Winter In Amerika - Revision history

Jason.Kreitzer at 14:53, 5 November 2021

2021-11-05T14:53:17Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 17:20, 4 October 2021

2021-10-04T17:20:37Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 18:49, 14 September 2021

2021-09-14T18:49:09Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 15:57, 30 July 2021

2021-07-30T15:57:35Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 01:18, 24 July 2021

2021-07-24T01:18:59Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 22:19, 21 July 2021

2021-07-21T22:19:22Z

Spider of Destiny at 06:55, 14 November 2020

2020-11-14T06:55:01Z

Spider of Destiny at 18:59, 21 October 2020

2020-10-21T18:59:21Z

Spider of Destiny at 15:36, 2 January 2011

2011-01-02T15:36:14Z

Spider of Destiny at 23:27, 26 November 2010

2010-11-26T23:27:32Z

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 Perhaps. I tend to view the whole thing as a conspiracy. It is no accident that the public schools in the United States are pure shit. It is no accident that masses of drugs are available and openly used at all levels of society. In a way, the real business of government is the business of controlling the labor force.
-Social pressure is placed on people to become a certain type of individual, and then rewards are heaped on people who conform to that stereotype. Take the pop music business, for example. Look at the stereotypes held up by the media as examples of great accomplishment. You see guys who are making millions of dollars and selling millions of units. And because they are making and selling millions they are stamped with the seal of approval, and it is the millions which make their work quality. Yet anyone can look at what is being done and say, "[[Jesus]], I can do that!" You celebrate mediocrity, you get mediocrity. People who could have achieved more won't, because they know that all they have to do is be "that," and they too can sell millions and make millions and have people love them because they're rnerely mediocre. And that is reinforced over and over and over.
+Social pressure is placed on people to become a certain type of individual, and then rewards are heaped on people who conform to that stereotype. Take the pop music business, for example. Look at the stereotypes held up by the media as examples of great accomplishment. You see guys who are making millions of dollars and selling millions of units. And because they are making and selling millions they are stamped with the seal of approval, and it is the millions which make their work quality. Yet anyone can look at what is being done and say, "[[Jesus]], I can do that!" You celebrate mediocrity, you get mediocrity. People who could have achieved more won't, because they know that all they have to do is be "that," and they too can sell millions and make millions and have people love them because they're merely mediocre. And that is reinforced over and over and over.
-Few people who do anything excellent are ever heard of. You know why? Because excellence, pure excellence, terrifies the fuck out Americans because they've been bred to appreciate the success of the mediocre. People don't wish to be reminded that lurking somewhere there are people who can do some shit you can't do. They can think a way you can't think, they can dance a way you can't dance. They are excellent. You aren't excellent. Most Americans aren't excellent, they're only OK. And so to keep them happy as a labor force, you say, "OK, let's take this mediocre chump." and we say. "He is terrific!" All the other mediocre chumps say, "Yeah, that's right and that gives me hope, because one day as mediocre and chumpish as I am I can... " It's smart labor relations. An MBA decision. That is the orientation of most entertainment, politics d religion. So considering how firmly entrenched all that is right now, you think it's going to turn around? Not without a genetic mutation it's not!
+Few people who do anything excellent are ever heard of. You know why? Because excellence, pure excellence, terrifies the fuck out Americans because they've been bred to appreciate the success of the mediocre. People don't wish to be reminded that lurking somewhere there are people who can do some shit you can't do. They can think a way you can't think, they can dance a way you can't dance. They are excellent. You aren't excellent. Most Americans aren't excellent, they're only OK. And so to keep them happy as a labor force, you say, "OK, let's take this mediocre chump." and we say. "He is terrific!" All the other mediocre chumps say, "Yeah, that's right and that gives me hope, because one day as mediocre and chumpish as I am I can... " It's smart labor relations. An [[M.B.A.|MBA]] decision. That is the orientation of most entertainment, politics and religion. So considering how firmly entrenched all that is right now, you think it's going to turn around? Not without a genetic mutation it's not!
 '''If you would focus on the message of pop music for a moment, what do you see as the Issues of the 1980s that music can address today?<br>

