Man, I Sure Miss Frank Zappa

Over 20 years ago, back when MTV was worth watching, there was a certain group of busybody cunts who wanted to tell everyone else how to live. They called themselves the PMRC and wanted to rate musicfor the rest of us according to their personal tastes. Ordinarily, they would have been told to fuck off, but unfortunately for us, their husbands happened to be U.S. Senators. This meant that legislation equating to censorship was closer to reality than a lot of smarter people were comfortable with. It also meant that there were hearings on Capitol Hill, regarding music & the rating thereof.

I'm not going to give the PMRC members or their husbands' names here, if you're curious, look it up, I will, however, tell you that I watched part of those hearings on TV, and I was floored by the diverse group representing the music industry that sat before those hearings to try to bring reason & intelligence to the proceedings.

Picture this group, if you can: John Denver, Ice-T and Frank Zappa. I'm pretty sure Rob Halford from Judas Priest was there too, but I didn't see his testimony. Anyway, John Denver was threatened with censorship over his song "Rocky Mountain High" when it first came out, because since it has the word "high" in it, it's obviously about encouraging poor defenseless children to abuse drugs. I loved the I-can't-believe-I-have-to-explain-this-to-fucking-adults look on his face when he asked the panel if they actually listened to the song before they condemned it. Ice-T was, of course, far more intelligent and articulate than they expected, and he sounded like he was talking to a Special-Ed class, too.

But Frank Zappa was fucking mezmerizing. He gave such compelling testimony, and also compared the PMRC & their ilk to fucking Nazis, which they basically are. You can read the transcript of one of his testimonies in the link at the end of this post. It's sad that Amerika has so few people like Mr. Zappa today, or we might not be in the giant shithole we're in now, thanks to people like George W. Bush & his "Emperor's New Clothes" regime.

http://home.comcast.net/~jaypfunk/trading/fzpmrc.html

Also take some time to see this video and you'll know what I'm talking about:

http://robert.accettura.com/blog/2006/06/16/frank-zappas-senate-judiciary-committee-hearing-testimony/

I sure do miss him, not only as a genius musician, but as a Real American.