Zappa.com

Hi Everybody,

Since today seems to be a day for thought-provoking questions, I thought I'd pose this one.

Was FZ "on the spectrum"? He certainly displayed the classic symptoms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

of a high-functioning savant,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... world.html

right down to the engineer father.

http://www.neurodiversity.com/computer_industry.html

Here's what Borat's cousin had to say on that topic :
http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/doc ... fReply.pdf



Despite what Gail asserts on Alex Jones' radio show, Frank Sr was in fact an engineer, mathematician and a scientist, not a merely a high school teacher as she stated.

Children with autism need strict discipline in order to thrive according to experts such as Temple Grandin.



If I were a Zappa with a young child, I'd look into this before they end up like Carl did or worse yet in the clutches of the quacks of Holywood.

I really feel sorry for the Untrustable kidZ, as spoiled as they are.



Annie

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my ship of love is ready to attack

Which is more crackpot of an idea: FZ was murdered or FZ suffered from asperger's?

I didn't even know that Mr. Asperger was missing his syndrome.

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"If Frank Zappa cut a fart and mixed it to stereo, I'd buy it!" - jimmie d

I doubt it was all suffering.



Frank was the proto-type for a new kind of person!

Annie

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my ship of love is ready to attack

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I guess since we are having twins and I'm an engineer the odds are 1 in 4
that my children will want to fly Quantas.

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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

I think annie's ship of love has sunk......

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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

LOL
It's actally spelt Qantas

we generally try to avoid sing the letter 'U' down here
...it's an nnecessary complication
...and definitely n-Astralian!

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"Wanna buy some pencils?...."

Thanks Dave... I'll throw another shrimp on tha barbie for ya.........

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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

Einstein was suspected of high fuctioning Asperger's once. I think an Asperger's accusation at some point is mandatory for a genuine genius these days....

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Nevermind your make up, you better make up your mind.

Yea those Austrians are a funny bunch!










yuk yuk yuk

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ASPERGER IS MY FAVORITE VEGETABLE

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Alan Thicke: ''Now Frank, for those of us who have seen you as some kind of guru over the years, that's a kind of nihilistic assesment of music. Where's the hope ?''
Frank Zappa: ''Well, there isn't any...''

Aspy Syndrome?!

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

People seem to throw with this fashionable disease onto people... CUT IT OUT!
Zappa's been dead for 14 years, it's a bit too late for psychiatric research. So don't claim he had any disease, syndrom or mental abnormality, not even if you're qualified.

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Join the PackardGoose forum! Send me a PM!

Yeah. Too bad he was murdered before we could find out.

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

I don't personally think he had it (I took a test for it before and scored "most likely" but those were my traits and tendencies but it doesn't mean I HAVE the condition.
BBP, lighten up a bit! It is the "myths and legends" section after all where we don't need the "here's the science bit". I understand the topic isn't being totally serious......is it?!?!

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Nevermind your make up, you better make up your mind.

The fun little quiz I took said I was about half and half:NT 106 ASP 97

http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

Frank was such a unique individual. I don't know if his IQ was ever tested, but many are comfortable calling him a genius.

His genius was a virus he wanted to spread.

Autism isn't a disease, neither is Asperger Syndrome. It's a disorder or neurological syndrome, a hardware issue. Individuals on the high end of the spectrum wouldn't change their brains for the world. Neither would many of those I might consider non-verbal at first glance, if writer Amanda Baggs is to be believed.

Autism and its related disorders are becoming part of social discourse at the moment. As technology advances, more people who have this condition are able to communicate their experiences and researchers gain greater understanding of the physiological aspects.

Great artists inspire me to stretch my brain. How many times did Frank get your neurons firing? Didn't he show you new pathways through your brain like he did mine?

FZ brought together so many layers and levels of information in his work. He communicated so deeply with many different minds, from many different cultures. I think he was most effective in communicating with people who were more like him than not. Years after his demise there is still so much richness is the data he provided that people are still poking his poop for corn.

I know I'm attracted to artists that reflect my highest aspirations for myself.

A guitar effects wizard once told me, "I've had so much fun listening to Frank's music, just in my own mind, that I would do anything to help his family." The way he said that stuck with me. It reminds me of FZ's statement on Hot Rats "This is a movie for your ears", which suggests synesthesia.

We are all synesthetic to a point but great writers, artists and musicans seem have it to a higher degree.

Often these gifts come with their own challenges and deficits, as some of the lore surrounding FZ suggests.

