Bob Marshall: Does it relate in a way that you will see more obviously later?

Frank Zappa: Well, I think that quite a bit of the continuity is made obvious by what we've discussed here. And I think that if there is a way to absorb all this in one sitting on a broadcast, if anybody knew enough about what I'd already done, they would see that there is a coherence to it that's been very purposeful, and it's been going on for what, twenty years, twenty-five years, something like that.

Bob Marshall: I think of the scientist metaphor and the chemistry, that point that you saw from Varese and you said, "Yes, that needs to be said". And you keep at it, that idea, that image, that model, the chemistry of music, and maybe it's implied in the tenets of your church. Can you "synopsize" the continuity in the past three hours? I tried to say it was the "conceptual continuity".

Frank Zappa: As above so below.

Bob Marshall: But "as above" what?

Frank Zappa: As above so below. You pick the "what".

Carolyn Dean: Fill in the blank.

Bob Marshall: That was very interesting to talk about how this interview relates to something else that's gone before. In other words, you're trying to communicate. This is the situation we're communicating.

Frank Zappa: Well, that's one of the things that differentiates us from... pick a lower species, you know, fill in the blank. We have the ability to communicate with each other using tools which other animals don't have access to. Whether or not we use them properly is yet to be determined.

Bob Marshall: Now, I'm asking for the right words to come out, or the words that I would think hit the thing on the head, but it's the process of communication, what we're doing here, is what you're talking about - your life, your day-to-day taking in of information. It goes into your work if it's appropriate - an interview, a new encounter. That is the conceptual continuity.

Frank Zappa: No, that's random. you allow yourself to experience random events like people coming in. I don't know what's going to happen in this interview. I never know when I do any of them. You allow for random events. The conceptual continuity is something that is steered. It's not random, it's steered. There is an idea that moves it in a direction. It's an object.

Bob Marshall: Your will or perception of something you think should be included, or an order?

Frank Zappa: Yeah, like you're taking your data environment, you're reordering the data environment in order to transmute it into something else, transmute it into entertainment.

Bob Marshall: Is that attention? Is that steering mechanism attention? Is there an image that it's referring to?

Frank Zappa: You mean, in order to steer, you have to have a North Star?

Bob Marshall: Yeah, is there a North Star in your process? I don't think there is, is there?

Frank Zappa: There doesn't need to be. In fact, the only time a North Star is useful is if you have to steer in a physical dimension - in order to get from one place to another in a type of dimension where those spatial relationships are recognized as reality. AT that point you need a compass and you need your North Star. If you're in another dimension, where those types of relationships don't exist, you don't need the North Star.

Bob Marshall: You may need another kind?

Frank Zappa: Not necessarily.

Bob Marshall: You allow the randomness to happen?

Frank Zappa: Well, if you work in a dimension where everything's happening all at the same time, then that would kind of indicate that there wasn't such a thing as distance, either spatial or time difference, or whatever. That's a unity point. So, where's the navigation? You're already there.

Bob Marshall: So you could incorporate what comes to you in time...

Frank Zappa: It's like a black hole. All you've got to do is sit there, all the shit is going to pour in the hole anyway.

Bob Marshall: Now, there's a negative image - black hole.

Frank Zappa: No light escapes?

Bob Marshall: yeah.

Frank Zappa: Well, no light escapes until the density increases to the point where it blows a hole in the other side.

Bob Marshall: Alright, so this steering mechanism is attention. It's thinking of it as entertainment, which is sort of offering "slack", creating "slack" in a situation.

Frank Zappa: There's nothing better for a human being than some form of entertainment. It's good for you. Now, if you think hockey is entertaining, which I don't, go get hockey. If you like opera, which I don't, go get an opera. Everybody needs to have something to take the pressure off of them, something where they can stop thinking about their normal factory rate for a while.

Bob Marshall: And that's a guiding principle?

Frank Zappa: Yeah.

Bob Marshall: Is that part of the conceptual continuity?

Frank Zappa: Yeah. Sure, that is an esthetic value.

Bob Marshall: I think you pinned it down to my satisfaction. You mentioned hockey. I lived in Nova Scotia for many years and I remember, around the time 200 MOTELS came out, you were doing a radio interview in New York, and the disc jockey asked you, "What do you see in that mural" There was a mural in the studio that he always asked people to look into, and you answered, "I see Billy with a hockey stick". Now, is that what you actually saw or was there a reason to say Billy had a hockey stick, at that point?

Frank Zappa: That's what I saw. Some things are very, very simple.

Bob Marshall: What are the most complex things?

Frank Zappa: The most complex thing is trying to get people to understand that everything is happening all the time, and make them believe it. That's a rough one.

Bob Marshall: Yeah, now that's interesting. Are you including the survival of death. I don't think your church believes that one survives death. In the church tenets, isn't it spelled out there? "We do not believe we survive death".

Frank Zappa: I don't think that that's actually said in there.

Bob Marshall: Alright. When we talk about time...

Frank Zappa: I'm not talking about afterlife. This is not mystical, metaphysical stuff. I'm talking about, you know...

