this on his own, maybe because being an intelligent artist or genius, he’s picking up the implications of the new environment just like McLuhan did. So if you have a a pretty open perceptive mind, you’ll come up with the same ideas as you observe the planet in the sixties.
But, here’s the interesting thing, is that Frank, he’s not worried about a world government in the uh… in the concentration camp. He’s saying it will be run from the moon. Which is what Beter said 13 years later. So you have this battle for the moon. That’s the leverage point.
You know, Archimedes says, give me a place to stand and I can move the world. So Frank says, okay, you have this space race, you have these crummy politicians, these jerks, and they’re fighting secretly to buy the moon, to own the moon, to control the planet from the moon.
So that’s why he calls his daughter moon unit, right? It’s a political statement. And he writes a song called Concentration Moon. And in Time Magazine he talks about the Uncle Meat movie being about the hippies gathered up and put in a concentration camp, in that case, in the Grand Canyon.
And they’re saved by monster movies, or by monsters from the monster movies. And you have here, in this first screenplay, it’s a battle for the moon and they find this monster, the cosmic queen Celesion there, and she wants to take over the planet.
So you have this simple image of a woman who’s a greed queen and wants to be the owner of the earth as a concentration camp from the moon. Well maybe the control is not from the moon but from other types of satellites.
Yes, it could be but they seem to, and Frank will repeat this in Huntsman 2, in 1972, in 1969 he now has the money to make the movie and he gets Grace Slick to be in it and Jim
Morrison, they don’t make the movie, but he takes the script from 1964 and he changes a bit because now it’s not Cape Smedley, there’s an actual landing on the moon happening in the summer of 69 and this transcript is signed September 13th, 1969.
So it’s two months after, yeah, a month and a half or a month and three quarters after the actual landing on McLuhan’s birthday, July 20th, 21st, 1969. So he’s dealing with the facts of an actual moon landing, wherein
64 is projecting it and the Senator’s in charge of it. But all this story about Senator Gurney and Johnny the corn-fed astronaut is excluded from the 1969 version screenplay because Frank version screenplay because Frank just has footage of the Apollo landing. He just uses footage of what’s available by 1969.
So it’s just a general government mission to get on the moon and Billy is, like in the previous script, he’s planning and does the same thing as happened in the first script of taking over the planet. But there’s another dimension added, and this is what’s extraordinary.
Let me see, are you still there Bert? Yes. Yeah, okay so, so McLuhan is saying the global village is going to turn into a global theater. We’re going to see Frank update the concentration camp theme with the global theater later but in 69 he’s talking about concentration moon a monster which could
Save us could turn against us and then there’s this other weird monster the spider and that can be a problem too. Remember, there is a spider in the Hunchin Toot, we talked about a little while ago. So he’s obsessed with the effects of the satellite environment.
That’s why I call him a satellite conductor. And I called him that, you know, 20 years ago in Up the Earth with Andy, but I hadn’t read these scripts to make it a good reason. So that’s an example of me intuiting the right imagery. You know what I mean? The right statement.
I prophetically came up with it, and now I know why I should have come up with it. So it ends with an orgy. And there’s Frank, you know, educating the high school and telling the kids to start having orgies.
Now that’s before the sexual revolution of the mid-60s, just before it. But by the late 60s, the sexual, so-called journalistically sexual revolution has happened, so it’s not an issue for Frank to make part of his programming in classroom, right? It’s obsolete obsolete it happened anyway yes but like the right wingers say…
Baudrillard asked what are you doing after the orgy? It’s not the meat sack orgy but the orgy with your all six bodies that’s right that’s what they don’t know Baudrillard didn’t know that but the the other point about that is what uh…
Oh yeah the right wing when it gets on crossfire in the eighties people like pat who’s the guy who ran for began at that began of those guys uh… he the spokesman for the right wing he he says well frank you the revolution the sexual revolution you started the
Day they think frank started in a way he did. He was the first guy in pop culture to be out there blatantly advertising the groupies and celebrating groupies in rock and all that and other sexual aspects. He was seen as a
Sexual anarchist. He celebrated, even though he’s married, he celebrated having groupies. Let’s see. He had this open polygamy or honest polygamy concept. That’s right. He had a couple of his girlfriends live with him while he was married to Gail. He was in this environment and that was the thing.
He was honest about it. What did you say? He was in this environment of the rock you mean? Yes of the groupies and yeah he was honest about it that’s right. Even in an interview he says his wife had to get drugs to heal some types of sexual infections.
Well, she, yeah, that’s what she says when she first met him. He was filled with crabs. He said that Frank, she said that, you know, before she met him, he had all these groupies around him and a prostitute too.
And she said that Frank and his girlfriend spread the crap, or crabs, all over Hollywood. That’s what they were doing. So many people in Frank’s orgy scene were infected. The love of Celestia, constantly trying to get an orgy going. So
What I think it was another thing, so he, the moon, the concentration camp, you see when he quits the mothers and he gets attention in October 69,eties in Time Magazine he says the concentration camp is run by a Colonel Sanders doll
You know the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy, a little doll in the glove compartment of a Volkswagen that’s a little more surrealistic than than some politician like Sender Gurney running the camp or a queen of green skin running the camp
So running the camp or a queen of green skin running the camp. So he’s using his movies to lay out other scenarios. Is there anything… And it’s interesting how he has Beefheart being this guy who’s monitoring everything, is interdimensional, and he’s inviting the kids to come to the party. He materializes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. These are, I mean you could say this is some kind of science fiction, but, and done in other things, but there’s something different about this, because frankly, what he is, I call it iON. We could write something about you, the same, like here’s this art…
Yes, I’m an artist, I’m a… I’m an artist, I’m a… …to environment… I’ve got cramps, I’ve got fucking… …diarrhea, I’m a fucking walking pollution… …nonphysical being… …and she came to… I got my spider, he’s fucking high on. That’s my monster.
They call fusion to conquer planets and everything. and he’s an asshole! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha East Village where Boward used to be a bartender and knew Yoko Ono.
He must have had a plan written by angels in tiny charts. Yes, yes, the discarnate angels, Frank and Beefard are acting out the angelic plan. Now I want to go to the second one, five years later, and this is incredible. I don’t have to review. It’s the same scenario.
And there are a couple of footnotes we can do until I get you to the incredible punchline. Let’s see. Get to the bat. I know I ticked off a few things at the end. Did he upgrade the plot like he did with the 64 and 69 version?
With the one you get ready to read? I’m looking at the 69 version and it’s upgraded. I read it all through and I didn’t have to change anything. I couldn’t even annotate new things because it was the same script until you get to the end. So it’s exactly the same thing.
And you no longer have Johnny the corn-fed astronaut working for the government, Senator Gurney. That’s gone. And so Billy is competing against Cape Canaveral. He’s calling it no longer Cape Smedley, it’s Cape Canaveral now. You know, it’s the actual… what NASA was doing from the actual place. But I was thinking…
Science fiction is nothing compared to the real art, science, non-fiction of what things are, according to Ryan. It’s like we are fallen gods going back to a place of power and all this. I mean, it’s beyond any science fiction when we think about it.
That’s right, and Eve McLuhan said that Finney’s Wake was science fiction, and most science fiction was puny, but the science fictionists didn’t know that Finney’s Wake and Wyndham Lewis were science fiction was puny but the science fictionists didn’t know that Finney’s Way could win them Lewis for a science fiction.
So it’s Cape Kennedy now, the Cape Kennedy Apollo launch. Is that what Cape Canaveral was? I know that was a term. Cape Kennedy is what they called it later? No, I think he just claimed with the words. Yeah, maybe. No, no, I think it was cape canaveral
And then can be assassinated changes let me just check that uh… yet because when the truth came out McLuhan on tv recall that the cape canaveral caper so McLuhan even saying there’s something fishy going on a cape canaveral because of the caper these guys getting these budgets to do 19th century research
By physically going to the moon. Okay, Cape Canaveral, it says Cape Canaveral, you guys don’t know the term Cape Canaveral? Yes, I know that. That’s the only one I know. I think that’s the Kennedy Space Center though. Yeah, it says, Cape Canaveral is a cape in Brevard County, Florida,
Near the center of the state’s Atlantic coast, known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 73. It lies east of Merritt Island, separated from it by the Banana River.
It is part of a region known as the Space Coast and is the site of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Since many U.S. spacecraft are launched from both the station and the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island,
The terms Cape Canaveral, Canaveral, or the Cape have become metonyms that refer to both as the launch site of spacecraft. In homage to its spacefaring heritage, the Florida Public Service Commission allocated area code 321 to the Cape Canaveral area. 321, right? 321 countdown to the Cape Canaveral area.
Other features of the Cape include the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse and Port Canaveral, one of the busiest cruise ports in the world. The city of Cape Canaveral lies just south of the Port Canaveral District. Mosquito Lagoon, the Indian River, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, and Canaveral National Seashore are also features of this area.
So it stopped being Cape Kennedy after 1973. So don’t know what happened after that. Okay, so it’s now Cape Kennedy, Apollo, moon launch. Okay, so let’s move along here. Exact same scenario, Beefheart’s traveling around interdimensionally, he takes his mother to the moon,
And they’ve got to contend with the captivity by the grunts of Billy and Cecil and Larry. And then there’s the spiders there. And the same line, the eye, Sue swats the target. The eye, in reality a chicken egg, injected with food coloring, is crushed, releasing a quantity of multicolored goo.
So the first tick off is page 84 of a script that’s only 92 pages. Let me just check page 55. I thought there was something on page 55. No, not on page 55. So, at the end, and it’s going to be an exciting ending, guys. Happy ending. Okay, Celestia. A zappy ending. What?
A zappy ending. You predict a zappy ending? Or a sappy? Zappy like zappa. Okay, so five years later, there’s a new element. Celestia has a secret trapdoor, and it’s a purple secret trapdoor. Now, Zappa has a lot of his environment at his home in purple.
The purple secret trapdoor with the diamond studded handle, and when the Apollo moon landing guys land on the moon, it describes them wandering around the moon and they don’t notice the cave and the secret trap door where this whole drama with Billy, Cecil and Larry with the girls.
But Cecil decides not to join the orgy. In this one he, what does he say there? Yeah, so, Felicia falls in love with Celestia because she thinks Billy’s dead. We did that. And she wants to repopulate the moon. And Celestia says, come with me, you beautiful earthling.
Come, let’s all return to the subterranean gardens and consummate our love feast. But now here’s where it’s different. Cecil says quietly, you guys just go on without me for now. I don’t feel right, and maybe if I feel better in a little while I’ll make it over to the party.
I’m really concerned about Uncle Billy, though he hasn’t found Billy yet. So Celestia fondles Cecil. Celestia, in brackets, obviously horny and she says, but Earthling, our love feast, don’t you want to go to a real lunar love feast? Meanwhile, the other girls, friends, employees of Celestia,
Are kissing and mauling Larry, who really likes it a lot. The other girls kiss and maul Larry, who really likes it a lot. It’s juvenile simplicity sometimes in what he writes, jokingly, satirically. jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes,
Jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes,
Jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes, not too convincingly goes, you know I want you green girl, why don’t you give me a little map to the party or something. He says that not too convincingly, according to the script. So then Billy is in trouble.
He thinks he’s going to be killed, but let’s see, Beefheart and Sue come in. Beefheart says, I know I hear someone yelling. Let’s see, Beefheart and Sue come in. Beefheart says, I know I hear someone yelling. Sue says, that asthmatic wheeze, I know that. I hear it too. It must be a janitor.
So this says, all the girls are waving goodbye to Cecil, still mauling Larry who is trying to wave but is somewhat helpless in the clutches of the horny maidens. Cecil waves as they vanish in the distance. As soon, before I do that, he says, remember, Celestia tells Cecil, the purple secret trapdoor with
The diamond studded handle. Then just keep going until you hit the crystal pool with the fragrantly scented oxygen producing giant subterranean ferns. OK, just going back to where the astronauts, it describes the astronauts missing the trap door. Is that very far back? Let’s see. Still looking for it.
Yeah, I don’t know if I’m going to find it. The point is that the purple door is indicated earlier in the script because Celestia is watching the regular Apollo moon landing from the secret door cave. So I can’t find it but it’s earlier. So now we come to the dramatic ending.
So Celestia tells Cecil how to find the party and then it says Cecil waves as they vanish in the distance. As soon as Cecil is sure they are gone, he rips off the rubber mask he’s been wearing all through the movie.
The fiend beneath the mask is an unpleasant little man about 43 years old with a dingy blonde crew cut. He looks like an FBI agent. He tosses the mask aside and starts toward the unconscious king of the grunts. So Cezos has been this dumb pony kid, right?
All through the movie, this dumb assistant to Billy. All of a sudden he’s a fucking FBI agent! Okay, so that’s page 84. And this shocking turn of events. And we got 92 pages, so for the next 8 pages, here’s what happens. He’s now called cecil slash agent
People slash agent grabs the grunt king by his hair and kick them viciously in the groin the cecil agent you know the the fbi agent guy goes where’s the old man the grunting bleeding from the vote the people agents pissed off any employees to Marine Corps interrogation
Tactics. He says to the Grunt King, you want me to deal you a fatal stroke to the nose? Karate? Huh? You want me to hit your nose bone and make it go up into your brain and
Make you die? The Grunt King, semi-conscious, goes, uh. Now, back in the execution chamber where Billy is trapped, he hears the mumblings and footsteps of Beefheart and Sue as they find their way into the chamber. His eyes are closed in fear. He does not know who or what is approaching.
In the previous script, five years before, he’s tied up with Johnny. But there’s no Johnny in the 1969 script, so it’s just Billy by himself captured, ready to be killed in the torture thing. But things have happened that interrupted that happening. But now, finally, somebody’s entering the chamber again. He’s really paranoid.
So Billy, devoid of all hope, goes, Oh no, this is it. Oh Heavenly Creator, deliver me in my hour of torment, in my final… But then Sue yells, We’re here to save you! Beefheart and Sue dash up to Billy. And Beefheart smugly says, that’s right, Billy. I’m Captain Beefheart.
And this is my loyal assistant, Sue. I’m magic. And I can make myself invisible and fly through time and space and other dimensions. And that’s how I got here. I can take, it’s actually saying more than that. Time and space and other dimensions. I don’t know if that was, other dimensions part
Of the previous one. I can take other people along with me if I want to. And that’s how she got here. I bet you’re awfully glad. Now in the early months with iON, we’ve heard that little plan that iON laid on me. That we’re going to go off in the Grand Malais
And jump off the fucking hotel and go to other worlds. And not like the Mayans get stuck in other worlds. We’re not not return we’re going to return! That was my first assignment. I didn’t tell anybody that for years. I kept that one secret. Are we going to a cave?
No, I don’t know where we’re going. We’re going into other worlds, led by me. Because of… …Sepalwis has this cave. Right, that’s the hollow entrance to the other worlds. He does say back in 64, I’m magic and I can make myself invisible. I’m magic and I can make myself invisible.
And fly through time and space and other dimensions. Okay, so he says that back in 64. So no new addition there. Okay, so they save Billy. Now, the Cecil slash agent, he’s looking for Billy. And he’s throttling the old King of the Grunts. The king is looking very wasted and beaten up.
