Yer Weekend Funny: Bingo! There Goes Your Tenure!
I ran across a little gem today that had escaped me today. It’s by a true American original, the late Frank Zappa.
Zappa was a complex guy – fiscally conservative, huge backer of free enterprise, believed in limited government. Yet he famously clashed with conservatives in the Reagan administration, finding some of their efforts theocratic and attempts to stifle free speech. (If you’ve ever listened to some of his work, I think you can see just how big a fan of free speech he was.)
He was also an incredibly talented musician and composer. If you’ve only heard his more popular work, you haven’t really seen the full range of his abilities as either a performer or composer. Find some good headphones and listen to either The Grand Wazoo or Jazz From Hell.
Zappa also hated the phony, over-commercialized, synthetic, “scratch-the-surface” nature of contemporary US society with a passion.
The American Society of University Composers invited Zappa to give the keynote speech at their 1984 convention in Columbus, Ohio. He accepted.
I don’t think the ASUC realized what they’d done. Essentially, they’d just invited the fox into the hen house.
The result was classic. It was a scathing (and hilarious) commentary on academic tenure, contemporary society, and lack of both relevance and convictions.
Here’s the full text of Zappa’s speech that day. An abridged version is available here – and is further confirmed here in Zappa’s autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book.
Zappa died over 20 years ago, of early-onset prostate cancer that wasn’t caught in time. He was 17 days short of his 53rd birthday.
RIP, Frank. We lost a true American original the day we lost you.
Category: Pointless blather, Who knows
I’m gonna raise me a crop of dental floss, and ride the range with my pearl-handled tweezers.
Guy was a frikkin’ genius, for sure.
There was another concert where he and his band finally came on stage and then they all moved to the front, say down, and started playing cards. The crowd thought it was funny at first, then grew increasingly irate as the game continued.
Finally Frank got up and said something to the effect of “That’s pretty damned frustrating, isn’t it?” 🙂
We did lose a good one with him.
Thank you! I had forgotten about that, and now have had a good laugh to cleanse the palate from paperwork.
Hondo thank you for this article. I read Zappa’a entire speech. I would give anything to have heard it live and see the faces of the audience. From him, as a composer, it was solid gold information for the crowd he was speaking to. I wonder how many heeded his advice. I wonder how many got up and left. “Debbie”, unfortunately, is still in control. Oh for the days of good music by great composers the likes of Zappa and dozens of others. I called it “Rock” or now, “Classic, Ancient Rock”. But to each their own I guess.
“I’m too young and stupid, to be trusted with a gun!”
I remember seeing Frank on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1989…an awkward, no chemistry, but awesomely hilarious interview. Frank’s riff on Michael Jackson from 6:00 to 6:45 mark will make you spit out whatever your drinking…look at the expression on Arsenio’s face! Yep, and Frank also rips on Reagan, Bush, and Dukakis (notice how the crowd quiets down). Just watch Arsenio’s uncomfortable demeanor through this whole clip…what have I gotten myself into here!
Back in ’83 Zappa pretty much invented ITunes and music file sharing
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090405/1806484395.shtml