Bob Marshall: All time exists now.

Frank Zappa: Yeah. There it is.

Bob Marshall: And we can experience it all now in this lifetime.

Frank Zappa: Yeah.

Bob Marshall: Therefore, one lifetime is many lives?

Frank Zappa: Look, you've got a brain that is part of an organism which will decay. It runs down. Until they find a way to keep the oxidation process from continuing to the point where you rust yourself to death, you're going to fall apart and you're going to die. There you go, O.K.? Now, you've got X number of moments of your undead state to deal with whatever you're going to deal with. And I think that the best way to do it is to deal with as much as you can deal with while you're alive, not as little. Just deal with it.

Bob Marshall: So, another way of trying to get people to believe that all time exists now is trying to get them to have an open mind, open senses, to not filter data that's coming in. It's the same thing.

Frank Zappa: You've just got to listen to all the stuff that's coming in, good, bad, and indifferent. And hope that you have the educational preparation to be able to sort it. That's one of the problems why people would find what I do difficult for them to adapt to because I got out of the U.S. schoolsystem at a point where you could still learn to readand write, and I don't think that you can do that anymore. I think that the basic education that people receive in this country is so pitiful that they can't. They're not even equipped to sort data. And I don't think it's an accident. I think that the school system has been purposely damaged to keep people from being able to sort data because only a person who can't data will vote for a guy like Bush or Reagan. You have to be numb.

Bob Marshall: You have to be numb and at the same time, while they're making the school system impoverished, they are increasing the information flood on people with cable, the multi- channels, and fiberoptics. This is the...

Frank Zappa: More dread.

Bob Marshall: Yeah. So, maybe someone could overcome the stupidity that's been trained into them?

Frank Zappa: I think it's possible, but it's just too expensive. And there's a lot of people who would say, "I don't want to know. I just don't want to know". And perhaps more than fifty percent in the U.S. prefer not to know. They have a suspicion that if they knew, they would be unhappy because they knew, and they will go to any extreme to keep themselves from knowing. In fact, they will even attempt to harm people who will help to let them know.

Bob Marshall: And that's our problem.

Frank Zappa: That's one of them, yeah.

Bob Marshall: How many problems do we have?

Frank Zappa: A lot. But it all boils down to a problem of mental health. One of the most excruciating forms of mental health is greed. Bad mental health is a greed problem. If you look at all the ways in which greed, as a negative mental health state, has translated into physical problems for people all over the world, you can trace a lot back to that.

Bob Marshall: So, who are the brain police?

Frank Zappa: It could be anybody that decides to opt for employment in that organization. A lot of people police their own brains. They're like citizen soldiers, so to speak. I've seen people who will willingly arrest, try and punish their own brains. Now that's really sad. That's vigilante brain policism. It's not even official, it's like self-imposed.

Bob Marshall: You once said that nobody ever figured out who the brain police are.

Frank Zappa: I've been working on it.

Bob Marshall: Still working on it?

Frank Zappa: Yeah.

Bob Marshall: Some candidates?

Frank Zappa: It's hard to pin it down to one central agency when you realize that so many people are willing to do it to themselves. I mean, the people who want to become amateur brain police, their numbers grow every day - people who say to themselves, "I couldn't possibly consider that", and then spank themselves for even getting that far. So, you don't even need to blame it on a central brain police agency. You've got plenty of people who willingly subject themselves to this self-mutilation.

Bob Marshall: And you knew that for a long time?

Frank Zappa: Well, no...

Bob Marshall: But to say you're working on it implies some other...

Frank Zappa: There's more, there's more. Look, I'm sitting here right now and I'm telling you I'm still thinking about stuff, and I tell you what I've got fully-developed conclusions on and what I don't. And even the ones that are the fully-developed, if I get new data tomorrow that changes it, the next interview is going to have something different.

Bob Marshall: What are some of the conclusions so far?

Frank Zappa: Whatever you've got on the tape. I don't sit around and consciously think of a catalogue, but if somebody asks me a question, I'll just give you my best read at the time.

Bob Marshall: Because when you said that nobody had figured out who the brain police are, you yourself hadn't figured it out yet.

Frank Zappa: I know they exist, but who they are is another question.

Bob Marshall: O.K., they exist. It's not only stupidity.

Frank Zappa: It's multiple, multiple.

Bob Marshall: Multiple answer, multiple levels, but there is our own self-policing going on. How would you characterize some of the new techniques that they're using? Well we've spelled that out in the interview.

Frank Zappa: Yeah, you've already got that.

Bob Marshall: Yeah, so this interview has been an attempt to figure out who are the brain police.

Frank Zappa: Well, you could say that, but I'm not sure that's really true. I think that the interview is what it is, and to just be able to sum it up to say we're trying to figure out who are the brain police, I think this diminishes what's been said here.

Bob Marshall: Cheapness, that's right. So, this interview is not going to end.

Frank Zappa: Oh yes it is. (Everyone laughs.) Look at Gerald beating his leg over there. He knows.

Bob Marshall: O.K., I think that's a good way to end it.

Frank Zappa: O.K., there you go. The interview is now over.