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 '''Several months ago, it seemed a refreshing and deliciously ironic moment when [[Biography|Frank Zappa]] was spotted on television, testifying before a Senate committee. He was dressed in a jacket and tie, much as he was more than two decades ago for an appearance – in which he musically played a bicycle – on the [[Steve Allen]] Show. Before the committee, however, with the accumulated notoriety of the intervening years in evidence only as subtext, the talkative, knowledgeable and apparently incensed musician held forth as the most reasonable voice of the afternoon.
-Considering the urgent problems you'll find on the front pages of even the lamest paper, the committee was holding hearings on the non-issue of applying ratings to rock records. Zappa had come to Washington to help nip this bit of proto-[[fascism]] in the bud. Instigated by the Parents' Music Resource Center, a well-connected group of Washington wives with kids in school and time on their hands, the committee was examining the possibility of a causal link between rock music and drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, Satanism, concert violence and other things which no one could seem to recall having existed before 1956.
+Considering the urgent problems you'll find on the front pages of even the lamest paper, the committee was holding hearings on the non-issue of applying ratings to rock records. Zappa had come to [[Washington]] to help nip this bit of proto-[[fascism]] in the bud. Instigated by the Parents' Music Resource Center, a well-connected group of Washington wives with kids in school and time on their hands, the committee was examining the possibility of a causal link between rock music and drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, Satanism, concert violence and other things which no one could seem to recall having existed before 1956.
 Asked how something as trivial as record-rating became the subject of a Senate inquiry, Zappa simply remarked, "A couple of blowjobs here and there and Bingo! – you get a hearing." He added that [[Tipper Gore]] – wife of Senator Albert Gore and a key figure in the [[Parents Music Resource Center|PMRC]] – had recently "demanded" that [[MTV]] president Tom Freston go to Washington to discuss the rating of music videos. While any legislation against the various music media doesn't seem likely at this point, Zappa notes that the current administration is doing what it can to further its own ideology, such as reviewing all documentaries being produced by both National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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 Last year the state of Maryland considered a bill which would make it illegal to sell a record declared "obscene" to a person under 18 years of age. The text of the bill stated that its purpose was to keep people from seeing or hearing references to illicit sex. And then it had a definition of what constitutes illicit sex in the state of Maryland. Sexual intercourse is the first thing on the list. What the legislators did was take the existing visual pornography law and just add the words "phonograph record, magnetic tape, compact disc" to it. Since the existing law in Maryland is already a bit vague, adding just those words isn't going to give you an enforceable regulation.
-To give an example of how ridiculous this bill was, under this bill you were not allowed to advertise pornography. So let's say that somebody had decided that a [[Mötley Crüe|Mötley Crüe]] album was obscene. If you were wearing a tee shirt that says Mötley Crüe on it you would be advertising pornography. You could be fined $1000 and/or go to jail for a year. If you wore the tee shirt twice, it is $5000 and three years in jail.
+To give an example of how ridiculous this bill was, under this bill you were not allowed to advertise pornography. So let's say that somebody had decided that a [[Wikipedia:Mötley Crüe|Mötley Crüe]] album was obscene. If you were wearing a tee shirt that says Mötley Crüe on it you would be advertising pornography. You could be fined $1000 and/or go to jail for a year. If you wore the tee shirt twice, it is $5000 and three years in jail.
 '''Did the bill pass In Maryland?<br>

