| Notes by FZ on “Black Page” fanzine - November 1993
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| GENERAL NOTES
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| In 1967, we spent about four months recording various projects (“Uncle Meat”, “We’re Only in It for the Money”, “Ruben & The Jets”, and “Lumpy Gravy”) at Apostolic Studios, 53 E. 10th St. N.Y.C. One day I decided to stuff a pair of U-87’s in the piano, cover it with a heavy drape, put a sand bag on the sustain pedal and invite anybody in the vicinity to stick their head inside and ramble incoherently about the various topics I would suggest to them via the studio talk-back system.
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| This set-up remained in place for several days. During that time, many hours of recordings were made, most of it useless. Some of the people who took the challenge included Spider Barbour (leader of the rock group Chrysalis which was also recording at Apostolic when we weren’t booked in), All-Night John (the studio manager), Gilly Townley (sister of the guy who owned the studio), Monica (the receptionist), Roy Estrada and Motorhead Sherwood (members of the Mothers of Invention), Louis Cuneo (a guy who used to come to our live shows at the Garrick Theater and laugh like a psychotic turkey), and a few others.
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| Some of this dialog - after extensive editing - found its way into the “Lumpy Gravy” album. The rest of it sat in my tape vault for decades, waiting for the glorious day when audio science would develop tools which might allow for its resurrection.
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| In “Lumpy Gravy”, the spoken material was intercut with sound effects, electronic textures, and orchestral recordings of short pieces, recorded at Capitol Studios, Hollywood, autumn 1966. These were all 2-track razor-blade edits. The process took about 9 months.
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| Because all the dialog had been recorded in (to borrow a phrase from “Evelyn, a modified dog” ▲) “panchromatic resonance and other highly ambient domains”, it was not always possible to make certain edits sound convincing, since the ambience would vanish disturbingly at the edit point. This severely limited my ability to create the illusion that various groups of speakers, recorded on different days, were talking to each other. As a result, what emerged from the texts was a vague plot regarding pigs and ponies, threatening the lives of characters who inhabit a large piano.
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| In “Civilization Phaze III” we get a few more clues about the lives of the piano-dwellers and note that the external evils have only gotten worse since we first met them. The bulk of the musical material comes from Synclavier sequences (all music in act one). In the second act, the music is a combination of Synclavier (70%) and live performance (30%), along with a new generation of piano people.
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| The new residents (my daughter, Moon Unit, actor Michael Rapaport, the music preparation assistant for the “Yellow Shark” project, Ali N. Askin, my computer assistant, Todd Yvega, and the entire brass section of the Ensemble Modern) were recorded in a Bösendorfer Imperial at UMRK during the summer of 1991. By this time, digital editing technology had solved the ambience hang-over problem, finally making it possible to combine their fantasies in a more coherent way with the original recordings from 1967.
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| SCENARIO
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| “Civilization Phaze III” is an opera-pantomime, with choreographed physical activity (manifested as dance or other forms of inexplicable sociophysical communication).
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| Plot continuity is derived from a serial rotation of randomly chosen words, phrases and concepts, including (but not limited to) motors, pigs, ponies, dark water, nationalism, smoke, music, beer, and various forms of personal isolation.
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| All voices and music are pre-recorded, and, to the extent possible, all scenic and lighting changes will be automated, with their cues stored as digital code on a track embedded in the audio master.
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| THE PIANO PEOPLE: LARRY, SPIDER, LOUIS, JOHN, MONICA, FZ, GILLY, MOTORHEAD, GIRL #1, GIRL #2, ALI, ROY, TODD, MOON, DARYL, MIKE, JESUS
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| The speaking characters all wear oversized masks, gloves and shoes. They live in an abstracted grand piano, represented by criss-crossed layers of ropes and cables of various thicknesses, painted to resemble piano strings, cubistically interspersed with stylized resonators, hammers, and stretches of sounding board, surrounded by an ebony region suggesting the rim of the piano exterior.
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| The set should be designed to move and reconfigure itself as the characters who live in different corners of the piano pantomime their dialog, giving the illusion of viewing the action from several imaginary camera angles. Above the piano is a decrepit-looking megaphone apparatus ▶ which allows the FZ character to address the inmates periodically.
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| Surrounding the piano are groups of moveable tableau sets, representing various aspects of the threatening exterior universe which has driven our characters to take shelter in this gigantic music box. Dance action occurs primarily in these areas (these should be on palettes or turntables, facilitating quick scene changes).
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| The following is a rough breakdown of the proposed stage activity for each musical scene.
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| Also the following FZ’s notes are from “Black Page” fanzine, in which the scenes sequence differs from the sequence on the published album.
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| Spider and John introduce the first theme: motors.
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| [Spider Barbour] This is Phaze III. This is also…
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| [John Kilgore] Well, get through Phaze I and II first
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| [Spider Barbour] Alright, alright. Here’s Phaze I.
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| [FZ] The audience sits inside of a big piano and they listen to it grow
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| [Spider Barbour] People are going to sit inside of a piano. They’re going to listen to this piano go.
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| [John Kilgore] They’re going to listen to the piano grow
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| [Spider Barbour] Listen!
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| [Monica Boscia] This is going to turn into a…
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| [Spider Barbour] It’s going to turn into another Haight-Ashbury. Remember how we commercialized on that scene?
