The Grand Scheme of Things

So there I was, Sloth: driving endlessly across the big island of Hawaii, listening to Frank Zappa’s Thing-Fish, the only CD I had.

You may ask yourself how I ended up stuck with Thing-Fish as my only travel music. The fact of the matter is, it wasn’t my only travel music. I had my iPod, complete with radio transmitter, but the Hawaiian airwaves were surprisingly populated, and the Belkin radio transmitter’s reception is a little spotty. Driving around trying to listen to the thing meant an almost constant trip around the dial, which was not only annoying but hazardous as well, as I was traveling solo, and it’s hard to drive while you’re staring at the radio.

You may ask yourself why, if I had the iPod, I’d bothered to bring a CD copy of Thing-Fish in the first place. (It wasn’t the only CD I had brought with me from Chicago. I had a 3 CD box set of very late period Gary Numan stuff, but I could not, for the life of me, work up the will to listen to. ‘Matter of fact, though emblazoned with Gary’s intense, silently imploring face, it never once made it into my rental car. And despite the fact that I pretty much always have some shit playing, the rental car was the only place where I listened to music on this trip.) The truth is, I hadn’t decided if I even wanted Thing-Fish in my iTunes library, let alone on my iPod, where space is at a premium. (I have the big one, but the fucking thing is still almost full. An armageddon of b-list music is at hand, but I’m staving it off till the last possible minute. You never know when b-list stuff might find a new connection to you and thus leap to a-status, or vise versa.) On this trip, I’d decided, Thing-Fish and I were going to have it out. One way or another, we were going to come to at least a general understanding of where we stood in relation to each other. For reasons other than limited space, I didn’t wanna let this album sit in my library, unless I was sure it belonged there. And I wasn’t.

(The Gary Numan set was there for the same purpose, though there the question of whether or not to include it in my library had more to do with the relatively simple question of had Gary Numan’s declined so much at that point that none of it was worth salvaging? Imagine slogging through 3 CDs of bad to mediocre Gary Numan, and you may understand why I stuck with the more difficult Thing-Fish problem.)

You may ask yourself why I am so ambivalent about Thing-Fish, and, life being notoriously short, why I was wasting my time thinking about it. It isn’t as though there isn’t enough other music, good and bad, to keep me occupied for several lifetimes. Well, see, the thing is, whatever else you want to say about it, Thing-Fish is a major piece of work by an important musical artist. Now, some of you may quibble with one part or the other of that statement. I know that a lot of Zappa enthusiasts don’t give much thought to Thing-Fish. They are disappointed by the way in which it casts a handful of mostly older Zappa songs into new arrangements that are then used as a backdrop for the album’s story. I have less of a problem with this, as I don’t feel that he arbitrarily threw the stuff together. I feel like he choose the material for a reason—placing it in a new context in which it could stand out in a new relationship to the narrative, which in turn is rendered more powerful thanks to the music. It’s like a bas-relief type thing.

As far as Zappa the important artist goes, well, a lotta people, both prominent and not, would beg to differ. Lester Bangs, who I greatly admire, went so far as to pretty much hate Zappa, as did, Bangs’s hero, the wise man Lou Reed. (Who, ironically, was chosen to induct Zappa into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.) I’m not gonna go into my reasons for respecting Zappa, because we’ll never get to the matters at hand, if I do. (Besides, though he’s kinda cerebral, a lot of my admiration for Zappa is intuitive, emotional, etc.) Just suffice it to say that, while he ain’t no Pablo Picasso or Miles Davis, he is, I believe important.

So on the one hand, I had problems with Thing-Fish. On the other, I recognized its potential value. And that was a pain in the ass. In fact, it was such a pain in the ass that if circumstance hadn’t pushed me to work this matter out, I might’ve just given up.

