Frank Zappa was a unique, larger-than-life individual, so it's only fitting that his "autobiography" would be idiosyncratic as well. Beginning with his late teens, Zappa had little interest in anything other than music – listening to it, composing it, and playing it. He was not much of a student and, by his own assertion, cared little for reading. "I think it is good that books still exist," he opined, somewhat facetiously, "but they make me sleepy." A person, however interesting, with so little interest in books would be unlikely to produce a stellar autobiography and Zappa usually understood his own limitations. He agreed to the project only because, as he put it, "Peter Occhiogrosso is going to help me." Peter spent a few weeks interviewing Frank, using a tape recorder (an ironic bit of payback considering Zappa's habit of interjecting his tape recorder into the daily lives of his band members), transcribed and edited the material, and sent them to Zappa. Zappa then edited that draft and sent it off to Ann Patty, an editor at Poseidon Press. Magically, she turned it all into a living, breathing BOOK! Zappa's stated motivation for participating in the project was to counter the plethora of Zappa biographies by which he felt frequently misrepresented.

The book, first published in 1989, is organized into nineteen chapters. The first seven chapters essentially provide a chronological history of most of Zappa's life, though even in these chapters, we are acquainted as much with the formation of his views as with the series of events. In the opening chapter, aptly entitled "How Weird Am I, Anyway?", Zappa begins by trying to dispel two persistent rumors about himself. First, he denies that his song, "Son of Mr. Green Genes," is a secret admission that his real father was the character Mr. Green Genes who appeared on the television show Captain Kangaroo. The second myth he then tackles is that he once took a crap while on stage (or the alternative version that he once ate crap while performing on stage). How many celebrities can you name who would begin their autobiography by tackling such bizarre issues head on?

In the early chapters, we get a pretty good snapshot of some of the early influences in Frank's life that shaped his thinking. Zappa was born in 1940, so his early years coincided with World War II, a time during which the entire future of mankind seemed to be up for grabs. Zappa felt the uncertainty and fragility of civilization keenly because his father was a metallurgist working in a government facility in Maryland that was manufacturing mustard gas (the leading form of chemical warfare of that era). Like every other household in the community, the Zappas had a row of gasmasks hanging on hooks on a wall, one for each member of the family. These gasmasks would have had little actual value in the event of a leak at the nearby plant because the mustard gas was mixed with chloropicrin, an emetic. If you kept the mask on, you'd drown in your own puke and if you took it off, the mustard gas would kill you. Zappa's father augmented his meager income by volunteering for "patch tests," for which the Army scientists would apply a small amount of an experimental chemical or biological warfare agent in order to determine its dermatologic effects. With these kinds of experiences dominating his early life, it was hard for the young Zappa to take school work seriously. Instead, he became fascinated with how to make things blow up! By the time he was six, he could make gunpowder. By the time his family moved to California when he was around ten, his primary interest was homemade explosives and ballistics. He very nearly blew off his gonads on one occasion.

Luckily for us all, Zappa's scientific career effectively ended when he discovered drums at around age twelve. His parents couldn't afford an actual drum, however, so the hard furniture in the household took a beating instead. By 1956, when he was fifteen, he was playing in the school band. He also finally acquired a real set of drums of his own and played in a band. He hadn't yet learned how to coordinate his hand action with the foot-drum pedal and, on top of that, he forgot his drumsticks on the way to his first gig. He didn't last long with that band.

Sometimes the most seemingly trivial event can prove pivotal to an entire lifetime. One day, Zappa picked up a Look magazine in a local store and starting perusing an article about Sam Goody's, a famous record store chain at that time. The article was raving about how Mr. Goody was such a great salesman that he could even sell music like Varèse's Ionisation, which was nothing but drums and terrible dissonant sounds. Zappa, already possessed by a contrary streak, decided immediately that Ionisation would be just the perfect record for him. Soon, when he was staying with a friend in an upscale neighboring town one night, he and his buddy made their way to the local record store. They were having a sale on Rhythm & Blues records, which is all that Zappa really knew at the time. After browsing a bit, Zappa picked out a couple of Joe Huston records and, as he headed toward the cashier, he spotted a strange record in a nearby bin. The guy on the cover looked like a mad scientist, with insanely frizzy hair. Lo and behold, the album was "The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse," including the piece Ionisation. Zappa was two bucks short of the album's purchase price, but the store owner was so happy to unload it, finally, that he settled for the $3.75 that young Frank had in his pocket.

