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Above I embedded for you a video of Frank Zappa on Crossfire back in 1986. It's certainly worth watching, especially if you fancy reading the rest of this article and getting what the hell I'm on about, since I'll be mostly on about that video. Well, somewhat mostly. Anyway. Surprisingly, their subject is pornigraphy and prurience, and defending the good people from same. Isn't it striking that 20 years later the same exact stuff is the main topic of debate ? And what's more striking is the fact that the same exact stuff is debated in the exact same manner, for the exact same reasons, just by new faces. In fact, if you somehow magically missed the public debate around pornography for 20 years straight (you lucky motherfucker), you can catch up to speed by watching 20 minutes of Crossfire. It is all in there. As a side note, this is pretty good proof Zappa was a genius, a sort of Midas of art, anything the guy touched turned to art, which is why a 20 minutes segment from a shitty show 20 years ago still stands today, even if the entire rest of the show is adequate moth food. Cheers, Frank. Now, let's introduce the persons. The interested parties, John Lofton at the time writing for Washington Times, and Frank Zappa. The innocent, more or less, bystanders, Tom Braden and Robert Novak. It's funny how much of this segment is typical. Just look at Lofton's ugly mug. The glasses, the hair, the sleazy chin, he reeks of a certain kind of dorkness. Just by looking at the guy, you could guess he's the sort of impotent pencilneck that rubs it all day to police reports of arrested whores. Frank Zappa looks strange. He's too tall, he's too skinny, he has that funny mustache, he's just weird. And so it is, people. The frustrated impotent has a quarrel with the exceptional, the strange, the different. Lofton is offended by Zappa's continued difference, on one hand, and indifference to his frustration, on the other. It brings back painful memories of women being similarly different from him, so interesting, so desirable, and yet similarly indifferent to his frustration. They really don't care, and neither does Frank. The bystanders don't quite get it. On one hand, they don't care either. On the other, they don't see what the problem quite is, they are happy to administer their own house, their own children and let Frank handle Dweezil. Lofton wants Frank castrated, and that's the long and the short of it. Novak uses the opportunity to satisfy his curiosity as to exactly what Frank does do with his willie, whereas Braden simply doesn't grasp the fact that some guy wants him to help castrate a third. It's simply beyond anything that would cross his mind. From there on, we happily cruise into fun land. The main moments : Frank argues that words, in themselves, can not reasonably be considered good or bad, or indeed be judged with respect to any other abstract quality. This remarkable sparkle of modern linguistics stands. Words in themselves do not carry meaning, irrespective of what anyone thinks. To try and accomplish anything at all by handling words a certain way is obviously a bankrupt enterprise. Braden tries to go against this inexpugnable position, "but some words are brutal". So ? Obviously. He realizes the futility of the line and drops it. Novak catches the opportunity to continue probing, satisfying his curiosity. They establish all words belong in radio, and on the telly. And in politics. Funny, but strategically incompetent of Frank, because Novak is now looped for a few seconds trying to grasp exactly what is meant. It's remarkable how visible it is that both Braden and Novak are honestly trying to understand, and Zappa is more or less trying to explain himself, where Lofton is only trying to legislate. But while Novak is pondering, Lofton finds a way to insinuate himself into something he obviously doesn't belong in. He tries to equivocate between words and media in general, be it music, films, videos or whatever. It is possible that he actually does not make the distinction, or at least it can be argued he's in a bad position to make the distinction. He writes for a newspaper, words are all there is, but they are two levels, words as such and words as media. Since the two levels are superimposed it's difficult to distinguish, but for a musician the difference is obvious, there's also music, not just lyrics. Thus predictably, Frank simply brushes him off. This frustrates the little man to no end. And here a very remarkable thing happens. Normally, confronted with a negation, people will ask a question. "I left the umbrella on the table." "No" "Well where then ?" "How do you know ?" "What do you mean ?" etc etc But Lofton just repeats the statement. This is obviously not very intelligent, but it does reflect one important edge about the slimy fellow : He knows. People who know are dangerous not because they can be wrong, which after all anyone can, but because they can never become aware of it. As such, they will tend to find inadequate solutions for whatever problems they are trying to solve. A typical example is the jealous husband with a faithful wife. He knows she's cheating, and if he can have his way he's going to put her in a chastity belt, which however will accomplish