You may ask yourself just what the fuck I was doing in Hawaii in the first place, and along with that you may ask yourself the corollary question: if I was in Hawaii, why was I on the big island? At least, that’s what a lot of people have asked me since I got back. That’s unfortunate, because the big island is amazing. As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the time I spent there. I’m told it doesn’t have the resorts that Oahu or Maui have. (In that respect, I throw people off even further when I tell them that I stayed in the Hilo area—all the way across the island from Kona, where its most prominent resorts are .) But OK, I’m not answering the question. And this one, at least, has a simple answer: I was on a job. A missing person case that got pretty messy, but professional ethics forbid from saying much about it.

A less than comprehensive list of things that I have obsessed over during the course of my life: the phrasing of the preceding clause; the ubiquitousness of Brian Dennehy in the American cinema of the 80s; the assholery of Lou Reed, Ariel Sharon, DW Griffith—arguable father of cinema or not—and (regrettably—because he helped bring ya a lot of great modern literature that might otherwise be lost in the ether, like The Wasteland and Ulysses,) Ezra Pound—I’m not gonna get into Hitler, Stalin & C., because it sorta goes without saying that they are way worse; (besides which, I think our whole culture is obsessed with them;) the writing of Thomas Pynchon, (I stole the word “assholery” from him, by the way;) Bon Jovi, bon fires, bon bons, and bon mots; the indentation at the center of a woman’s throat; Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Ford’s The Searchers, and Ray’s In a Lonely Place; (I have this whole theory that links ‘em up as each film intentionally calls into question the validity of a major cinematic icon’s shtick—Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, and Humphrey Bogart respectively;) the tragic life and death of Dana Plato; the moral problems posed by the murder of Jeffery Dahmer; (my initial response when I heard about it: “Good;” along with everyone else who knew me at the time, I was disturbed by this bit of vehemence, but it just came out of my mouth—sorta like this one time when someone asked me how I could like Burger King more than McDonalds, and I unconsciously answered, “It just tastes better” —how’s that for disturbing?) cockroaches; my inability to reconcile myself to Buddhism; (it seems very cool and all, but I have problems with that whole self negation thing;) smelly, crappy doody; smoking cigarettes; (it took me approximately 57,326 attempts before I finally quit;) the Chicago Cubs—my most unhealthy obsession; (I tell ya, any day now, I’m gonna have an aneurysm over their fumbling seemingly Keystone Kop inspired take on the game of baseball—Why do I take it seriously? Year after year, why do I care? Someone please make it stop! I’m sick sick sick sick!!!) And, as any sensitive reader of this chronicle knows, most preponderantly, prominently, eternally, longingly, George Clooney’s ass (q.v. the prior entry (The Point) of Diminishing Returns).

And more recently, Zappa’s “rock musical” Thing-Fish. I’m calling it a rock musical, not just as a means of dodging associations with that most bloated, silly artifact of the bloated, silly musical style we call “classic rock,” (another fucking stupid label, while we’re on the subject,) the “rock opera.” (I freakin’ loathe Tommy—am in fact, with a few exceptions, not particularly fond of The Who. I mean, at least The Wall is so pompous and narcissistic that it’s unintentionally funny.) See, it’s a play within a play in which a married couple attend a performance of a Broadway musical that eventually draws them in, both literally—they’re kidnapped by members of the cast—and figuratively: while maintaining their role as audience, the also enter the reality of the production they’re watching, becoming characters on more than one level. If that makes any sense. If sense can be made of Thing-Fish, perhaps it can only be sensed. (Thank you, King Missile.)

But first a glimpse into my personal history with Thing-Fish: in times of yore, when I was but a humble undergrad, I started checking out Zappa. My hometown radio was pretty meat n’ potatoes, and none of my friends or older relatives had any Zappa in their record collections that I could steal or at least listen to a whole lot. Thus I’d had little prior exposure to him, but when it comes to music, I dig around a lot, for better or worse.