By his own account, Zappa attended junior college briefly mainly as a way to meet girls. He soon married one of them, Kay Sherman, and the two dropped out of school. That marriage didn't last long. After a few dead end jobs, Frank started playing with a lounge band called the Mellotones. Then, Zappa started working in Cucamonga, California for a guy named Paul Buff, an ex-Marine with the dream of operating a recording studio. When the studio began to fail financially, Zappa bought out Buff's interest, basically for the price of paying off his debts. Zappa helped make ends meet by taking in an old friend, Motorhead Sherwood, as a boarder. Don Van Vliet (later Captain Beefheart) also visited Zappa at "Studio Z." Recordings dating from this time period are available on such albums as Cucamonga, Mystery Album, and Lost Episodes.

The remainder of the early chapters continue to develop the major events in Zappa's career including his early bands, the formation of the Mothers (later renamed The Mothers of Invention), and, in a chapter aptly entitled "Drool, Britannia," his run-in with the royal family and the Old Bailey courtroom. There are several incredibly funny pages of dialog transcribed from Zappa's obscenity trial. Here's a short example:

Q: On page 22, the unamended version, I would be grateful if you would tell us what this phrase means: "and I will buy you a taste, and you can sit on my face"?

A [Zappa]: "I will buy you a taste" is a reference to purchasing an alcoholic beverage on behalf of the waitress and sitting on his face is a reference to the girl sitting on his face.

Q: That being a sensual reference?

A: Not necessarily. It could indicate a piggy-back ride in an unusual position.

Q: Are you being serious?

A: Certainly.

Q: "I will buy you an alcoholic drink and you can have a pick-a-back ride sitting on my face?

Keep in mind that these barristers were wearing white wigs and were generally very elderly men.

Chapter eight in The Real Frank Zappa Book is a long chapter entitled "All About Music" and serves as the book's pivotal middle section. Here Zappa sets out his philosophy of composition, which amounts to the idea that rules are made to be broken. Zappa is very open, in this chapter, about his severe limitations as a lyricist, vocalist, and, initially, even as a guitarist. It was only the last of those three shortcomings that Zappa substantially overcame as he matured. This chapter also details Zappa's disappointments with the orchestral musicians with whom he worked on several occasions (see London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. 1 & 2 and Perfect Stranger).

The remaining chapters focus on elements of Zappa's personal philosophy and political viewpoints. Some of the unusual aspects of Zappa's personal philosophy included contempt for nostalgia and sentimentality, an unshakable determination to protect artistic freedom, disgust with religion, superstition, and the kind of routine public lying that we now refer to as "spin." Zappa viewed himself as a rational human being and most of the public as little more than idiots. Then, after a chapter of bizarre road stories ("The One You've Been Waiting For"), Zappa lashes out at critics, radio stations, and record company executives for their mutual insistence on catering to the lowest common denominator of musical tastes among the listening public.

In Chapter 12, "America Drinks And Goes Marching," Zappa states his views in relation to drugs. Despite his association in the minds of the public (Zappa might dispute the very idea that the public have minds) with the drug culture of the sixties, Zappa was quite conservative about illicit drugs. He admits to trying marijuana perhaps ten times during the sixties, but didn't find it appealing. He very nearly got bounced from one of his bands because the other members of the group didn't like having the stodgy and sober Zappa spoiling their good times. Interestingly, Zappa lumped alcohol in with other drugs (as any good authority on drug abuse would also), but refused to view tobacco in that manner. He was a longtime smoker and a workaholic who depended on cigarettes and coffee to keep himself revved up. He also had deplorable eating habits, partly because he worked all night by himself and had no time to devote to preparing food. The album Burnt Weeny Sandwich acquired its title from one of Zappa's favorite nighttime quickie snacks. Zappa's rationalization in relation to cigarettes was, "To me, a cigarette is food." So, Zappa the rationalist and destroyer of fallacious assumptions also had his own peccadilloes and blind spots in relation to his own fallacious justifications. Zappa died of prostate cancer and it's not unlikely that either the cigarettes or the wieners (nitrites and nitrates are carcinogenic), or both, played a role in his early demise.