Cecil slash agent, unbelievably vicious. Where is he, you communist son of a bitch? The grunt king gesturing toward the door. He’s in the execution chamber over there, gasped. And the grunt king dies. So now, Beefheart says, gesturing proudly,
Our work is done here now, and we must be off to my secret mountain retreat to watch over good people everywhere and keep them safe from danger and harm and the forces of evil. And so in parting, may I say this, it sure as heck has been real beautiful and quite
An experience making it up to here, to the moon, to save you, Billy. And I think everything’s going to work out just fine for you in the future and I wish you all the best of luck. So long for now, old-timer, and God bless you.” So Beefheart and Sue dematerialize.
Now, that’s what happened in the previous script, but then Beefheart secretly goes to the orgy rather than back home, right? So, let’s see, is that what he says exactly? What he says at the end when they save Billy? Yeah, work is done here.
And so in part, I say, it’s been a real pleasure to save you two fellows, but it’s no longer two fellows. So he says, and so it sure as heck, he doesn’t say heck in the first year, first one. It sure as heck has been real beautiful, he doesn’t say that,
And quite an experience making it up here to the moon to save you Billy In 64 he says it’s been a real pleasure to save you two fellows, and I know everything So he adds this bit about it’s been real beautiful and quite an experience
That’s sort of like hippie talk which is now in the media five years later you know saying things are beautiful and Everything’s gonna work out just fine for you and you know, saying things are beautiful. And everything’s gonna work out just fine for you. And,
And so long for now, fellows. But in 69 he says, so long for now, old timer. And God bless you, he says, God bless you in 64 also. Okay, so we know Beefeef heart uh… ends up at the orgy and that’s sort of a happy ending
And they just didn’t know, hoping the high school kids come to the orgy but now here is Cecil has been fooling us all along and now Beefheart is heading off to the secret retreat and I’m saying hmm he’ll just end up at the orgy. And then it says, a medium shot,
Billy showing door in background. Billy is completely confused. Beefheart and Sue said they came to save him, but now he’s still shackled to the torture rack. They didn’t get him off the torture rack. He hears the door from the Grunt King’s throne room
Creak open and strains to look over his shoulder to see who it is. He sort of thinks it’s Captain Beefheart coming back, but it turns out to be Cecil slash Agent. So he enters the room and says, Is that you, Sweeney? Billy, startled, Yes, of course. I’m Billy Sweeney, King of the
Moon. Is there anything I can do for you? The Cecil agent… Are you guys still there for this climax? Yeah. Yeah. For the climax. Yeah. Cecil agent approaches quietly. An area of mysterious doom pervades. We hear Cecil’s footsteps and Billy’s labored breathing. Cecil confronts Billy. Billy goes, who are you?
And Cecil says, matter of-factly it’s all over sweetie we’ve been checking you over quite some time now never this is the uh… the government who did the official uh… space landing in the pissed off that billy got there first billy who’s confused is what i don’t get it who are you
Now cecil agent is staring psychotically into the camera. Cecil Agent, in brackets, cold and sinister, says, the United States government does not like dreamers. They are dangerous. They cause confusion. Now, in 69, Zap is interviewed in Circus Magazine, and
I think it’s in there, it’s like the first time you see it. He says, we make an environment special for dreamers and is not hostile to dreamers. So we make, Zappa’s saying, we make, there’s the programming, we make an environment. Can
You see, you know, Oprah saying, I’m here to help change the world, make it a better place. No, does Oprah go, we’re here making an environment to program you into a better situation. Well, that’s what Frank says. We are making an environment for all those dreamers
That the rest of the world is hostile towards. So right that summer he’s saying it in 1969, and then he’s going to write this in the script. The United States government does not like dreamers. They are dangerous. They cause confusion, ferment, and sometimes even happiness. You dare to dream the great American…
You dare to dream the great American dream. The one where you start on the bottom and work your way to the… What? Dream. Yeah, dream. Now remember, in 64, Billy is a janitor, but he plans to work his way up to the top of the factory he’s working for,
But then the government takes away the contract, and Billy’s pissed, but it’s not going to stop him going to the top. He just changes his vehicle, and he makes a moon shot so he can get to the top via the moon
Which is a modern update, Frank, seeing as the effects of the satellite environment. You don’t want to take over the world, you want to take over the moon. Now what do you say in the great American Dean? What did you say? He is like your last name, Dr. Dean.
Oh, Dean, not my last name, Carol’s last name, or her D? Not my last name, Carolyn’s last name, her fake last name, remember her real last name is not D, that’s named after Garrett. You dared to dream the great American dream, the one where you start on the bottom and
Work your way to the top. You wanted to match wits with the system, the system in capital letters. You challenged its supreme authority, in capital letters, its supreme authority. Defied its universal mediocrity. Billy Sweeney defied, in big letters, its universal mediocrity.
All because you were a dreamer, a dreamer in capital letters. The great American dream is phased out and permanently cancelled. On behalf of the government of the United States of America, the business community, all organized religion, mass media, and the armed forces, I perform this execution. Billy is, it says, Billy is terrified.
Close up of Billy. He’s terrified. The Cecil agent shoots Billy five times in the chest and stomach with an Army 45 while Billy stares in disbelief directly into the camera spoke smoke from the shots enter frame billy bleeds from mouth and nose as his head falls to one side billy dies
Hardly a happy ending roxy billy is fucking dead that didn’t happen in nineteen sixty four now here’s here’s the connecting link you go to the Uncle Meat booklet put out the same time as the script being written and there’s a picture of an artichoke but it has Frank Zappa’s
Face on it and it says, I’ve just been killed by the government because I knew too much. Frank or a Frank simulation or a reference to frank is uh… being uh… has been killed that’s the level of frank that’s billy sweeney
Is that the world is becoming quite paranoid i guess for frank by sixty nine he’s nervous he thinks he’s going to be uh… killed so he has himself act out in that movie uh… he didn’t have that in sixty. It wasn’t that doom filled. Like he says in the page before,
Cecil agent approaches quietly, an air of mysterious doom pervades. We hear Cecil’s footsteps and Billy’s labor breathing. Cecil confronts Billy. So now, very sad, I bawled for two hours when I read this. Billy was killed. I couldn’t take it. I almost committed suicide. This is a horrible ending.
I didn’t see it coming. I had fantasies of more orgies. But, it says, Cecil agent, I forgot to finish a sentence, he says, the CECL agent, I forgot to finish the sentence, he says, on behalf of the government, look who he lists, the government of the United States of America, the business community,
All organized religion, mass media, and the armed forces, that’s five quadrants, five sections. I perform this execution, dot, dot, dot, to keep the free world safe from scum like you and even the moon. So they’re going to keep the moon free. I think that’s the way.
To keep the free world safe from scum like you and even the moon. I guess even keep the moon safe. So Billy the scum fucker dies. So then you have a medium shot of Cecil agent with Billy slumped in the background. Then the Cecil agent says, this is a recording.
And you freeze frame and… So Cecil is a fucking recording. Freeze frame and dissolve to uh… beef heart in the watch all room even started the orgy gone back to secret mountain reclusive place center and he has uh… says we see an extreme close-up of the dossier marks we need shown earlier in
The film we pulled member he showed that to somebody. We pull back to a medium close-up of Beefheart as he holds the dossier, studies its cover briefly, finally reinserting it into the slot in the watch-all machine. So this Beefheart doesn’t care about Sweeney or he doesn’t know,
But he’s watching everything, I think he should know. He pushes a button. The machine swallows the dossier and the view screen lights up. On the screen, we see the frozen Cecil slash agent posed in front of the lifeless Sweeney. Beefheart looks at his wristwatch, takes a drink of Pepsi, and pushes another button
Mark out of the truck so Beefheart doesn’t even care that Sweeney’s dead uh… the sound effect in the environment around Beefheart I mean he’s supposed to be in a secret well maybe he’s not in a secret retreat he’s at his home because his parents
It says roly derby roller derby on TV in the living room, Sue and Glenn cheering and raving their favorites. Glenn farts, Sue tells him to stop it, Glenn says he can’t help it when he gets excited and he farts again. So that’s what’s happening around Beefheart. What does he call it?
Secret Mountain Retreat is what he call it? He, uh… Secret Mountain Retreat, that’s what he calls it. Okay, so maybe because Beefheart has many worlds, he can have the retreat right in his bedroom, right? He’s in a different world the parents aren’t aware of.
So then it has a medium shot, frozen on Cecil Agent, with Billy slumped in the background. Cecil slash Agent’s face, his face melts exposing wires, worms, little clocks and motors. It’s kind of like the cover of Burt Winnie’s Sandwich which comes out in 1970.
This is a surrealistic collage. So his face exposes as it melts, exposes wires, worms, little clocks and motors. His clothes fall away. his arms come off, and oil leaks out of the stumps. The remainder of his fuselage bursts into flames.”
So what do you think of that? What an ending for the government agent. Even the pictures get nailed. It’s like a Bob entry, a diary entry. It’s like Bob is in this secret island, naked, controlling people from his Skype. That’s right. That’s right. Controlling people through my Skype. So it says…
And then doing this obscure radio program. I won the secret council 10 in 1988 by having an obscure election in my obscure radio show on CKLN. Yeah. Polio patterns. You already solved the guff. Yes, I control the new guff. No new guff will be rebuilt without my say so.
I’m like Billy Sweeney. He went for the moon. I fucking own the guff. I went for the real stuff. I bought and took majority shareholder of the guff. So it says, Beefheart’s in his watch all, that’s watch hyphen A-L-L, in his watch all room, he’s surveilling everything.
It says, Beefheart turns away from the watch all view screen, which shows a burning Cecil agent visibly dying. Beefheart goes to his closet, well not dying, he’s a machine. He goes to his closet and after fumbling through some clothes, whips out a costume that looks just like the original Cecil garb
That Cecil Agent, the machine, was wearing. Now Beefheart strips to his underpants. That is when we notice a peculiar line around the base of his neck. Beefheart’s neck. This is the line. He dresses himself in the new costume and rips off the rubber mask he’s been wearing all through the film.
Revealing the fact that Captain Biefert was the real Cecil all along. Oh, my God. What an ending everything drastic is happening in the last scene uh… so turns out Beefheart was wearing that Cecil was wearing a captain Beefheart costume uh… in the sound environment more farts
And roller derby and excited participation in the living room so glenn and Sue don’t even notice that they don’t even have a kid. The kid is a fake kid and it’s really Cecil. So, Cecil is now called Beefheart slash Cecil. The other one was Cecil slash Agent.
So, Beefheart slash Cecil tidies up a bit, scratches his head vigorously in in brackets, to get the circulation going from wearing the mask. Holds his shoulders back, takes a deep breath, and dematerializes, leaving us with a view of the smoldering Cecil slash agent on the viewscreen.
And we dissolve to the lunar surface, and let’s see, this script has nothing, we’re on page 90, only got three pages left. Dissolved to the lunar surface, night, and there’s stock footage. Oh yeah, here’s where I was looking for the astronauts.
The Apollo astronauts cavort gaily with their scientific gear and bound past the stiff plastic American flag. So you have this stock footage of the guys uh… on the on the moon uh… that’s a special effect uh… the jostling real life camera on the moon will pan to a nearby crater
This is real life in quotes the jostling real life camera on the moon will pan to a nearby crater freeze frame on crater i guess is the camera that the astronauts took oxbury inn is that a film term to oxbury in oxbury in secret purple trapdoor with diamond studded handle
Which is just closing the american moon men do not see this their quote real life technical monologue continues over this effect so he’s implying this is a fake moon landing. The jostling real-life camera on the moon will pan to a nearby crater, and then you see somebody going into the secret door.
And then it says the American moon men do not see this. Their real-life, in quotes, technical monologue continues over this effect. I guess they’re talking the way people saw it in the greatest educational classroom setting ever, McLuhan said. The big hidden ground of the moonshot, the moon
Landing was the fact the whole world watched it in a televised classroom. The greatest educational program ever, said McLuhan. Their real life technical monologue continues. So I guess that’s just him talking technically that they faked in Nevada right according to the Evergreens so there’s this black
Cave now it shows Beefheart Cecil closing secret trap door Beefheart slash Cecil materializes with his hand on the latch of the secret trap door he closes
It dusts himself off and walks through the tunnel in the direction of a warm glowing light and voices with hot joy in them. So he walks toward the orgy. Walks through the tunnel in the direction of a warm glowing light and voices, I like
This, with hot joy in them. Ever seen voices described that way? Hot joy in them? Hot joy in them. Sound, hatch, clank, I guess the door, clank, and distant orgy. That’s the sound background. Then on page 91 it says, wide shot of orgy with beef heart Cecil entering.
All the green girls and Larry are nude, carousing shamelessly about the subterranean garden. Staging should be sexy, butousing shamelessly about the subterranean garden. Staging should be sexy but… so here’s the instructions. Staging should be sexy but reasonably wholesome, verging on naive. Beefheart Cecil enters, already stripping his clothes off.
Remember in the previous one he just winked, and we didn’t know if he took his clothes off. But here he is. Celestia, who in love with Cecil sees him and goes hotly Earthling, oh Earthling you’ve come to me at last. Larry says hiya Cecil. Beefheart says
Uh Beefheart Cecil says hiya Larry let’s jump him. And uh Beefheart Cecil has all his clothes off now. He and Larry ravage the flock of lovelies with depraved teenage abandon. So they gang bang all the girls, the green girls. Beefheart, Cecil, applaud. That means he’s ignoring, no, no, he’s including Celestia.
Beefheart, now this would be, the actual Don Vleet might be playing this guy. Who do we have? In the script, Celestia is Grace Slick. Did I tell you this? So Grace Slick of the Jetson Airplane is Celestia. The king of the grunts is Don Preston, one of the longtime
Members of the Mother’s Invention. Gorgonzola and some of the grunts, they’re called, they got names, Gorgonzola, Strenzel, they’re members of Beefheart’s band, Rocket Morton and Zoot Horn Rollo and Victor Hayden. And there’s something called the Orcs, played by Jeff Rochelle.
I looked that up. That’s some kind of fantasy, science fiction literature out of Doctor Who or something. You ever heard of the Orcs? They’re part of some children’s show or something or science fiction bullshit, I don’t know. Anyways, Orcs is played by one guy. Billy Sweeney is played by Bob Guy.
I remember that guy, he was at the, oh that’s me, Bob Guy, holy fuck, I didn’t realize that. Bob Guy. Bob Guy, they didn’t realize that Bob guy, I never know Bob’s last name they just call him guy, he’s a Bob guy, Bob, Dobs, Marshall I never knew what the fuck he is
Bob guy, Billy Sweeney now there is an actual Bob guy who made some recordings I think at the uh… kookaburra studio not sure but i think that’s a in bed for me guess who plays um… uh… beefarts father howlin wolf for fuck’s sake
Who Beefheart always sounded like howlin wolf so i guess he was howlin wolf’s son that’s a nice joke by zappa the father is played by howlin wolf and cat beef Beefheart is played by Don and Sue is played by Sue. So, so Beefheart, now, Beefheart was Cecil.
And Cecil is Jeffrey Cotton, another member of the, of the Beefheart band. So it’s, we don’t know which guy is uh… the third people it looked like the third so don played that part but in the end is now uh… jeffrey cotton and bob guy got killed that’s not good okay so uh…
So now here’s the part and larry ravaging the flock of lovelies with depraved teenage abandon. Beefheart Cecil applies most of his energy to Celestia. They make out and everything. The sound is hot pants rock and roll music.
Hot pants is, I thought, like 71, 72, but maybe in LA they’ve already got hot pants. Hot pants rock and roll music. The orgy sequence builds in intensity. Quick flashes of the dreary work on the lunar surface. So it flashes back to the Apollo astronauts.
