Word: zappa
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Rarely have the denouncers of censorship been so eager to start practicing it. When a sense of moral disorientation overcomes a society, people from the least expected quarters begin to ask, "Is nothing sacred?" Feminists join reactionaries to denounce pornography as demeaning to women. Rock musician Frank Zappa declares that when Tipper Gore, the wife of Senator Albert Gore from Tennessee, asked music companies to label sexually explicit material, she launched an illegal "conspiracy to extort." A Penthouse editorialist says that housewife Terry Rakolta, who asked sponsors to withdraw support from a sitcom called Married . . . With Children, is "yelling fire...
...cries of "un-American" are as genuine and as frequent on either side. Everyone is protecting the country. Zappa accuses Gore of undermining the moral fiber of America with the "sexual neuroses of these vigilant ladies." He argues that she threatens our freedoms with "connubial insider trading" because her husband is a Senator. Apparently her marital status should deprive her of speaking privileges in public -- an argument Westbrook Pegler used to make against Eleanor Roosevelt. Penthouse says Rakolta is taking us down the path toward fascism. It attacks her for living in a rich suburb -- the old "radical chic" argument...
Equating morality with legality is in effect what people do when they claim that anything tolerated by law must, in the name of freedom, be approved by citizens in all their dealings with one another. As Zappa says, "Masturbation is not illegal. If it is not illegal to do it, why should it be illegal to sing about it?" He thinks this proves that Gore, who is not trying to make raunch in rock illegal, cannot even ask distributors to label it. Anything goes, as long as it's legal. The odd consequence of this argument would be a drastic...
...celebs who huddled around a garbage-filled storm drain at a rally for Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica, Calif., group, read like a short list for the 25 most intriguing people: thirtysomething people (Ken Olin, Patricia Wettig), sitcom people (Justine Bateman, John Ritter), people named Moon and Dweezil Zappa. A sludge protest drew Dynasty's Linda Evans to Olympic, Wash. More recently, Dennis Weaver, Michael Landon and Robert Downey Jr. voiced their protest against offshore oil drilling at a rally in downtown L.A. And last weekend a gross of glitterati -- Diana Ross, Elton John, Sigourney Weaver -- joined world leaders...
...contain a nifty number called Wedding Vows in Vegas in which Frank Sinatra Jr. provides some very atmospheric vocalizing. Clearly, Was (Not Was) musical inspiration has deep roots in strange places. Nothing less should be expected from a couple of guys whose first taped effort was a Frank Zappa tune and who put on a show in high school titled You Have Just Wasted Your Money...