Frank Zappa's Box

I can't quite find sentiment here. Plenty of humor.

I tend to avoid sentiment in all possible situations. For now.

This interview with Frank Zappa is beautiful.

There's a brilliance in this man and I imagine few understood why in their time with him.

The first I heard of any reference to him was an early friend in grade school. Someone brought up the song 'Bobby Brown' and it just about floored us. An immense contrast to themes considered acceptable.

It was a perspective that we weren't even aware of as a probability. At once it told us about liberal propagation of changing social norms and the impact it has to a man in it's wake. I was far, far to young to have a clear grasp of what it meant in years to come.

As I revisit this man and his legacy of ideas it becomes immediately clear that his grasp of sociopolitical subjects was nuanced ahead of his time.

Zappa saw miles past a perceivable end of the track, sighed and kicked on and up to enjoy it.

I'll rather let him speak for himself to illustrate this man behind the name.

A fitting phrase.

“Just because somebody hears something you say, or reads something that you write, doesn’t mean you’ve reached them. With reading comprehension being what it is in the U. S., you can safely toss that one out the window. If you want to judge by the listening habits of people who buy records, the first thing they do is put it on and talk over it.”

― Frank Zappa

He was a fountain.

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

― Frank Zappa

“Art is making something out of nothing, and selling it.”

― Frank Zappa

“Tobacco is my favorite vegetable.”

― Frank Zappa

“Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.”

― Frank Zappa

“I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.”

― Frank Zappa

“The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows.”

― Frank Zappa

“The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property.”

― Frank Zappa

“lf you’re going to deal with reality, you’re going to have to make one big discovery: Reality is something that belongs to you as an individual. If you wanna grow up, which most people don’t, the thing to do is take responsibility for your own reality and deal with it on your own terms. Don’t expect that because you pay some money to somebody else or take a pledge or join a club or run down the street or wear a special bunch of clothes or play a certain sport or even drink Perrier water, it’s going to take care of everything for you. Because it all comes from inside. As a matter of fact, that’s where it stays.”

― Frank Zappa

Search him out for you.

I'm here to wet my appetite.