And they’re doing dreary work, oblivious to the orgy. There’s a plastic flag. Nixon’s phone message to the moon. That’s pretty boring. And interior shots from Beefheart’s living room, complete with farts and roller derby, are all intercut with the stylized freak scene in the subterranean garden.
So this mixture of the mainstream bullshit Nevada fake moon landing with boring phone calls from Nixon, interspersed with the orgy in the subterranean garden. And the credits start to play over this crazed montage. As the last credit slide fades away, we see Beefheart Cecil locked in a passionate embrace with Celestia.
We can’t see their buns, but we know what they’re up to. So we can’t see their bum brewing. But we know what they’re up to. Larry is passionately kissing and fondling the tits of a lovely green maiden. We zoom into an astonishing extra close-up of Larry’s thumb as it depresses the maiden’s
Left nipple. So we have, we show, we see Larry’s thumb working the maiden’s left nipple. Freeze frame. Oxberry-in fluorescent tattoo forming a neon crescent above areola. So on the nipple, a neon crescent is forming. Oxberry inflorescent tattoo. A tattoo forming a neon crescent above areola. And it says auto-destruct.
We saw that happen to, DFART blew up the Cecil, Cecil agent. Meanwhile Celestia, she’s passionately saying, Earthling, oh my beloved dearest Earthling, hold me, kiss me, thrill me. And then there’s a sound, it’s an obnoxious buzzer. Unfreeze frame passed the auto-destruct sign on the nipple, and Larry continues to fondle.
Celestia is continuing to be worked over by Beefheart, or Beefheart Cecil, and she goes, “‘My dearest darling, my earthling, “‘all these years of hot longing and waiting for,’ then there’s a closeup of Celestia and Beefheart Cecil. Her eyes are closed as she kisses Beefheart Cecil’s cheek, which is melting away, exposing wires
And worms, etc. Holy shit! Cecil’s a fucking organic robotoid. She continues to kiss this mess obliviously as the film does its final fade out. She doesn’t even care that she’s kissing a melting robot. Celestia is saying, she was saying, all these years of hot longing and waiting for an earthling such as you.
Together we’ll start anew. A beautiful life for both of us among the stars and the heavens. Love and peace and kindness and hot thrills nightly. And then it fades out with Celestia all happy that she’s going to repopulate the moon and Beefheart’s melting away as a robot. The end.
Now how’s that for a shocking ending? You know what it means? I didn’t say happy ending, what did you say? Did you say happy ending? I said that’s a happy ending. Yeah, what a fucking ending. So tell me what it means. Yeah, it’s a metaphor of making love. That’s right!
Now, this is 1969. Frank is writing about Bieter’s organic robotoids, 10 years before Bieter goes into it. Remember, President Carter’s organic robotoids? What kinds of people are replaced in 1979 in the battles between the Bolsheviks and the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds and the Zionists.
So, here’s Frank, five years, from 64 to 69, remember he said in the line of notes to the – we’re only for the money in 67, he said he had some awful premonitions, right? And the premonitions were going to continue.
So Zappa, being the monster man he is he could see through everything everything looks so fake and ridiculous the hippie counterculture was stupid the elections were stupid everything and he decided that the machine to take it over and so the title is captain beefheart versus the grunt people it’s one organic robotoid
Android Meme fighting another part of the Android Meme. Am I wrong? Isn’t this pretty astounding? Yes, yes, it is. That’s another sign of France up showing hidden ground. Yes. It’s genius. I mean, it’s pretty amazing. Now we’re going to get to them or us, what happens in the big book.
I wonder, should we take a break and play a song? Yes. You want to hear a Zappa song? Yes, yes. Something funny. I’ll play it. Okay, I played… Did you hear the music in the first couple of hours, Roxy? No, I was sleeping. Right.
So, because I knew you were coming later, I didn’t wake you up. So, you slept in. So, I played Briefcase Boogie, Brown Moses, and Whistful with a Fistful. Three songs from Thing Fish. So I’m going to play the fourth song, Drop Dead. It’s near the end of the movie.
Rhonda and Harry, the yuppie couple that went to the play. Get happy or drop dead. What did you say? What was the first one? Get happy or drop dead. What did you say? What was the first one? Get happy or drop dead. Yes, get happy or drop dead, right. Now, let’s see.
There’s all kinds of typing going on. We’ll have to deal with that later. So, this goes on, I think, for seven minutes. So, this is a long thing. When you get to the last third, about the 520 mark, listen closely to what Rhonda says. OK, so what? Rhonda is an inflatable sex doll.
You’re looking up something? No, I’m saying Ronda is a… How do you know? I read it somewhere. Okay, well actually… She’s an inflatable sex doll, just like the other guys were robots. The Ronda character is a sex doll. No, it’s more complicated. There is Rhonda and Harry, but there’s also an artificial Rhonda.
And Harry is a boy. And this is not the sex doll Rhonda. This is the real Rhonda. I’m pretty sure. But we’ll review that when we go through the book. So have I got everything up, ready to go? Yes. Yes, now I’ve got that blocked.
Do I need to unblock that? Can you hear me guys? What’s going on? Sounds like Bob’s talk. Can you guys hear me? No. Yes. We are in another planet. I just want to read you what you missed. I’m going to read you what you missed.
So Rhonda said, we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their severe terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns. And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns. And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns.
And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns. And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns. And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns.
And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns. And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns. And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their terminal buns, their hairstyle
Was buns. And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns. And we were wearing little transmitters, little receivers in their severe terminal buns, their hairstyle was buns. We even had room left over in there for all of our most favorite little embroidered, delicate,
Secretly feminine, childlike, helpless, pathetic, sentimental, totally useless, personal girl things that smelled like the stuff they put in the toilet paper. And then you heard, it came back in at this point, and she goes, you play golf, you watch football, you drank beer, we evolved. We only look like Wandas and Rondas.
We are superb, Harry. We are sublime. We are perfect in every way. So I will now start up. That’s about where we were. We are INS. Yes, right. Forestlings, or maybe not. Forestlings. INS might be better. Okay, so we got that here. Put that back up there. Just a second.
Okay. Alright, this fucking Bill’s network can’t take the intensity. You guys can hear me? Yes. We are the ones with the strength. We are the completion. We are the all American cocksucker jizzing the Harry Wen homo, gay or something, I think he fell in love with one of the Mammy Nun dolls, jizzing
All over your leather cocksucker costume after beating the snot out of yourself with a rubber mammy. Yeah, he beat the mammy on himself. I simply can’t respect you, Harry. You are no good. Go ahead, smell the pen. Go on. I’m wiping it, Harry. There you go.
During this, the lights have dimmed, leaving Rhonda in a spotlight. Harry crawls into the spotlight circle and assumes the traditional pose of the RCA dog. You know, the record player dog dog, begging to sniff the pen. Ronda moves it higher and higher, torturing
Him. His nose finally reaches it. Francesco stands nearby, fetishing Abdullah, and one of the little mammies. The track for No Not Now is played backwards. The first words are meant to be Harry’s reaction to the odor of the writing utensil. Then it says, not really Harry’s voice, he says, Ebsen sauce backwards.
Then Thing Fish comes in. So hopefully this will be heard. Ground control. Kate Kennedy. We’re lost in space. I hear you. Hello. Why can’t I hear you? What did I do wrong? Hello? We hear you Bob, but it’s like you’re in the background. You’re not online. I know. There is a dimensional problem.
Get me a Pepsi or something. Okay, well I’m going to start the song over again. It’s a good song. It’s a good song. This is the sound of the dynamo hum. Yes. This is how a dynamo hum… Bob, your voice is still in the background. You don’t hear everything.
What? You hear your voice, but it’s like you’re in the background, it’s not like you’re online. Yeah, because I’m using the other mic. Yeah, don’t worry about it. He’s fucking some green girl in the moon. Yeah, okay. Stop masturbating. You’re on duty. I’m on duty on Harry’s chest.
Okay, so let’s resume the game. I’m going to mute you guys. This is the sound of the moon ballet. Electronic moon ballet. The Mumbai, India. Adorned with the laughing of birds. Oh yeah. Bob, we don’t hear all your words. We can’t hear all your words. Stop the love speech. Come back.
I figured out what’s going on here. Uh… Okay, mute that. I figured out what’s going on here. OK, mute that. Bring up that. Put that down there. OK. And then turn me off. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. All right. You know what happened? You know what happened?
This is in the book, and I’m reading the lyrics in the book. It fucking ended because the song ended. I thought we were going to hear the whole rest of the play. I forgot we were just hearing the song. You
Know what I mean? The reason it stopped is the song stops. And then, so I’ve got to read you the script. Well, we’ll do that when we get there. We’ve got to go back to the beginning.
But I was expecting the whole book would be musicalized. but no no we just heard the song and then it stopped and then there’s a script here but that’s not audible right? no it’s not audible okay so uh… was that funny enough? You wanted a funny song? Was that good enough for you?
Did you hear that whole women’s lips scenario? the women’s conspiracy while you became lawyers and accountants and red playboy and bought a pipe there’s a direct attack on me by the subgenius pipe we planned and dreamed and fucked our briefcases while you were looking yes harry that’s right
And we’ve actually been able to reproduce ourselves that way for years harry but you never knew did you you worm this would be that thing somebody’s list Emily’s list you know what that is Bert Emily’s list a couple months ago yeah all the boomer women who got into politics and got some
Executive positions they all formed a tribe and started electing politicians female politicians so it’s the the tribe of women Emily’s List they’re very influential so supposedly now you know I mean they have some kind of power in the obsolete institutions while the CIA continues its surveillance
And so this is describing that if frank is predicting this i don’t think you have one of the demise list form let’s just check that for a minute what year did emily’s list uh… emily’s list eighty five our history their pro-choice democratic women a network an evolution a movement let it is
Emily’s list the largest national resource for women in politics was created by alan malcolm in nineteen eighty five they were influenced by frank they had this came out in nineteen in 1984 and they read it and said, that’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to form a secret society. It’s designed to
Fund campaigns for pro-choice Democratic women and strategically torchlight the balance of power in our government. The name EMILY’s List was an acronym for Early Money is Like Yeast, i.e. it makes the dough rise. That’s the pun that Ian’s always using. Jesus Christ, Ian’s been quoting the Union of Feminists.
This saying is a reference to a convention of political fundraising that receiving major donations early in the race is helpful in attracting other later donors, early monies like Yves. Now we know Emily is more than a slogan. She’s a candidate, a voter, an operative, a member.
If you’ve sought out this website because you want to ignite progressive change in your community, Emily is probably you. And as catalysts of change, we’ve changed too. Today’s Emily list goes beyond fundraising with a strategic approach to recruiting. Yeah, they went beyond fundraising now to recruiting candidates, winning elections, and mobilizing voters.
We are a driving force behind many of the campaign victories that bring the progressive decision-making power of pro-choice Democratic women to office. victory that bring the progressive decision-making power pro-choice democratic women to office in 1985 25 women rolo dex’s in hand gathered in lnr malcolm’s basement
To send letters to the friends about a network they were forming to raise money for pro-choice democratic women candidates so there’s a picture of Emily or Ellen Ellen of so this is what them frank a year before. She said, Rhonda says, “‘We had special atomic glasses made
“‘by women optometrists who promised never to tell. “‘We learned how to hide secret stuff “‘wrapped up in the middle of those “‘severe terminal buns we wear. “‘Little transmitters, Harry, little receivers. “‘Oh, don’t pretend to be surprised, Harry. “‘We even had room left over in there “‘for all of our most favorite little, embroidered,
Delicate, secretly feminine, childlike, helpless, pathetic, sentimental, totally useless, personal girl things that smell like the stuff they put in the toilet paper. You played golf. You watched football. You drank beer. We evolved. We only look like Wandas and Rondas. We are superb, Harry. We are sublime. We are perfect in every way.
And you? What are you? You’re the little all-American cocksucker, jizzing all over your leather cocksucker costume after beating the snot out of yourself with a rubber mammy. I simply can’t respect you Harry, you are no good. Go ahead, smell the pen, go on, I’m wiping it Harry. There you
Go. And so during this the lights have dimmed, leaving Rhonda in a spotlight. Harry crawls into the spotlight circle and assumes the traditional pose of the RCA dog, begging to sniff the pen. Rhonda moves it higher and higher, torturing him. His nose finally reaches it. Francesco’s appa stands nearby, fetishing Abdullah.
And the track for No Not Now, played backwards, happens. And the first words are meant to be Harry’s reaction to the odor of the writing utensil. I guess it smells like Eb and Sauce to him. Ebs and Sauce. So that leads to the last three pages but we’ll leave that for
When we get there. Would you like another Zappa music? Yes, I was reading about Ronda. Yeah. Yeah. She evolves from the younger Ronda is like a rubber sex doll. Yeah, right. And when she’s older, she becomes a feminist, a fascist, and Harry becomes homosexual as a result of the women’s liberation movement.
So that’s why she’s insulting this little man. Yes, he’s been fucking everything in the theater and she’s been outraged Throughout most of it. So she’s pissed off And I think that’s the last scene of them. That’s the last you hear of them
Because it goes over to oh, no, there’s a little more Ron. No, no. Yes a little more Rhonda and then it’s Francesco and and then it’s Francesco and other important people like the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. They end the thing. So, what do we do?
So, are you guys ready to hear about Hunchin’ Toot? Are you ready to go to the next bit? It won’t take as long. You’re getting the point here that you have a concentration
Moon. I should play that. Let’s play Concentration Moon. That song. Okay. So that would be over Album by artist, we’re only for the money. Going down. There it is. I was thinking all these hybrids of robotic, he’s actually seeing all the things you’re saying about
The Android name and all these human invented technology. Exactly, that’s what I’m impressed with. We’re going to see that in the next, after Hutchinson in the book. It’s pretty amazing what he lays out. We’re going to move. It’s funny because this living technology behaves as bad as humans.
I know what they do all the time. Yeah. You could think… Okay, so I’m going to play Concentration Moon. Let me make sure everything’s… This is from We’re Only For The Money, so this was written in 67, or recorded in 67, released in 68.
Bring…that goes there. And I think this is it. Okay. Nothing is. Holding. Bob was. Just a second. What’s going on? What happened? You can’t hear it? No. Nothing at all came through. I blocked something. I’m sorry. I spoke something.
The moonbeams are sabotaging. You heard a minute and 19 seconds of the song and you didn’t hear it. I heard it. So let’s start over again. I must have clicked on that stupid mic, that one. I forgot to unmute that one. OK, we’re going to do it over again. Concentration, moon.
OK, listen to the lyrics. No playing. Not playing? What the fuck do I have to do here? Sound is in headphone position. Volume is up. What? Are we doing wrong? Oh, maybe it has to be on SoundFlower. Oh, because it’s coming from my system. I figured it out.
I forgot this is not on Bill’s template. This is a conspiracy against the board. I’m muting you too. Email me if you fucking can’t hear it. Okay, here we go. Oh no, we have to move it back. Then again, I’m not going to mute you.
It’ll probably screw up, so I better hear you screaming. Okay, I unmuted you. Come on now, let’s be polite. Let’s be polite and listen to this. Compromise, okay. Concentration moon, wish I was back in the alley. Listen to this. Hello. Hello. Hello.
I can be heard. What was that last song, Bob? Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. That’s right. That’s right. You know, he… When he did the theater piece at Garrick Theater in the spring and summer of 67, it was called Absolutely Free, colon, Pigs and Repugnant. So the pigs are, you’ll see, an important thingmajig.
