I’ve apparently dropped the ball. It wasn’t until last Thursday, when I casually picked up the LA Weekly, as always, that I saw Frank’s mug on the cover, carefully thumbed to the corresponding feature, anxiously read through the contents, confirmed the details, and dealt with the realization that Joe’s Garage is finally getting a proper theatrical release. In Los Angeles. This Month. In my past lifetime as a fledgling music snob critic, this would have been something I’d have seen coming like months possibly even years in advance, in my old age as an educator these canine-like instincts have dwindled. Sigh.

If you feel overly aware and are wondering about the run-on and fragment sentences above, that’s how my mind was working at the time. It was that giddy, near-breathless feeling of anticipation with which my eyes read through the news.

For me – and I’m sure Zappa fans everywhere – this is a big deal. If you’re unfamiliar with the plot of Joe’s Garage, it’s because you’ve been living under a rock for some time or you’re just not aware that we’re basically living Joe’s Garage right now. Ok, so the actual storyline may seem a bit ridiculous … the Weekly story pretty much nails it. Those of a weaker constitution may want to skip the synopses:

The play opens with an Orwellian “Central Scrutinizer,” a large robotic puppet who speaks through a megaphone and whose job is to enforce laws “that haven’t yet been passed.” A local policeman counsels Joe to drop his music and engage in more church activities, but Joe’s sweet Catholic girlfriend, named Mary (of course), abandons him for a backstage pass to see another band. After following that band on tour and after being used as a sex toy by the band’s roadies, the exhausted Mary is dumped in Miami, where she enters a wet-T-shirt contest to raise enough money to get home.

When Joe learns of her plight, he goes into a funk of depression, contracts venereal disease, and seeks religion — at the door of L. Ron Hoover and his First Church of Appliantology — to pull him back up. Membership in the church costs Joe his life’s savings, and he is ordered “into the closet” in order to find salvation by having sex with home appliances — so much more safe and titillating than with human beings. There’s a three-way orgy between Joe, an appliance named Sy Borg and a “modified Gay Bob Doll”; Joe accidentally destroys Sy Borg’s circuitry during a golden shower episode and is imprisoned for being unable to pay for Sy’s repair. In prison, Joe is gang-raped by record executives and other riffraff. He eventually emerges into a new world, where music has been banned, but he does land a good job in a muffin factory.

Sure, it may sound a bit crude, but this was the satirical picture of the future with which Mr. Frank Zappa chose to launch an attack on censorship – it was a battle that continued in court, on television, and in his writing. As much as I am a huge fan of Zappa’s music, it’s his work protecting free speech that speaks to a larger audience.

So, that being said, you should know that – unequivocally – Frank Zappa is a genius. For a while, as an undergrad, I used to wear a shirt that said “WWFZD?” No one could be as simultaneously profound and offensive  as Frank Zappa. As far as musical talent, he’s one of the most accomplished guitarists and composers in just about any genre. And his expectations and requirements of band members are pretty much legendary. Read the rest of the Weekly article to get a sense of time signatures being used throughout Joe’s Garage – a sweet rock opera that starts with the most mundane of chord changes – nothing more than a glorified version of “Louie Louie.” And did you know that Frank Zappa invented xenochrony?

Yes, Joe’s Garage will offend. Yes, that’s Frank on the album cover. Yes, he is in Blackface. Yes, he is offending you. Yes, this is good for your soul.