Q 13

PLAYBOY: What kind of mail do you get?

Frank Zappa: A lot of it is just complimentary-type stuff and a lot of "Can you help me with my personal problems?" stuff. Although I haven't answered any mail recently, last year I was pretty good about it. I didn't answer the stuff from deranged, crazy people. There are people with weird interpretations of my songs--like, one guy wrote me and told me he "figured out" Idiot Bustard Son. He figured that Ronnie is Ronald Reagan and Kenny is Ted Kennedy. He was wrong. The song is about two brothers named Ronnie and Kenny. In back of their house was a shed or a garage or something. At one point, Kenny, the younger brother, had moved into the shed for some reason. There was no toilet there, and he and this other guy would piss in these canning jars. Instead of dumping them out, they would pour them into these big crocks. Soon, they had gallons of piss. It got to be such a thing that everybody in the neighborhood would come over and piss in these fucking crocks. They had these crocks of piss sitting in their garage. Then these things started growing in there, swimming around in these crocks, and to this day, nobody knows what they were or where they came from. Finally, their father found out about it and made them pour the whole thing down the toilet--not in the gutter, not in the street, not on the lawn but down the toilet. OK, so I figure, if those things are alive and living in piss, you pour them down the toilet and flush it and these things are probably this big in the sewers underneath Ontario, which is where it happened. While Kenny is doing this, Ronnie is living in the bedroom with this guy named Dwight. They used to save their snot on a window over Ronnie's bed. Just like everybody would piss in the jar, every night they would contribute of couple of boogers to this window, until you couldn't see through it. Just, you know, little kids having a good time. So I wrote a couple of songs about it: Let's Make the Water Turn Black and Idiot Bastard Son.

Q 14

PLAYBOY: You've said that your best audience is in the New York area and that the East Coast is your element. Why, then, are you living in Los Angeles?

Frank Zappa: You got any idea how much space this complex occupies? Do you know how much it would cost to put this in Manhattan? You couldn't do it. And besides that, I've got green grass and trees and a swimming pool that my kids can have a good time in. I don't like Los Angeles, but I live here because of my work--all the equipment that I need is ten minutes away. But I don't like the people here; I don't like the values of the area. It's so bleak. People pretend to have culture, but there is no cultural life here at all. I stay, but I stay in my house, and I guarantee you that there is something going on in my house. As far as being a participant in the local scene, that's not for me. I ignore all party invitations.

Q 15

PLAYBOY: Let's clear one thing up: There have been reports that you have a panty fetish and have encouraged women in your audiences to take theirs off and throw them up to you onstage. Well?

Frank Zappa: A few years ago, in Philadelphia, a girl approached the stage and pitched up this little pair of blue panties. I knew that the drummer and one of the other guys in the band liked to sniff girls' underpants, so as soon as she pitched them up, I made the drummer get off the stand and come down and sniff them. He did and immediately pretended to gag and faint and rolled all over the stage. The audience loved it. The girl, however, was somewhat chagrined, but I have it on good authority that the panties were semilethal. Anyway, I decided that since the people seemed to enjoy that so much, every night, we would invite girls to take their panties off and throw them up to us. But when I looked out at the audience, I realized how many of the girls were wearing pants. To assist them, I came up with helpful ways for them to take their panties off without taking down their Levis. I suggested, if they were wearing bikini panties, that they rip them on the sides and pull them off that way. If they were wearing those big, ugly cotton jobs, I told them to go back to the toilet. We did collect a large quantity of panties--hundreds of them. We gave them to an artist in Colorado named Emily James, and she's making a wall hanging out of them. She'll eventually exhibit it.

Q 16

PLAYBOY: Do you take drugs?

Frank Zappa: I don't take drugs. I don't advise anybody else to take drugs. I think they are bad. I fire people from the band and the crew if they use drugs, not because I wish to rule their lives but because--especially in Europe--if you're in possession of some illicit substance, you'll go to jail and they'll treat you mean.

Drugs don't appeal to me. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a dope fiend? They got nothin' to say. They're dead people. It's not like I like to sit around and talk with people, 'cause I don't. I prefer to just do my work and get on with it. About the only time I have a conversation with anybody is when I'm doing an interview. And even when I'm working, the fewer words said, the better. The vast majority of people in this country are using one kind of drug or another all the time. It's the only thing that keeps them from going totally ape-shit with the way things actually are. But that's creating part of the problem, because the drugs help you hide.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: You don't have any vices?

Frank Zappa: I wouldn't say that. I smoke a pack and a half, two packs a day and drink gallons of coffee. I'll drink a bit of wine if I can get a good bottle, and occasionally, I'll drink whiskey.

Q 18

PLAYBOY: Another rock institution, of course, is the groupie. Do groupies help or hinder rock 'n' roll?

Frank Zappa: Usually, there are resident groupies who come with the halls no matter who is playing. They're part of the furniture. I'm glad they're there, because that's who fucks the crew and the other guys in the band. I'm not interested in those girls, but I'm all in favor of it for the others. When you go on the road, the more girls who get pooched, the happier the whole tour is. That's the key to a happy tour. The band and the crew that don't get laid when they go out there are the meanest, grouchiest, most unpleasant bunch of people to hang out with. "Go out and get pooched," I tell them. But I'm not interested in the girls who come to the hall for that purpose. I don't find them amusing. I like women full blown, with credentials. You know--an actual, functioning brain.

There was one groupie I wrote about on the Fillmore album who wouldn't fuck the guy unless he sang her his hit single first. That's a true story. It happened to the two guys in the Turtles who were in the band with me at the time. She wanted them to sing Happy Together. And they did; you know, because why not?

Q 19

PLAYBOY: Of what clubs are you a member?

Frank Zappa: I belong to the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association. That's it.

Q 20

PLAYBOY: The image of Frank Zappa is that of a wild and outrageous person. Is that just an image?

Frank Zappa: I'm really quite wild and outrageous but in ways that people wouldn't recognize. Today, if you actually work 18 hours a day and you like it, that's pretty outrageous. And if you don't compromise and don't put up with a bunch of bullshit and you punch your way through life, which I kind of manage to do on the budget available to me, that's out-fucking-rageous.