And then he has a lot about ponies in the content of Lumpy Gravy. So pigs and repugnant or pigs and ponies that’s the dialectic and ponies goes way back to Cecil running the ponies ride in 64 in Cat Beef River’s the Grunt People. So this punny pig dialectic. So Deathless
Horsey is from 1981 shut up and Play Your Guitar, a series, three albums that Frank put out with just nothing but Zappa instrumentals, guitar instrumentals. So that was one of them. So let’s see if there’s any interesting uttered in the chat line before we go to Huntsman Toot. Eric Utney.
Minimax says, Trump is a truth teller because not financially dependent. We did that. Trump is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Still looking, catching up. So my foster daughter, when I said, we can’t use the word God, Creator, Divine, and then she said, how can Creator be limited?
I said something, and she said said expected you would say that but if we are speaking in words what are the best words to describe ascended post humans? Elltooth says smote-lings. Eliza says or the smoters. And then they start
Bragging there Bob we came up with the new name for gods, the Smoters. Laughing my ass off. So they’re going nuts over their own creativity. Which has only had one syllable, now somebody starts objecting to it. Then the new title, Post-Humanism Smoters. Oh no, it’s going to get longer than that.
The Post-Humanism Smoters of Hypertexting. Then L2 said, this is good music here. Madeline goes, yeah, this is great. Madeline, I thought angels were the smoters. L2, yeah, Liza, we can’t take angels’ function from them, can we? Madeline, thou shalt not
Kill. Got a single, got a sick an angel on them says Madeline. Minimax goes, Smotelings, yes! He votes for that. Madeline laughs. E-Truth laughs. Minimax goes, attentionaires, attentionaires. Minimax, Ascended Post Humans. Yeah, we don’t do the Smoting, we order the angels to do it. But NVR in anger. Selman 224 goes, hoops.
And then Eliza says, I’m trying to come up with a good name for the post God. So put it in your suggestions. L-Truth says, oh no, 224 starts flirting with the foster daughter. Empress, I got a brand new clothesline. L-Truth says blank. Sarah says, let’s play word association.
Someone says, such a cool song. Sarah, little Sarah says, Zappa, what do you think of? And she says, okay now, Yemen, Yemen and you think. Then Sarah, little Sarah says, I wonder if they, the dissonant ambient funk was recorded separately from the dialogue. So they’re talking about some stuff we were
Playing a long time ago. So we’re up to date on that. We can go back into our bubble and explain everything. So you guys ready for Hunchin’ Toot? Hunchin’ Toot, yes. Yes. That was the horny spider, right? Yeah. That… What? What about the spider? Hunchin’ Toot. Hunchin’ Toot.
The Hunchin’ Toot was the horny spider of the Dark Side. The giant spider. Yeah. In the cast of characters it says, we got Dracobah, Queen of Cosmic Greed, an evil seven and a half foot space girl, so we’re back on the moon,
Who lives on a mysterious unknown planet, well, not the moon, but similar, and who obviously has a sinister plan planet, well, not the moon, but similar, and who obviously has a sinister plan to conquer the very Earth itself. So is this Frank afraid of women’s lib or something?
He keeps projecting these women that want to take over the planet, these monster women. And Hunsintoot is the giant spider, and she is Drachma’s miserable-negroid harmonica virtuoso love slave. Harmonica virtuoso. Dirk is a shifty earthling con man of the future and part-time religious fanatic who leads a group of mutant alpha
Meditators known as the forcelings and also plays a little trumpet. Yay! Yes, you’ve identified… My leader. Yes. Okay, so did I read you the details of the setup, the instrumentation? I think I read some of it, right? I do remember that. Okay, so Hansen Toot’s costume, headgear,
Will provide concealment for wireless mic number one, which is received and processed through the first ring modulator to make his voice deeper and gruffer before it is broadcast through the PA. Drachma’s costume, breastplate, will contain a sort of cosmic telephone operators microphone holder for wireless mic number two
To be processed through phaser one for vocals and or the balance modulator for dialogue. The balance modulator or Moog frequency shifter has a stereo output which will enable Drachman’s voice to ascend and pitch on the right side of the theater and descend and pitch on the
Left side simultaneously, providing a suitably mysterious effect which is easily controlled. I remember reading that. The orchestra is subject to mixing and processing through the two voltage-controlled filters, the two envelope generators, the two voltage-controlled amplifiers, the four-channel tape delay, in brackets, Sony Quad 1.25-inch machine, and the EMT reverb.
Sectional outputs may be governed by keying from other voices or instruments via the key pexes. The key pexes will be used to eliminate noises, shuffling, mumbling, waiting, coughing, et cetera, from the chorus mics, the three wireless mics, the narrative mic, and the brass section mic. This device automatically turns the volume down
On a given audio channel when there’s not sufficient information coming through to trigger it. This will greatly relieve mixing problems. The device can also be used to turn other instruments or voices on or off in relation to a specific pulse. The bass drum could key the intermittent entrances
Of a held chord in the brass. You’re right that I remember now, but it’s very interesting to listen again. She’s giving all these technical specifications for the characters to create, like different types of filtering and paneling to create these surround effects, which I found very interesting.
He’s talking more of the technical harmonic climates. surround effects, which I found very interesting. He’s talking more of the technical harmonic climates, and he’s got new technology to do with. So he’s really into the inventions that have come in over the last few years at that point. He’s really spotlighting the new advances
In the studio stuff. And expanding each character with different types of sound processing. Yeah, he’s trying to show the TV body and chip body in the characters. He’s making these technological apparatuses be part of their being. He says, this synthesizer section, one arp, one mini-moog is used as an instrumental voice
Or voices and for sound effects purposes. The arp output is taken stereo direct into the board. The mini-moog output is a mono direct feed to a quad pan-pod on the master board. The player monitors himself on a small amp. The guitarist will require stereo direct from a pair of acoustic studio amps.
The bass is received from an acoustic studio amp. In brackets after the guitarist he had electric 6, electric 12, electric mandolin, and transducerized acoustic 6. The drums, snare drum, bass drum, three tom-toms, hi-hat, ride, crash, rivet, and tiny cymbals
Plus four cowbells and tambourine are to be received in quad and mic’d in this manner. One bass drum mic, one snare hi-hat mic, one mic each tom-tom, one overhead mic favoring the cowbells. The bass drum front head should be removed as well as the bottom tom-tom heads.
The overhead and tom-tom mics should all all be keypacks tightly and reconstituted with the EMT in deep mode or its equivalent. The player can monitor the whole mix via headphones. Also required full lighting plus strobes, one red, one blue, one green, and a large
Screen for rear projection over the orchestra. The right side of the stage is the earth during the fourth… I find this very interesting because this is another aspect we haven’t talked about,
The technical specifications that go with playing live or, you know, his setting was very complex because he had a lot of people on stage. And sometimes he was playing in big venues. And there are a lot of things that get complicated when you have to amplify for the musicians in the stage
And for the audience. When you have this round type of environment, because you get some feedbacks. You have all types of interference and noises. And because he was such a perfectionist, I mean, the sound checks, I suppose he will do for a long time to check that each instrument is
Sounding good and that if they move on the stage, there is no. Sometimes, if they move on the stage, there is no… Sometimes, for example, from the speakers, from the monitors on the stage, do get the sound of radio waves. So you have to move them and all these type of things. Right.
So it’s very interesting to see all the considerations that he put into his music, into the performance of the theatricals, of the PA, all these different type of effects to enhance what he… When you worked in the nightclubs,
When you worked in nightclubs in Mexico City, you had to build the set and take it down, the other guys were too stoned. Did you organize the soundboard? You, yourself? Well, it depends because usually you played with one or two bands and you have to go and make the soundcheck in the evening.
And you have to, when you play after somebody else, you have to set up very fast. And sometimes you do a checkup, but the things are different when you are actually playing. And you have to have a good engineer. Sometimes in the clubs or in the places where you’re playing,
There’s somebody who knows the equipment and it’s always there so he knows more or less what to do. But that’s not always the case and yeah sometimes it was very stressful because the musicians are more concerned with the groupies than with the equipment. equipment and… Yeah, Larry especially.
Larry is always in the groupies. With the orgy after the concert. Yeah. Yes, it’s him. But… But you can understand partly what he’s talking about here. Yes, I understand everything he’s talking about. And I find it very interesting because he’s… For example, the Moog synthesizer was a mono synthesizer.
It’s an analog type of synthesizer. And the harp was like a new type of synthesizer at the time. And that already has stereo. That was maybe polyphonic too. Because before, most synthesizers were monophonic. And that’s why he says it only needs one output. It doesn’t have to be stereo.
And I remember something in 1968, the first commercial record of electronic music was actually this switch on Bach by Wendy Carlin. Yes, I remember that. Yeah, and it’s interesting that the first electronic record that became a hit, it
Was on the Hit Parade and they sold like 15,000 copies of that was Bach music. Yeah, that’s also like, like marking some something change. And it was a really hard thing to do with that type of synthesizer. They had to make like a collage of what they were playing,
Because you don’t have the polyphonic type of sequencers we have now. They will have to do parts of the tracks and of the music, and then put them all together. And at the end, have this illusion that everything is played at once, all together.
But it was really a lot of work, because that record made like something, a new technology be better known by a wider public. Like this type of science fiction instruments. But that was something that my mentor, Antone Rousek, was always criticizing, that in most science fiction movies, they have orchestras.
It’s like instead of having really avant garde electronic music. And only this Forbidden Planet, that was the first movie with complete electronic music. And it’s also about a monster and a cave and all these types of things. Yeah. That’s what I like. Right, yeah.
But yeah, I just remembered that when she’s talking about the Moog synthesizer. Or Moog, I don’t know how to say it. Let’s play this a little bit. What do I have on? When that… So you take that off. So I’ll play a bit of Switched On Bach. Since it was a historical…
Yes, Bach made electronic music popular. What about that? Wow. Amazing. Wow. So this is Switched On Brandenburg Concerto No. Wow. So this is switched on Brandenburg concerto number three.
Well we get the idea. Yeah. But we can, I mean, yeah we can really see what they thought was like an orchestra sound, artificial instrument. I mean for us it doesn’t sound like an orchestra. It really sounds like a Game Boy. Right. A video game.
So that is, that’s electrically altered, well what did Frank say? Electronically altered normal instruments. No, this is electric generated. Yeah, yeah. Trying to simulate the sound, simulate the original. Who was the composer then? Rinky Carlos.
Well, yeah, the one that made it. He used to be a man, so it’s like a soap opera, Yeah, his name was Walter Carlos and the girlfriend became lesbian and he operated himself and became Wendy Carlos. So it’s like a couple of stories. So he could be with his girlfriend?
Right, so that he could be with his girlfriend. I don’t know what happened. So he could be with his girlfriend? Right, so that he could be with his girlfriend. I don’t know what happened. I remember somebody told me that story, like, wow. Right.
So Wendy Carlos, as a kid, she was a big deal for you, as a kid, hearing about this woman who may not be a guy back then, right? So what did you guys hear? It was sort of a novelty of people being transgender and transsexual and all these other types
Of identities we have under the electric environment. Right. Looking up the wiki entry… You can not only be quadrophrenic but actually change your mid-body into another gender. Right. Gender transition. Carlos became… Walter Carlos became aware of her gender dysphoria
At an early age. She told Playboy magazine, I was about five or six, I remember being convinced I was a little girl, much preferring long hair and girls clothes and not knowing why my parents didn’t see it clearly. In 1962, age 22, when she moved to New York City to
Attend graduate school at Columbia University, she came into contact for the first time with information about transgender issues, including the work of Harry Benjamin. In early 1968, she began hormone treatment and soon began living full-time as a woman.
In her whole Earth catalog review of synthesizers in 1971, Carlos asked to be credited simply as W. Carlos. After his financial success of switched on Bach, Carlos was finally able to undergo sex reassignment surgery in May 1972. Carlos chose to announce herself as the featured interview in May 1979’s Playboy magazine,
Picking Playboy because, quote, the magazine has always been concerned with liberation and I’m anxious to liberate myself. She has since come to regret the interview, has created a shortlist of the cruel page on her website, shortlist of the cruel, and gave Playboy’s editors three black leaf awards,
Meaning arrogant, selfish, prig with a genuine, sadistic streak. Carlos prefers not to discuss her transition and has asked that her privacy regarding the subject be respected. In 1998, she sued the songwriter-artist, Momis, for $22 million for his satirical song, Walter Carlos,
Which appeared on the album, The Little Red Songbook released in 98 which suggested that if Wendy could go back in time she could marry Walter. The case was settled at a court with Momis agreeing to remove the song from subsequent editions of the CD and owing $30,000 in legal fees.
So she didn’t get the $22 million. So we go to her Web site. Look at the… She won at 22. Man. All right. Yeah. So clicking on her official site, let’s see her cruel list. It’s not obvious. Warnings. But many electronic music composers say the first electronic music record they heard is
Actually that. switch on Bach. Well, I can’t find, maybe she doesn’t post it anymore. Okay, so let’s go into, did we finish that? Why did we get on to switch on Bach? What made you remind you of, oh, all this technical stuff, talk that Frank’s doing.
Yeah, just the fact that I find it very interesting that when Bach was alive, the first electricity experiments were going on and somehow the first real popular record The first real popular record is Bach music again. Electronic music record is Bach.
So I think maybe from the non-physical point of view that’s like marking something. Yes, yeah. Bach started it. Yeah, because that was in 68 and that was Ray returned to it in 67. Yes, yeah. So we have our theories. Our what? Are theories? Yeah. Okay, so
Let’s, um, so I’ll just read you the percussion. The percussion including electro vibes, transducerized marimba, transducerized timimba, transducerized timpani, bells, chimes, and various drums, gongs, and noisemakers. The percussion, they’re all fed to the main board and returned to their section in a mono monitor mix. The transducerized
Marimba is a special purpose apparatus that will provide individual pickups for each marimba bar. These pickups, each marimba bar. These pickups, when fed to a resistor chain, would make it possible for any passage covering the full range of the instrument to zip around the audience in a quad orbit, aside from making
The instrument more valuable as an orchestral voice due to improved audibility. The multi-keyboards, Hammond organ, grand piano, tack piano, electric harpsichord, Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes with ring modulator, these are taken direct when purely electronic and transducerized when acoustic, with the exception of the Hammond.
The Leslie on the Hammond is to be mic’d in quad and isolated from the other instruments, enabling assorted mysterious ethereal effects to be generated in an audience-around mode.” Audience-around, in quotes. The Hammond output is also taken direct. The keyboard player monitors his own amp. So that’s pretty knowledgeable.
He was trying to create a complex environment, sound environment. I mean, he was trying to create a complex environment, sound environment. Do you know what the Leslie version is?
Yeah, there are all types of organs, these electric keywords and electric organs. technologies to generate electronic sound, one way of marketing this new technology was to have these controllers, these keywords, like organ looking or because there were other types of controllers, like the that maybe had a pitch bend,
Or sometimes some filters and some special effects that could alter this. And you had different types of instruments like bells and strings besides the typical organ and what they call pianos or keyboards that really sound like electronic piano like keyboards. And some of these instruments are now called…
Some people have them in their sound libraries, like the Hammond organ or some type of special, like the Leslie, all these keyboards. Yeah, I was just going to ask you about the Leslie. What is the Leslie? I think what’s that keyboard? Maybe it’s a microphone. Let me see. Yeah.