nothing, other than the fact the poor woman won't be able to pee all that well. He will still know she's cheating. Lofton presents the argument that words should not be underestimated, they have consequences, they have impact on people. Frank doesn't respond, by his sour expression presumably because that argument is a fair bit outside the scope of the discussion. Which it is. DNA also has consequences, and impact on people. How does that help the argument for eugenics ? Encouraged by silence, Lofton goes on to deliver a rather typical demagogic bomb, peppered with tear gas ("you have kids"). It's made of two segments. First, he proposes the government should help "us" in this "fight". Second, he wants to know if Frank is an anarchist that thinks the government should do nothing about "this". Frank goes on to respond he's a conservative, which is presumably intended to underscore that he's not an anarchist yet he thinks the government should do nothing about "this", a possibility the question was crafted to hide. The bomb was successful, because the payload made it's way into conversation, aided by the fact that if you deliver a lie and an insult together, people will respond to the insult. The lie is still a lie, on multiple levels. Firstly, there exists no "us" in the matter, not unless you expect me to identify myself with dorkboy, or with anyone else. The "us" behind any attempt at legislating taste implies more homogeneity than is reasonably acceptable, and in fact only worked as a rhetoric trick back when WASP was the only way to be. Here is visible a certain benefit of a culturally diverse country, if ever one could exist : crap like this "us" could never be brought. But more importantly, the government is implied to be a tool of "us". It is not. It shouldn't be, either. Any serious attempt at a government never can nor ever should it be a tool of the majority, or even of people alive. A republic, not a democracy. Good, right and true does not change with the mores, if it's anything worth even talking about. So, yes, it's wrong to want the government to help "us". And it's even worse to think it "our" government. Going there is how you end up with a tool of oppression instead of a tool of governance. Not that Lofton cares, he just wants Frank castrated already. He is willing to implicitly identify "the general welfare" with his ideology. We can maybe agree the government should promote the general welfare, if we are particularly bent on creating a welfare state. But we certainly can't agree that the general welfare was handed down to Moses. So instead of threading this filth, Frank prefers to respond to the "protecting families" line. Can you protect someone by taking away words ? It's not just words, they connote ideas, Lofton claims. So, presumably he wants to take away both the words and ideas. When I first said he wants Frank castrated you thought I was kidding, didn't you. He does. We go on to hear about incest. Lofton wants to know if Frank is for promoting incest as a viable sexual alternative. Frank wants to know if Lofton wants to erase all mention of incest from everywhere, cause the Bible's ripe for an erasing. The problem is, obviously by this point, not the words themselves nor their meaning, but ideology. Incest in the Bible is quite a different matter to Lofton than incest in some Prince video, simply because, as Frank has it right, words are just words. If indeed the words, or the connoted ideas were the problem, at this point Lofton would have an epiphany, and realize he needs to go home and throw the Bible out. The problem is, however, to establish precisely how much some bubbly young is to be allowed to do with themselves. Lofton is of the firm belief that said young thing, of either sex, belongs to him personally, and the entire group of young things belongs to the entire group Lofton is part of, that "us" which might mean white, adult, male, whatever. Their bodies are his property, and he is to decide proper usage. According to some reason, scripture, divination or otherwise, it matters less, what really matters is for it to be his decision, not theirs. This argument is well and thriving today, proposing that 16 year old boys are not able to judge for themselves whether to fuck the smoking hot blonde teacher girl or not. Frank really doesn't care about all that, he just finds himself in the funny position of seeing some schmuck try to run him out of town because he's a file maker, and the schmuck's slaves buy his files to cut their chains. As he happens to be a pretty good file maker, and interested in making files not telling people how to use them, he doesn't see Lofton's point. On the other hand, Lofton half believes Frank is just stupid, half believes he is ill intended. If you had a dozen beauties locked up in your basement in stocks and chains and came home one day to enjoy your castle and found all the cages open and the birds burning bras, you'd be pretty pissed too, and you too would half think Zappa is crazy, half think he's a freakin conspirator. The priceless gem where incest didn't use to be such a problem, except for the past 20 years (in 1986), except it still to this day seems to not have used to be such a problem, except for the past 20 years. These famous past 20 years that Cicero