Post by thatmffm on Jul 5, 2011 12:44:17 GMT -5
The short answer is No.
The long answer is this:
"The other fantasy is that I once took a shit on stage. This has been propounded with many variations, including (but not limited to):
[1] I ate shit on stage.
[2] I had a 'gross-out contest' (what the fuck is a 'gross-out contest'?) with Captain Beefheart and we both ate shit on stage.
[3] I had a 'gross-out contest' with Alice Cooper and he stepped on baby chickens and then I ate shit on stage, etc.
I was in a London club called the Speak Easy in 1967 or '68. A member of a group called the Flock, recording for Columbia at the time, came over to me and said:
"You're fantastic. When I heard about you eating that shit on stage, I thought, 'That guy is way, way out there.' "
I said, "I never ate shit on stage," He looked really depressed—like I had just broken his heart.
For the records, folks: I never took a shit on stage, and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973."
-Frank Zappa "The Real Frank Zappa Book".
From the April 1993 PLAYBOY Interview with Frank Zappa
"One of the more colorful rock legends maintains that Zappa and Alice Cooper had a gross-out contest onstage: After Cooper allegedly squashed some live baby chicks, Zappa supposedly picked up a plastic spoon and ate a plate of steaming feces. Although Zappa denies it, he's been haunted by the story for years.
PLAYBOY: You certainly offended people with the Phi Zappa Krappa poster.
ZAPPA: Probably. But so what?
PLAYBOY: And some of your antics from the Mothers of Invention days, like the famed gross-out contest.
ZAPPA: There never was a gross-out contest. That was a rumor. Somebody's imagination ran wild. Chemically bonded imagination. The rumor was that I went so far as to eat shit onstage. There were people who were terribly disappointed that I never ate shit onstage. But no, there never was anything resembling a gross-out contest.
PLAYBOY: Another rumor was that you peed on an audience.
ZAPPA: I never had my dick out onstage and neither did anybody else in the band. We did have a stuffed giraffe rigged with a hose and an industrial-strength whipped cream dispenser. Under it we had a cherry bomb. That's how we celebrated the Fourth of July in 1967. Somebody waved the flag, lit the cherry bomb. It blew the ass out of the giraffe. Another guy reached behind the giraffe and pushed the button and had this thing shitting whipped cream all over the stage. That amused people for some reason.
PLAYBOY: So it was simply contained outrageousness?
ZAPPA: Stagecraft.
PLAYBOY: To entertain or just to alleviate boredom?
ZAPPA: There was a third factor, too. There's an art statement in whipped cream shooting out the ass of a giraffe, isn't there? We were carrying on the forgotten tradition of dada stagecraft. The more absurd, the better I liked it."
"Absurdity is the only reality" -FZ