It says, the Leslie isolated backstage will be received via four mics. It will not only broadcast to Hammond Organ, but will be equipped with a feed from the mix board, making it possible with careful scheduling to use it as a modifying device for vocals
And instruments. Because it is being mic’d in quad, material fed through it, when finally broadcast into the theater, will appear to swirl ethereally or hang in space over the audience, the rate of travel being easily controlled by the keyboard player using the speed switch on the Hammond.
The receive from the four Leslie mics should be tightly key-pexed and reconstituted through the EMT to avoid any unpleasant mechanical noises when not in use. No, I’m looking. The Leslie was a type of speaker that could also be used for some type of effect because it has some
Software in which you can affect the audio right now. Okay, so we read a lot of hunch and toot last time. We started off, the narrator says there has been a certain amount of scientific speculation recently regarding the possibility that civilization
As we know it is perhaps not the first pinnacle of evolutionary achievement to be witnessed on the face of our wretched little planet. In layman’s terms then, perhaps it has all happened before. Perhaps it has happened several times before. Not exactly the same as now of course, but it most certainly
Could have happened. And if by chance it didn’t happen already, mathematical science has proven that the odds are at least 50-50 that something is bound to happen sooner or later. So remember we went through this, we’re laughing, but the equivalent Earth, sort of ionic concepts, equivalent this, equivalent that.
So it begins with Drachma lounging, singing, time is money, but space is a long, long time. And so she’s on the coach. That’s the supposed beginning, I guess, of the universe. And she’s trying to get the giant spider to get intimate with her and does a lot of pleading to hunch and toot.
She says, yes, my erotically wriggling spider of destiny, take me to your reeking cranny or cave and caress me violently with your horrible, scratchy feelers. And while we consummate our perverse rendezvous, I’ll explain to you the fantastic details of the
Work I must do.” So she’s there trying to get things going for herself with the only other thing around, person or object. Then Dirk shows up with the four slings and he’s a human and he
He plays around with her, teases her, wears dramas there, singing and playing. So this is the repeat of the solar object that has And so, on page 45, andot is stating his case. There ain’t nothing to it. So he wants a spider mama. He wants someone to tangle his legs around. It says,
Hunchintoot squeals away on his fetid little harmonica, dancing his special dance, demonstrating to the forestlings various possible methods of giant spider-inflicted grievous personal injury, causing them to dash around the planet in a state of frenzied terror. At the point where Hunchintoot feels he has given them a proper scare,
He and the orchestra pauses to announce. Back to my apartment. So the way Zappa writes in Ten Years Later in Thing Fish, that, or bonics, what’s that word? Ebonics. Ebonics, the kind of stuff. I don’t know if this actually is. He’s writing in this black slang back then, long before ThingFish.
I’d go back to my apartment and whip it until you religious folks come up with something hot and hairy I can identify with. And so having stated his case to the invaders from Earth, the pathetic, misunderstood giant spider trundles back into his cave, and not was heard by this busy little of multiple
Appendages whipping it, I guess masturbating, while on her roaming both a drachma queen of cosmic greed pines away for the love of her insect. That reminds me, I played you a song from We’re Only for the Money called Harry You’re a Beast, which is the complaint
That she’s gritting her teeth and not into the sex. But there’s Harry, forgot about Harry 20 years later, well 15 years later, in the Them or Us book. So they’re just pining away and let’s see, I know that Dirk thinks that he can fool the spider and fool Drachma and he attempts it
And I think she catches him. Here’s one, the four slings have linked their fantastic minds together for the performance of a special secret intergalactic alpha therapeutic cadenza. Here it is, listen to this. minds together for the performance of a special secret intergalactic alpha therapeutic cadenza.
Here it is, listen to this. Right, what’s a cadenza? It’s like you have a sequence of chords, for example, to create, for example, an ending. Or to go from one tonality to another tonality. It’s like this sequence of chords. It’s called cadenza. OK. So this is a special secret intergalactic alpha
Therapeutic cadenza that the four things do with their linking of their minds. Then it says, conversing to each other on the instruments. There’s the conversing. Assisted by ingenious stage lighting techniques, the essence of the earthlings’ bold counterplot is revealed. It includes, among other things, a bizarre sacrificial maneuver
By which Dirk must win the confidence of the evil space girl by means of his animal magnetism. But many hours ago I was talking about the conversation between instruments, that’s what Zappa has here, conversing to each other on the instruments. Assisted by ingenious stage lighting techniques, the essence of the earthlings’ bold counterplot
Is revealed. So, um… Here’s also the idea that music is therapeutic. Yeah. Right. Zappa always saw his music as part of the therapy to heal humanity. Right. Um… So, Dirk is trying to seduce Drachma and he gets pretty far but then he blows it.
He agrees to do something with her but on condition that she calls off her invasion of Europe. That’s when she gets really mad at him. So then she tries to get Hunchintoot to eat Dirk and the rest of them. But Hunchintoot
Starts scheming on his own and he doesn’t attack and eat Dirk. But he has another plan and he’s kind of ignoring Drachma’s pleas to get rid of these humans. So where would we… So Dirk eventually does a psychiatric analysis of Hunsatune to figure out his problem. Let’s see, where does it say?
So Dirk promised the Spider of Destiny Institute that he’d get some spider mama for him. So he had gone off to the cave, hung out there. Then something disturbed him and he came out and he said, oh by the way, you got my spider mama, motherfucker? Dirk
Says, no, I got something better. Assuredly, he says, I got something better. And uh, Anshin Toot says, shit, ain’t nothing better than no spider pussy boy. Why you lying to me like that? Dirk says, look here brother, would I lie to a giant spider such as yourself at a time like this?
I am telling you, I got it. Now what is it you go for in a spider mama? Look here brother, that’s a phrase from some other song. Hunchin Toot, legs, legs, nothing but them legs. So he wants a lot of legs, a lot of appendages on the female spider.
And then Dirk says, right, and that’s why I’m telling you, I got something that may change your life. But before we go into that, where is the… He analyzes… How should I explain his hang-up? Psychological problems. Yeah. I don’t know if I could find it. What is it?
It’s like… We should do that with Lucifer. Like, what’s your big problem? You can’t see the right of the Lord. Let’s talk about your psychology. Yeah, what did your parents do to you? What happened when you were in school that traumatized you?
School that traumatized you. Still looking for… I don’t know if I can find it. So here’s something. Oh, yeah, right where I got to. That’s why I’m telling you. I got something that may change your life. Hashtag says, what’s that? Dirk, speaking clinically.
Let’s make a systematic analysis of what the deal is with you. From my own vast experience as one of the greatest minds of our time, I’ve been able to trace the evolution and structural development of your hang-up as it relates in general terms
To the enormous species spider mamma. And let me tell you right now, the trouble with you is, buddy, you have a multiple appendage fixation. Drachma. A multiple appendage fixation. So Drachma on the couch being ignored in a very loud whisper says, don’t listen to him, hunch and toot,
Telling him not to listen, to listen to Dirk. Dirk, unperturbed, continues. Now, there are two possible solutions to your hang-up. Hunts and Toot, no shit. How’d the first one go? Dirk, smugly, says, I’m glad you asked. Listen. There is something very close to us right now, squirming, breathing heavily,
Tormented by lustful desires, in desperate need of some kind of perverse thrill, and it’s got more lace than you ever saw before. Hunts and Toot, in a calculating attitude, says, no shit, lot of legs, huh? Dirk, cheerfully, yes, indeedy. Hunts and Toot, shrewdly. Within easy walking distance, Dirk, beaming proudly,
Just a mere few feet away. Hunts and Toot, hopefully. And at fuck good? Dirk, tactfully. Well, let me put it to you this way. Tactfully. T-A-C-T-F-L-O-Y. Not tactfully. Uhhhh. Yeah. Well, let me put it to you this way. If it don’t fuck good, it eats. Can you dig it? If it don’t fuck
Good, it eats. Listen to it thoughtfully, hmm, shit earth boy, you alright. Why don’t you just go on and show this many legged fucking thing to me right now. Right now, R-A-T-N-O-W. Dirk proudly, there you go Spider-Man. It’s all, no, there
You go, no, there you go, Spider-Man. It’s all yours. Go ahead. Fuck the many-legged thing you see before you. Hush-a-toot-sus, look here. I know you all might mean well, but get them lights off. That thing I seen squirming out there caused me to lose one of the best giant sparter
Hard-ons I ever done sprung. Dirk, consoling him, says, well perhaps it’s best because by your rejection of this many-legged temptation, a faint glimmer of hope has appeared, leading me to steadfastly believe that your hang-up can be cured. HUNTSINTOOT NOT CONVINCED. What are you talking about, Earth Boy? DIRK TRIUMPHANTLY. Simply this.
With the aid and assistance of the devout membership of my new and exciting, spectacular, fantastic, nonsectarian, universal whole-wheat religion, all the skills, all the technical know-how, all the warm personal concern of our benevolent foundation will be brought
Into full force in order to rid you once and for all of the things that have caused your hang-up from in front.” Now we’re on page 73 and there are 81 pages. Narrator, and so with an exhilarating religious fervor, the four slings, you know, that work for Dirk,
Or the cult members, the four slings come to the assistance of the distraught, Hunch and Toot, relieving him of the very cause of his deep-seated emotional problem, as symbolized by his wriggling little spring-loaded appendages,
Plunging headlong into, no, cause, relieving him of the very cause of his insexual distress, in order to liberate him in much the same manner their dismal competitors had attempted for countless centuries on earth. So who are these dismal competitors? Acting in the sincere belief that they, the forestlings,
After so many inept bunglings by those other benevolent foundations, would finally get it right. We return you now to outer space for the results of their labors. So, what happened there? Plunging headlong into the abyss of another… In order to liberate him, in much the same manner their dismal competitors had attempted
For countless centuries on earth. So there’s the Ionic idea of not being so keen on helping your neighbors. They believed and therefore engaged in inept bunglings by those other benevolent foundations. But the, the Ayanets, or what are they called, the sportlings, the… Forcelings. Forcelings. They finally got it right.
So, Dirk is saying, well, how do you feel my man? Little bit better, huh? Any scar tissue? Saying that to Hunchin Toot. Hunchin Toot’s stretching and trying on his new biped stance. Mmm, shit Earth boy, this here is all right. Say, wait a minute, just
One little minute. I see something looking good to me. Shit. Say, darling, what’s your favorite form of recreation? Dirk, apparently unconcerned with the space girl and the insect, addressing the assembled mutants. So Dirk then addresses his tribe. Well, guys and gals, we did it. We actually did it, didn’t we?
We sure did, Dirk, said the four slings. Unchin Tootie shouting, Hey, Earth Dude, when are you all going home? Dirk looking around for a watch. I’ll tell you in a minute. Must have dropped my watch during the big ceremony. Then hushing to craftily, no shit, maybe I can help you all out.
Don’t you move a pound, long lady. I’m going to be right back. Look here, brother, look here, motherfucking price tag still on them. And they all run in,
He went off to complain about something to one of the staff. And they all run into him and I have to complain about something to one of the staff and they all run in like a champ 21 jewels keep in perfect time how much bread they given you for this for this
And dirt just say what’s this what’s this a Harlanton prison jeweled movement no precision jeweled movement hush, precision jeweled movement. Hush and toot, very convincingly. And that motherfucker can be yours to have and to hold for a measly old $200 bill.
You getting leased that much from around here, this a union house, ain’t it? You getting leased that much around here, this a union house, ain’t it? Dirk, glaze, I’ve never seen a Harleton such as this.
Forestling number one, seriously, come on Dirk. Forestling number two, seriously also, yeah, we’ve got to get back to the earth. The Harleton, says Dirk, I must have the Harleton. So what happens is, Hunchintoo proceeds to hypnotize Dirk. hypnotized Dirk. He says, his force links are trying to wake Dirk up, it’s not working.
And Hunts and Toots says, why don’t you all just get the fuck out of my way? Before you lose some equilibrium, boy, this here the world of high finance. So, it says, Hunts and Toots still dangling the watch with one hand, reaches over with his
Other and pokes Force Link number two first in the right eye, then in the left, finally pulling the ping pong balls over both eyes in a quick tic-tac-toe movement. Drachma sleazes overtly from the coach to Hunchin Toot’s side. So she starts hanging out with Hunchin Toot. That’s Gale, that’s
Dracula. Hunchin Toot says, you know I ain’t gonna lie to you baby. I done told you I was gonna make both us rich and famous. And you especially, darling. Along with a complete all expenses paid motherfuckin vacation. Dirk, delirious. The Harnelton, I must have the Harnelton. Hunchin Toot, continuingelton. Hunchin’ toot, continuing.
And I gotta take care of all that good stuff, right now. Psh, hey Earth dude, when y’all goin’ home? Dirk, in brackets, still delirious, groping for the watch. I can’t seem to, can’t find my watch, must have dropped it during the pause.
I believe I can detect from your highly coordinated movement a flaming desire to acquire… Now who’s saying that? Just a second. Oh, okay. So Dirk can’t find the watch. Must have dropped it during the confusion.
So then Hachitude says, I believe I can detect from your highly coordinated movements a flaming desire to acquire this fine quality timepiece. I’ve been dangling front your eyes here, and this motherfucker gone be yours, in all its gleaming glory.
Not for no $200 bill, not for no $100 bill, not for no $50 bill, and not for no spare change neither. Only this thing, this magnificent motherfucker going to cost you is a piece of your mind.
What I mean brother is when I put this watch in your hand, you and me and my old lady, along with them silly motherfuckers over there, we are going to be going through time and space back to your silly ass planet. We are going to clean up on them lame motherfuckers
Down there. Now, get your ass ready, cause you all gonna think us over, think us over soon as I whip up this little time machine on you. He’s gonna whip up a time machine and the, the thinking us over, I guess that’s some kind of traveling that the Hunchin Tooth can do.
So Dirk says, after hearing all that, he’s still hypnotized. His mumbling can just barely be heard over the catastrophe around him. He goes, I’ve got it, I’ve got it, got it now, it’s mine, the Harleton is mine. Hunching Toot starts singing and dancing.
I might have been a slave for the rest of my life, laying in a cave with a spider mama wife. Hunching and a tooting on a raggedy old bed with a spider mama leg around the back of my head. But now them legs don’t bother me none, cause you can see
What a job that religion done done. Got a mohair suit, and dat all I gon’ need, and dat’s all I gon’ need. Just pimpin’ all night for the goddess of greed. So it says, um, a hunchin’ toot dances over to stage right, gesturing for the audience to make a purchase
From the 10-foot replica prophylactic vendor. Hunch and Toot escorts Drachma back to the couch, which has been draped with a green velvet cover during the blackout. She sprawls lewdly across the sofa, picks up a small hand mirror and applies lipstick. Hunchin Toomps marks the screen control panel causing a slide to flash on.
This slide, two big words, fuck greed. Fuck greed. It’s very interesting because in his freakout list, Zappa has a hypnotist as one of his main influences and I think he’s playing with this idea of we always want this new whatever, the new car, the new
The new car, the new watch, the new synthesizer, the new guitar. And we are hypnotized by this monster that maybe now is the android me. By consumerism. And yeah, everything is about selling and buying. Yeah, like I can look through wherever I was. I might have
Dreamt it, but it was looking through a window at an office and I don’t know what I was going to think. I think I faded out there. says, the real cost of whatever you want is actually a piece of your mind. It’s not the money value, but the…
But it’s not your mind, it’s a piece of your… Your lucidity. What? What did you say? The recollected lucidity. Yes. Because we don’t have a mind. When you have the words. So he puts up this sign, Fuck Greed. Now, Dracula is called the Cosmic Queen of Greed or something like that.