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| [John Kilgore] That was a really good move
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| [Monica Boscia] Oh! That was a confession.
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| [Spider Barbour] Right, man, and all it was, was like people sitting in doorways freaking out tourists going:
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| “Merry-go-round! Merry-go-round! Do-do-do-do do-do-do do-do-do”
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| And they called that “doing their thing”
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| [John Kilgore] Oh yeah, THAT’S WHAT “doing your thing” is
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| [Spider Barbour] The thing is to put a motor in yourself
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| A yuppie precision drill team dresses for work in motorized uniforms, eventually engaging in a dance routine featuring ladder climbing, ass-kissing, karate chopping, self-hugging, eventually leading to politics and murder.
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| Louis, Roy & Motorhead discover each other.
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| [Gilly Townley] Oh. Umm. Hmm.
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| [Becky Wentworth] That’s how long I’ve been here. I’ve been here ever since… Ever since it got dark I’ve been here.
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| [Louis Cuneo] How did you get in my home? This is my piano. How did you get in here?
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| [Jim Sherwood] I thought it was my piano
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| [Louis Cuneo] It’s mine
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| [Roy Estrada] Since when?
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| [Louis Cuneo] Since about 10 years ago is mine
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| [Roy Estrada] You sure?
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| [Louis Cuneo] Yes, positively
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| [Roy Estrada] No, it was mine
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| [Louis Cuneo] This is a small place, you must be blind you know
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| [Jim Sherwood] Where were you at?
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| [Roy Estrada] Could have been one-nine. No, it couldn’t have been one-nine, oh.
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| [Louis Cuneo] It couldn’t have been any more. How about try… Just try G.
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| [Roy Estrada] How did you happen to get in here?
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| [Louis Cuneo] My mother said to me: “You’re a bad boy, Louis the Turkey. You’d better… You’d… You… You… You’d better go on E and stay on E and you’ll never see the world, you’re a bad boy ‘cause you… you went to the bathroom on the floor!” you know?
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| [Jim Sherwood] Did they make you clean it up?
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| [Louis Cuneo] No, they made me eat it
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| [Roy Estrada] Ooh
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| The gigantic piano hammers begin to move as the characters dance to avoid them.
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| Monica and Larry appear in another area.
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| [Instrumental]
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| [Becky Wentworth] What’s it like when… when they play the piano? Does it hurt your ears?
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| [Jim Sherwood] No, I found a corner
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| [Becky Wentworth] Yeah?
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| [Jim Sherwood] Yeah
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| [Becky Wentworth] Soundproof
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| [Jim Sherwood] Well, not really soundproof but it doesn’t bother you as much as outside. You… You sneak in.
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| [Becky Wentworth] Lucky you found such a big piano, you know
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| [Jim Sherwood] You sneak under the back, see? Way here down here. Get way down here… here inside and when you hide in the corner, nobody can find you. See, they can’t hear nothing ‘cause it’s cushioned.
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| The shopping mall tableau does a quick change, becoming the Bitburg Cemetery. Ronald Reagan appears and lays a wreath on an SS officer’s grave. Within moments the stage is filled with happy dancing Nazi-pigs and Nazi-ponies.
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| Roy and Louis reminisce about Reagan’s personal attributes. Spider and John pop up to comment.
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| [Louis Cuneo] Yes
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| [Roy Estrada] I kind of miss him
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| [Louis Cuneo] Yeah, me too
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| [Roy Estrada] Getting on top of him and all
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| [Louis Cuneo] He had a very nice body too
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| [Roy Estrada] Yeah, even though he was a… a… oh, well…
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| [Louis Cuneo] A dual personality, you know
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| [Roy Estrada] Yeah
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| [Louis Cuneo] We have to think of what he’s doin’ out there?
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| [Roy Estrada] What did he go out there for anyway?
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| [Louis Cuneo] Maybe uh…
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| [Roy Estrada] Maybe he wanted to get on top of one of those hors— ponies
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| [Louis Cuneo] YES, maybe he wants to have intercourse with them!
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| [Roy Estrada] What?
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| [Louis Cuneo] Intercourse!
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| [Roy Estrada] Well, if he doesn’t get clawed first
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| [Louis Cuneo] Yes, that’s right. But, maybe… maybe he will find a real nice… a very nice kind horse, you know.
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| [Roy Estrada] A horse, yeah horse. Whore-sss.
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| [Louis Cuneo] Boogey-man or something. Something out there. You might find a nice kind…
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| [Roy Estrada] Boogey-man?
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| [Louis Cuneo] Well, something, you know. I don’t know what it is myself, a horse, ‘cause human beings, decent human beings, you know. Nice place to live.
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| [Roy Estrada] Beans? You call them human beans?
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| [Louis Cuneo] And then before they turn to be uh… boogey-men or…
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| [Roy Estrada] That’s why they com— came into the Steinway
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| [Louis Cuneo] Yes, that’s why ‘cause I just couldn’t take them anymore, you know. They were vicious, too vicious. So I had to go, I had to… I had to come in here.
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| [Spider Barbour] Like, we can’t understand what they’re saying to each other
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| [John Kilgore] I know
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| In a corner tableau, representing an old nightclub, a group of dancers, dressed as Jazzbo-pigs, pretend to perform something avant-garde, miming in bogus rock video style.
