FRANK
ZAPPA

CAMERA:
PETER BOS
GELUID:
JAN RAP

MONTAGE:
BERT ROOZEMOND
MIXING:
E. VAN DURLACHER

EEN PROGRAMMA
VAN
ROELOF KIERS

FZ:

Hello, my name is Frank Zappa, I'm a rock & roll musician. I'm a composer. And I make movies. Before I got into the rock & roll business, excuse me . . . I used to have a recording studio in Cucamonga California. At the end of that time I was framed and busted by the San Bernardino County vice squad for manufacturing a pornographic tape recording. Which was all just definitely fraudulent. Then I put the Mothers Of Invention together and we went out and we played a bunch of jobs, and eh, that was it.

MOI:

Shoo shoo
Shoo shoo
etc.

FZ:

What can I say? What can a person like myself, live on stage at the Fillmore West Psychedelic Dungeon, say to a vegetable? Well, I've considered this problem for at least 45 seconds. And I've come to the conclusion that the answer is simple my friends. All you have to do is call, and tell them how you feel As my assistants are doing right at this very moment.

Mark & Howard:

Gris-gris gumbo ya ya.

FZ:

Oh, we have to do Dr. John tonight.

Mark & Howard:

Hey yaa

FZ:

Just bear in mind some of the important things that you have to discuss with these people. One of them might be MUFFINS, PUMPKINS,
WAX PAPER, CALEDONIA, MAHOGANIES AND ELBOWS, GREEN THINGS IN GENERAL. And soon: A NEW RAPPORT! You and all your new little green yellow buddies grooving together, maintaining your coolness together, worshipping together in the church of your choice. Only in America.

Howard:

God Bless America,
Land that I . . .

Mark:

Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!

Mark & Howard:

Call any vegetable
Call it by name
Got to call one today
When you get off the train
Call any vegetable
And the chances are good

FZ:

Oh, that the vegetable will respond to you

Mark:

Hold it, hold it, hold it!

Howard:

Oh God, oh God, we're coming together.

FZ:

What a pumpkin.

[Zappa Residence, Zappa is working on a composition. Camera pens from Zappa to the kitchen showing the walls littered with pictures of various persons and objects, like a girl worshipping an erect penis. Then goes to the kitchen where we see Gail carrying Dweezil]

Gail:

Oh, I broke my glasses again, look.

Miss Lucy:

You're wearing my sun glasses.

Gail:

Oh, yeah. I'm Gail and I make coffee, and this is Dweezil.

Miss Lucy:

I make coffee too!

Gail:

And that's Moon, and this is Miss Lucy, and that's Miss Cheechy Connie.

[Dweezil gets a bath in the kitchen sink.]

[Back to Frank]

FZ:

When I was little I didn't have too much interest in music at all. When I was about five or six years old, up until the time I was about thirteen I was interested in chemistry and especially in explosives. I went out and made gunpowder when I was six. At that time my father was working at a place on the Eastcoast called Edgewood Arsenal.

Roelof Kiers:

What's that?

FZ:

Edgewood Arsenal is where they made poison gas during World War II. And we lived in a housing project where the people who worked on the army base there, everybody that lived in the project had to have gas masks in their house in case the tanks of mustard gas broke. So the toys that I remember growing up with were the little chemical beakers that my father would bring home and the gas masks that were hanging in the hall closet. And I would use to wear that out in the yard and run around in it and I thought it was a space helmet. And I continued to . . . actually the last experimentation that I did with explosives was when I was about fifteen years old. I attempted to set fire to the high school that I was attending.

I'd mixed up this quantity of powder which consisted of regular black powder and then flash powder which is 50% zinc and 50% sulphur mixed with sugar and it was really rancid stuff. And we had a quart mayonaisse jar full of it. And me and this other guy, who shall remain nameless, put vaseline all over our faces so in case anybody saw us doing this that we would be reported as swarthy, you know that was our disguise. I was fifteen years old and it was the night of the full moon. So we went down to the . . . we hitchhiked to the high school that night. And the first thing we did was go to the cafeteria, where the . . . some student organisation was serving refreshments to the parents. And we ripped them of for a bunch of paper cups, and I took the mayonaisse jar and dumped a little powder into each of these paper cups. And we met a bunch of other juvenile delinquent type thugs at the school. And I passed out the powder to these guys and said, "Here, hit it, go set some fire." So we had a few guys running around, burning things. One of our first acts of vandalism was to take a quantity of the powder and poor it in a stream in the middle of this pissing trough in the men's room and lit it, and then it tore the parcel in half. It went, "K-joink."