So, it could be a spiritual statement, fuck greed, no more materialism, or it could mean something else, literally. I’m just looking up the cast.
Dirk, Hunchin Toot, the narrator, Drachma, Force Wings, no, don’t seem to have that. So as Drachma sprawls lewdly across the sofa and picks up a small hand mirror and applies lipstick, Hunchintoot works the screen control panel, causing a slide to flash on. Buck read.
Hunchintoot bows and dances off as the lights come up on the orchestra for the closing passages. Dirk and the four slings return and join Drachma for their bows, after which they all exit left.
Lights come up on narrator, the last, as he bows, straightens up, points his hand toward the screen in a sweeping gesture, giving the cue for a quaint slide which says the end but in the dialogue parts, Hunchetoot is singing
Just pimping all night for the goddess of greed. Any of you people want a good piece of ass? Form a line on the door because the goods won’t last. She got tits like a bank, she ain’t never on the rag, if she don’t do you right, just salute her like a flag.
This ain’t no ordinary bitch I gonna interest you in, she the goddess of greed, she gonna make your pecker grin. So just get in that line in the back of this room and get your ass on home, cause that the end of my tune.
That is how this horrible opera ends. He becomes a pimp. With a gangbang. Yes, with a fucking gangbang for everybody to line up. That is the closing… I mean, what kind of mind… What’s Frank attempting here? This is worse than manipulative satire. Not even any robot toys. Who is he writing this for?
I’m thinking what will be the purpose of 64? No, wait a minute. No. 64 is upgraded to 69. This is 72. This is another play, but of course it’s the same old fucking theme of the global theater, and some alien on another planet wants to capture
The planet, but he has to do it from the moon, and some earthling group tries to stop him. But it doesn’t end up with organic robotoids melting. It doesn’t end up with organic robotoids melting it doesn’t end up with a happier ending in
An orgy in 64 and 69 is the robotoids collapsing this ends up with this is this is Zappa now this is right when women’s lips just starting starts at 69 I remember I think it was Sartre, Jean PaulPaul Sartre, who talked about the, like, the serial relationships
We have in modern society, like you make a line and you pay in the supermarket, and then the next one, the next, and the next. I think that’s like this type of metaphor that we engage in this type of serial relationships
In modern times. Everything is like very superficial. It’s just like pay and go on the next or… Pay and go. You talk with… Goodbye. You did your bit. Yeah, you engage most people like that, like in serial relationships. It’s no more a conversation or a real interaction. It’s just like a…
Yeah, do you remember when i was in berlin and and uh… roxy was showing around her neighborhood in the different stores she goes to and she had nothing to say to the clerks i’m all friendly a new human being i started talking and roxy thinks i’m a
Fucking saint because i’m talking to people because she never talks to any of them she just goes around the same boring neighborhood buys her milk, her dope, her condoms, whatever she fucking buys. And, uh, probably says anything. But I’m there all keen on any little storekeeper.
I’m pretty surprised that Bob will engage conversations with everybody here. I was an anthropologist. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture.
I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture.
I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was trying to learn about the culture. I was doing anthropology.
For example, the person just standing there. Everybody is looking at you like, what? What is he talking about? He’s talking about Max Lewin and the daughter. I thought I was on the radio. I never realized I had gone someplace. I hadn’t seen physical space in years.
We got this on video. realize they’d gone someplace. I hadn’t seen physical space in years. And there, we got this on video, me showing some anonymous customer the picture of Mary McLuhan in the middle of Meet Him as a Massage, you know, with no clothes on. I said, this is the author’s daughter.
It’s very fluent right there in the video. And yes, it was, you know, I noticed that on the beach, I’ll see different couples talking to the couple that’s on a sun coach beside them. And they’re superficially talking friendly, but these are people who would never talk to anybody in their neighborhood.
But when they go on vacation, they start feeling friendly. And they have to fill in their idle time, so they start talking to strangers and telling them all about their lives. That’s the kind of modern hypocrisy, forced idleness, forced
Sociality on the vacation. So I was used to that superficial, hypocritical tourist lifestyle, so I did that, walking around being friendly like you do when you’re traveling. I’m never going to have to see these people again. I have no responsibilities for them, so let’s find out
All about them and then go bye! Never see them again. game so uh… uh… rocky mistook my uh… chorus cliche behavior is a wonderful faintly the rock center where they open the talked about but they just looked at it no he don’t know made them
Talk about everything about about his life, about the favorite music, the favorite music radio station, and yes. And have they heard of McLuhan? Yes, I’ve heard of McLuhan. They all heard of McLuhan. But I didn’t always bring up McLuhan. I would bring up Zappa or LaRouche or one of the other holy officers.
I’m always staying within the on-duty propagating my teleplay, my screenplay. Like Frank, he keeps writing the same fucking musical. So this is when women’s libs come in. Feminists say, this Frank hated feminism and he’s got the evil woman taking over the planet. That’s his perception of feminism. This is what’s
Happening. 68, 69, 70, 71, 72. So maybe Frank is satirizing being a misogynist. You know, frank is satirizing being a misogynist you know, pretending he’s one or he’s not as like mccluhan they’re missing the hidden ground, the two busy trying to liberate their tribe and missing uh… what’s coming to them
In the Android Meme condition yeah go ahead yes i was thinking about that because uh… in mexico City we have such masses of people that we are used to this serial type of engagement with the mass because this makes things like more efficient or the only way things can function.
You don’t engage the collective like an individual but as a mass and… You have to wade your way through it. You couldn’t interrupt the traffic flow by talking. Is that what you’re saying? Yes, everything is done very fast. Right, and no friendship. And I care on really good.
Yes, and I remember when I first came to Berlin, I will be desperate because, for example, when you pay something at the bakery in Mexico City, the people make the, like, they know how much you have to pay, but they make it in their mind, the addition. And they do that very fast.
And here’s like, everything seemed to be slow for me. Right. And that made you desperate? Yes, because it’s like like I was used to this type of serial engagement that everything is fast and you don’t really talk with the people. So it slowed down so you thought, well, maybe I could talk.
You weren’t ready to talk, but it was being implied that you could talk and that bothered you. You didn’t know how to do that. Is that what you’re saying? Well, I was not used to it. Everything seemed like so…
Human scale. Were you in a rush somewhere? Did you have to be somewhere? You were in school? No, you’re just used to this speed. Also, for example, I remember in Mexico City people move very fast in the crowd. And here sometimes, for example, now that it’s Christmas and some streets are crowded
Or shopping centers or this and that, I get desperate because people don’t move as fast in Mexico City when they’re in the crowd. You get anxious. Yes. So you’re not used to Carolyn. You know, Carolyn’s really good. She makes instant friends.
She’ll make, you know, when you go through the airport and put your suitcase and it goes and gets x-rayed and all that, Carolyn will make a friend out of the person, you know, when you go through the airport and put your suitcase and it goes and gets x-rayed
And all that, Carol will make a friend out of the person, you know, helping with the suitcase or zapping you with x-rays. Within the 10 second exchange, Carol has bonded with them. She does something cute or charming that they like. So they do a double take and look at her.
She’s pleasant to look at. And so they fall kind of in love with her. And I’m walking along sour and grumpy and watching this go on. I’ve been watching this for fucking decades. Yeah, I usually comment on it. Yeah, I usually comment on it. Another friend, you know, like, you know.
So the person, they’re sort of removed themselves from Carol and now dealing with the next person, but if they’re listening to it, the husband goes, another special, I think. Yes, we are the final retrieved humans. We are the first to show up or the last to be here or something like that.
I can’t remember the order. I’ve lost my place. I don’t know whether they’re coming or going. Remember Dirk, and we did this, teaching his religion. He said, remember he was playing off like Zappa does on cliche phrases. We’re gonna know where it’s at because we know which way it went.
Remember that conversation? Those lyrics. Yeah. Where was that? I remember that last week. So this is… so he had the same scenario and a different ending. What is the ending? The Huntsman Toot, I don’t think he’s taken over the planet, he’s just become a pimp.
He’s just satisfied, well he maybe never wanted to take over the planet. And Drachm is reduced to being a hole, a servicing hall. H-O-L-E, just a hall for people to…
Let’s see, where is the grammar, the grammar lesson? lesson. So what this is very late so we’re going to go to the Zemmerus book which has all these scripts they’re all going to be lumped together in this new book where Frank says those interested in the conceptual continuity or are
Familiar with a lot of things we’re going to find it all put together. So it was Bob’s job to make order out of it. Yeah, here it is. Dirk says, that’s right, I have a promotional idea that will prove once and for all how heavy we are tied to his meditating cult.
And simultaneously show conclusive evidence to every infidel and unbeliever, not only where we’re at, but also where we’re coming from. Now he gets them to go to space, to go to outer space and go to the Drachmas rock or planet. And the Forcelings object to it,
But he zaps them sort of like Cambifer, just travels them through time and space. But he says, we’re going to do something up there so that when we come back, we’ll be a bona fide religion. So he says we’re…
Actually, he’s portraying what is happening now, you know, like this side sees the others as the infidels and we are heavier than you and the other side has the same attitude and it is so absurd and he’s making us a tire of that and
It’s amazing yes we don’t need this endangered aliens to come and try to conquer Earth it’s like humans are actually ones that are attacking humans. So that’s even more horrible. And he he says when they become a bona fide religion at the end of this
Treatment, this screenplay, they’ll all be able to go to airports and hand out leaflets. Now that’s just beginning in in LA in the late 60s early 70s. The cults, Scientology, the other cults, Hare Krishna’s, they’re all starting to hand out leaflets and this is
Driving Frank nuts. I mean he’s trying to run a revolution and educate everybody and get them to go to the library and figure out what’s going on and not be dupes and the stupidity is spreading around him as little cults spring up handing out leaflets
So he’s lashing out at what’s happening in his world right there in 7170 New England LA The cosmic debris Yes, the cosmic debris, right So we’re going to find out where we at, but also where we’re coming from. Dirk says, I’ve meditated long and deeply,
And in doing so, I have penetrated to the very core of this marginally imponderable dilemma. It’s only marginally imponderable. And I have found the answer. And the answer is, quote, the difference between where you’re at
And where you’re coming from is where you went. The difference between where you’re at and where you’re coming from is where you went. He used to say in the late 80s that it’s not, I don’t know, what, he said it’s
When. The big question was when. This is amazing because that’s what iON is saying all the time. It’s like… Yes. There is no time. iON has made fun. iON is edgy like that. He’s not really going back. Right. He would make fun of directional… We’re not going back in the direction of light.
We’re going… They’re going sideways. Yes. They were going sideways. And he’s always playing with the R-ness and the East-ness and the West and the… That’s right. You know, that’s why when I start reading this, you know what?
Let me say this. When I read this kind of stuff by Zappa, and then we point out how iON does it, I say, that fucking iON is just zapping, just know, he was playing with it, doing it, and then we find out, shit,
It’s all in the scripts of the, uh, of the holy offices. You know, it’s like, iON scanned me, figured out all the fucking thoughts I engaged, and then disputed all back with a speeded up completion. Pretty amazing. Yes it is. I’m sure he said at one point the difference
Between where you’re at and where you’re coming from is where you went. I would not be surprised that you’ll find that at some old cash flow. This is what’s funny about this. And then he says, so they’re going to go to
The moon. And he says precisely when we get back from when we went, everybody will know where we’re at. When we get back from when we went and before it was, is where you went. Now it’s when you went, everybody will know where we’re at.
So he didn’t tell them then that they would have to go to the moon and they were quite shocked later. He says, well, here’s the plan, we’re all going to the moon or to some rock, mystery rock where Drachma was.
So Dirk wanders off. He fades into nothing. Drachma is trapped in a brothel. And Huntsington is doing okay. And is that all? And the Force Wings, I don’t know, maybe they were killed. I don’t know what happened to the Force Wings. Let’s see. They got their drops and ascended.
Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and the thing that
What happened is that very carefully the force leads group themselves around hutchington waiting reverently with bowed heads until dirt gives the secret signal like frank would give secret signals where upon the pound from the unsuspecting spider ripoff all of his arms and legs except the practical ones,
Tossing them around the stage while the orchestra plays some terrifying passage, strobes flash and Drachma stands near the sofa looking aghast as the scene blacks out and the lights come up on the narrator.” So they ripped him apart and I think he liked it. He didn’t object too much to that.
It says, and so with an exhilarating religious fervor, the Forcelings come to the assistance of the distraught Hunchentube, relieving him of the very cause of his deep-seated emotional problem, as symbolized by his wriggling little spring-loaded appendages, plunging headlong into the abyss of his insexual distress,
In order to liberate him in much the same manner their dismal competitors have attempted for countless centuries on earth. Acting in the sincere belief that they, the Forcelings, after so many inebunglings by those other benevolent foundations, would finally get it right.
We return you now to outer space for the results of their labors.” And we already read that. And we end up… What did the Forcelings… Are they around in the end scene? I don’t see them mentioned. Uh… Hunters who dress their sword…
Well, the Forcelings are trying to save Dirk from being hypnotized by the Watch. That’s the last thing they’re engaged. They’re trying to save their leader and they fail it says Dirk stumbles blindly into the wings fetishing his watch and doesn’t say anymore about the force wings so uh…
The concentration moon you heard me play that song concentration moon eh? did you like that? from we’re only For The Money? Yes. Concentration Moon. Moon units. I wonder if Moon has ever thought about the conceptual continuity and how her name fits into it. If I ever see her, I’ll ask
Her that. You know that you’re just a fragment of a larger theatrical layout by Frank? You’re one of the themes? See what she says. I’m on her Facebook. I don’t know. Maybe I should become a member. I will ask her. I can present this on her Facebook page.
I will be quickly banned with rude my rudeness. But we’re used to that. The rest of the people will see it and they’ll know the value of what I did. Because you’re so heavy, Ed Lin boy. Yes, the Wimplings. The INS are Wimplings.
Cannot even come up with something to ask I on. Wimplings. The Ionettes are wimplings. Cannot even come up with something to ask iON. Wimplings. Not you two. The rest of them. They don’t even show up anymore because iON ain’t here. We are people still listening on the computer, but the
Turnout here, when iON’s not around, really shows you what this is all about. It ain’t about Carol and Bob’s charisma, it’s about iON, it’s the only thing worth showing up for. They put up with it, they put up with it. Looking at Sarah, she asked, I wonder if the dissonant ambient funk
Was recorded separately from the dialogue. Not probably. She goes, ooh, John Cage and Norman McLaren. Norman McLaren was an animator for the National Film Board. Then she goes, mm, Varese. Then she goes, Roxy Harmonium, triad of fourth and fifth. Then she says, Cadence.
Then number 125 says, Dirk, did Frank write Boogie Nights? at a fourth and fifth that his cadence number one twenty five is dirt did frank right boogie night remembered dirt bigler i thought will be a good uh… and then he says four slings then he says bob you’re so country
Everybody talked to everybody in the country all country person from a rural uh… overalls where it’s a good thing and uh… and then the man marvel and you’re right in the town and make friends with everybody and hand out cigarettes uh… one twenty five kids
Quote ripped off all those arms and legs except for the practical and haha they’ll be like that light before he threw which was not to rip off quote, ripped off all his arms and legs except for the practical ones. Ha ha ha. They like
That line. The poor things knew which ones not to rip off. Now our task is this awesome book called Demerath, subtitled The Book by Frank Zappa. And it has a picture of Frank with his chest hairs, no shirt on, and he has a nice, I don’t
Know, a 40’s hobo kind of suit jacket. And he’s got straggly hair, it’s 1984, and he’s holding up his hand in a green glove. Demarest, Frank Zappa, copyright 1984, all rights reserved. He says forward, this cheesy little homemade book was prepared for the amusement of people
Who already enjoy Zappa music. It is not for intellectuals or other dead people. He’s designed to answer one of them. Yeah, you have to get happy or get out. Yeah. Yeah. So for your entertainment. I mean, Roxy was just starving in Berlin. There was no more alive people.