I propose this line of thinking not in condemnation but as a way to come to a better understanding of the man, the myth and the legend. And Trendmonger, too.

http://www.neurodiversity.com/main.html


Annie

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my ship of love is ready to attack

^^^^^^^^^^^^Trendmonger's significant other.....
And if not, they should be formally introduced.
G.C.

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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

It's very easy to find similarities between anyone's behavior and some mental aberration or physical disease. The only one who could possibly answer this question would be Frank himself (and he's not talking, psychics notwithstanding) or someone who was in close personal proximity to him. It brings up some interesting questions: What is normal? If a behavior is something we approve of is the person a genius? And on the other hand if it is something we dislike does it mean the person is ill? Whats the range of normal?

One answer to the question of whether someone has a mental disorder is how well they are functioning. Thats the only thing we can see from the outside. Frank had a succesful career, married, stayed married, had children, was responsible and intelligent. So on the basis of that, I would say no, he was not autistic.

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Country music + Black music = Rock and Roll

It genuinely fucks me up when people who don't know shit consider a mild behavioral problem a sign of Asperger or ADHD. Diagnosing any mind disorder is a troublesome ordeal, that takes a long, intensive research, and a diagnose can change somebody's life forever. Secondly, it's being doubted by psychiatrists that these disorders exist.

The difficulty can be illustrated by Volkert van der G. who was caught and convicted for the murder of Pim Fortuyn, politician.
Several psychiatrists have named him autistic, and suffering from Asperger, based on his act and his behaviour following his arrest. They have uttered these ideas in newspapers and television shows.
But according to the researchers at the psychiatrical center who had to judge G.'s mental capacity and studied him for a month, he had definitely not Asperger, or autism.
Calling G autistic or Asperger patient has done dreadful things to Asperger sufferers I know. They're suddenly being looked upon as potential murderers.

There is absolutely no point in calling somebody who's dead autistic, especially when it has no foundation. It is just extremely painful for family, friends and fans.
So, please, if you don't know one little bit about these things, just what you read in magazines and encyclopedias, then shut up.

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Join the PackardGoose forum! Send me a PM!

BBP,
it's obvious a nerve got struck here, and it does seem that 'annie' doesn't know that or how. Nobody knows what 'norml' is, I don't think it exists. So 'not normal' is actually the norm among people
But as we humans learn about new ideas, or recognize patterned behavior and yes, too, find the strength to communicate about the behavior to find ways of coping with it, we can eventually learn and pass on what we have learned so that the future might be able to get along easier. Labeling people as this or that is hurtful and certainly can be used so in the 'marketplace of ideas' that is the rumor-mill. It seems a fad lately to be armchair pyschologists and yak about human behaviors from whichever viewpoint or analysis or whatever. This a trained behavioralists does not make, nor am I.
But learning from the strength and experience of others who know more than us can be instrumental in helping each other and future generations to cope.

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" . . . On the outside now . . ."

Interesting ideas you have there, Annie. It looks like you put some time and effort into thinking about it. I don't see your post as any kind of attack, you're just exploring "What made Frank Frank?" I used to think about that all time...""How does one brain DO that? What's going on in there that gets such different results than anybody else gets? What can I learn from this and how can I use it?" I think he was just wired different somehow, plus he had good marketing and organizational skills. (The marketing skills is what separates the geniuses that get famous from the geniuses that never get recognized. A famous case for that would be Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla.) Anyway, interesting posts you got there. A nice break from blandness.

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“The person who stands up and says, 'This is stupid,' either is asked to behave or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful 'Yes, we know! Isn't it terrific!" -Frank Zappa

all i know about asperger's is that it's a high-functioning form of autism--not like what most people think of:someone in their own world, not speaking and hard to speak to. there are some who think autism is incorrectly diagnosed, and even if correct, parents are told to basically give up. with asperger's---and i'm going to come clean here, i watched america's top model, and one of the contestant's had asperger's. pelt me now. anyway, she was kind of withdrawn at first, and seemed to be about a beat behind others. the more comfortable she was with her housemates, she explained what she had, since they thought she was "spacey". it took her a while, but she was able to open up and did quite well, ending up in the top 4, i think. blah, blah. anyway, when she was focused on something, she definitely could do the task at hand. i really don't think fz had asperger's, he was just a guy completely into his work. if anything, he was a beat ahead.

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One two, buckle my shoe!

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"Listen to that noise! It's like Barry White eating wasps."

hee,hee. i'm not alone in my shame!

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One two, buckle my shoe!

dove_grey, which cycle was that or contestant?!
yeah yeah guilty pleasure

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Nevermind your make up, you better make up your mind.