Mark:

[Fillmore]

The Pyramid Trick.

FZ:

That inspired us to bigger and better things.

Mark:

[Fillmore]

The Pyramid Trick.

FZ:

Terrorising and burning things.

FZ:

Ladies and gentlemen, the Sanzini Brothers with the world famous Pyramid Trick!

Jeff:

That's right, ladies & gentlemen [...] Sanzini is here [...]. Let me tell you here at San Francisco, the Pyramid Trick, I hope we will be treated day and night with the same respect we give to Patrice Lumumba when he's in town. Olaf Sanzini, the oldest, is now forming the basis of the pyramid trick, the hulk. That's right we use it for a sound baffle at Wally Heider. Okay, the Pyramid trick, yes, kids, is about to begin . . .

Howard:

The Sanzini Brothers!

FZ:

But as far as music goes, about the same time I began to develop an interest in rhythm & blues. And I wanted to play the drums, so I got a really cheap drum set and I was a drummer in a band called The Ramblers, which was in San Diego, California. And then I began to be interested in the sound of blues guitar. But it seemed that when I listened to all the guys playing at that time that they never played exactly what I wanted to hear and so I thought I would learn how to play the guitar myself, so I finally took that up when I was eighteen. And I was playing strictly blues stuff on it, and didn't get attracted to other styles of guitar playing until a few years later. And the composition end of my musical experience started in high school when I heard an album by Edgar Varèse. And I said, "Boy, that sounds great, I have to write some of that." I also got a hold of an album called The Rite Of Spring. It was on a little cheapo label, $1.95 thing and that excited me too. I thought, "Boy, if anybody could make a missing link between Edgar Varèse and Igor Stravinsky that'd be pretty nifty." And then somebody turned me on to an album of music by Anton Webern and I said, "Wow, if anybody could get a missing link between Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern and Edgar Varèse that'd be really spiffy." Then I started hearing some music of Tibet, music of India, music of Middle East and I started randomly synthesizing all the things that appealed to me and that's where the current musical language that I'm using now came from.

All through high school I was writing serial music and I thought that was really the way to go because it was all proofable by mathematics and you could just . . . you'd know right away how much your music was worth by figuring out whether or not you had all the notes in the right places you know, and it was really intelectual.

Then I heard what some of the stuff sounded like that I'd been writing and it was so ugly I decided to go backwards and get into the melodic area again and then people started telling me that my melodies were ugly. So I guess I'm succesful.

Roelof Kiers:

You are what?

FZ:

Succesful.

Mark & Howard:

Hent tent, hent tent,
Hent tent, hent tent,
Hent tent tent,
Hent tent tent,
Hee-e-e-e-e-e-e-.

FZ:

This is a song about the citizens of San Francisco, they keep you regular, they're real good for you.

Group:

Call any vegetable
Call it by name
Call one today
When you get off the train
Call any vegetable
And the chances are good

Mark & Howard:

Yeah-eah-eah

FZ:

That the vegetable will respond to you

Mark & Howard:

Ooh ooh, la la la laaaaa

FZ:

The vegetable will respond to you

Mark & Howard:

Ooh ooh, la la la laaaaa

Group:

Call any vegetable
Pick up your phone
Think of a vegetable
Lonely at home
Call any vegetable
And the chances are good . . .

[Gail & Frank discussing something while Moon & Dweezil are playing and making noises which prevent us from following the discussion between Frank and Gail.]

Gail:

Awright, what do you wanna do about that

FZ:

We have enough money to eh you can't take so and the camera so I just have to make a purchase of it tomorrow I give

Gail:

And what about the

[out at the swimming pool.]

Miss Lucy:

Water, water. That's Dweezil, get out of here Sheba.

Roelof Kiers:

And here is miss Lucy, the first GTO on Earth. Miss Lucy, what does it mean GTO?

Miss Lucy:

Well eh the first time . . . , the first thing it meant was "Girls Together Only" because me and my girlfriend Joanna where, you know, together. And I don't know, I just said something about GTO's and Mr Zappa said, "What does that mean?" I said, "Girls Together Only." And then--that was in December of 1967--and then he went back to New York and he came back in May, and by that time I had . . . I introduced him to all these girls you know, and then . . .