(Sometimes I worry that my record collection’s going to absorb me in some Twilight Zonian way, so I’d become, like, a sentient CD or some shit Rod Serling would come up with. Serling rules! by the way. Or maybe I could be more like a sentient mp3 file—that’d be more of the moment—though I’d make it an AAC file, cuz I like Macs better. And I could be trapped in my iPod that some callous asshole like me would carry, thus enacting the sort of karmic cycle you usually find on The Twilight Zone—or in a more straightforward way, in EC comics. Or maybe I could end up like an endlessly replicating self at some music sharing site. And then, like, I could get loose all over the internet and become omnipotent and smack all of civilization ‘neath my digital heel, sorta like that guy in Lawnmower Man . Or maybe not.)

So like, there I am, hungry for more music. And I’m away from home for the first time, and I’m meeting all these people and reading all this stuff—some of it (and them) describing music I’ve never heard of or have, but only in a cursory sort of way. And pretty soon, I’m running around chasing after this motley assortment of records and CDs. And somewhere in there was Zappa.

I don’t know why I started with Joe’s Garage, his 1979 rock opera. (This time, in a tongue-in-cheek way, the term fits.) As Zappa’s music goes, it’s a bit anomalous. He rarely worked in narrative terms—frequently, he didn’t even work in traditional songs—but here you had a three-act epic, in which our dystopian society (maybe it’s in the near future, but Frank never says so,) censors all music. It is stupid. It is profound. I loved it.

And it’s way more accessible than Thing-Fish, which I chased down after finding out that it was another rock musical/opera/whatever “starring” most of the cast of Joe’s Garage. Eagerly did I throw it into my CD player. 80 or so minutes later, after I had consumed both parts of this two-disc set, I was stunned. (OK, I wasn’t nonverbal. I didn’t have a concussion or anything like that. ) And I wasn’t just put off by the way in which Thing-Fish betrayed my expectations. I was put off by it. I don’t even think I was thinking of Joe’s Garage much, if at all. I was trying to figure out what the fuck this was, with all of its stereotyping of African Americans, women and gay men, in all of its absurd and truly perverse sexual abuse—not to mention its vicious ridicule of Broadway musicals and its (?sarcastic?) paranoid references to government-engineered disease. What was Zappa saying? I mean, while not all Zappa is topical, Joe’s Garage certainly was, and with all of its arguably offensive cultural baggage, Thing-Fish had to be as well. Didn’t it? I mean, you don’t roll all of this stuff out in the service of a gag. Do you? And if you do, haven’t you maybe crossed some sort of moral line, if not, at least, the boundaries of good taste?

Welp. That’s a question we’ll have to consider in the next entry, because in the interest of updating in a more timely fashion, I’m going to do things differently. In case you haven’t noticed, I tend to write in very long chunks. What’s more, I’m pretty obsessive when it comes to editing. Taken together, all of this means that it takes me a long time to finish anything. Thus the infrequent updating.

As far as writing about the complicated and interlocking subjects of my struggles with Thing-Fish and my trip to Hawaii, it would take forever to do things this way. Fortunately, the trip, at least, can be broken into distinct pieces. Thing-Fish is another matter, but I think my ideas about it can be made to fit into a more episodic approach. So more episodic it shall be. That way, I’ll be able to update much more frequently—I hope. Maybe once a week!

(Woo hoo! I know a lot of people are able to update a couple of times a week. But if you want the highly polished product you’re used to getting from Steve Forceman, you’re just gonna have to accept this time frame. Anyway, it’ll be faster than normal, for what it’s worth.)

That’ll make for shorter entries, and it may take some things a few entries to resolve themselves, but I think it’ll work. We’ll see. Anyway, Sloth, and whoever else may be reading, I’ll be back soon. Really. With pictures too! (I'm finally figuring out the finer points of this blogging thing! See image above: of me snorkeling! I took it myself! How about that!) Seriously! Bye for now! Really! Take care! Etc. etc. etc!!!!!!!!!!