Zappa.com

I was born in the Detroit suburbs in 1952. Downriver for those who know what that means. My first memorable fuck up was when I was 4 yrs. old and ate the chlorine tablets in the local swimming pool. Yes, they actually used to put chlorine TABLETS in pools back then..... My best advice? NEVER EVER eat choline tablets!!

Cool fact: I learned to love music early. My older brothers and sister always had the radio going, listening to doo-wop and 50s-60s R&B. I soaked it in. My mom used to put Elvis on the 45 rpm turntable when she cleaned house. Hound Dog. Don't Be Cruel. I also got 16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford from my mother. She was otherwise a pretty terrible mother, but she's dead now so enough about that.....

My first frightful experience came at age 7. I contracted pneumonia and spent a week in the hospital. My fever was so high, I was hallucinating that lab coats were coming to life and trying to kill me whenever I was left alone in the room. They would morph into horrible white monsters and I would scream until someone came in..... It guess it was actually pretty cool, in retrospect that is.

Went to catholic school for 8 years, including mass almost every day. It was horrible. Another fuck up was in 4th grade, where for about a month, I became obsessed with becoming a priest. I ordered literature from all the major kinds of priesthood and dreamed of...... nothing. A short lived obsession, with no purpose or meaning. But these kinds of things can happen in catholic schools. BTW, the nuns beat the crap out of me because I loved to cut up in class. Really. It fucking hurt and my parents ALWAYS took the nun's side. It's no wonder I later spent 13 years in therapy.

Also in 4th grade (hmmm.....) I endured the only real suffering in my life; I was climbing trees with my best friend and he fell and killed himself. You should have seen what the nuns did with this one....

Got interested in sports during grade school. I was a decent baseball and football player.

Moved from Detroit to Chicago in time for high school. Wasted the first year being socially inept because I didn't know anyone. Sophomore year, I met my first girlfriend, who is notable only in that she introduced me to FZ's music. She was also an accomplished piano player even at that young age, and I loved watching her practice. We didn't have sex, but we did french kiss.

I enjoyed the 60s, and took up guitar around this time, just like everyone else did. Never got good, but I still play every day. I've played in a couple of cover bands, nothing special. Doesn't matter. I love it.

Went to the University of Illinois, studying reefer, hash, and opium. Dropped out after 2 years. I ended up going to 5 schools, and ended up with a Masters in social work from a different U of I campus. Specializing in mental health, I learned the ropes with early jobs on locked psychiatric units in the Chicago area. I have so many good stories from this period......

Had a 3 year stint living near New Orleans. Best food in the world. Also the home of stinging catapillars falling from the sky.... But I digress.

Primary adult fuck up: Somewhere in here I had a 7 year "relationship" with someone who I finally realized had Borderline Personality Disorder. It was 7 years of holy hell, held together by extraordinary sex and just a sprinkling of happy times whenever we dared consider breaking up. She eventually left me for a geologist. I know this because I noticed an accumulation of rock samples in her kitchen...

Fast forward. Got together with my wife in 1981, and we are happy. Got married in 88 or 89 (neither of us can remember which, but we do agree it took place while on vacation in Rocky Mountain national park near Boulder, CO). 16 years ago we adopted my son when he was 3 days old. Words cannot describe......

Now I work as a social work consultant to residential facilities for the mentally ill and the elderly. I train social workers to do the right thing. I also became the forum's very first hack advice columnist. DOCTOR RONALD NOOMIES, remember?

I drive around a lot to my various clients, listening to music in the car.

I just turned 60, can you believe it? Things start to fall apart at 60, but that's another story......

And through it all, Frank's music runs in the background every day.

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Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

You're welcome, I think? You could participate?

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

But that's bullshit, isn't it? Most people are not assholes when they are drunk. And the reason they drink is not because it gives them an excuse to be an asshole. They drink because it loosens them up and makes them feel good. Zappa surrounded himself with people in the music business and that's why he dealt with so many assholes in his life.

It was d.

Sorry; I became disoriented. For a moment there, I thought you were serious...

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I will, I will, when I can spend some quality time with my PC.... working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week at the moment....

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Thanks for the music Frank.

Well I'm about to get sick from watching my TV

What is the matter with you? That leaves 14 hours a day, 7 days a week!

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Most people I know are assholes when they get drunk, and are completely ignorant of the fact they had too much to drink and are acting like assholes, which is why I dodge drinking situations of all kind.