Roelof Kiers:

What kind of girls?

Miss Lucy:

To all the girls. Pamela, and Connie and Caroly, and oh, bunches of girls. But you know, just about four of us started doing things like going dancing and getting dressed up and run around the streets and havin' a good time. And then he wanted to, you know, form a group, so we did.

FZ:

They were interested in the music business anyway, so I said, "Why don't you sing?" And I encouraged them to form a semi singing performing group, that would allow them a vehicle to which to express the things that they were doing ordinarily on the street.

Miss Lucy:

We did . . . We pretended you know, we lived our fantasies out.

Roelof Kiers:

What kind of girls are these GTO's?

Miss Connie:

Simple girls.

Miss Lucy:

Neurotic. Nah! Ha ha. Nice girls. Oh Dweezil, take that thing out of your mouth!

FZ:

They were together as a group of people who just hung around together and had their own ingrown folklore and philosophy and theology, and there it just seemed sort of a one mind type operation. And I thought it would be nice to give people on the outside world, that is outside the boundaries of Laurel Canyon some idea of what was going on with these girls and show the way that they were thinking.

Miss Lucy:

Chasing girls? No! Chasing . . . it doesn't, it doesn't . . . chasing boys and girls. Or dogs and horses. Anything that's running we'll chase. No! Ha ha. You know just things that are appealing, you know. If you like something, you know, you go to it. Go to it, man.

Roelof Kiers:

It is told that GTO.'s are lesbians, is that true?

Miss Lucy:

Mmm . . . No. That's not true.

Roelof Kiers:

What about those nice little pictures? [points to pictures of acts of a sexual nature between women on the wall]

Miss Lucy:

EEEEEK! Well you know, I like, I like everything.

Miss Connie:

That was done in fun.

Miss Lucy:

No, we were havin' a good time. Michelle and I were drinking. And you know it was a nice cloudy day and we were . . . . Ooh look at that tit it's so fat. See I used to wear a [star].

Roelof Kiers:

Miss Lucy, whats eh, what are the highlights of your career as a GTO?

Miss Lucy:

The highlights? Ah, well once, oooo, once . . . once I was very drunk at the log cabin and we were having a rehearsal--[aside to Dweezil] You don't say--and Jeff Beck came over, a-HA HA! And I don't know what happened but he had some J & B Scotch. And ehm, I went to the hotel with him. And he let me wear his boots.

Miss Connie:

That was your highlight?

Miss Lucy:

Well, that was one of the highlights. And eh, I didn't have any clothes on except for his boots on. And then I . . . can I say this, can I say anything I want? I pissed on his chest, AAAH HA HA! The next day I was hard all over, beside I was so embarassed, when I saw him again . . . That was one of them.

FZ:

Looming large on the horizon we have the El Taco burrito place. At the corner of Lillian Way and Melrose Avenue, with its unique drive up window.

Gail:

What do you want?

FZ:

I want an enchilada, a red burrito.

Attendant:

[to a girl who walks away.]

Miss, miss, you got a dime.

Customer #1:

I want a . . . cheeseburger. No cheese, no onions, nothing.

Customer #2:

What are you doing?

FZ:

[Puts foil over camera lens]

What do you do for money? I have a rock & roll band.

Roelof Kiers:

Could you repeat that?

FZ:

What do you do for money? I have a rock & roll band What do you do for money?

Gail:

I have a rock & roll band.

Roelof Kiers:

Would you repeat that?

Customer #4:

Would you repeat that, please?

Roelof Kiers:

What did you ask him?

FZ:

What do you do for money?

Customer #3:

I said, "Ask him what he did for money."

Roelof Kiers:

What did he say?

Customer #3:

He said he had a rock & roll band.

Roelof Kiers:

Who is he?

Customer #3:

This gentleman standing right here next to me, or across from me I should say.

Gail:

That's what he does for money.

Attendant:

. . . a rock & roll band.

FZ:

You got any money.

Gail:

Yes I do, as a matter of fact.

Roelof Kiers:

You think he makes a lot of money?

Customer #3:

I don't really have any idea, he probably does, if he's in a band.

