PREAMBLE The original 'Mythical FZ' was written a few years back for no reason whatsoever. It took about 15 minutes to write, and once I'd finished, I promptly sent it into the alt.fan.frank-zappa Ng. The idea was to write a kind of potted history of Zappa's life, incorporating many of the erroneous and ill-informed beliefs widely held about him by journalists and fans alike. As the original was a bit of a mess, I've tidied it up somewhat, changed the odd thing here and there, inserted a few totaly absurd new bits and added some pictures. No doubt I'll add more to it when the mood takes me. One last thing: believe it or not, this page was created without the use of artificial stimulants. So here it is, quite possibly the best Zappa page, ever. . . THE MYTHICAL FRANK ZAPPA Francis Vincent Zappa was born on December 21, 1940, in Disneyland. His Father was Lumpy Brannum.



Zappa's father, Lumpy Brannum. A striking resemblance, I'm sure you'll all agree.



Zappa was eight years old when he was born and, as early pictures show,he was born with a mustache.



Frank as a boy.



He went on to father four children, Tweezers; Devil doll(Mutant pro-gene); Achtung(A-Moo-Cow Rowtheboatashore);and Space Station Unit 9.



In the early 60's Zappa made pornographic movies for the FBI in which he played all the parts himself. Being a master at editing, the FBI didn't notice they were watching a Zappa one-man orgy until it was too late. When they finally realized they had been duped, they wiped themselves down and sent an agent, wearing a secret wristwatch (with flexy bracelet) to arrest Zappa. The arrest took place behind the frozen meat pies. When asked later about the movie, Zappa said:- "It was a very difficult movie to pull off so I took all the best bits from over 2000 perfomances and edited them together. The end result spans ten years."



A rare clip of Zappa starring in his one-man porn movie.



For this misdemeanour Zappa did a "stretch" in San Quentim. It was there he met Mr. Thing Fish. Thing Fish passed time with Zappa by giving him guitar lessons and recounting various episodes from his bizarre life. He was unaware that Zappa was secretly writing it all down for future reference. And little did he know that 20 years later, Zappa would release these stories on the "Thing Fish" album, crediting himself, not Mr. Thing Fish, as the author. Zappa went on to steal all his stories from various band members over the years, without ever crediting any of them for their contribution.

Mr. Thing Fish says he taught Zappa everything there is to know about guitar playing.



On finishing his "stretch" Zappa spent some time on the toilet having his picture taken. As well as sitting on the "John" he sometimes sat on a "can" where he would write comedy songs with an extreme novelty value. One such song was "Suzy Creamcheese". By the end of his life Zappa had written well over one million comedy songs, every one of them about sex.



Zappa on his "can" waiting for inspiration to come.

Zappa hated everybody, in particular, Jews, homos and women. And especially Jewish homo women. He also played comedy guitar, although most critics agree that his comedy guitar playing was never as funny as his zany stage antics.



One such antic was the hilarious turd eating contest between him and his old friend Captain Beefheart. Zappa - who always took his "can" on stage - took turns with Beefheart to crap in the can until it was full o' turds. They then gorged themselves upon the turds, with hilarious results. Most critics say this was his finest period and that the turd eating was the obvious inspiration behind his albums "Hot Rats" and "Eat Dirt". But some insist it was the inspiration behind "LSO vol II"

Zappa and Beefheart about to advance on a turd.

By the late 60's Zappa was heavily into drug use and with his joke wearing thin, he tried to jump on the psychedelic bandwagon in a desperate bid to make money. So cynical was Zappa and so muddled was his thinking due to the colossal amount of LSD he was so obviously taking, he accidentally called his new album "Only in it for the money". He had meant to call it " Dr.Peppers mystery roach"

Zappa during his psychedelic phase, bombed out of his face after smoking a banana .

The 70's saw Zappa up to his old tricks. During a gig at the Rainbow theatre in London, a pretty girl caught Zappa's eye, and Zappa, having a wild and zany stage persona, directed every one of his comedy songs towards the girl - thrusting his hips suggestively and winking at her throughout the show. It was no surprise the girl's boyfriend - whom Zappa had ignored all night - decided to jump up with a flare gun and burn the place to the ground, knocking Zappa into the orchestra pit in the process.