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Just wanted to add to my story the music situation in our family home.
My Dad was always playing music. He has a pretty large collection of CD's although back when I was very young they were all records of course. Both my sister and I can remember many Saturday night when they had lots of friends around and the music would wake us up in our beds upstairs. My parents and most of their friends from that time would have been in their early 30's and they all grew up through the sixties and lots of good sixties stuff was played. One of Dad's close friend's had worked for EMI and had literally hundreds of lps.
But in general Dad always played music, particularly at the weekend and he used to encourage my elder sister to tape the charts on a Sunday night and make up her own tapes.
I liked much of the classical music that he played and I was mildly embarrassed when our music teacher got out the Andrew Lloyd Webber Variations record and played it. I don't know now why I was embarrassed I think it was just my age at the time (12) but actually a couple of the kids thought it was really good. Most wouldn't have had any opinion on it. But my sister and I were brought up to have opinions on things.
Anyway I knew that I was far more knowledgeable than most kids at school about music and that there parents didn't play music. I found this really strange because it was a huge part of our family life. Just the best memories.
He played The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, early 60's stuff that he probably liked when he was a young teenager, BB King, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, Fats Domino, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, Errol Garner, Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits, Queen, Lots of 80's stuff that has dated now like Huey Lewis and the News (laugh, laugh) and tonnes of classical like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Haydn and opera music that I still haven't really got into. The list goes on but basically like another poster here I soaked it all in.
Couldn't believe it when a friend of mine at college had never heard of Jimi Hendrix. He was 22 years old.

My Dad and I now still play each other our latest CD's when we see each other (mostly Jazz stuff) and sit up until far too late drinking wine from his cellar

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"drums are too noisy, 'n you've got no corners to hide in"

I try my best not to be...

I forgot j) I am "Stan" have written a thesis, fallen in love with it and am forced to vomit over it...

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The more I learn, the less I know.

U maybe can find some slightly clues on what FZ-fans have in common in Vladimir Sovetovs interview (http://www.arf.ru/Misc/alana_int.html) with Emily Alana James (she did the quilt: http://www.arf.ru/Misc/Quilt/):

VS: ...It could be anyone else, Elton John or Mick Jagger, as well?

AJ:... In one regard it could have been anyone, but in another it had to be Frank, the person he would attract as a fan would not probably also be a fan for Elton John. I am not saying this well, what I mean to get to is that Frank Zappa fans are special - they love play on words, esoteric comments, outrageous behaviors and all of those qualities made interacting with them in letters, over the years, very enjoyable. I guess I just lucked out.

What makes her opinion interesting is the fact that she never was a fan and finally didn't like FZ when she met him. So her view is a very true consideration from outside.
Something, i wonder about, is the Halloween audience in baby snakes or torture video. Do all US-rockfans usually look like this in concerts dated at Halloween or were it only the FZ-fans?

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god, what a cheap bubble machine!!!

For some reason this thread reminded me of the following, one of the great autobiographical soliloquies of all time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTJj4wbmAhk

Bonny not to say that there has not been drunk assholes throughout history, but your generation has taken it to a new level and while your generation may have some of the smartest people at the youngest age ever....at times their stupidity or idioticness seems incredibly lacking in foresight.

This leads directly to some of the most irresponsible drinking ever recorded, by those who through education alone should have known it was a bad idea.

Beyond that these same people do actual the opposite and intentionally find new ways to set the benchmark for negligent behavior while drinking, the numerous college drinking deaths testify to that.

One can drink and be responsible and one can get drunk and not be an asshole. If you do not want to drink fine good for you, but just because those you have been around have a tendency to be drunk assholes, shouldn’t make you paint all drinking as such.

Another thing about me: when it has a joke about testicles / urine / bodily functions, I tend to refer to it as "men's humour". May not be correct but I kinda associate such jokes with my father.
My humour tends to be on the absurd side, like Kamagurka's wonderful gags.



(Let's just say Plook, that it doesn't restrict itself to generation or moderation. I've seen people act like jerks with one glass of wine in the throat.)

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Who you hanging around with, find some fun people...

The drunkards I know are assholes chiseled in stone.

Some folks handle their alcohol well and are fun to be around when they drink but there definitely are others who should stay away from it. I have friends and family that fall into both of those categories.

Fall, stagger, puke, drool, wet themselves....

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When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - HST

Miasma!

I've been to dozens of concerts and never ever seen that sort of thing. Maybe someone from NY can help out but I think that can be viewed as a Holloween Party.

Fair enough. I hardly ever drink so I find some people very annoying when they are drunk. They are not always assholes, just annoying. I'm sure Zappa had his reasons for making that comment. Professional musicians are often assholes to begin with.
Re: What are Zappa fans like.
I think hardcore Zappa fans are often really obsessed with minutiae.

So, Rahdley, are you trying to make a point?

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Anyway, I feel guilty that I hijacked this lovely topic with drunk talk, so...

Besides reading comics, I've been making them too. At 8 I created the adventures of a little giraffe called Mima. Whatever happened to those comics, I'll never know.
A personal favourite comic of mine is The Middle-Aged Twos, about a rock band desperately trying to get popular. Made at the height of my Primus-love, what charms me about it is the character design: occasionally, when I see a photo of a rock star who just happens to look just like one of the Middle-Aged Twos, I burst out in laughter. They were online for the longest time, but not anymore: I'll upload them someday.

Currently I'm into making Fred & Derek comics: The Adventures Of Fred The Flea And Derek Dustmite, For Entertainment Before, During And After Class. Whenever I made a comic, the drawing would take me forever and I'd write the story on the go. With Fred and Derek, I can keep up the pace. They're funny, cute, full of potential, and easy to draw!

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I think you've got a great mind BBP!

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"drums are too noisy, 'n you've got no corners to hide in"

{blush} Thank you!

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Of course I am. My point is............ Hang on, I think I had a point.

Oh well. I can't remember.