Roelof Kiers:

Ask him.

Customer #3:

Do you make a lot of money?

FZ:

No.

Customer #3:

You make enough to support yourself?

FZ:

Yes.

Customer #3:

Do you enjoy live?

FZ:

Yes.

Customer #3:

You're having a good time then?

FZ:

Yes.

Customer #3:

You're glad to be alive.

FZ:

Yes.

Customer #4:

Would you please answer more positively?

You want some guacamole?

No, I want some hot sauce. Honey here's the hot sauce.

The W is the White,
The P is the Port,
The L is the Lemon,
The J is the Juice
White Port & Lemon Juice,
White Port & Lemon Juice,
White Port & Lemon Juice,
Ooh what it do to you!

Well I feel so good, I feel so fine
I got plenty lovin', I got plenty wine
White Port & Lemon Juice,
White Port & Lemon Juice,
I said White Port & Lemon Juice,
Ooh what it do to you!

Roy: Por qué no consigues tu . . . tu carnal que nos compre some wine ese, ándale, pinche bato, puto, hombre, no te hagas nalga, hombre . . . (chale!) no seas tan denso, hombre (chale!), ándale, dile, porque no merecer, ándale, pinche vino, más sua . . . más suave es, más . . . más lindo que la chingada, hombre, ándale, pinche bato, hombre, quiere tu carnal, hombre, tu carnal ese, tú, tú sabes, tú sabes esto de la movida, tú sabes la movida, ese, tú sabes cómo es, tú sabes, pinche vino, puta, ándale, pinche bato, cabrón, ándale
?: This is getting me in trouble . . .
Roy: Ándale, hombre, por qué no, hombre?
?: Sorry!
Roy: Te digo que sí, hombre, te digo, chingao ese, está más . . . está más meco, hombre, ponemos más mecos que la chingada, ay! Ay, bato pinche, ay!

[We see Miss Lucy and Miss Connie dancing with Dweezil in the living room.]

FZ:

This empty bottle is for a drug called Flagyl that you can take if you get trichomonas when you're on the road. And it's a renewable prescription so you carry the empty bottle around with you and if you have to get some someplace they'll phone the pharmacy in New York.

Mark & Howard:

Went on the road
For a month touring
What a drag
You gotta go
Even if you'd rather be at home
Flaked out
In Hollywood

Mark:

Well everything . . .

Jeff:

Yeah, you could see . . .

Mark:

. . . My shaving kit . . .

FZ:

. . . Earlier . . .

Mark & Howard:

Hans Mohamitz

All:

Woooh, heeeh

?:

Con mucho gusto amigos. Saludo

Mark & Howard:

Hans Mohamitz

Rance Mohamitz

Jeff:

Let me tell you right now, man. You got your armies; you got your rock bands. You try and turn a rock band into an army, this is what you get. Hent tin ten rent tun ten Ha ha Ren hen hen hen hen tun hen

Mark & Howard:

Sense Mohamitz

Jeff:

Smurf mee! Smurf mee!

Howard:

Smurf meee!

Jeff:

Metz. Right Howard?

Howard:

Right Jeff, we're goin' for the money, all the way.

Jeff:

Can we get high now?

Mark & Howard:

Vance Mohammitz
Trance Mohammitz
Blanche Mohamitz
Ruth . . .

FZ:

[a park.]

Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's dull. Dull!

[back to the group somewhere, some girls bares her ass to show a tattoo.]

FZ:

Get the microphone in there.

Roelof Kiers:

What kind of adventures?

FZ:

Well, there's good ones and there's bad ones. The good ones usually include the presence of some young lady who likes to take her pants off for musicians. And the other ones are things like eh . . . Hello . . . Hans . . . What you're doin'?

Girl who's no groupie:

Nothing, walking around, before it rains.

[screaming child runs by]

Roelof Kiers:

What kind of girls are these groupies?

FZ:

Well, not all of them are groupies, you know, some girls that will readily admit that they are groupies have a very special sort of mentality, you know, and they aspire to that position, but there are other girls who would never admit that they are groupies but who function in that capacity anyway. For instance, would you call yourself a groupie?

Girl who's no groupie:

No, I think only for Frank Zappa publicity purposes.

FZ:

She said eh . . .

Girl who's no groupie:

Besides which, never . . . we could never make it together we're only friends.