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 Zappa's interest in politics extends beyond those issues that are music related, though his perspective occasionally tends toward the bizarre ("For all those cowboys who think that ''[[Star Wars]]'' is gonna save us from alien attack: does it ever occur to you that ''Star Wars'' doesn't kill germs?"). He is a most vocal critic of the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration and its fundamentalist supporters. Referring to items ranging from government obfuscation to the bombing of abortion clinics, Zappa concludes, "We're seeing the same terrorist techniques in the U.S. as those used by Moslem fanatics in the Mideast – the difference is just a matter of costume." He points out that although fundamentalist agitators may be a very small minority in the U.S., the Shiites of the Islamic middle east also comprise a small part of the Islamic community.
-Going on about the Mideast (in a November 1986 conversation during the turmoil over arms shipments to Iran), Zappa continues, "Where was [[George H.W. Bush|Bush]] during all this?" He refers to a recent trial of arms dealers involved in a private, clandestine attempt to direct arms to Iran: "They played a tape on [[CNN]] which went, 'We just got the green light – Bush says – it's okay but Schultz doesn't like it.'" Zappa's conclusion is that the cover-up is far more insidious than it looks, with one object being to protect Bush's presidential aspirations. "They're trying to make the front-runner look good."
+Going on about the Mideast (in a November 1986 conversation during the turmoil over arms shipments to Iran), Zappa continues, "Where was [[George H.W. Bush|Bush]] during all this?" He refers to a recent trial of arms dealers involved in a private, clandestine attempt to direct arms to Iran: "They played a tape on [[Wikipedia:CNN|CNN]] which went, 'We just got the green light – Bush says – it's okay but Schultz doesn't like it.'" Zappa's conclusion is that the cover-up is far more insidious than it looks, with one object being to protect Bush's presidential aspirations. "They're trying to make the front-runner look good."
 Though Zappa faults the press for allowing things to go on as they have been ("except for Sam Donaldson, the rest of the press has been napping for the last five years"), he says he's "optimistic." He feels the radical right is "on the run," and notes that their contributions have been dropping. But since the right wing agenda is still being pressed, Zappa valiantly vows, "So long as I can keep on talking I'm gonna do what I can to stop 'em from getting their way." – ed.

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 Zappa's interest in politics extends beyond those issues that are music related, though his perspective occasionally tends toward the bizarre ("For all those cowboys who think that ''[[Star Wars]]'' is gonna save us from alien attack: does it ever occur to you that ''Star Wars'' doesn't kill germs?"). He is a most vocal critic of the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration and its fundamentalist supporters. Referring to items ranging from government obfuscation to the bombing of abortion clinics, Zappa concludes, "We're seeing the same terrorist techniques in the U.S. as those used by Moslem fanatics in the Mideast – the difference is just a matter of costume." He points out that although fundamentalist agitators may be a very small minority in the U.S., the Shiites of the Islamic middle east also comprise a small part of the Islamic community.
-Going on about the Mideast (in a November 1986 conversation during the turmoil over arms shipments to Iran), Zappa continues, "Where was [[George Bush|Bush]] during all this?" He refers to a recent trial of arms dealers involved in a private, clandestine attempt to direct arms to Iran: "They played a tape on [[CNN]] which went, 'We just got the green light – Bush says – it's okay but Schultz doesn't like it.'" Zappa's conclusion is that the cover-up is far more insidious than it looks, with one object being to protect Bush's presidential aspirations. "They're trying to make the front-runner look good."
+Going on about the Mideast (in a November 1986 conversation during the turmoil over arms shipments to Iran), Zappa continues, "Where was [[George H.W. Bush|Bush]] during all this?" He refers to a recent trial of arms dealers involved in a private, clandestine attempt to direct arms to Iran: "They played a tape on [[CNN]] which went, 'We just got the green light – Bush says – it's okay but Schultz doesn't like it.'" Zappa's conclusion is that the cover-up is far more insidious than it looks, with one object being to protect Bush's presidential aspirations. "They're trying to make the front-runner look good."
 Though Zappa faults the press for allowing things to go on as they have been ("except for Sam Donaldson, the rest of the press has been napping for the last five years"), he says he's "optimistic." He feels the radical right is "on the run," and notes that their contributions have been dropping. But since the right wing agenda is still being pressed, Zappa valiantly vows, "So long as I can keep on talking I'm gonna do what I can to stop 'em from getting their way." – ed.