mentions somewhere. To be frank, nothing ever was as shitty as it's been for the past 20 years, except 20 years ago. Novak and Braden seem to be up to date with their classical reading. By now Novak has finally decided that the politics comment was not particularly serious, but has also had enough time to observe one of their guests isn't exactly dumb. He carefully constructs his next question so as to get as much useful out of Frank as possible. Sadly, Frank is riled to red, and he just passes the common his right to do it, my right to not like it bit. At which point Lofton wants to know where does that right come from, to do things. This is a second edge of the person put in a very vibrant light. There are two kinds of people, those who think they have rights they choose to delegate to others, be those others governments, and those who think they have no rights except those given to them, by governments. The classical opposition between the Republican and Monarchic ideology. And then there are people like Lofton, who wish noting more than to convince as many people as possible of the former, so they may try and be the font of rights and promote their otherwise useless personas into some sort of unwarranted public prominence. Another beautiful gem is the "Then you gotta get out more" quip. Real comedic gold. It's so painfully obvious Lofton was crushed under this quip at some point, saved it and tried it now in desperation, except it doesn't work on Zappa as well as it works on milk-bottle-faced wankers. It just goes to heaven from there. "What, you're directing this show now ?" "Well, you certainly need some direction Mr Zappa". Don't you just love the good old times , when people came clean in front of a camera on a regular basis ? It was so simple then, so clear, so obvious. Ahh, ou sont... Since most everything else got thrown in there, in due time we find ourselves confronted with the Founding Fathers discussion. This is always a killer. Do you really think they meant X when they said Y ? How are we to find out what they meant other than reading what they wrote ? Is it reasonable to presume that while the writings, which these folks put a lot of work into, for the clear purpose of communicating what they thought, can not be reasonably interpreted so as to derive "what they really meant", something else about them could ? Franklin might have written a hundred pages about Y, but when I look at this photograph taken while he was using the potty, the facial expression makes it undeniable he really meant Y'. No, really ? If the wanted to give a photo album for a Constitution, they would have sent the wives to congress and went hunting instead of bothering. They kept slaves, does that mean they really didn't mean "liberty for all" ? If you spend decades explaining yourself for the benefit of your offspring, do you want them to throw that aside and fondly remember you by your dirty underwear ? Not that they won't anyway, but is that what "you really wanted" ? So Frank deadpans "absolutely" and Lafton loses it and calls him an idiot, so Frank tells him to beep his beep, aka kiss his ass. To which Lofton offers to duke it out ! Just look at the guy, hes 4 feet and a leaf, quick as a snail and just strong enough to push a pen around. It's so obvious Frank would kick his ass that nobody even considers the proposal. I haven't laughed so hard in ages. I mean, if Lofton isn't something, he isn't an athlete. And yet, that's his fallback in case he loses a debate. Rich. Novak is back to his very personal agenda. He's no musician. He's not an expert in the field, yet he's curious for whatever reason, and he wants the expert to answer him dammit. Is it is or is it ain't worthless ? This is a very difficult question, and under better circumstances Frank might have come with a quotable answer, but with the Lofton idiot there to lower the barn, these two just can't get two minutes to make sense together. Sad. Which is really my main objection against the Loftons of the day, not that their ideology is stupid, after all there is no outside-of-text, and no outside-of-ideology, and ideologies are all stupid, but the fact that they are so committed to peddling the stupidity that they manage to prevent meaningful dialog. Frank and Novak might have created something, that night, maybe something useful and valuable, maybe something I could pick up today, and use to make my own life better. I don't care about Lofton, and his incestuous fixations and BDSM obsessions, but fact remains, it's as likely he fucked up something I might have needed as it is he didn't. In the obvious absence of any redeeming qualities, I have no objection against him being shot. Braden wants to know who's to do the job. Lofton gets all squishy, but Tooom, I heard you so and so. He doesn't have an answer. If he'd be honest he's say "I" and we could all go home, but he's not and we're stuck listening to people trying to dig it out. Lofton puts it on some vague procedures, and this line is dead. As a last important observation, Lofton doesn't distinguish between laws and government, for him it's the same thing. It should not be, unless he was talking about USSR all along. And here Frank drops it, the reason this segment should be played in schools. The biggest threat to this country