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| The first of many pseudo-scientific discussions.
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| [Spider Barbour] I think I can explain about… about how the pigs’ music works
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| [Monica Boscia] Well, this should be interesting
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| [Spider Barbour] Remember that they make music with a very DENSE LIGHT
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| [John Kilgore] Yeah
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| [Monica Boscia] OK
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| [Spider Barbour] And remember about the smoke standing still and how they… they really get uptight when you try to move the smoke, right?
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| [Monica Boscia] Right
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| [John Kilgore] Yeah?
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| [Spider Barbour] I think the music in that DENSE LIGHT is probably what makes the smoke stand still.
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| As soon as the pony’s mane starts to get good in the back any sort of motion, especially of smoke or gas, begins to make the ends split.
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| [Monica Boscia] Well, don’t the splitting ends change the density of the ponies’ music so it affects the density of the pigs’ music, which makes the smoke move which upsets the pigs?
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| [Spider Barbour] No, it isn’t like that
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| [John Kilgore] How does it work?
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| [Spider Barbour] Well, what it does is when it strikes any sort of energy field or solid object or even something as ephemeral as smoke, the first thing it does is begins to inactivate the molecular motion so that it slows down and finally stops. That’s why the smoke stops. And also have you ever noticed how the… the smoke clouds shrink up?
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| That’s because the molecules come closer together.
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| The cold light makes it get so small. This is really brittle smoke.
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| [John Kilgore] And that’s why the pigs don’t want you to touch it
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| [Spider Barbour] See, when the smoke gets that brittle what happens when you try to move it is it disintegrates
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| [John Kilgore] And the pigs get uptight ‘cause you know they… they… they worship that smoke. They salute it every day.
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| [Monica Boscia] You know we’ve got something here
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| [John Kilgore] And… And… And… And…
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| That’s the basis of all their nationalism. Like if they can’t salute the smoke every morning when they get up!
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| [Spider Barbour] Yeah, it’s a vicious circle. You got it!
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| Lights come up on the left and right tableau sets, each featuring a Christmas tree. The left set shows the yuppie dancers mutating into pigs. The right set has them mutating into ponies. As the transformations are completed, the two groups leave home smash each other in the third tableau (shopping mall) area.
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| The center tableau returns to its Venetian configuration. As the piano characters discuss the meaning of this dark water, Jesus listens nearby.
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| [Monica Boscia] D-a-a-a-a-a-r-r-r-k w-a-a-a-t-e-r-r-r
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| [Spider Barbour] Yeah, it’s trying to say something
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| [Monica Boscia] D-a-a-a-a-a-r-r-r-k-k-k w-a-a-a-t-e-r-r-r
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| [Spider Barbour] I know, it’s not trying to say something to us at all, it’s trying to say something to the pig
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| [John Kilgore] Dark water
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| [Spider Barbour] I forget. It’s…
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| [John Kilgore] Dark water on top of the muck
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| [Monica Boscia] Have you ever heard their band?
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| [Spider Barbour] I don’t understand it though. Their band, I don’t understand.
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| [Monica Boscia] I… I don’t think they understand it either
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| [Spider Barbour] What? The smoke?
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| [John Kilgore & Monica Boscia] The band!
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| [Spider Barbour] The band doesn’t understand what?
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| [Monica Boscia] Did you know that?
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| [FZ] The smoke stands still
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| [John Kilgore] There’s some kind of thing that’s giving us all these revelations
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| [Spider Barbour] Yeah, well, that’s the…
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| [John Kilgore] It’s… It’s… It’s this funny voice, and he keeps telling us all these things and I… it… I just thought that before we just thought of these things, you know, like just off the wall and out of our heads
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| Jesus leans out of the piano and, with a few mystical hand movements, causes the sunken buildings of Venice ▶ to resurface. Rising with them we see large, perversely mutated crabs.
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| [Spider Barbour] No, that’s religious superstition
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| [Instrumental]
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| A heated discussion concerning what kind of a piano this really is
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| [Jim Sherwood] He’s in the wrong piano
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| [Louis Cuneo] NO, YOU’RE in the wrong piano
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| [Roy Estrada] No
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| [Jim Sherwood] This is a Steinway
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| [Louis Cuneo] You are!
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| [Roy Estrada] It’s not a Baldwin
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| [Jim Sherwood] Yeah
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| [Roy Estrada] It’s not even a Wurlitzer
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| [FZ] Saliva can only take so much
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| [Spider Barbour] Saliva can only take so much
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| [Louis Cuneo] Well, I got sores. I got my skin burnt uh… cut open a couple times. It felt good. Wow, it felt good. And I really… I really climaxed.
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| [Becky Wentworth] Ahh. In other words, we never even had… ahh
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| [Maxine] We didn’t have a chance, baby. These holes are just the right size.
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| [Becky Wentworth] They really look like it, yes indeed, indeed
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| [Maxine] Right
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| [Becky Wentworth] Indeed
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| [Maxine] Yeah
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| Eventually a grave is discovered in a distant corner
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| The ghost of some former female piano-dweller rises from the grave, dances within the piano structure, leaves it (Peter Pan style) for a preview visit to the next few tableau sites, finally returning to her resting spot under the resonator.