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 [[Image:Option_87-01.jpg|frame|© 1987 Option]]
-'''Several months ago, it seemed a refreshing and deliciously ironic moment when [[Frank Zappa]] was spotted on television, testifying before a Senate committee. He was dressed in a jacket and tie, much as he was more than two decades ago for an appearance – in which he musically played a bicycle – on the [[Steve Allen]] Show. Before the committee, however, with the accumulated notoriety of the intervening years in evidence only as subtext, the talkative, knowledgeable and apparently incensed musician held forth as the most reasonable voice of the afternoon.
+'''Several months ago, it seemed a refreshing and deliciously ironic moment when [[Biography|Frank Zappa]] was spotted on television, testifying before a Senate committee. He was dressed in a jacket and tie, much as he was more than two decades ago for an appearance – in which he musically played a bicycle – on the [[Steve Allen]] Show. Before the committee, however, with the accumulated notoriety of the intervening years in evidence only as subtext, the talkative, knowledgeable and apparently incensed musician held forth as the most reasonable voice of the afternoon.
 Considering the urgent problems you'll find on the front pages of even the lamest paper, the committee was holding hearings on the non-issue of applying ratings to rock records. Zappa had come to Washington to help nip this bit of proto-[[fascism]] in the bud. Instigated by the Parents' Music Resource Center, a well-connected group of Washington wives with kids in school and time on their hands, the committee was examining the possibility of a causal link between rock music and drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, Satanism, concert violence and other things which no one could seem to recall having existed before 1956.
-Asked how something as trivial as record-rating became the subject of a Senate inquiry, Zappa simply remarked, "A couple of blowjobs here and there and Bingo! – you get a hearing." He added that [[Tipper Gore]] – wife of Senator Albert Gore and a key figure in the [[PMRC]] – had recently "demanded" that [[MTV]] president Tom Freston go to Washington to discuss the rating of music videos. While any legislation against the various music media doesn't seem likely at this point, Zappa notes that the current administration is doing what it can to further its own ideology, such as reviewing all documentaries being produced by both National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
+Asked how something as trivial as record-rating became the subject of a Senate inquiry, Zappa simply remarked, "A couple of blowjobs here and there and Bingo! – you get a hearing." He added that [[Tipper Gore]] – wife of Senator Albert Gore and a key figure in the [[Parents Music Resource Center|PMRC]] – had recently "demanded" that [[MTV]] president Tom Freston go to Washington to discuss the rating of music videos. While any legislation against the various music media doesn't seem likely at this point, Zappa notes that the current administration is doing what it can to further its own ideology, such as reviewing all documentaries being produced by both National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
 Zappa's interest in politics extends beyond those issues that are music related, though his perspective occasionally tends toward the bizarre ("For all those cowboys who think that ''[[Star Wars]]'' is gonna save us from alien attack: does it ever occur to you that ''Star Wars'' doesn't kill germs?"). He is a most vocal critic of the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan]] administration and its fundamentalist supporters. Referring to items ranging from government obfuscation to the bombing of abortion clinics, Zappa concludes, "We're seeing the same terrorist techniques in the U.S. as those used by Moslem fanatics in the Mideast – the difference is just a matter of costume." He points out that although fundamentalist agitators may be a very small minority in the U.S., the Shiites of the Islamic middle east also comprise a small part of the Islamic community.
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 '''The PMRC
-'''Within the last year the Parents' Music Resource Center ([[PMRC]]) has requested that record companies rate records they produce similar to the current rating of films. You've been involved in this recent controversy. What did the record Industry finally agree to?<br>
+'''Within the last year the Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC) has requested that record companies rate records they produce similar to the current rating of films. You've been involved in this recent controversy. What did the record Industry finally agree to?<br>
 Well, to quote you from the Associated Press Wire Report, dated November 1, 1985, the basic points of the agreement between the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the PMRC are that "parents' groups will have no role in determining what is explicit." Next, "the record companies will determine what is explicit." When asked, "What is explicit?," Stanley Gortikov (president of the RIAA) replied, "What's explicit is explicit." Third, "those artists whose contracts give them control over their packaging are free to ignore the understanding." Does this sound like something you could enforce?

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 ----
 Copyright 1986 by Batya Friedman and Steve Lyons Published in various forms in The Progressive (November 1986), Option Magazine (Jan/Feb and Mar/Apr 1987) and Wire Magazine (Dec/Jan 1987 issue). The text here is primarily as it appeared in The Progressive. This interview took place in late 1985 in his home studio, from 11 o'clock at night until sunrise the next morning. Zappa was a disarmingly thoughtful, lucid, witty individual, and rather warm in his own way.
 [[Category:Interviews with Zappa]]