She was surrounded by dead people. She wasn’t sure if that’s what was happening, but now she can see that is what was happening. And so he says, the book is designed to answer one of the more troubling questions related to conceptual continuity.
Quote, how do all these things that don’t have anything to do with each other fit together, forming a larger absurdity? Well, I think my pattern of the concentration camp is what we’re going to see here. Your enjoyment, no, not exactly that. It’s going to be updated.
It says your enjoyment of the content could be enhanced by hearing the music described in the text. The album shown on the back cover contains some of these songs. We’ve got four albums, Francesco Zappa, Zappa’s album called Demeras, Zappa’s Old Masters collection and Thing Fish.
Other songs derived from Joe’s Garage and Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch. This is a storybook. It is not a rock and roll biography. This is the only real and official Frank Zappa book. All other books attempting to trade on my name are unauthorized and full of misinformation.
This book is dedicated to all of the fans who have made the last 20 years of large scale absurdities possible. This book, see, large scale absurdities. This book used to be called Christmas in New Jersey. Now I read that last week, so I hope you can handle that.
So it starts off with Francesco, you know, 250 years ago, talking to the Duke of York, and we went through that. Then Francesco meets up with Schimp, no, yeah, Schimp the alchemist, and then they go to Broadway, they go to New York 1984. We figured out that Francesco is Frank.
Frank is telling us that he’s like Beefheart, a real phenomenon of the mystery landscape, and way more than people suspect, and he’s like Beefheart, a real phenomenon of the mystery landscape and way more than people suspect. He’s lived for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Then we went into the beginning of the universe where Uncle Willie, it says Uncle Willie is seen relaxing on a grotesquely tufted maroon sofa, smoking a cigar. On his knee is the dummy, now with a face just like his, like Uncle Willie’s, dressed in a flowing white miniature robette.
Well reading one of the Zappa books, when Frank was like, you know, seven or eight or six years old, he would take Carl, who was the third, the second brother. Bobby was a few years, Carl might have been like nine years, eight years younger than Frank, whereas Bobby was only three years younger.
So this younger brother, he would sit him on his lap and do puppetry or ventriloquism, fake ventriloquism. The very thing that Uncle Willie is doing with the dummy is what Frank did with his little brother. Interesting point, right? He entertained the family with this, you know, improvising stuff, whatever the young mind
Would come up with. So there’s you have Zappa is sitting there thinking about how he used to have his brother on his lap. Then he said, okay, now it’s 40 years later. We’re surrounded by organic robotoids. So at best it’s going,
I’m going to be a weird duck thing called Uncle, weird pervert called Uncle Willie, and I’m not going to have my little brother. I’m going to have a fucking automated dummy on my lap. Right? He’s updating the, what He’s updating what he did, the scenarios of his life. Overlaid large-scale absurdities.
Yes, and you also mentioned before under the electric environment and the Android Meme, everybody became this type of organic robotoid. Yes. It doesn’t have to be a cyber, most human are in this state of organic robotoid situation. That was in the Google Galaxy. Everybody was a robot by, you know, 1600, 1700.
The print visual space contained human. Even before electricity, we were already organic robot types. Well, that’s what I’m saying. I said the Gutenberg Galaxy. I’m talking 500 years ago was when we became organic robots. And we became angelic. He writes in, well posthumously published,
So we don’t know how much he wrote, but it could be considered it. But Bruce Powers, former CIA guy, he’s a professor at Niagara University in upstate New York. He was one of the last guys to engage McLuhan. In his book he talks about angels
Versus robotism, angelism versus robots. And angelism seems to be aligned with the Gutenberg Gaussian. Robotism is the electric fate. But McLuhan said in 1968 that robots were probably a visual space. So it could be a case of Hyundai-D, one by means
Of two. But yes, the electric age is implying a liberation from the robot world. You had to be a robot to listen to Ed Sullivan every day, every Sunday. Once you have digital do-it-yourself media, you aren’t in the dancing to the same tune as everybody else. Yes, like they will say
Same program in the same channel at the same time. Right. Like everybody will just program their lives to adapt to the TV program. And now you said with the video recorder, TV was made for the video recorders that were taping the program. Yeah, for the recorders.
They’re watching it. their self. We’re taping your program. They’re watching it. Okay, so the dummy wants to bring in the short girl and squat the magical pig. Now, Frank in 70, 71, 72, uh… that would be… he broke up the mothers and then he reformed them with
Uh… Flo and Eddie from the Turtles and put in a couple of new musicians like George Duke. So they went around 70, 71 acting out this weird scenario of the big sofa and short girl and squat the magical
Pig. Did little sketches and the sofa was there at the beginning of the universe. So that’s in this book. So that’s an early theatrical performance piece. So that’s developed a little bit. I can’t read all the details, but then that’s the end of chapter one.
Uncle Willie, this is where old Zircon, at the end of chapter one, Uncle Willie says, Darkness fell suddenly in all forests as cancelled leeches and transoms swarmed ashore, devouring bushes while they slept. Farmers walked off and got lost because there were no stars, not even the moon.
Then, from a distant cave, there’s the cave thing again, the measured tread of cloven hoof on darkened gravel. Old Zircon, the phased out Byzantine devil, dressed in a costume of that period except for his feet. There’s your Pergamon obsession, Roxy, the whore of Babylon or the king of Babylon, old Zircon.
So he’s including ancient religion, hocus pocus. They have a exterior of old Zircon’s cave set in a dark barren landscape of infinite gravel. Old Zircon says, looks like the leeches have ate up every bush. Bet this place will look funny when the lights go back on.
Old Zircon launches into a charming sort of cloven hoof tap dance routine, producing sparks which ignite the local moss. An enormous bonfire, totally out of proportion to the amount of fuel available, springs up around him. Uncle Willie and the dummy stand nearby, unnoticed.
I remember reading this last week. Do you guys remember this? Yes. Uncle Willie. I remember Uncle Willie says, Old Zircon danced his quote special dance until sparks ignited all adjacent moss. One by one, dangerous looking unknown animals make their way to Zircon’s fire.
With a snap of his fingers, he produces an assortment of primitive musical instruments and proceeds to do his version of a Las Vegas lounge act for them. For the animals, I guess. Uncle Willie says, all fierce and murderous beasts assembled to a large red fire just outside the cave.
Old Zircon beat his special drum, blew his special horn, and strummed his special guitar. Then he sang in a deep voice until the smoke turned to stone, forming several lumpy new mountains. So his voice altered the landscape around him, one of which could talk. Yeah, the frequency… Right. …until this voice became stone.
Ahhh! Right. The Xurkon is one of these old ascended guys who knows how to manipulate his mouth to make realities. So in chapter 2, it goes into Billy the Mountain, and that story is on just another band from LA, 1971.
So it lays out the Billy the Mountain story. And Billy the Mountain wants to go on a vacation, takes his wife, Ethel, the tree, and they just cause… they trudge across the desert destroying everything. So it’s another destructive motif, another monster wrecking the human scale.
So that goes on for a while and then there starts to be TV broadcasters. So Frank would take sort of well-known names locally or different situations and the character would be almost George Putnam.
So instead of having the character be George Putnam, he would say almost George Putnam or almost Barbara Walters. These were characters and almost George Putnam is talking about the destruction that Billy the Mountain is making. Jerry Lewis holds a telethon to raise funds for all the crashed places that Billy the Mountain caused.
Does Frank mean a metaphor for what he’s doing? Is he crashing things like a monster? Then you bring in the other character of that era, Thuda Baker-Hawk, superhero of the current economic slump. And I think we did him. Then there’s a little throwback to Squat and the short girl,
Old Zircon, then it gets into the next character after Studebaker Hawking gets into Gregory Peckery and he’s a trend monger, he manufactures new trends. So that becomes the content that already was the content of the baby snakes video where Bruce Bickford made all this amazing clay animation following Gregory Pecory’s scenario.
So that was written up, you know, 12, 13 years before. Now, my first checkoff. So, Frank is going to deal with the same idea that there’s no time, or time cancels itself out, so we’re not going anywheres. So, in Gregory, Peckary, in his trend-mongongering office invents the calendar.
So here’s Frank coming at time in another way. And with that, old Zircon says, and with that Gregory turned and strode nonchalantly into his dinky little office with the desk and the catalog and the very hip water pipe and
Proceeded with a vigor and determination known only to piglets of a similarly diminutive proportion proceeded to single-handedly invent the calendar. Old Zircon says, Gregory ponders the significance of eternity and fractional divisions thereof, as mysterious angelic voices sing to him from a great distance,
Providing the necessary clues for the construction of a thrilling new trend. Sounds like me making my chart. My chart is an attempt to enter time, right? Lay out changes in duration, in the duration of spans. So Zircon says, and thus the calendar, in all of its colorful disguises, was presented
To the bored and miserable people everywhere. Gregory issued a memo on it, whereupon the entire contents of the stenopool identified with it strenuously and worshipped it, the memo, as a way of life. Or maybe they worshipped the calendar, maybe that’s what it meant.
And took their little pills by it and went back and forth from work by it and paid their rent by it and before long they were even having birthday parties at the office by it. Because now at last Greggery Peccary’s exciting new invention
Had made it possible for everyone to find out how old they were. See, there’s your programming of the environment. That’s Frank looking at a new invention and showing how it altered people, conditioned their behavior, but all the time fitting into the concepts he laid out ten years earlier, twenty years earlier in Cat
And Beefheart versus the Grunt People in terms of no time. Right? You get that? Yes. Yes. Now, Gregory… No, he was really into a bigger agenda of just being a rock star. That’s something. Right. You know, McLuhan writes about how Erasmus hijacked the printing press to make a new kind of classroom education.
Zappa says, holy shit, I’m this talented musician. I can go into pop culture and wreak havoc on it. If I play good enough music, they’ll let me do it. He was like the siren, as you said before, in Ulysses Trapp. His music could get an audience that he could then play with.
So, Old Zurkhahn says, unfortunately there were people who simply did not wish to know how old they were. And that’s why on his way home from the office one night, Gregory was attacked by a rage of hunchmen. Hunch and toot, but these are hunchmen. Making his way through the evening traffic,
Gregory notices that the other vehicles, which crowd and bump his little red car, are all inhabited by slowly aging, very hip young people. You know, that’s me and Carolyn, slowly aging, right? Very hip young people. So again, he’s making fun of me.
Who appear to be casting sinister glances toward Gregory through their glinting acid burnt out eyeballs, trying to run them off the road or make them bump into something, giving strong evidence of hostile aggression. To elude them, Gregory takes the short forest exit off the expressway.
They zoom after him in all manner of cars, trucks, garishly painted buses, and motorcycles. Gregory takes a bumpy trail off the main short forest road, which leads him up the side of
A famous and conveniently placed mountain, into a strange cave on the edge of a cliff not far from a little twisted tree with eyes on it. Meanwhile the enraged hunchmen and hunchwomen rumble through the short forest until realizing the little swine has escaped they decide to park their steaming vehicles
In a circular pseudo wagon train formation and have a love-in. So there it is, there’s the celestial’s agenda. Now it’s part of the culture in America. Because under the influence of a fantastic amount of trendy chemical amusement aid, the hunchmen and hunchwomen, they perform lewd acts,
Rip each other off for small personal possessions, and dance with depraved abandon in the vicinity of a six-foot puddle of transistor radios, each one tuned to a different station.” So Zircon is dealing with Gregory, then the greatest living philosopher shows up, Quentin Robert de Nameland.
And he is in some of the skits of this period we’re talking about in the early 70s. Quentin Robert de Nameland. You’ve got the modified singing cowboys doing stuff. Uncle Willie doing stuff with the dummy, Tudor Baker Hawk, he falls off the mountain, gets injured, Billy the Mountain wrecks him for a while.
Then you go into Chapter 3, we did this buddy is dealing with a scientist named Hertzberg, and they were looking at the new machine called PDE conversion. I have ticked off here. Well, let’s look at it another way. Time is not like what people think it is.
It doesn’t start over here and then go over there. Time is just one big lump of stuff. Everything is happening all the time. I can prove it to you. When you’re watching TV on Channel 9, there’s always something else on Channel 5, right? Now, have you guys gone? Still there? No.
Yes. Good. We’re here listening. Now, have you guys gone? Still there? No. Yes. Good. We’re here, listening. Yeah, we did that. We did that Channel 9, Channel 5 stuff. So a lot of stuff about particles and chopping up waves,
The physics of that, which is Zappa filling out what he said back in 1970. But I’d like to phrase you, you said before, this trendy chemical entertainment. I never thought about it, but yeah, we always have, besides what we call entertainment,
There are these substances that most people engage to relax and to have fun. It’s not only the entertainment but the substance. It plays a big role in the societies. Yeah, what is that? That’s people not wanting to talk to each other, so they must occupy their mouths with confection, is it called?
Combestibles? Consumable. with confection, is it called? Convectables? Comestables? To… Consumable. So they… Combustibles. No. There’s something called comestables or something. I don’t use that word too much. I remember looking it up about six months ago. Anyways, they have to keep their mouths busy. So as they get more and more leisure industry activities,
Leisure society, they’re involved with people, got to interact. But if you’re drinking, smoking, eating, you don’t have to talk as much. That’s my present interpretation of your scenario there. Yeah, the chemical entertainment. Yes. So, Uncle Willie had died, crashed into the Christmas tree, but then he came back.
Buddy Wilson is trying to figure out how to explain it to his children so he says to mess with anything natural, if you mess with anything natural and you can believe there’s going to be something supernatural coming out of it, every time
They run that machinery over there they could be messing up our entire chronological ozone layer and when you mess around with somebody’s chronology you stand a very good chance of putting that sucker out of sequence. Somebody that’s already been here before might come back. So he’s doing that.
And they propose with Buddy’s ability to bring ghosts back that they bring in Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix. Then the Joe’s Garage scenario where everybody’s criminalized and music is outlawed so people can be controlled and categorized. Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you who do wrong things.
And many of them were driven to these crimes by a horrible force called music. So Zap in the late 70s was writing about music as becoming a figure of terrorism. That’s because we’re about to move into the extreme Android Meme extension of MTV, of television, which would affect the music MTV, of television,
Which would affect the music industry, you know, a big deal. So, like Frank is defending the oral culture, the musical culture, before he adapts to MTV. He’s saying that they’re gonna outlaw music. that they’re going to outlaw music? Maybe just a phase of paranoia on Frank’s part.
Well, but in a way, they already did with this short format. Like he was finding this amazing music on his own, but he was surprised that it was not presented on the media.
So in a way, they already have this type of subtle censorship of real music. They’re promoted only the music that goes with the substances that sell. Right. Yes. Yeah, and Zappa used to say that whatever substances would be used would determine the Joe’s Garage stuff about the dilemma of, what is her name?