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| Seeing the ghost return, Gilly complains about over-crowding in her part of the piano, but doesn’t know where else to go.
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| [Gilly Townley] I’d like to be… someplace else right now. It’s much too crowded in here. Where would I like to be?
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| [Becky Wentworth] Where would you like to be?
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| [Gilly Townley] Oh, I don’t know
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| [Becky Wentworth] Where would you like to be?
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| [Gilly Townley] I like strings a whole lot
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| [Becky Wentworth] Where would you like to be?
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| [Gilly Townley] Hhhh
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| [Becky Wentworth] Huh? Where would you like to be?
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| [Gilly Townley] Oh it’s so hard
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| [Becky Wentworth] Where would you like to be?
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| [Gilly Townley] I can’t think of anything else
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| [Becky Wentworth] Hmm
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| [Gilly Townley] The piano, a drum, strings
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| [Jim Sherwood] These strings are so tempting
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| [Roy Estrada] Uh-huh
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| [Gilly Townley] That’s it exactly
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| Gilly does a bad imitation of Martha Graham wrist-to-forehead choreography, hanging from the piano strings and punching back at the hammers as they oppress her.
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| It is now time for Girl #1 to recite bad poetry, leading to a short discussion of worms.
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| [Becky Wentworth] A kayak, on snow, a mountain
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| [Spider Barbour] There’s a mountain on the beach?
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| [Becky Wentworth] It was under the beach
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| [John Kilgore] A mountain under the beach?
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| [Becky Wentworth] Yeah
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| [John Kilgore] How did you get to it?
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| [Becky Wentworth] We didn’t, it found us
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| [Spider Barbour] It came up through the beach?
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| [Becky Wentworth] No, it never came up. And the moon, the moon was shining on the sand. And we saw the mountain with the snow.
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| [John Kilgore] Underneath?
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| [Becky Wentworth] Underneath
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| [Spider Barbour] Did you see any of those little worms like… like were in the mud?
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| This dance shows the exterior world crushed by evil science, ecological disaster, political failure, justice denied, and religious stupidity.
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| I Negative Light
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| The left tableau is now a mad scientist’s laboratory. He has invented negative light and is murdering an assortment of caged animals with it.
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| II Venice Submerged ▶
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| The center tableau shows us dancers dressed as Venetian landmark buildings, vanishing beneath waves of childishly grinding “stage water”
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| III The New World Order
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| The right tableau is a dark city with ragged citizens moving in lines from place to place, supervised by squadrons of uniformed ponies
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| IV The Lifestyle You Deserve
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| The left tableau is now a courtroom. Pigs are suing each other and dragging away bags of money.
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| V Creationism
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| The center tableau is now a cubistic collage of badly imagined Bible stories, including the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, Sodom & Gomorrah, etc. Pig and pony dancers re-enact these scenes, but interweave them, resulting in an incomprehensible finale.
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| VI He Is Risen
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| Jesus pops up in the middle of all this like a baffled jack-in-the-box. The dancers attempt to worship him, but he casts them away.
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| After examining the mess they have made of his parables, he disposes of them with a holy hand grenade, and leaps into the piano.
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| Roy and Louis open with more speculation on motors.
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| [Louis Cuneo] I wish Motorhead would come back. Oh wow, Motorhead, Motorhead, where are you Motorhead?
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| [Roy Estrada] He’s probably getting eaten by one of those ponies
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| [Louis Cuneo] Yes
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| [Roy Estrada] Maybe he’s out there playing with motors
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| [Louis Cuneo] Motors? Motors? No, no, no!
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| On the opposite side of the stage, pony-clad dancers pretend to eat a Christian Family Values Dinner.
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| Roy and Louis discuss the crabs.
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| [Louis Cuneo] RAAAH! ATTACK! ATTACK!
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| Attack and get on ee— eee— each pony or boogey-man or something…
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| [Roy Estrada] Sure, aren’t you glad I’m not too hairy?
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| [Louis Cuneo] Yeah
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| [Roy Estrada] Too hairy! Heh heh
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| [Louis Cuneo] That beats… yes, he-he-he-he
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| Louis laughs like a turkey
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| [Roy Estrada] That’s why they have a lot of crabs
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| [Louis Cuneo] Yes, and uh…
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| [Roy Estrada] A set of crabs?
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| [Louis Cuneo] Crabs are really dangerous, and they reach as fires and every once in a while you walk in the streets and when I… when I heard of these from… from talk… from my… from my home here, my piano!
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| Gilly is still complaining as two more girls appear to argue with her
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| [Gilly Townley] Huh, my piano. It’s still dark in here. It’s the same as it ever was. I’m here. I’m not the same as I ever was.
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| [Gilly Townley] Either you’re here and I’m here or I’m very different
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| [Maxine] Than?
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| [Becky Wentworth] Now, wait a minute. I… Those are my bass strings… and uh… I… I get the bass strings. If there are going to be three of us here, I want the bass strings. That’s all there is…
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| [Gilly Townley] Who are you?
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| [Becky Wentworth] I live here!
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| [Maxine] I live here!
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| [Gilly Townley] Who are you?
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| [Maxine] I live here
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| [Becky Wentworth] I live here!
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| [Gilly Townley] That’s my name too
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| [Gilly Townley] Were you ever not living here?