FZ:

That's right.

Girl who's no groupie:

Right.

Roelof Kiers:

What kind of function do they have?

FZ:

Well they keep you occupied and entertained while you're out in a hotel someplace, you know, and hotels . . .

Roelof Kiers:

You always seem to be busy, I mean with other things.

FZ:

Well, I like recreation too, I'm a human being. I like to get laid.

Roelof Kiers:

And what about your wife, I mean . . . Does she like it?

FZ:

Well, she's become accustomed to it over a period of years. I mean you have to be realistic about these things, you go out on the road, you strap on a bunch of girls, you come back to the house, you find out you got the clap. What're you gonna do, keep it a secret from your wife, you know? So I come back there and I say, "Look, I've got the clap, go get a perscription." So she goes out and gets some penicillin tablets, we both take 'em and that's it. She grumbles every once in a while, but you know, she's my wife.

Howard:

This lovely Carol Merril is standing in front right at this very moment.

Jeff:

Take it, Carol . . . You see he's an abandoned goat rider. Rent tent rent ten ten.

Mark:

A reproduction of Sharon Tate's house.

Howard:

Hit it! Ready! On cue! Everybody sing!

Jeff:

It wasn't the one.

Don't it ever get lonesome?
Yeah! Sure gets lonesome . . .
Don't it ever get sad when you go out on the road?
Oh, there was one time in Minneapolis . . . when I thought I had the clap for sure
Don't it ever get lonesome?
Lonesome ain't the word
Don't it ever get sad when you go out on a thirty day tour?
Oh, I'll take away . . .
You got nothing but groupies and promoters to love you
And a pile of laundry by the hotel door

Don't it ever get lonesome?
Don't it ever give a young man the blues?
Don't it ever get lonesome?
Don't it ever make a young man wanna go back home?
When the P.A. system eats it,
And the band plays some of the most terriblest shit you've ever known

FZ:

It's time for a revolution, but probably not in the terms that people imagine it. The word seems to [counter] up images-- sort of a modern day version of peasants going into the street with their pitch forks to go after the bad guy who lives in a big house someplace on a hill and we're gonna get that son-of-a-bitch and we'll take all the stuff away from him and we'll give it to the workers, you know. And that's not the kind of revolution I had in mind.

Roelof Kiers:

Which one had you in mind then?

FZ:

Well, I thought that it might be nice if it was handled a little bit more modern and efficient way, without people getting slaughtered in the street. It's a matter of infiltration.

Roelof Kiers:

What kind of infiltration?

FZ:

Because the thing that's wrong today is that the people who are in control of the media and the government and, you know things that run the lives of the average person in the street. They aren't doing a good job of it 'cause they don't really care. So if you just replace them, and I think that's a possibillity.

Roelof Kiers:

By whom?

FZ:

By interested people from the younger generation.

Roelof Kiers:

You think they are more interested than the older ones? You think it's a matter of age?

FZ:

I think the potential is there in the younger generation. I don't think that right now they are really interested. Their political involvement is on a very superficial basis. They're still . . . They go out for the social aspects of a march or a rally rather than for the eh . . . what it could possibly accomplish. I don't think that demonstrations are the best possible tactic.

Roelof Kiers:

What do you think of the present situation here in the States, I mean politically.

FZ:

It's a little frightening at times, I'm still optimistic about it. Of course america is such a crazy place. I mean it's . . . When you consider that you can elect a person like Richard Nixon just by running the proper type of television advertizing campaign, it's possible that a person with an equal amount of money for the same size campaign--now he's spend twenty-two million dollars to convince a bunch of people to vote for him--that he was a good bet for the presidency. Anybody else with 22 milion dollars and the right kind of P.R. firm could do the same thing.

Roelof Kiers:

When will you be around for president?

FZ:

I thought about it a number of times before, and then the thing that always holds me back is that what would it feel like to actually be the President. You know you would have to stay in Washington DC in that house for four years. That'd be pretty grim.

Roelof Kiers:

I saw some stickers, Frank Zappa for president.

FZ:

I haven't seen any stickers, I've seen some little cards that somebody printed out. I didn't have anything to do with them. But true I had thought about it. I thought about politics a number of times, but you can't do it all just from the presidency. The President doesn't have the absolute control in the United States because you have to . . . the power is divided up between him and the Senate and the Congress and the rest of that crap. And if you go in there and you can't work in conjunction with the people who are in the Senate and the Congress you can't get anything done.

