remembering Gail Zappa
It’s about time I tell this whole story.
In 1999, I was a senior in high school. I was also a massive Frank Zappa fan. Back then you knew you were a huge fan of an artist when you owned all their albums in print and then you went on the sometimes-seemingly-impossible adventure of getting all their out-of-print stuff. At that time, Zappa had I think just over 70 albums. Most were not easily obtainable for a high school kid in NH in 1999. Especially one that didn’t know anything about the internet.
So it’s 1999. The talent show is in April. The end of April. At this time, something called a “talent show” meant something not for me. In fact, I was better off not even attending the whole event. I should just skip it.
During this time, however, I read Zappa’s autobiography. It was inspiring and it motivated me. Something inside me clicked. I thought, “I’m just gonna do this talent show.” Not for the sake of displaying some potential talent but just for the sake of doing it. At that time, however, I didn’t have the self-image of one who would just get up and perform my own piece. I decided to do one of Frank Zappa’s songs. I had one problem, though. I couldn’t sing and play guitar at the same time. I thought “fuck it, I’ll just do it acapella.” The song I chose is called Dumb All Over. The arrangement of the song leaned toward it being more of a rap than one to be sung. That’s what I decided to do. I was gonna do a friggin rap at the talent show.
At this point, a Bob Dylan lyric came to mind. “I’ll know my song well before I start singin.” I went to work memorizing the song. I wrote all the lyrics down in my notebook. I mused on all the things it meant to me and what it may have meant to Frank. Man, Frank wrote the song, but for 3 minutes I was gonna own it.
When the time came, I submitted the lyrics for approval, and they were accepted. Everything was moving along well. I didn’t tell anyone about it either. At least up until the point of when it happened. Columbine.
The school shooting at Columbine High School. Just a few days before the talent show. The piece I was doing was quite political, so I thought I would make an introductory remark about the song before the performance. Then the day before the talent show the principal calls me into his office.
He told me he thought it would be better that I perform something different. That the piece I was planning on doing may offend some people in the wake of Columbine. I told him my thoughts on introducing the song in such a way so that the song may draw out a sense of meaning from this tragedy. I also said I thought it would better for us to face these challenges though in a sensitive way. Certainly not cower and live scared because of them. He did admit that personally he empathized with my situation but professionally he just couldn’t allow it. He politely asked me to consider doing something else. Either way, I would not be permitted to do this Frank Zappa song.
It took the Heart right outta me. I considered doing something else, but my Heart was in this Zappa thing. I couldn’t, in good conscience, perform something else and leave my Heart in the shadows just for the sake of letting my ego get on stage. I threw in the towel and allowed the school to let the terrorists win.
Over the next days and few weeks, the whole matter wasn’t sitting well with me. I couldn’t let it go. I kept thinking about Frank testifying in Congress about Freedom of Speech and his opposition to the censorship of records. That was in 1985. To this day, there are no “Parental Advisory” stickers on any Frank Zappa albums. They let him speak through his records with no legislative billboards glued to his artwork. I decided to do something about this. I didn’t know what. I had no goal. Except maybe peace of mind.
I wanted to get in touch with the Zappa family. I wanted to tell them what had happened. Frank had died six years earlier from prostate cancer. But his wife, Gail was around. And their four kids. I read about all of them in Frank’s autobiography. I just had a feeling that I should reach out to them. So I did. I called and left a message on some kind of business line I guess.
Would you believe, she called back! Gail Zappa! Frank Zappa’s fuckin’ wife called me back! She left a message on my parents answering machine! How hilarious is that. I told my mom, “that’s Frank Zappa’s wife!”
Her for-the-ages reply? “Isn’t he the guy that took a shit on stage?”
“No mom. That’s just a story. It never happened. You know, rock n roll folklore.” (Which is true)
Anyway, I called her back and we talked for a while. I told her the whole story- doing this song for the talent show, I can’t play AND sing, so I’m just gonna rap it- all that stuff. She said Frank couldn’t sing and play at the same time either. See, up until that point I had listened to his music for hours and hour and hours but I had never SEEN him play/sing. And if he wrote it in the book, I missed it. We had a great conversation, though. She asked what I thought we might be able to accomplish regarding the talent show ordeal. I told her I really didn’t know. Hell, I was a senior, and it’s May. My parole date (oops, I mean graduation date) was weeks away, and then I’d be released.
After that phone call, I kept that little audio cassette of her voice mail on that old landline. I kept it for years as a little artifact. Along the way the cassette itself broke, but I excavate the memory from time to time and remember the whole experience. I wasn’t just some random kid from NH. She called me back with sincere interest in what I was calling about. It was in her heart to care enough to think, “This is important. I’m really interested in what this kid is calling for. I’m going to call him back. I want to hear more about this and see what he might want to do because of it.”
I was a kid, and it was really fuckin cool. Frank was gone, but here’s his wife, Gail calling me up on my mom and dad’s home phone to talk about some bureaucracy I was dealing with at school.
I still have it in mind to perform that song somewhere, someday. Frank and Gail’s son Dweezil tours and performs Frank’s music. I almost pitched him the idea over the summer, but the date they were coming to the area was right on top of the day my son was born… Next time!
I said all that to say this. Gail died a couple days ago. It didn’t feel appropriate for me just to post “RIP Gail Zappa” so I decided to share the whole story. Now it’s a letter in a bottle, bobbing along the open sea of love and empathy. If it shows up on your shore, I hope it at least puts a smile on your face.
Such gestures of empathy and kindness, simple as they are, can live on indefinitely. And it all started with the music. Because, as Frank said, “Music is the best.”
RIP Gail.
