Zappa.com

Frank Zappa was known for his prompt answers to anything. And if he didn't want to elaborate he always found a short, and often funny, answer.

I remember one from New Musical Express (I think) where he was asked if he liked Weather Report, and he replied:
"They've got a good drummer. He played with The Mothers before."
(That was Chester Thompson).

And some answers would just joke with the question and not necessarily convey the absolute truth, like this one from an interview in Denmark's Radio (1974?), that I just happened to get on tape:

Ole Reitov: "Were you always a legend as a boy too? "(said without a pause/inherent comma)
Frank Zappa (promptly): "Yes, I was always a legend as a boy - I've been a legend since I was about … two years old."

I don't think it would be right to say, that FZ claimed to have been a legend since he was two years old. ':o'
There must be more of these, probably scattered around in the other threads.

_________________
Add water, makes its own sauce

And also from Denmark in the seventies.
A newspaper reporter asks:
"And how do you like Copenhagen?"
(a question they will ask all celebrities, who then are supposed to say something nice about "our" city.)
Frank said something like:
"It's possibly the most boring place we've been to, although Zagreb [Yugoslavia] comes close."

_________________
Add water, makes its own sauce

In the 1984 Music Box (UK) intervew: After elaborating on why he thought the gubbniment was involved in the engineering of AIDS, the interviewer asks him if he had any evidence to back up his statements, and he says (or something to that effect):
"No, this is just the opinion of an aging buffoon"

_________________
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

Seen that interview Mr. Green Genes

"No, this is just the opinion of an aging buffoon"

Haha! Frank Zappa, ladies and gentlemen. My deep question - did he really have the evidence in his head, or was he being honest? Seems like sarcasm at first, but this reply stands out as vague to me. Was he just not willing to get any deeper with this dreaded interview?

Shit metaphysical ?'s : If he doesn't really have evidence...does he really go around spewing any possible circumstances his head comes up with based on a hunch?

If he does have evidence, would he ever bother to disclose it to the right person? FZ has never appeared to me as desperate. Bothering to convince a guy that he's right doesn't seem Frank.

_________________
What can you do that's fantastic?

the classic:

''That's another reason why I don't get my music on the radio because I'm totally out of step with reality. No I'm not a religious fanatic. I don't use drugs... And I'm neither a republican nor a democrat, and uh... I'm reasonably sane.''

_________________
''minimart - it's basically a scaled-down supermarket, fits inside a petrol station. sells pies, antifreeze..''

Don't forget this one:

Interviewer: "So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?"
FZ: "You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?"

_________________
"If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mother, your Dad, your priest, to some guy on television, to any of the people telling you how to do your shit, then you DESERVE it."

Maybe opinion was the wrong word? I imagine he meant conjecture. 'Evidence' and 'proof' strike me as something that would have to have one obvious implication-- something undeniable. Obviously Zappa didn't have the time to find something so undeniable, but he did have some disparate facts that supported his theory (he gives a few in TRFZB.)

He meant opinion.

_________________
You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

Oh, right.

How much privacy, an interviewer once asked him for starters, did FZ expect from a writer on tour with him for a few days?

He grinned: "A hundred percent".