Roelof Kiers:

Do you think that there's a chance that music, pop music, might change this society here?

FZ:

It already did. Pop music, especially for the last, say, six years has had a great deal to do with the lifestyle, encouragement of activities within the sexual revolution and clothing styles and everything else. It's all been influenced by pop music. It changed the appearance of the American teenage way of live.

Roelof Kiers:

What kind of influence did the Mothers have, you think?

FZ:

Well, we had some, but not very much, because of the size of our audience was so small.

Roelof Kiers:

But, what kind of influence?

FZ:

Well, I think we perhaps inspired some of the people who liked what we do to get a little bit looser and a little bit more devious, and as I said before about progress not being possible without some sort of deviation. We need a few deviants.

Mark & Howard:

Hut hut,
Hut hut
Heeeeee

FZ:

"Penis Dimension" is one of the songs from our forthcoming United Artists feature length motion picture that we just got the money for today, called 200 Motels. Doin some sleazy (?) about November first the next week. Meanwhile, boys and girls, for your edification this is a song of inspiration.

Mark & Howard:

Penis dimension
Penis dimension
Penis dimension is worrying me
I can't hardly sleep at night
'Cause of penis dimension

Do you worry?
Do you worry a lot?

Do you worry?
Do you worry and moan . . .
That the size of your cock is not monstrous enough?

It's your penis dimension!
Penis dimension!

Wa oo wa oo wa oo wa
Wa oo wa oo wa oo wa

Mark:

Hi, friends. Did you ever consider the possibility that YOUR PENIS, or in the case of many dignified ladies, that the size of the titties themselves might provide elements of sub-conscious tension? Yes, weird, twisted anxieties that could force a person to have to become a politician!

Howard:

Hooray!

Mark:

A policeman! A Jesuit monk.

FZ:

Dominus vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo

Mark:

A rock & roll guitar player! A wino! A vampire. You name it. Or, in the case of the ladies, the ones that can't afford a silicone BEEF-UP, they become writers of hot books!

Howard:

"Manuel, the gardener, placed his burning phallus in her quivering quim."

Mark:

Or Carmelite nuns!

Howard:

"Gonzo, the lead guitar player, placed his mutated member in her slithering slit." Ha ha ha!

Mark:

Carmelite nuns. Or racehorse jockeys! There is no reason why the size of your organ should trouble you or your loved ones. THERE IS ENOUGH TROUBLES IN THE WORLD TODAY, RIGHT BROTHERS?

Howard:

RIGHT ON, [...] MOTHERS!

Mark:

Now, if you're a lady and you've got munchkin tits, you can console yourself with this age-old line from grammar school. Help me out, brother.

Mark & Howard:

"ANYTHING OVER A MOUTHFUL IS WASTED!"

Mark:

Yes, isn't that true! Isn't that true. And if you're a guy, and if you're a guy, and you are in this audience tonight and you're ashamed about the size of your dick . . .

FZ:

"ANYTHING OVER A MOUTHFUL IS WASTED!"

Mark:

Yes! And you're ashamed of your dick, and one night you're at The Fillmore, you're going back [...] you got this chick, this guy hits on you right, (...) cool guy hits on you, and he says . . .

Howard:

Eight inches or less?

FZ:

Well I think that progress is not possible without deviation. And I think that it's important that people be aware of some of the creative ways in which some of their fellow men are deviating from the norm, because in some instances they might find these deviations inspiring and might suggest further deviations which might cause progress, you never know.

Wild Man Fischer:

I know a guy his name is Manson
He's tall, he's dark, he's real real handsome
He (?) the world and he talks to himself,
He goes upstairs
He got two . . . I . . .

FZ:

I thought eh from the first day that I met him that somebody should make an album about Wild Man Fischer. I've known him since 1965, and that was just about the time we were doing our first album for MGM.