Unfortunately the orchestra was still in the pit and didn't take kindly to the zany rocker landing on their expensive tuxedos. They proceeded to kick fuck out of Zappa, breaking his nose and puncturing his lung in the process.



Fortunately for Zappa, conceled in the pit were Ian Gillan, Jon Lord, Malcolm Arnold and "Funky" Claude Nobbs. Apparently they'd been trapped there since the last performance of 'Concerto for group and orchestra', in 1970. "Funky" Claude, who by this time was running in and out pulling kids out the ground, managed to drag Zappa to safety. In the midst of all the chaos, the Rainbow theatre was torched. Jon Lord recounted the story later, and the tragic event was immortalised by Deep Purple in their song "Burn". It was also imortalised by a little-known group called 'spongefucker' in their song "Some guy's just pushed Zappa off the stage". Zappa never forgave the orchestra for assaulting him and until the day he died, never had a good word to say about orchestras.



Jon lord looking dazed and exhausted after spending a year locked in the pit with Ian, Malcolm and "Funky" Claude.



Ian Gillan having obvious difficulty straightening up after his year-long pit ordeal. Gillan never fully recovered from the ordeal and to this day still insists he spent that year in Monterux, on the lake Geneva shoreline, making records with the mobile. When asked at the time what he intended to do now he was out of the pit, he replied "I CAN'T HEAR YA, LONDON!!!" When asked again, he replied: "LOUDER! I STILL CAN'T HEAR YA! WOOOH!" When asked for a third time, what he intended to do, he said: "THAT'S BETTER. OKAY, I'M GONNA DO SOME OLD SONGS AND SOME NEW SONGS. . .ALRIGHT! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH "



Zappa's auditions were legendary and tough. But, for drummers, they were a matter of life and death. One infamous audition saw Zappa request that each drummer play his zany instrumental, the 'Black Page'. Half way through bar-15 the drummers would vanish without a trace. Zappa lost no less than forty drummers that day. As it transpires, Bar-15 is so statisically dense it actually reaches a point of infinte density. That's right! There's a black hole smack in the middle of Bar-15; the unsuspecting drummers had all ran feet first into a singularity.



The first drummer to survive the 'Black Page/Hole' was Terry Bozzio. At first attempt he managed to sidestep Bar-15's singularity by throwing himself into a wormhole. He was found on November 10th, somewhere in Canada ; the audition was in California - November 21st. . .? You figure it out. Although Bozzio survived the ordeal, he didn't emerge unscathed: he may have been a young man when he went in, but when he came out he had the body of a girl and the head of The Devil. Needless to say he got the gig.



Terry Bozzio: found in Canada with the body of a girl and the head of The Devil. When Zappa saw Terry for the first time after emerging from the wormhole he was immediately inspired to write 'Titties 'n' Beer".



Towards the end of the 70's, Zappa wrote his now famous hit single, 'Bobby Brown', all about R 'n' B artist Bobby Brown. Foolishly, Zappa didn't attempt to hide the fact the song was about Bobby, so Bobby - who invent "New Jack Swing" and the "Bobby Sock" - sued the fuck out of Zappa. The legal battle lasted fifteen years and cost Zappa over one billion dollars - almost as much as the 'Time Warner' debacle or the cost of hiring a USA orchestra for two weeks. However, in an amazing turn of events it was revealed that everything Zappa had written about Bobby was true. The Judge admonished Zappa and convicted Brown of perjury.



This picture was taken seconds after the Judge convicted Brown of perjury and perverting the course of the sexual act. You can see him holding his head in despair. After Brown was convicted, Zappa changed the title of his now infamous song to, "Bobby Brown goes down".



Zappa's next project was 'Joe's Garage' - a rock opera in three acts. Critics all agreed that it was rubbish and nowhere near as good as Alan Parsons' 'Tales of Mystery and imagination' or Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds".