Mary. Mary is a Catholic girl. She gets bored with the little town, gets bored with Joe. So she goes on the road with the mothers, or a band, doesn’t say particularly the Mother’s Invention, but it does name some of the members who were
In there at one time or another. And Larry, remember Larry from the pony world, 20 years before, he’s a character in this Joe’s Garage part. Who is Larry? Also there’s much commentary by the central scrutinizer in this period. Larry. Larry is singing. We could jam. So why, who is this Larry guy?
Don’t see where Larry comes from. So maybe he just popped in. We’re not supposed to know that he was with the green women for a while, the green cult.
So Mary goes and becomes a clue slut and then she ends up, in the first part when she’s going to the Catholic club, she’s mentored by Father Riley. Well Father Riley gets defrocked and he ends up in Miami someplace leading wet t-shirt
Contests and that’s how he and Mary reconnect, re-meet. So, still Joe’s stuff. Joe’s in jail. He gets constantly pluked. And the center crew scrutinizes this. So Joe’s learned how to speak German. He goes into this place and he sees these little kitchen machineries dancing around with each other.
And he sees this one that looks like it’s a cross between the industrial vacuum cleaner and a chrome piggy bank with marital aid stuck all over its body. It’s really exciting. And when he sees it, he bursts into song.
So the industrial vacuum cleaner was seen dancing on the cover of Chung’s Revenge in 1970, that album. So this song is called, Fuck Me, I’m Clean. You get that? Fuck me, I’m clean. And introduces the robot Cyborg. Cyborg’s hanging out with Joe and maybe Larry. And Central School of Medicine.
But we see how this, the COITUS team, constantly, very hard to rely on them. Team Constant. Very important name. Yes. Very what? Important name. The coitus. Well Frank’s ambivalent. He’s making fun of all the coitus going on. Like Cyborg, he actually gets broken. Cyborg, the automated something, he gets pluked here and there
And it’s always getting broken, screwed up. So Frank is dealing with the disservices of the counterculture he had a little influence on. Now the ground has changed. The counterculture ain had a little influence on. It’s now the ground has changed, the counterculture ain’t what it used to be,
Not as relevant as a counterculture. And Frank’s looking how to be in any environment. He’s determined to be a solitary artist, so he gets influenced by me and keeps coming up with new stuff that we make relevant. We attempt to translate it into public mortar. Frank just keeps pumping out the data.
So I have ticked off here, Joe is saying, this is exciting, I never pluked a tiny chrome-plated machine that looks like a magical pig with marital aids all stuck all over it, such as yourself before. So back eight years before, the pig and squat and the sofa were happening.
Well, the pig theme comes back with Joe’s garage at the end of the 70s. I have ticked off this. Joe picks up the dummy, flicking bits of cake spew off the side of his mouth. The camera pans left to find Uncle Willie seated at a small control console with cables
Running across the soundstage floor connected to the rear end of Cyborg. So there’s the programming committees. Uncle Willie’s got some technical version of it. The lyrics of a song are, blow job, gimme that, gimme that blow job, gimme that, gimme the chromium cob. Would you write that stuff, Bert?
Are we looking at a deranged mind here? A satisfying body processes damaged by the pope what uh… he’s using shock value for a point and the president is uh… interior oval office the president with his handkerchief wadded up over the receiver he’s attempting to talk in a low voice
Steam rises from a freshly served hot toddy near the jar of jelly beans on the desk, Reagan-like jelly beans. And the president’s doing a William Lewis, he’s calling up people randomly. So he says to this anonymous person, your mother sucks cocks in hell. Would this have been allowed to happen
Would be uh… the people who arrested lenny bruce would be end up we doing with frank having the president saying your mother sucks sex cox in hell it’s all they have just that which is supposed to get a glimpse of the president doing his business uh…
Uh… then you go back to Cy, Cyborg’s apartment and one of the characters is get this, another swipe at me. Another mocking of me. The character is… geez, where did it go? Oh yeah, in L.A. earlier, in the early 70s scripts, L. Ron Hooper, L. Ron Hoover, you know, the leader of the
Church of Appliantology. Give me just a second, I’ll look for this disgusting theme. theme okay and why is it lost cyborg shares an apartment with a modified gay Bob doll. Gay Bob doll. Why? Why, Frank? Did I hurt your feelings? Why have me in and out of the fucking movie scripts?
Bob guy, gay Bob doll, what’s that? Sad about Frank. Bob guy, gay Bob doll, what’s that? What’s that about, Frank? So, we go now to chapter 4, there’s 11 chapters, and this is the central scrutinizer, now Father Riley B., now Joe is in jail,
And Father Riley B. Jones, is that the same, what was the father called before? Still looking. Yes, Father Riley, same name. Okay, Father Riley B. Jones. So he’s trying to administer to Joe who’s now in prison for making music.
That’s still the Joe’s Garage stuff. Now Buddy becomes sort of like a Zappa character, like Billy Sweeney, he builds things. You know, his device to bring people back from the dead, he gets irritated by the device after a while. The social disservices, he can’t be left alone. You must have a public
Role for changing the lives of everybody with the new technology. We’ll probably be the only people that hide from our inventions. We will not want to take credit for it. Right? Can you dig that? Yeah. It’s gone stealth. So we’re now in, there’s a big fight Jesus and I think Mr. Zircon.
But maybe Zircon, is he too old? Yeah, it’s… It says, the big fight, old Zircon imitates Hitler’s Jolly Jig delivering a devastating punch which duplicates the angle and velocity of the Hertzberg-Bemelman Sig Heye. So the velocity of their Sig Heye salute is matched by the angle of Zircon’s punch. But where was that?
There’s also a bit about Mr. Bemelman’s if you were following Hollywood scandals in the 80s Bemelman’s was a big studio director, and he he got caught stealing money or something So the other place, okay, in the glare of some horrible unknown being, we see expressions
Of panic on the faces of the four scientists. One of them yells, shut it off, shut it off, for God’s sake. Scientist 2 says we can’t shut it off, it’s too late. Whereupon an exact instant replay occurs. The first scientist repeats shut it off, etc., etc.
The same instant replay happens three more times. Just when it starts to get boring we see a delayed replay of the first entrance of the unknown doctor and the shot of slightly wrong middle-aged janitor abruptly intercut with portions of the shut it off dialogue.
Remember in McLuhan’s review of Naked Lunch, Ticket Express, Ticket to Upload or whatever, he’s saying that Burroughs is advocating hitting the shut off button. So we could make, so these are profiles of psychological
Types like on my chart. This is his version of the chart. Look at that guys. Wow. So somebody, the almost Dan Rather reports that as a result of their experiment a most grievous time-space aberration has occurred, creating an irreversible chronological dysfunction. Now anything can happen.
Now anything can happen, at any time, from any time, and for any reason or no reason at all, with no regard for continuity, as science has just done away with it forever. Science’s products do away with the visual space guidelines.
So then you go into chapter 5, starts off with Carl Sagan and Billy is hanging out as a roadie, Cecil, his horse world is coming back, he’s pretty excited, and they get sent up in, what’s his name, who wrote that book? You mentioned something he made in 1970. uh… rocky uh… can remember
Can you remember what we’re talking about why am i sitting here talking to the microphone but what am i a exploring here just kidding i’m on top of it don’t worry uh… uh… worries back to the oval office the president he might have looked in nineteen fifty five of the
Host of death valley days he’s now consulting with his advisors on the significance of this matter uh… i guess it’s uh… billy has got on the moon, is that where we’re at? Yes. So Billy announces he’s going to the moon. Then Reagan comes on and somebody says to
Him, that thing, it’s in the air again. The president begins to recite the Lord’s Prayer, pausing briefly to order another hot toddy. He’s extremely perturbed by the possibility that the X-1 might reach the moon before the government’s very own hand-picked, corn-fed, all-American astronaut.
He orders that the X-1 must be destroyed and plans for the one and only official U.S. government lunar landing be drastically accelerated. So I guess X-1 is Billy’s plane. There’s a montage of obviously cheap stock footage, jet fighters scrambling, radar stuff, anti-aircraft guns twirling around, factories working overtime, 1930s style telephone operators
Violently jabbing at overloaded switchboards, etc. So we get into a suburban scene with Alan, as a home and ensigno, works for famous international pitchers, and he’s got ridiculous kids and a ridiculous wife who eventually wants a divorce. Ghostly occurrences. Here’s an item treated in a humorous way by the newscaster regarding ghostly occurrences
In Palo Alto ending with one of those horrible light-hearted news comments about the number of shopping days left before Halloween. I think I had something Frank was going to say about that. During a pause in Horace’s computations, we hear this delightful sound of his enthusiastic
Crystal lunch consumption over the intercom, followed by a series of even more disgusting sound effects. Crunching bone matter and tearing human tissue mingled with agonized groans vaguely reminiscent of the transformation sequences in the movie American Werewolf in London. Are you Roxy right there? Yeah, I was.
Right, do you have anything you want to say? About what we’re saying here? We’re getting into cocaine decisions. So, we’re getting into the 80ies here and uh… the characters in this uh… big extravaganza are buddy, uncle willie, the dummy, abraham lincoln, father riley b jones, old zircon, the real jesus
Herzberg and bemelmans, hitler, billy, cecil and larry, muammar, gaddafi all dressed to look like screenwriters, costume and set designers, directors and cameramen, etc. So we’re getting this Hollywood executive, Allen, who’s a disaster in his family, and doing a lot of cocaine decisions.
So in Chapter 6, look at this. We cut to the interior of a special effects warehouse. As we pan around the room we notice haphazardly stored in a corner the incredibly fraudulent paper mache spider. From missile to the moon. So the spider is now just paper machemâché, the spider motif.
That’s how it appears anyways. Alan is talking to Roger who is negotiating a rental deal on a used giant squid, loudly defending its maneuverability, efficiency and seaworthiness. Roger shows traces of light green clown hair. Gretchen, Alan’s wife, her toenails are dripping with
Flesh colored beige enamel. We hear her humming her favorite parts of the Zappasong, baby take your teeth out, as she works. Now this is the early 80s when people were getting
Word processors. On the desk is the newest, most advanced, most expensive word processor in Hollywood. It doesn’t say whose office it is, unless later. Now we come to Harry. He wants to look at Channel 13 so he can watch the rubber tongue
Come to Harry. He wants to look at Channel 13 so he can watch the rubber tongue when it comes out of the puffed and flabby Mexican rubber goods mask next time they show the Francine, Alan’s shrinking, shrinking at Francine for some reason, or just yelling out her name. I think that’s his secretary.
Reference to Elephant Man. and then the movie tonight is steaming poop shoot so barney and uh… his wife have these little projects going florence uh… the white florence wife, enters carrying a tray with cookies and two
Tall glasses of milk with long straws in them announcing Din Din. Kid Jimmy with his father Barney and the mother is I guess Florence. Yes, Barney. Now we did Barney way back there. No, that was Buddy Wilson. So Barney is a new guy. Barney is incredibly ugly.
Did I get that right? He has been affected by the AIDS virus through glucolonia, which were going to, the thing fished theme. His family, he and his wife and son have to wear bags over their heads. They got zapped by one of these Dr. Evil’s concoctions.
His son is saying, what did you do dad? Barry says, believe it or not I worked the smoke machine on the last Big Kiss tour. How’s that for a resume? I worked the smoke machine on the last Big Kiss tour.
There’s a reference to Annie Sprinkleton. I worked the smoke machine on the last Big Kiss tour. There’s a reference to Annie Sprinkle. I don’t know if you guys know who Annie Sprinkle is. Look her up. She’s a porno star entertainer performance artist.
So Jimmy, still baffled by what a Kiss tour was supposed to be, asked his father, well, are you still in show business now or what? Yes Jimmy, I’m still in show business. You may never see me on TV or in the movies, you may never hear me on the radio or hear
About my activities in the theater, but I am even today the most important show business figure in the entire Southern California area. Can you guess what he does? What? Why would he be the most important showbiz figure in Southern California in the early 80s? Because he’s a drug dealer.
He supplies the cocaine for everybody. All the executives, all the pluky executives that Frank makes fun of in Cocaine Decision. So there’s a cocaine plague going on. But that takes up a big chunk. And chapter 8 is more hunch and toot. And then… Where? Chapter 9 is Shemp and Francesco.
Back to Shemp and Francesancesco there’s eleven chapters so and we get back into the broadway play we began with friend with jimping francesco so yeah they get back to harry and ronda which we heard a bit of on playing some thing fish so it’s uh… going to come nicely back to
Frank trying to get this stuff on broadway and five o’clock dot that means that they like the cinderella thing you turn into a pumpkin or something yet if you get it and i think that they’re going to do yes hunched in huntington me to punch and then put on the harmonica.
You know like a fake white boy doing blues harmonica. They hunch and then toot. That’s what the word means. Hunch and toot. And in the early 70s, Frank is complaining about everybody celebrating B.B. King and all these boring blues cliches while he’s composing the completion of all ear experience Acoustic space
Yeah, the auditory imagination I quote T.S. Eliot at the Zappan Alley So we went I don’t know five or six fucking hours, man That was quite a stretch and very well done by all of us. We did a good job
Five hours of punchitude Go and there’s more to go That was quite a stretch and very well done by all of us. We did a good job. Five hours of constitute. And there’s more to come. Yes, we’ve got to do another five or six hours to finish the book.
Thank you for making this large-scale absurdity possible.
3 Comments
Oh wow… Over 7 hours. Looking forward to going through this.
Yea, Reagan was indeed dirty as fudge… Being the president of screen actors guild for a long while, He was basically feeding whoever he wanted to, to the sharks, During the mccarthy era especially .. Reagan was the one that basically talked about everyone and new everyone's political affiliations as he was Privy to such things… And then later for the CIA and the late 60s and early 70s.. He was instrumental in getting the President of I think UCLA To retire out there… From pressure from him and the government… I might be wrong about the college… It's interesting that you look back as early as the mid fifties… A short time after reagan's acting has kind of dried up.. And already he is being groomed for this… He's ready to become the republican perfect president… A guy that stays on script… A guy that's been a network clone for most of his life… Who's had more songs written about him from the anti-establishment? Then just about anybody from that era… And carried that legacy with him into the eighties… Playing dirty pool the whole time…. Debating carter with all of the questions and answers obtain in advance. Arranging for the hostages to not be freed while carter is in office. Anybody ever wonder why the hostages were freed on his first day in office? He had to practically beg them to not let them go until he was in office. They were getting tired of holding all those people. But Reagan with his CIA connections, Was able to tell them what authority that they would be safe if they held the hostages longer.
I wonder how the individual hostages feel about the fact that Reagan kept them.
Being held longer… It's always amazing to me how with all these crazy presidents… With the exception of george rose senior who we know was a bag man for the nixon administration… But just about all the other guys work much more dirty. But more than that they were ineffective presidents… The job of president is actually a relatively easy one. You convinced everybody that everything is fine and it can't possibly go wrong. And that's pretty much the case unless that president has some really big aspirations… In which case things could actually become very bad. Well reagan did that… Manage to talk a lot of people into a lot of stupid shit. And we are still reaping the benefits of that missed guided old fart.
And then you know reagan takes over for carter… And it's very hawkish and very alienating to every country. That is not already in our pocket… You can tell the true efficacy Of all of our presidents by looking at what they do when out of office.
After carter left office he brokered peace in the middle east. Why did he to do that? Because everybody everywhere saw him as a fair and honorable man who didn't rattle his saber…. Who didn't assume that everybody that has a turban is the bad guy… And he did it… He brought these people to the table and made peace. Ronnie went out of office and he basically shit his pants… That's to the best of our knowledge… Ronnie just largely dropped crab cakes into his long John's ..