How not to meet a famous rock star

In 1989, CHRIS BOURKE was in New York and went along to a Frank Zappa book launch on behalf of a friend back home. He recently came across the aerogramme he wrote to his friend…

A letter is overdue because I’ve been living a lot of vicarious experiences for you. Way back – at least two weeks ago – when I was cruising the streets of Manhattan, I came across an ad in the Village Voice: “Frank Zappa book signing – 7.30 pm at W 8th and Avenue of the Americas”. So I caught the subway from Queens into the Village – if I’d driven it would have been across the 59th St bridge, just to add a bit of local colour – and wandered past the notorious Washington Park where black guys stand on corners late at night quietly saying “smoke … smoke” again and again trying to sell nickel bags that actually cost $5 for about a third of a matchbox (so I’m told) to the corner in question.

Just 50 yards from this spot, I was wandering by and there was a pavement flea market selling all sorts of used paperbacks and used magazines. Old Rolling Stones caught my eye, not the Hustlers and Knaves, and there among the sleazy stuff was a picture of the Beatles … with some Maori … with NZ Listener in red above. So I had to buy “my” Listener from the guy for $1 and marvel at the journey it must have had to end up yellow but treasured on a sidewalk in Manhattan.

Anyway, I get to the corner and notice that at least 2000 people have got there first. The line is four blocks long, and it’s full of Frank Zappa FREAKS that make Mark David Chapman look like a dilettante: long hair in pony tails, funny little goatees, tie-dyed shirts (remember them? They’re still here) and all with plastic bags with the book and their own scrapbooks and motley little polaroids of them ’n Frank, “Santa Cruz, the summer solstice gig with the Dead. Remember Frank? We’d driven up in the VW van from Tahoe and my wife had a baby on the way, but we left her and kept on going…”

We’re talking to a determined bunch but not nearly as loopy as I’m picturing, but definitely obsessive, with their patient girlfriends alongside who’ve learnt to live with the mania, though they secretly lost even their feigned interest in the guy way back at that triple album of guitar solos, “though I must admit that Dweezil is kinda cute, I just wish he didn’t keep trotting about the glossies with a new bimbo from the soaps on his arm when he still hasn’t learnt to shave.”

But I manage to do the dirty on the 3000 and growing patient but anxious Frankoids and walk backwards out of the store and pretend I was going in, so there I was in the front of the queue with the serious types who’d lined up there a day early with their original Verve pressings of Absolutely Free and Freak Out under their arms, plus the new Japanese CD editions. And the book.

A buzz rolls down the crowd from blocks away, down near Bleecker Street. A black stretch limo is crawling through the late-night traffic – it’s Frank. The crowd mobs the car, and it inches forward and around the corner into the tradesman’s entrance. He’s here. The crowd pushes forward, taking their precious LPs out of the sleeves so they’re ready to receive the John Hancock of Freakdom just where they want it, on that blank spot above the Indian of the Group’s head.

The bookshop is crowded inside and I’m about six from the front, but I can’t see through the hair to the table, but I know Frank – everyone here is on first name terms – is present, because those leaving have beatific smiles on the faces and illegible scrawls on the flyleaf pages of their copies of The Real Frank Zappa Book.

But then the word gets out and passes quickly through the crowd. The shop actually has no copies of the book for sale, they’ve already sold out, before the signing began. Many in the crowd already have their copies, so those who heard early have rushed off to bookshops close by and bought out all their copies as well. So here I am at the front of the queue with nothing for the guy to sign. No book. No photo album. No photo of me and Frank that I’ve turned into a mass-produced personal Christmas card (I’m not kidding).

But I do have another appointment, in only five minutes – I’m meeting David Fricke, a senior writer from Rolling Stone, outside this very store, to go off and have a drink. So I turn my back on Frank and wait outside with the teeming masses. Somehow, I don’t think he’s going to feed the 5000 and suddenly turn spare copies of Shirley McLaine’s latest tome on self-discovery into a container-load of his autobiography.

Fricke arrives, bemused at the scene but not surprised (like me) at the turnout. He’s also thinking what offers he’d take from the crowd for the uncorrected galley proof edition of the book he has in the very briefcase in his hand. But he’s a Frank freak too, so he’s holding on to it.

Thus ends the story of how I tried to get you an autographed copy of Frank Zappa’s autobiography, but failed. I can, however, tell you what his signature is like. Take a thick black felt pen. Quickly dash a vertical stroke down, then across, then up and down. You’ve just forged Frank’s signature … so break out those original Mother of Invention records!

+ Chris Bourke is a music historian who has authored several important books, including Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn Of New Zealand Popular Music and Goodbye Maoriland: The Songs And Sounds Of New Zealand’s Great War. He is also the director of that great repository of stories about Kiwi music, AudioCulture.

+ Check out the wealth of Frank Zappa content on Witchdoctor here.