Censorship, wokeness, commie bastards, and groupie sex fantasies

[Luther Martini]

Conservatives pat each other on the back (or perhaps when no one is looking, they pat other parts of each other) when they succeed in limiting the free speech of those with whom they do not agree  ... you know like today it's them woke commie liberals. 

Woke commie liberals want to groom your children to be gay or trans or something else.  Woke commie liberal bastards want to teach your children that white people established a society in the American colonies based on a business model that depended upon slave labor, and that they stole land from the native people.  We can't let them do that ... why it's un-American, and anti Christian, and ... I mean, I watched all of the John Wayne movies, and that shit is just not what America is all about.

Yeah, so the answer is to ban books, fire teachers, sanitize school curricula to enforce American exceptionalism, and make the woke commie liberal bastards shut up ... maybe even take away their right to vote. 

A few days ago, I was surfing YouTube, and stumbled upon a segment from "Crossfire" in 1986, in which Frank Zappa was being grilled on the censorship issue of the day, censorship of rock music lyrics.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the era, we were deep in the Reagan years, which for many was tantamount to being in deep shit.  Tipper Gore, the wife of then Senator Al Gore, was one of the founders of a group known as PMRC, Parents Music Resource Center, that supported the idea that Congress should pass legislation to censor rock music lyrics.  A Senate committee held hearings, listening to the arguments of those on both sides of the issue, and in those hearings one of the most articulate and outspoken voices opposed to such censorship was Frank Zappa. 

In the aforementioned Crossfire segment, Zappa was attacked professionally and personally, but aside from telling one of the panel members to "kiss his ass", he maintained his composure and artfully defended his case against censorship. 

My favorite statement that he made in the grilling was this:  "The biggest threat to America today is not communism, it is moving America towards a fascist theocracy".  The other panel members mocked him for making that statement.  That was 37 years ago, and yep, here we are today, ever closer to that fascist theocracy.

Here is the Crossfire segment from 1986:

Why was Zappa a target for the conservative crowd? Because he didn't pull any punches in the presentation of his art in order to appease the sensibilities of those who might find it objectionable.  After all no one was forced to buy his records, and he sold a lot of records. Some of you might not be familiar with some of the more verbally graphic works of Frank.  Some of my favorite such works are from an album of a live performance of the Mothers of Invention at the Fillmore East in 1971:

I bought the record in 1971, and it is still in my collection today. 

[SGOS]

Cross Fire probably did more to turn me off to electronic media than anything else.  It was the spark that started me watching all television news with a jaundiced eye.  I hated Cross Fire.  I hated the motive for the network that designed it.  People were drawn by the conflict, and today we hate each other more than ever.

[Unbeliever]

I wonder if any of those panelists have ever heard Thingfish? I bet their heads would explode! 😆
🙈🙉🙊

[Luther Martini]

I wonder if any of those panelists have ever heard Thingfish? I bet their heads would explode! 😆
🙈🙉🙊

Thingfish!!! Yes!!!  Reading this, I dug out my copy of the 3 record box set of this Zappa classic.

The album was released by Zappa's studio, Barking Pumpkin, in 1984, about the time that the Senate proposal of censorship hearings was being discussed.  The reason why I wanted to get the records in front of me was so that I could copy verbatim the warning/guarantee that was printed on the inner jackets. 

Here it is:

"WARNING/GUARANTEE: 

This album contains material which a truly free society would neither fear nor suppress.

In some socially retarded areas, religious fanatics and ultra conservative political organizations violate your First Amendment Rights by attempting to censor rock & roll albums.  We feel that this is un-Constitutional and un-American.

As an alternative to these government supported programs (designed to keep you docile and ignorant), Barking Pumpkin is pleased to provide stimulating digital audio entertainment for those of you who have outgrown the ordinary.

The language and concepts contained herein are GUARANTEED NOT TO CAUSE ETERNAL TORMENT IN THE PLACE WHERE THE GUY WITH THE HORNS AND POINTED STICK CONDUCTS HIS BUSINESS.

This guarantee is as real as the threats of the video fundamentalists who use attacks on rock music in their attempt to transform America into a nation of check mailing nincompoops (in the name of Jesus Christ).  If there is a hell, its fires wait for them,not us."

[Unbeliever]

Frank was one of the most creative musicians who ever lived! Anyone who can play a bicycle and sound good has to be great. 🍄

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Zappa? Never heard of him.

[Unbeliever]

Is that an incontinent mammy nun? 🧐

[Dark Lightning]

I has a sads. I have a few Zappa albums (Apostrophe, Just Another Band From LA, Sheik Yerbouti). I've listened to many others at parties back in the day, but I appear to have missed quite a bit. That guy was a true musical genius.

[Unbeliever]

Yeah, I too have heard a lot of Zappa, but I've also missed a whole bunch. I've been working to remedy that lately with Youtube, but I still have a long way to go.

[SGOS]

Zappa was fairly well known but seldom in the charts.  However, he was admired by a wide range of musicians from rock and roll to the symphony.  He was talent overlooked by the mainstream, but applauded by others in his craft.  It was one of those hard to understand situations that can happen in the celebrity world. Paul McCartney said he was the inspiration for Sargent Pepper.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-12-06-mn-64545-story.html

[Luther Martini]

SGOS -- Great article.  Zappa's lack of mainstream appeal is probably what led the PMRC and Senate subcommittee to think that he would be an easy target in their inquisition.

In 1985, 3 representatives from the music industry that the senate sub-committee conducting the PMRC hearings asked  to testify were Frank Zappa, Dee Snider, and John Denver.  The senators or PMRC leaders certainly didn't do their homework, and apparently thought that Zappa and Snider were easy targets, and that Denver, having what was in their view a more wholesome image, would take their side against performers like Zappa and Twisted Sister.  Wrong!  all three stood up for the First Amendment, and basically smoked the ill prepared and disingenuous PMRC and senators.

Listening today to Dee Snider's testimony, I had to laugh as he, being a parent himself, schooled the committee on how a parent could insure that his children were not exposed to any salacious lyrics.  What he told them was a common sense approach that included reading the lyrics, and actually listening to the record before giving it to his kids.  What makes this particularly amusing is that one event that reportedly precipitated the Gores' outrage over rock lyrics was in 1984 they purchased a copy of the soundtrack of Prince's "Purple Rain" for one of their children.  In the account of events that I read they proceeded to listen to the record as a family. Well, evidently neither of them had actually watched the movie, nor did they take the time to read the lyrics beforehand, because when the song "Darling Nikki" came on, they were rather shocked.  No Shit!!! I happen to own the record too, and I just opened it to confirm that the lyrics are right there in print on the inner jacket:

"I knew a girl named Nikki
I guess you could say she was a sex friend
I met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine
She said how'd you like to waste some time?
And I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind"

Dee Snider -- responsible parenting
the senator and wife -- evidently, not so much

So, fast forward almost 40 years, and here we are today.  Conservative politicians are trying to gain political capital by attacking the "evil socialist liberal left" (in other words, people who read and think for themselves) and their "wokeness" by imposing censorship to protect the children from imaginary evils, when their fascist attempt to move the United States closer to being a christian theocracy is the greatest evil of all.

[Unbeliever]

I want to rock, 'cause that's the way I roll! 😎

[Cariboo]

Great thread! I listened to the Mothers of Invention back in the day, but had forgotten about all the hub bub that rose up around rock and roll and the senate hearings and attempts to censor everything that was new and threatening beginning with Elvis's hips. LOL. 

[Unbeliever]

From Elvis's hips to Mick Jagger's lips! 😆