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| [Becky Wentworth] I don’t think so
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| [Maxine] Nah, I was in a drum
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| All three tableau areas become part of a game show set, reminiscent of the “American Gladiators”. Pigs and Ponies battle each other for exciting cash prizes.
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| With Jesus scratching his head perplexedly nearby, Spider gives his version of the origin of the universe.
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| [Spider Barbour] We are actually the same note, but…
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| [John Kilgore] But different octave
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| [Spider Barbour] Right. We are 4,928 octaves below the Big Note.
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| [Monica Boscia] Are you… Are you trying to tell me that… that this whole universe revolves around one note?
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| [Spider Barbour] No, it doesn’t REVOLVE around it; that’s what it is. It’s one note.
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| [Spider Barbour] Everybody knows that lights are notes. Light… Light is just a vibration of the note, too. Everything is.
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| [Monica Boscia] That one note makes everything else so insignificant
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| [John Kilgore] What about negative light?
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| [Spider Barbour] Pigs use it for a tambourine, which is one of the reasons why their music is so hard to understand.
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| A whole new area of the piano is lit to reveal another group of characters, arguing about whether or not the piano provides room service.
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| [Ali N. Askin] I bin grad’ nei’ kimma, und do hob I g’seh’n, daß…
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| [Stefan Dohr] Ah, Bayern raus!
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| [Michael Rapaport] This ain’t the U.N., man!
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| [Daryl Smith] Scusate un po’. Io non ho capito un cazzo.
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey, yo man!
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| [Ali N. Askin] Versteh’ kein Wort, I bin jetzt in dem Klavier herinna, und’s klingt so komisch
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| [William Formann] Die spreekt geen normal taal
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| [Michael Rapaport] This ain’t CNN
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| [Moon Zappa] Am I the only girl in here?
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| [Stefan Dohr] Huh
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| [Moon Zappa] It is dark and I am nervous
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey hey hey! She’s with me, champ!
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| [Franck Ollu] Turlututu, chapeau pointu
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| [Daryl Smith] A me non importa da dove viene, a me non importa da dove sta andando
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| [Ali N. Askin] Da kimmt ma’ scho’ rum in dies’m Klavier, gell?
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| [Moon Zappa] Honey, I don’t like this
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey, yo, my man, my fists speak English!
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| [Ali N. Askin] I ned, I ned! Wenn I red, red scho’ bay’risch.
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| [Stefan Dohr] Oh God
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| [Franck Ollu] You think that English is the only… each language in the world
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| [Michael Svoboda] Bevor ich hier herein gekommen bin, hab’ ich ein Pastrami Sandwich gegessen, das war tierisch gut
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| [William Formann] This… This guy… This guy wants something to eat, man
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| [Moon Zappa] I understood “Pastrami sandwich”
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| [Ali N. Askin] Gebt’s ihm ein Pony, gebt’s ihm doch ein Pony
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| [Michael Rapaport] In the brochure, they said that there was a good room service here
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| [Moon Zappa] They said 24-hour room service
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| [Daryl Smith] Did they give you a number?
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| [Moon Zappa] Just dial the operator and they can tell us
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| [Daryl Smith] The right information…
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| [Michael Rapaport] I haven’t gotten an operator since I came here, excuse me, I asked you a couple a…
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| [Moon Zappa] Can you put…
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| [Michael Rapaport] Excuse me, where’s the pay phone?
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| [Michael Svoboda] Pay phone
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| [Michael Rapaport] Pay phone
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| [Moon Zappa] We don’t need…
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| [William Formann & Ali N. Askin] Pay phone
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| [Michael Rapaport] How we gonna get the room service without the pay phone?
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| [Michael Svoboda] Pay phone… Pay phone
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| [Franck Ollu] Téléphone de payer
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| [Ali N. Askin] De payer? Ah, ein Zahltelefon!
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| Jesus tries to settle the question by pulling a German telephone credit card out of his robe, solemnly reading the text to everyone.
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| [Hermann Kretzschmar] Telefonkarte: Qualität und Sicherheit aus einer Hand
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| [William Formann] This guy doesn’t even know what a pay phone is! What the hell is he doing here in the first place?
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| [Hermann Kretzschmar] Wir sind Deutschlands Kommunikationsgesellschaft
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| [Ali N. Askin] Gestern waren wir, frühstücken, mittagessen…
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| [Hermann Kretzschmar] 30 11 03 1 1 4 3 6. Qualität und Sicherheit aus einer Hand: Telekom.
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| [Michael Rapaport] Excuse me, we paid money… heh, to be alone wit’ some privacy
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| [William Formann] Well, that’s just too bad. Uh, you could be alone someplace else.
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey, don’t give me attitude
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| [Daryl Smith] Well, I guess we’re supposed to move over
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| [Stefan Dohr] Yeah, OK, let’s move over a little bit
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| [Michael Rapaport] You’re in my space, man!
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| [Moon Zappa] Ow! Please, this is ridiculous.
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| [Daryl Smith] Excuse me, no, there was a gun before here and…
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| [Moon Zappa] Who? Did they leave a number we can call?
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| [Daryl Smith] Before these guys got here there was…
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| [Michael Rapaport] Excuse me. You… You… You know where the phone is at, man?