In Chapter 14, Zappa expands on his dislike of romantic sentimentality, while also sharing his obviously deep feelings about his second wife, Gail, four children (Moon, Dweezil, Ahmed, and Diva), and the importance of family. "I don't have friends," he acknowledges, but he did have a wonderful family, and, as he said, "that, folks, is way better." Zappa was difficult to get along with and it's easy to find quotes on the internet from his various associates over the years (e.g., Don Vliet and Ruth Underwood) that are far from flattering. After the accident in 1971 at the Rainbow Theatre in London, in which Zappa was thrown bodily into the orchestra pit by a crazed fan, Zappa grew increasingly misanthropic, temperamental, suspicious, and defensive. His leg had been broken and, when it finally healed a year later, the damaged leg was shorter than the other, causing him chronic back pain. His trachea had collapsed in the 15-foot fall as well. When he finally returned to touring more than a year later, he never again traveled without the companionship of a 7-foot bodyguard.

Chapter 15 recounts Zappa's run-in with the PMRC (Parents' Music Resource Center) and Congress as the powers in Washington attempted to "bring the music industry to its knees" with a "voluntary" rating system for album lyrics. While it sounds like an innocuous concept, the combination of rating stickers and the economics of the music industry were such that the PMRC proposal could have led to a great deal of de facto censorship. Zappa spearheaded the challenge to the PMRC, which consisted mainly of wives of Senators, who, in turn, depended on political support from Christian fundamentalists. In Chapter 16, Zappa expounds on the importance of genuine separation of church and state.

Up to this point in the book, I found myself pretty much agreeing with every part of Zappa's viewpoint – except for his rationalization of tobacco use and poor nutrition. My appreciation for him had been steadily climbing. That changed a bit with Chapter 17, entitled "Practical Conservatism." Few people who have not read this book will be able to imagine that Zappa was actually more conservative than liberal in his political views. Zappa was the old-fashioned civil libertarian kind of conservative, in the manner, perhaps, of William F. Buckley, not the kind of conservatives that predominate today – the neo-cons and the religious right. The issues that he addresses in the chapter are largely out-of-date, today, but we can fairly judge that Zappa was more isolationist than interventionist, adamantly disliked both Communism and labor unions, supported Capitalist innovation (but believed America was failing to promote research and development adequately), preferred a regressive tax on spending to taxes on income, and believed that people have rights to such choices as recreational drug use or suicide. Zappa often lashed out against Republicans in his song lyrics, but his views were actually aligned with what the Republican Party once stood for, before the era of televangelists and neo-conservatives.

This book is a much better than typical autobiography, largely because Frank Zappa never did care very much about other people's opinions. If you didn't like his potty mouth or if you didn't like his views, it was just too damn bad for you! Consequently, Zappa pretty much speaks his mind without worrying about his place in posterity. His self-appraisal is typically right on target, so that he gives himself credit where credit is due but is also his own severest critic in relation to his limitations.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in spicy road stories, anyone with a nostalgia for the sixties and seventies, anyone with an interest in Zappa's music or personality, and, especially, for anyone interested in the raw courage that goes into being a free-thinking iconoclast.

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You can quickly link to my Zappa CD reviews at:

A Frank Zappa Categorical Discography & Top Choice Lists

You can check out my reviews of other Zappa-related books at:

Ben Watson: Frank Zappa – the Complete Guide to his Music
Barry Miles: Zappa – A Biography

Recommended: Yes