Being Frank Read Online Free PDF

guitarist,” he said, “but you need to practice your scales and arpeggios. You’re trying to play too fast; what you need to do is slow down and think about what you’re playing. It’s better to play a few notes that express something honest than a whole cloud of gnat-notes that don’t say anything.” He was right again — I did tend to play way too fast, hoping nobody would notice anything but my apparent virtuosity.
    Zappa had listened carefully to the tape, and he made comments on all the songs. His perceptions were uncannily accurate; in fact, it struck me that his sizing-up of my entire state of mind bordered on the psychic, maybe even the psychotic. Of course I was only fifteen, and transparent, and he had, after all, made it his business to keep in touch with the mental aberrations of his adolescent fans, but his avuncular commentary hit so close to home that it was frightening me. I argued with him a little about his assessment of the material, and he responded, “I think you’re confusing your need to express yourself with your need to be accepted.” Then he gave a sidewaysglance at my boyfriend and opined, “You’re basically just horny — you need someone to love you.”

    I was speechless. I fancied myself complex and inscrutable, and he’d only just met me — so how could he be so sure I was sexually frustrated? But despite my internal splutterings, I knew he was right again (jeez, didn’t he get tired of being right all the fucking time??.). I hadn’t really thought about it consciously before, but I was attracted to him. May be it wasn’t quite the same thing as falling for the school football hero or some bleached-blonde ho-dad, but I’d been listening to his voice on those Mothers of Invention albums, and staring at his mug on the album covers, since pre-adolescence. Programming ... He was used to that, I figured. In fact, around the time I discovered “Freak Out!” I’d stumbled onto a tongue-in-cheek interview he’d done for a teenage fanzine in which he described his Dream Girl as “...an attractive pariah, with an IQ well over 228...no interest whatsoever in any way in sports, sunshine, deodorant, lipstick, chewing gum, carbon tetra-chloride, television, ice cream…none of that stuff! In short — a wholesome young underground morsel open to suggestion!... Ps. I might even like her better if she can play Stockhausen on the piano... Klavierstücke XII ... .” With his peculiar brand of self- confidence, he probably attracted lots of suggestible morsels . No doubt he stood back with that slightly predatory, ironic expression and let them fall all over him.
    Frank put his feet up on the desk and moved on to other subjects. He asked us where we lived, what did we do every day, what kind of music did we listen to. I didn’t want to come out and admit that I was in high school, so I beat around the bush and said I was “between situations.” I doubt whether I fooled him, but he didn’t let on that I hadn’t.
    We talked about our respective record collections, and he said quite humbly that he had “a fair-sized R&B collection” dating back to his high school days, which he still took great pleasure in listening to. I asked him what it included, and he rattled off a list of names: Guitar Slim, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, Johnny “Guitar”’ Watson. The way he pronounced them just radiated ecstasy . He also regaled us with stories about his recent European tour. He’d gone there with Captain Beefheart, acting in the capacity of road manager. The low point of the tour, he explained, had come at a three-day festival in Amougies, Belgium, where both the gig and the sleeping accommodations were in a huge circus tent in a turnip field. Temperatures dropped down around freezing at night, and since Amougies was far from