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| [Daryl Smith] No, there was a gun here and…
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| [Michael Rapaport] I DON’T WANT TROUBLE!
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| [Franck Ollu] If you want trouble, buy a drum, yeah?
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| [Moon Zappa] I know that this can all be worked out and…
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| [Michael Rapaport] Now, we don’t gotta… we don’t gotta go anywhere, sweetheart
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| [Moon Zappa] No, but listen… listen… They told us we’d be alone and it seems that everyone is listening to us
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| [Michael Rapaport] Who? This guy over here…
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| [William Formann] That’s right. That’s right, we’re listening.
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| [Michael Rapaport] What are you, a tough guy? I’m tough! I’m tough!
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| [Moon Zappa] Honey, honey
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| [William Formann] That’s just the way it is. You can get tough all you want.
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| [Moon Zappa] OK… OK, let’s all…
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| [Michael Rapaport] Well, maybe we should try to work this out together, but I know I want my space, champ!
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| [Daryl Smith] What do you mean? You bought this space?
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| [Moon Zappa] This always happens. I don’t understand.
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| [Michael Rapaport] That’s right, I bought this space. You got a problem wit dat?
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| [Daryl Smith] Well, you know, it sort of feels like my space. I don’t know.
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| [Moon Zappa] You know what this feels like? I mean, yeah, why don’t we buy the swamp land too?
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| [Michael Rapaport] Nobody said nothin’ when y’all bought my people, right?
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| [Stefan Dohr] Who’s having this loud voice in this little grand piano?
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| [Daryl Smith] A bit out of…
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| [Michael Rapaport] N.W.A., rap, hip-hop, the new thing, “Yo’ MTV raps”
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| [Stefan Dohr] Sonate, that’s music
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| [Michael Rapaport] So who?
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| [Stefan Dohr] Mozart, Alter… Mozart sach’ ich, Alter
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| [Michael Rapaport] I like… Public Enemy
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| [Stefan Dohr] I like Mondschein Sonate
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| [Michael Rapaport] I like… Brand Nubians, Big Daddy Kane
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| [Ali N. Askin] Des klingt so grauenhaft, des mecht I fei nimmer horn
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| [Moon Zappa] Whatever he said, ditto. I don’t understand but… I… I… feel that he said something I would probably approve of.
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| The right tableau is reset to the Christmas position. Around it, as if carolling, we see the ghosts of the Creationists roasted by the holy hand grenade, singing badly.
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| [FZ] Tonight you guys are going to try and figure out the pigs’ music
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| [Spider Barbour] You see, if we understood it, maybe we could help the pigs understand it
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| [John Kilgore] Nah, the problem with that is you think the pigs are essentially kind at heart
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| [Spider Barbour] Aw, I didn’t say that
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| [John Kilgore] But the pigs are essentially pigs
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| [John Kilgore] If we could either move the smoke or if we turn the cold light on it and shrink it so they can’t even salute it…
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| [Spider Barbour] It’s… It’s really… It’s sort of the opposite event. You see, it was a long time ago when pigs and ponies used to interbreed with people on farms, and they reached a state where… where like the pigs were communicable. They brought ‘em in and tried… tried to teach them things. They’re just as likely to live in the ocean as anywhere else. I wouldn’t get rid of them, really. Just means that the ocean would be just as unsafe as every other place. That’s what happened. You know, they tried to put ‘em places where they wouldn’t make it, but they made it anyway.
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| [John Kilgore] They wanted to use yaks, too
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| While Jesus pretends to produce a guitar-like sound by manually strumming the giant piano strings, the left tableau (also reset to the Christmas position) is lit once again. Emerging from behind the tree like an ornamental angel, we see a large sow-like creature with angel wings, dancing clumsily.
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| [Pig with wings] EE… EE… EE… EE
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| [Spider Barbour] What’s that?
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| [John Kilgore] That’s the pig with wings
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| [Moon Zappa] This is all wrong. This is all wrong.
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| [FZ] The pigs run the city, the ponies run the TV station and you wanted to apply for a job
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| [Spider Barbour] Some of them wear these jackets that are made out of polished animal skins. It’s called “leather”.
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| [John Kilgore] Leather?
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| [Monica Boscia] Oh, and their tight black pants
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| [Spider Barbour] It’s sort of like plastic, only it’s made out of animals
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| [Jim Sherwood] It’s sad, ain’t it?
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| [Monica Boscia] Yeah
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| [Jim Sherwood] You can’t win ‘em all
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| [Moon Zappa] Oh!
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| [Michael Rapaport] Sweetheart
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| [Moon Zappa] What?
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| [Michael Rapaport] If we go to the… we could probably be alone
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| [Moon Zappa] Yeah
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| [Ali N. Askin] Wo?
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| [Moon Zappa] Could drink coffee
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| [Ali N. Askin] Ja! Kaffe war a scho guat, aba des is a Klavier.
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| [Michael Rapaport] I want some soul food
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| [Moon Zappa] It’s a heartbeat and it feels like a…
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| [Michael Rapaport] Have you seen “Jungle Fever”?
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| [Moon Zappa] A big…
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| [Ali N. Askin] Ha ha gördüm önce, sinemaya gittim ben
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| [Michael Rapaport] “Jungle Fever”. The girl with the big butt?