Although the album purports to be about a character called Joe, most insiders know it's actually about Bobby Brown's conviction and life in prison, only this time Zappa had the sense to change the name to avoid litigation. He was going to call it 'Bobby-Pin-Head-New-Jack-Off-Brown-on-a-bus'



The album was the first to feature new drummer, Vinnie Colaiuta. Vinnie was discovered by Terry Bozzio, actually living inside the Black Page's wormhole. And to this day, Vinnie is able to exist in thirty different time zones simultaneously. However, when he wants to sleep he plays for Mr. Sting. Vinnie likes to sleep a lot these days.



Zappa's hostility towards orchestras became pathological in the 80's when he started writing music deliberately designed to hurt the fingers of the musicians. When asked about this, many orchestral musicians said, yes, their fingers were still sore. He also used so much percussion that it soon became obvious he wanted to damage the hearing of the trombonists. When asked about this, the trombone players all said: "EH!!"



Many people mistakenly believe this picture shows zappa attempting to fill his "can" for an hilarious turd eating episode. But it's actually a picture of him venting his spleen at the LSO after the recording of 'Strictly Genteel'. The picture captures him telling the brass section what he's going to do to them if they ever attempt to play his music again, and giving them a graphic demonstration of how their fingers will end up if they do.



The 80's was a productive time for Zappa. Among other things, he gave the keynote address to the American Society of University Composers, in which he said bad words and called them all Nancy Boys. Round about the same time he met Pierre Boulez (the man with the heaviest brain in the world) and Steven Hawking (the man with the second heaviest brain). Zappa demonstrated his theories on "time-space" to them by jumping into the wormhole at Bar-15 of the 'Black Page/Hole' and reappearing behind them as Albert Einstein. This impressed Boulez and Hawking, and together the three of them explored the possibilities of time travel in Zappa's music.



Zappa as Einstein. The picture was taken by Zappa's son, Tweezers, as Zappa emerged from the wormhole.



Zappa even travelled back to 18th century Milan and lived a sedate life as a composer/violncello player called Francesco Zappa. Although his sojourn only lasted ten minutes, he was actually in the 18th century for 25 years. Of course, Francesco's date of birth was never documented; this is because, as we now know, he was born in 1940



By the time the 90's arrived, Zappa's misanthropic nature was so strong he decided to become a recluse. And because he could no longer stand to be in the same room as other people, he started hiring robots to play his music.



The three robots, above, (Zintar, Zerak and Zobor ) all auditioned for Zappa back in 84 and at one point had planned to go on the road with him, under the name: 'Zappa and the Zeroids', but the project was cancelled when drummer, Zerak, broke down and Zappa couldn't get the parts to fix him. However, he did manage to recreate Zerak's drum sound by giving Chad Wackerman a simmons kit.

A few years before his untimely death, Zappa formed a close working relationship with a Czechoslovakian robot called Sy Clavier.



Sy Clav: play write, politician,revolutionary. A fiercely intellectual robot who could play anything Zappa threw at him. He could also catch anything Zappa threw at him, as his hydrolic arm was fitted with a computerised, laser-guided gripping mechanism. He plays all the instruments on Zappa's masterpiece, 'Civilization phaze III, and actually makes a brief singing apperance on ELP's 'Karn Evil 9' from their 1974 masterpiece 'Brain Salad Surgery' .



Zappa spent his last days on earth with Sy Clav, laughing and joking and sharing mathematical equations with him. They even managed to overthrow the Czech Communist regime single-handedly, and Sy Clav actually asked Zappa if he would help Czechoslovakia set up a much needed muffin factory/poodle salon - sadly this never came to fruition.



Zappa fell victim to prostate cancer and died on December 4th 1993. Many people say he was "bumped off" by the CIA, believing they received information that he was about to travel back to the 1980's and ram a five foot pole with a powerful firework on the end, up the ass of Ronald Reagan right in the middle of his inaugural address, thus irrevocably changing the course of history and giving us all something to laugh about for years to come. Regardless of whether or not this is true, he did leave us some great comedy songs, (over one million) such as "Suzy Creamcheese" to remember him by. THE PRESENT DAY BIOGRAPHER REFUSES TO LIE