Wild Man Fischer:

I go down to the welfare department,
I take the money
And everybody says, "You're a bum, Fischer, ha ha ha"
But then I keep going
And my father's dead
Oh my father's dead
But I got a chance
I got a chance, because
The reason why I got a chance
I was in a mental institution
When I was sixteen years old

FZ:

The way you work with somebody like Wild Man Fischer or Captain Beefheart or people who are out there. The problems that arise after the album is completed sometimes become too much to bear. Like I spent three months working on the Wild Man Fischer album. And eh at the end of that time not only was I accused of eh robbing Wild Man Fischer and cheating Wild Man Fischer and abusing him, most of this from Wild Man Fischer himself. But eh, the album itself did not sell a large amount of copies you know. I spent three months of my time working on it, and I thought I had done a good job on it. I was proud of the album. But then wind up with, eh, it hurts my feelings, you know and I got a similar sort of experience from Captain Beefheart.

Wild Man Fischer:

(singing)

Tu du tu du dud (etc.)
You bring back those memories
Oh my dear old taggy lady
Hey ho taggy lady
Hey hey ho

FZ:

I've been shooting films since 1958 and looks like just recently we acquired a large budget, or a decent budget to finish a real motion picture.

Roelof Kiers:

Is it just for fun or does it attract you as a medium?

FZ:

As a medium? Oh, I think that for the type of writing that I do, that the perfect medium for it would be film or some, some sort of visual thing, perhaps, eh, an advanced form of video tape would be the perfect medium for me to work in, because when I conceive the music I always think in terms of possible visual elements to go with it, and to be able to exercise control over the visual elements as well as the music, that's something that I've always wanted to do. So now in the case of 200 Motels I have a chance to write the music, write the story, direct the action, direct the photography, and actually edit the film when it's done. And hopefully with all of that control I'll be able to get as close as possible to the original fantasy that I had in my mind when I started to put the thing together. We're now entering the area of the Aynsley Dunbar home movie. A boy and his polaroid camera. The exposure gets better a little bit better later on. This was shot at two frames per second with available light in a suite at 1 5th Avenue in New York. And so it is with life on the road in a rock & roll band.

Cheap thrills all over the seat
Cheap thrills, your kind of lovin' can't be beat
Cheap thrills up and down my spine
I need it, I need it, 'cause it feels so fine

Cheap thrills
Cheap thrills
Cheap thrills
Cheap thrills
Cheap thrills
Cheap thrills

Roelof Kiers:

With 200 Motels is that an attempt to get into American serious music?

FZ:

No, hardly. First of all, I have no place in American serious music, what would I do in there? I don't wanna, I don't socialize with those people who are deeply involved in that part of the culture. That whole world doesn't appeal to me. I would like to hear what I wrote.

Ian & FZ:

[Ian Underwood and FZ practice "Sealed Tuna Sandwich"]

This town
This town
Is a Sealed Tuna Sandwich
Sealed Tuna Sandwich
With the wrapper glued
It's by baloney on the rack

Roelof Kiers:

200 Motels?

FZ:

It's a mixed-media presentation, a combination of a film, an opera a television show, a rock & roll concert, various different elements that all tells a story of when you go on the road it makes you crazy. There's one special section that deals with a special fantasy that I had one time when I was stranded in Kentucky. That's the section called The Pleated Gazelle, and that tells about a love affair between a boy and a girl and an industrial vacuum cleaner.

FZ:

There it is. The vacuum cleaner. There was this girl that used to come over to the house that was quite fond of this vacuum cleaner. Pretty good. It works good on tits.

Miss Lucy:

Wait a minute, I'm hot. Ooh, it feels good. Eeeh it's dirty.

FZ:

It also works good on a pie.

Miss Lucy:

It does.

FZ:

The Atlas Vacmore, ladies and gentlemen.

FZ:

This takes place in a car on the way from the psychedelic nightclub to the motel.

Howard:

Runrunnerun-run-run.

Imagine me and you,
I do,
I think about you day and night
It's only right,
To think about the girl you love
And hold her tight,
So happy together

If I should call you up,
(Call you up)
Invest a dime
And you say you belong to me,
(Ease my mind)
And ease my mind
Imagine how the world could be,
(Very fine)
So very fine,
So happy together

I can't see me lovin' nobody but you for all my life
When I'm with you, baby,
The skies will be blue for all my life
(Mark: Everybody, come on, sing along!)

Pa pa pa pa
Pa pa pa pa pa pa pa
Pa pa pa pa
Pa pa pa pa
Pa pa pa pa pa pa pa
Pa pa pa pa

[Back in the Zappa residence]

FZ:

See you later.