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| [Ali N. Askin] Bak, bu piyanonun içinde nereden sinema buldun sen?
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| [Moon Zappa] This must have been what the brochure was talking about. They said you’d… you’d feel a… a kind of a serenity, a feeling of peace of… of…
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey, why… why don’t you shut up?
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| [Ali N. Askin] Çocuklar, siz saatlerce kahveden birsey anlatiyorsunuz, ama burada… ah, bunlarda acayip sarkilar söylüyorlar… acayip, degilmi? Yagmurda basliyor.
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| [Moon Zappa] Entering into a different realm. I can’t remember the name of it.
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey, yo man. I don’t like all this waterfall action.
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| [Moon Zappa] And I guess that’s where most of the part of it’s… I guess it’s all about resolving past crime and everything… and also about…
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| [Ali N. Askin] Bence
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey, yo, hey. This ain’t “The Blue Lagoon”! What the hell, this ain’t “I Dream of Jeanie”.
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| [Ali N. Askin] Bu pianonun içinde bir… meyhane gibi birsey yapmak lâzim, yani, piano güzel bir sey ama… bende seni hiç anlamiyorum abi?
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| [Michael Rapaport] What? Man, man, I’m gonna close off communications if you don’t start speaking the language, Jack!
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| [Spider Barbour] The hotter the sound is, the more putrid it smells. I’ve discovered that to be true in almost every case that I’ve experienced.
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| [Michael Rapaport] What are you talking about?
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| [Spider Barbour] Flowing inside out creates neutral energy. Now, that makes the light get thick. Then you’ve got this converter, and what that does, is, it takes this really thick light and… it rams it into this little compressor which then sucks the water out so that it envelops the… the bath tub ▶ in this big halo.
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| [FZ] A halo of mu-mesons
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| [Spider Barbour] A halo of mu-mesons. And the whole problem here is that all you have to do is take that little modulator out and uh…
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| [John Kilgore] Reverse the phase on it
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| [Gilly Townley] I had a dream about that once
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| [Maxine] You did?
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| [Gilly Townley] Yeah
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| [Maxine] Then you must be me
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| [Becky Wentworth] Yeah, that’s right, because… Now, wait a minute, now you two are me because I had a dream that the two were here. I heard one person breathing in my right ear and then I heard somebody cough just like me.
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|
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| [Spider Barbour] Wait a minute! I gotta… find a phone booth. Here, ah. Now I have it. I change clothes and suddenly I am.
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| The area surrounding the piano is lit to reveal dozens of dancers-as-worms worshipping a stuffed pig, dressed as the Pope, circling the stage on a little motorized wagon.
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| [Spider Barbour] GROSS MAN!
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|
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| [Instrumental]
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| John reveals a problem which seems to plague him during periods of intense excavation.
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|
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| [John Kilgore] Maybe the kayak is just a big worm
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| [Monica Boscia] I found that to be a possibility
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| [Spider Barbour] The worms stop in the tunnels sometimes
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| [John Kilgore] Where are the tunnels?
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| [Spider Barbour] They’re in the muck
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| [John Kilgore] In the muck?
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| [Spider Barbour] Yeah, you saw the muck?
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| [John Kilgore] But, you know, whenever I try to tunnel into muck, it always collapses on me
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| [Instrumental]
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|
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| [John Kilgore] Then we can sell them ladders, ‘cause they’re gonna have to have ladders to get into the piano, right?
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| [Spider Barbour] Yeah, when it starts growing
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| [John Kilgore] Right, we set ‘em down and like, we turn the lights down and turn on the red ones
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| [Monica Boscia] What’re you gonna do, stoop to strobe lights or…?
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| [Spider Barbour] Ah, no, no!
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| [FZ] We’re gonna put a little motor in ‘em
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| [Spider Barbour] We’re gonna put a little motor in ‘em
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| [John Kilgore] I could have all sorts of different kinds of names for the motors, although the motors would be the same
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| [Spider Barbour] There’s dry motors and wet motors, right?
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| [John Kilgore] Right
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| [Spider Barbour] The motor for a bill is a dry motor, so after they put that thing in there for about half an hour, they suddenly can’t stand it without having a wet motor too. So, if they try to get away with spending only a bill, they end up spending about five ‘cause they gotta get this… this four bill wet motor.
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| [John Kilgore] Good idea
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| [Spider Barbour] Now we have a damp motor for the ones who aren’t sure
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| [Moon Zappa] It’s about letting go… we’re all… we’re all inside the piano. We’re all… looking for a place… inside the piano… or a place to be alone.
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| [Ali N. Askin] Bu pianonun içinde bir meyhane olsa, bir kahve için oturpda, aziçik tavla oynasak nekadar güzel olur, degilmi abi?
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| [Michael Rapaport to Ali N. Askin] You’re just insultin’ me, aren’t you? It’s not funny, man!
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| [Ali N. Askin] Tabii ya, tabii, tabii… ah ah
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| [Michael Rapaport] It’s not funny. It ain’t funny. He’s just been talking about me for ten minutes.
