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January 13, 2006
Alaskan in Exile
by Neil Zawicki

    “It can’t happen here. I know because I’ve been checkin’ it out. I checked it out a couple of times.”
-Frank Zappa

    I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to “The Uncle Meat Variations” by Frank Zappa. It’s excellent atmosphere music, not to mention a rich and complicated composition that involves harpsichord, trumpet, flute and guitar, as well as people chanting something about fuzzy dice.

    Listening to Frank Zappa is a little like hanging out with an irritating twelve-year-old; it’s fun and goofy, but quickly wears thin. But if there is any relation between Zappa and the actual world, it is that wars and religious fanaticism quickly wear thin as well, but there is nothing fun or goofy about them.

    On the other hand, to spend a little time really digging into war and religion is to discover contradiction and destructive folly. But if we do the same with Zappa, we’ll find a little more insight than we expected. Zappa is absurd, and it’s easy to dismiss him as just that. But his music and lyrics amplify the absurdity of the things we hold dear. Take for example these lyrics from the song “dumb all over.”

    You can’t run a country by a book of religion. Not by a heap or a lump or a smidgeon of foolish rules of ancient date designed to make you all feel great while you fold, spindle and mutilate those unbelievers from a neighboring state.

    Indeed. Dumb all over. This little war we find ourselves in is a religious war, on both sides. There is no attempt from either end to understand the other. One side goes straight for the “kill the infidels” angle, while the other takes a more subtle approach, touting democracy, when in reality there is a prevailing Christian element behind the rifles.

    Whoever we are, wherever we’re from, we shoulda noticed by now our behavior is dumb. And if our chances expect to improve, it’s gonna take a lot more than tryin’ to remove the other race or the other whatever from the face of the planet altogether.

    Frank Zappa is funny, and the real value of comedy is that it cannot exist without tragedy. Comedy gives us perspective. Tragedy, on the other hand, leaves no room for humor, and does not need it. So, when Pat Robertson makes his outlandish statements and our leaders as well as our enemies continue to take their cues from old and altered dogmatic notions of reality, nothing but pain can result. But if we can laugh at them, then we still have a grip on the issue, and will eventually be able to change as a civilization.

    If not, then we have no hope.

    Robertson said (among other things) that stroke-stricken Israeli president Ariel Sharon is being punished by God for dividing the holy land. Frank Zappa said years ago, “That’s depending on which book you’re using at the time. Can’t use theirs, it don’t work, it’s all lies, gotta use mine, ain’t that right? That’s what they say, every night, every day, hey, we can’t really be dumb if we’re just following god’s orders…God knows what he’s doin’, he wrote this book here, an’ the book says:
He made us all to be just like him. So...If we’re dumb...Then God is dumb...
an’ maybe even a little ugly on the side.”






 




   

















Neil Zawicki, exiled Alaskan, is Editor at Large for Insurgent49, a former reporter for the Alaska Star, and winner of the Alaska Press Club's 'Best Columnist' award. He is now living out the rest of his days in an undisclosed location in Oregon. He can be contacted at -  neil@insurgent49.com
- Columnists -

Editor's Desk
by Aaron Selbig

Red Alert
by Soren Wuerth

Alaskan In Exile
by Neil Zawicki

The
Bramble Bush
by Kevin Morford





- also by this writer -
Copyright 2005 Insurgent Media. All Rights Reserved.
in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership.