FZ
I nervously pat my top pocket, instinctively reaching for a comforting Marlboro. Frank grins as he apparently recognizes the move. “You want a cigarette?” “Uh- I can smoke? I thought that…” Frank immediately pulls out a cigarette, turns and lights mine. My hands were shaking. Frank Zappa is lighting my cigarette! When he said:”Do you want a cigarette?” in his distinctive voice, it started sounding like a Zappa song in my head “Do ya wanna cigarette? Do ya wanna smoke? Do ya wanna light one up- do ya wanna toke? (drum roll/ high-pitched chorus).” How the begeezus did this happen? It’s just too surreal.
Around 1987, I met and had the privilege of talking about a project with one of the smartest guys I ever met. I met with Frank Zappa at his house on Mulholland
I’ve been a fan of this guy since “Freak Out” and have read a lot of press about this creative genius and how he is a control freak but a brilliant one ( I later learned that the only truth behind that rumor is that he is brilliant).” I was rather apprehensive at first. I’m too much of a geek to meet this guy. I’d be star-struck and say dumb things…so I did what any wimp would do- ran to a liquor store and bought a tall boy and chugged it with a mouthwash swirl afterwards. Ok, I’m cool. I can deal. I went there with Alicia, a friend of mine at the time and George, the guy who invited us to go. Alicia and I were working at Stanford so George thought we were brainiacs. he was wrong, of course.
We arrive at this surprisingly rustic home. We get out of the car, obviously, and the sidewalk had several little cameras that rotated and followed as we walked towards the front door. It was decided that I should knock on the door. A little girl, maybe four years old answers. I wasn’t sure what to say “is your-uh –dad home? I mean Frank- er Mr. Zappa?” “Yes, please follow me” she says. She had this sparkle in her eye that betrayed her genius. She started saying things that seemed way beyond her years. I found out years later that this was his daughter, Diva. I don’t know since what became of her but at the time, I thought she was the smartest little kid I ever saw.
We walked through a living room with stacks and stacks of videos with masking tape labels that read “Baby Snakes”. The general décor was just good ol’ wood, family familiar. I don’t know what I was expecting- maybe some dead raccoons nailed to the wall or something. If this is the of the Mothers of Invention? Where’s the insanity?
Diva directs us to a door that led to the basement and says: “Please take a seat downstairs. He will be with you shortly.” We head downstairs into the control booth of a sound studio. On the other side of the window is a purple painted room. Alicia and I sit on a couch while George commanders the captains chair behind the edit bay. It seemed rude to Alicia and I.
I’m scoping out the room. Directly behind me is a mounted platypus head, those odd creatures with a duck bill. It was then that I accepted we are indeed in Frank Zappa’s home. I again notice a few small mounted video cameras. I wave. We sit for about 15 minutes more when a door opens. Immediately he looked like someone I knew. He had a disarming look about him, like he was a kid from my hometown. He asks us into the side room which is an expansive family den. On the wall hangs a yellow surf board with a bite out it; apparently bitten by a shark which was given to him by a friend of his (the surfboard, not the shark).
The project we started to discuss was a pilot TV show “The Frank Zappa Show:. Apparently FOX was interested in a grown-up Pee Wee Herman Show as if Pee Wee was a children’s show. We were talking about the title sequence.
What was amazing about this “Brain Storm” was contrary to what I had read, what I had feared. He was generous with ideas. He actually listened and didn’t say “oh, that won’t work or here’s a better idea. It just evolved. I learned so much about how to work with others on an idea where there is no sense of ownership. The ideas are in charge not the messengers. The concept was that Frank’s nose would break a TV screen and the camera would zoom into the innards of the set with old vacuum tubes, old sandwiches, wires, computer memory boards, sneakers, flies, etc. It was a fun discussion. At a certain point my “rented” beer built up to where I had to use the rest room. He pointed me to the door. I switch on the light. It was this child’s fantasy rainbow light switch. It cracked me up because it seemed like a subject of a Frank Zappa song. When I returned I had to tell him that. He grinned and said “What would it sound like?” I just mumbled “Uh I don’t know”. In hindsight it was probably the most missed opportunity of my life but I was in the presence of the Maestro and felt I was not worthy to make up something as sacred as a Zappa song like that but who knows, he might have been amused.
I’m scoping out the room. Directly behind me is a mounted platypus head, those odd creatures with a duck bill. It was then that I accepted we are indeed in Frank Zappa’s home. I again notice a few small mounted video cameras. I wave. We sit for about 15 minutes more when a door opens. Immediately he looked like someone I knew. He had a disarming look about him, like he was a kid from my hometown. He asks us into the side room which is an expansive family den. On the wall hangs a yellow surf board with a bite out it; apparently bitten by a shark which was given to him by a friend of his (the surfboard, not the shark).
The project we started to discuss was a pilot TV show “The Frank Zappa Show:. Apparently FOX was interested in a grown-up Pee Wee Herman Show as if Pee Wee was a children’s show. We were talking about the title sequence.
What was amazing about this “Brain Storm” was contrary to what I had read, what I had feared. He was generous with ideas. He actually listened and didn’t say “oh, that won’t work or here’s a better idea. It just evolved. I learned so much about how to work with others on an idea where there is no sense of ownership. The ideas are in charge not the messengers. The concept was that Frank’s nose would break a TV screen and the camera would zoom into the innards of the set with old vacuum tubes, old sandwiches, wires, computer memory boards, sneakers, flies, etc. It was a fun discussion. At a certain point my “rented” beer built up to where I had to use the rest room. He pointed me to the door. I switch on the light. It was this child’s fantasy rainbow light switch. It cracked me up because it seemed like a subject of a Frank Zappa song. When I returned I had to tell him that. He grinned and said “What would it sound like?” I just mumbled “Uh I don’t know”. In hindsight it was probably the most missed opportunity of my life but I was in the presence of the Maestro and felt I was not worthy to make up something as sacred as a Zappa song like that but who knows, he might have been amused.
The meeting concluded and I was left with an assignment to rough up a TV set that looks like it’s a TV that was made before TV was invented. He sketched out a fast storyboard and I said something stupid like “That’s a cheesy looking storyboard there, Frank”. As we walked out the door I had to ask him if he’d mind signing the storyboard for me. He wrote
“Cheesy Storyboard- FZ”
“Cheesy Storyboard- FZ”
The show never got made. He died a few years later. My storyboard burned up when my apartment burned down in yet another story.
-wes
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