today is not communism, it's moving America towards a fascist theocracy. You heard it here first folks, in 1986. How right was the skinny weirdo ? You can argue that it is, and you can argue that it isn't, but two facts remain paramount. Moving towards a fascist theocracy would be a threat. And fascist theocracy has gotten a lot closer in the past 20 years (wink). Let me make things perfectly clear for you. First off, I know for a fact you have no idea what fascist mans. You heard the word many times, but all you know is that it's a big baddie. It's not a big baddie, it's a concept. It has a definition. Fascist is that society which exhibits a very high degree of nationalism, economic corporatism, a powerful, dictatorial leader who portrays the nation, state or collective as superior to the individuals or groups composing it. America is very nationalistic today, and more so than 20 years ago. Contrary to what you may have been lead to believe, this is not a good sign. Nationalism, especially in the forum, is the visible sign of the death of nations. Normally, while the nation is healthy it is ashamed to discuss it. When it is being a matter of daily discussion, there is no more health, and usually no more life left in the nation. Economic corporatism needs little qualification. It's here, and more so than 20 years ago. Now, while a powerful, dictatorial leader does in fact exist (no, I don't mean Bush is a dictator through and through. But he does make a bunch of signing statements and he does believe he can give orders that are contrary to the law, be it about NSA or anything else. It's a start), but he does not actually portray the nation as superior to the individuals. At least not yet, not even pressed by the sour need of recruits for the military. This is the thread the US hangs by at this moment. Is this worse than 20 years ago ? Maybe. Did the Reagan administration push the country right down that pipe ? It actually did. Did it push it more than it needed to ? Who knows these things. Was there some other way ? Certainly. Would it have worked ? Probably not. This part is something you are kindly invited to make your own mind about. Challenged to give an example, he offers "a moral code derived from a certain religion becoming law", presumably implying that it's done on the sole merit of the religious affiliation. His argument as presented stands, but only for the purpose of a show, not really as a serious political analysis, since in fact the separation laws are strong today and were strong then, and besides, exactly which law would that be anyway ? But as presented, on a show, it stands, because the problem are not as much the factualities of law and politics as the vagaries of human mentalities. And as well exemplified by Lofton then and by idiots like Ashcroft today, those mentalities exist and thrive, and are well served by such examples. On a show. He does get points for routing Lofton's morality/religious morality attempt at equivocation. Lofton asks to be explained what's amusing. We find out that Frank likes Novak better than he likes Lofton, so does that give us an idea of what's going on there ? It does. And next, lo and behold. Adolf Hitler. Could this thing have gotten any better ? I thought not. Seems it could. Adolf Hitler. You know, he used words very effectively, something Lofton sadly is impotent to do. Let me quote Die Fuhrer (all hail) : Forty-six fucking million Britishers rape and govern approximately 16 million square miles of the fucking surface of this shithole Earth. Thirty-seven million anal Frenchmen shit on and govern a combined area of approximately 4 million square miles. Forty-five million bastard Italians possess, taking into consideration only those territories in any way capable of being utilized, an area of scarcely 190,000 square miles and two whores. Eighty-five million cunts, the Germans, possess scarcely 232,000 square miles of fuckspace. That is to say: 85 million Germans own only 232,000 square miles on which they must live their lives and shake their cocks, and 46 million Britishers possess 16 million square miles. Obviously, the Brits have longer cocks. Indeed, one can say that the force of the argument is entirely derived from shit, cocks and cunts, and not at all from the idiotic foreign policy of the European nations after the first world war. So, yes, Hitler did use words very effectively. But not those words for Christ's sake. Further, Lofton isn't at all impressed with telling kids to vote and run for office. You see, while earlier it was "our" government, no good can come out of impudent brats messing with it. Who gave them the right anyway ? The mere suggestion shows the bankruptcy of what used to be the "radical message", not that Mr Lofton is in any danger of being terribly radical if he fell in the radical barrel. Apparently, voting is a really really bad idea. Eventually Novak comes up with the otherwise common idea that it is a lot easier to have corporations oppress their workforce than governments oppress the citizenry. Which is why corporations actually made it into the above definition of fascism by the way, it's how shit went down in Europe. Since you put up with so much intricate analysis, here's some well earned relaxation. Enjoy. 1 kids registered to vote. |