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| [Moon Zappa] Be alone… with yourself inside a piano or… whatever… your piano it’s… it’s really a metaphor for that… that spirit… that feeling of oneness
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| [Ali N. Askin] Siz saatlerce, saatlerce konusuyorsunuz burada, yani… artik biktim burasindan, be! Oturup böyle birsey… birsey bulsak da biz simidi, yani…
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| [Moon Zappa] It’s… It’s… It’s… fulfillment
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| [Michael Rapaport] Fulfillment. I got something fulfilling, baby.
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| [Moon Zappa] The sages talk about this…
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| [Ali N. Askin] Sen söyleme
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey, yo’ my man… Hey, yo’ my man… worrrrd’up man… worrrrrd’up!
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| [Ali N. Askin] This is a piano
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| [Michael Rapaport] This is a piano
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| [Ali N. Askin] This is a piano
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| [Todd Yvega] And why are we in it?
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| [Ali N. Askin] This is a piano
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| [Michael Rapaport] A piano!
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| [Ali N. Askin] A piano… des is a piano
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| [Michael Rapaport] Piano!
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| [Ali N. Askin] Klavier
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| [Todd Yvega] Oh! I thought it was the men’s room
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| [Michael Rapaport] Piano!
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| [Moon Zappa] Piano
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| [Ali N. Askin] Das es kein Computer
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| [Michael Rapaport] This ain’t a computer!
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| [Ali N. Askin] Das es kein Computer! I sag des so oft, bis die des merken, verstehst…
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| [Moon Zappa] “Piano”, that’s a beautiful word. It can take you to that place inside yourself where you…
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| [Michael Rapaport] You still talking about the place but you ain’t thinking about dis place: the piano!
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| [Todd Yvega] Piano! Piano!
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| [Moon Zappa] What I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter how you get here
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|
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| [Gilly Townley] That’s it exactly, I guess… about Tom. No, no, but to me all different uh… but I guess Tom was a hu—… IS a human being with… feelings and sorrows and happinesses, as everyone else, but Tom would only show me so much.
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| SNORK
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| [Spider Barbour] But is this a pregnant sow before me?
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| SNORK SNORK
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| [Spider Barbour] By the sound of the snork, I would gesture to say… I find myself turning into a pony
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| [John Kilgore] You know as well as I do that cold light generation depends on your state of health and energy
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| [Spider Barbour] I’m gonna turn on a cold light
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|
|
| [Moon Zappa] Don’t you get it?
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| [Todd Yvega] No, not at all
|
| [Moon Zappa] Don’t you get it?
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| [Todd Yvega] Not as often as I’d like to
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| [Moon Zappa] I get it. It’s weird. It’s like…
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| [Michael Rapaport] Yo, I hear music!
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| [Ali N. Askin] Musik?
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| [Michael Rapaport] Music!
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| [Ali N. Askin] Musik? Draußen, gell?
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| [Michael Rapaport] There’s a little party goin’ on out here!
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| [Ali N. Askin] Ja, gell a party, da is irgendwo a Party!
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| [Michael Rapaport] A party in the piano
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| [Ali N. Askin] Naa, ned im Piano
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| [Michael Rapaport] Yeah, P.P.
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| [Ali N. Askin] Nah, ned im P.P.
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey, P.P.
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| [Ali N. Askin] Naa, ned im Piano, im Piano is keine Party
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| [Michael Rapaport] Hey, listen… listen… listen, shhh
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| The piano exterior area is now inhabited by dancers-as-ponies, wearing Catholic religious garments. The Pig Pope is dead. He is upside down now, and his wagon is being towed away. The new Pony Pope is being adored. Dancer-ponies team up to pull his splendid new wagon toward the audience.
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| Spider and John realize that they don’t even understand their own music.
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|
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| [Spider Barbour] We can get our strength up by making some music
|
| [John Kilgore] That’s right
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| [Monica Boscia] Yeah, yeah
|
| [John Kilgore] But the thing is, you know what?
|
| [Spider Barbour] What?
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| [John Kilgore] We don’t even understand our own music
|
| [Spider Barbour] Ah, it doesn’t… Does it matter whether we understand it? At least it’ll give us… st— strength.
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| [John Kilgore] I know but maybe we could get into it more if we understood it
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| [Spider Barbour] We’d get more strength from it if we understood it?
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| [John Kilgore] Yeah
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| [Spider Barbour] No, I don’t think so, because… see, I th—… I think our strength comes from our uncertainty. If we understood it we’d be bored with it and then we couldn’t gather any strength from it.
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| [John Kilgore] Like if we knew about our music one of us might talk and then that would be the end of that
|
| With the thunderclap, various types of inexplicable social actions break out all over the piano. Each of the nine movements within this piece should alternate the focus from piano interior, region by region, with the exterior, region by region. The actions should illustrate the current fetish for life extending or “youthening” trends, including meditation, bizarre diets, pill and algae consumption, violent aerobics, “the easy glider”, stair-steppers, etc.
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| Life goes on outside the piano - more rain, excitable dogs ▶, automatic weapons fire, traffic, building demolition, etc. The Reaper, much to the dismay of the dancers in the previous piece, arrives (when the car door slams) to claim them. Act One ends with a large model of a crop-dusting plane, spraying the audience with a toxic substance.
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 Art by Uri Balashov.jpg "(Front) Art by Uri Balashov")
 Art by Uri Balashov.jpg "(Back) Art by Uri Balashov")
Songs list
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Title origin
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