FEBRUARY 22 1988

Hello. It's 3:00 AM on Monday, February 22, or very late Sunday, February 21 if you prefer. And earlier today, meaning Sunday, after I finished the last diary entry, I watched some "Amadeus", and went out and bought a bunch of postcards, and I eventually wrote 15 postcards this evening.

(1998 comment: This is absolutely miraculous to me now. It's sheer torture for me to write postcards on the road these days. What a nice young man I was a decade ago, except for my monstrous ego and general all-around cluelessness.)

Before writing the 15 postcards I ran into Bob Stone out in the hall. Bob had been out renting a turntable because there were some test pressings he needed to check out. One was the album "Guitar", and the other was the 2-record vinyl sampler for the 12-CD "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore" series. Both of these 2-record sets will probably be coming out within a month or so. He had gotten these records and needed to listen to them, and when I heard what he was up to I said "May I join you?" He had been planning on just listening with headphones, but he managed to talk Scott into letting him borrow Scott's speakers. So he called me up and said "I'm about to listen to these, come on over," which was perfectly cool. Some of the stuff which Frank had played for Viv and I a few weeks ago, from disc one of the first volume, is on the vinyl sampler, including the section about God creating the sofa and the segment with the guys in the audience in England reciting poetry. But most of it was stuff I hadn't heard before, very nice, as was the "Guitar" album, there's some very beautiful stuff on there. So that was a privilege.

(1998 comment: I vividly recall hearing the 1973 band version of "Dickie's Such An Asshole" on the "YCDTOSA" sampler and being bummed out that their arrangement was so much cooler than ours.)

And then I came back and started working on the postcards while watching "Bring Me The Head Of Dobie Gillis" on TV. About 12:30 am I went to Reflections, which is a bar atop the hotel here on the 15th floor, and Ike was there, and Walt and Bruce, and Laurie, Bobby and Ike's friend, and Larry Booth, the guy from Alaska who doesn't have a job and sold his coin collection so he could follow the tour around, and one of the few Republicans known to be a fan of Frank Zappa.

(1998 comment: Larry eventually went on to land a job with the Zappa organization, working in the office until his unceremonious dismissal last year. He is a very nice guy.)

So we sat up there and talked for awhile, and Larry pumped me for information as Zappa fans tend to do, but he's such a fan and he's gone to such lengths to be here so I'm more than happy to oblige. Then I came back down here and finished up my postcard writing. And then I recorded this diary entry.

There's a story about something that happened at rehearsal a few days ago which I think I forgot to put on tape. Frank was talking at rehearsal about how we were about to go overtime, and if we go overtime at rehearsal he has to pay extra money to the union. Somebody asked him why that was and Frank answered "graft". So as a joke I started playing the "Theme From 'Shaft'". Which I thought was a reasonable little musical pun, I didn't think that much of it. But Frank said "Yeah!" and laughed real hard and stuff, and then he looked over at me and said "well, I guess you're not the 'new guy' anymore." So that was, like...that was cool. And later that night I was in Ike's room and Ike said "wow, man, Frank paid you the ultimate compliment today", so apparently it was a fairly symbolic event. So, yes. Life is wonderful. No doubt about it.

FEBRUARY 22 part two

It is still February 22, Monday, 1988. After the last diary entry I fell asleep and was awakened by a phone call from Vivian at 2:20 PM - I couldn't believe it, I'd gotten about ten and a half hours of sleep. I must have been exhausted or something. I woke up and talked to Viv for a few minutes, and then I turned on the television and "The Impossible Years" with David Niven was on, I love that film. I watched that. Then I took a shower and then I got a call from Scott saying "Come over here. I've got a CD you have to hear." And I went over there and Scott's friend Ben was there. It was a CD of Bulgarian folk music, sung by, I think it's called the Bulgarian State Women's Radio and Television Choir. Amazing, very very amazing otherworldly kind of angelic, beautiful, unusual, almost impossible music.

(1998 comment: this was the very first time I ever heard the music of the Bulgarian Women's Choir. A momentous event to say the least.)

The three of us went walking across Boston Commons. Unbelievable winds, winds like I have never, ever experienced - I've never before had to fight so hard against the wind while walking down the street. We just kept walking and I finally said "let's find a place that we can go in, and go in it." At which point we saw a Numero Uno pizza place, and we ran in and sat down and had a very nice meal. While we were there Scott said "I have to go pick up Liz at the school," and he went and got a taxi. Ben and I sat there and talked for awhile, then Scott came back with Liz. After dinner was over, Ben had to go to a class, and Scott and Liz and I took a taxi back to the hotel. I got to my room and was listening to the Greaseman tape I got from Bruce Warren, and while I was listening, this huge whooping noise started to whoop. I took off my headphones and it was the hotel fire alarm. I walked into the hallway and Chad was out there, and the hotel PA system was saying "this fire alarm is being investigated, we'll give you the information as soon as possible." Then Ike came down the hall saying "get your stuff together and get downstairs, you never know." So I came back inside and put on my shoes and jacket and hat and walked downstairs. I stood around outside. There was a ladder very specifically aimed at one very high window. But there was no fire, and they weren't shooting any water into the building, there was just a ladder aimed at this window - there was nobody in the window, and there was nobody on the ladder. In the lobby there were about fifty firemen just standing there, standing by the elevators, of all places. Nobody did anything, nobody went up, we all just sat around, and eventually all the firemen went away. Then the announcement came over the loudspeaker that everything was back to normal and everyone could go back to their rooms and everything was cool. So far I haven't found out what happened, why there was an alarm, if somebody activated the alarm as a joke or whatever the deal was. Scott brought his wacked-out '59 Les Paul with him, the one that says "Sludge" on it, he was holding that outside. He and Liz were going to go to the White Hen Pantry down the street, so he gave me his guitar to bring up. I brought it up here and started practicing. Scott came by with some beer and said "do you realize there's a Rockman in my guitar case" and I said "yeah," so he said "go ahead and use it," so I practiced through that for about an hour. Then I started packing, and we're going to leave in a little while. So basically today I went out, got pizza and came back.

Next episode:
FEBRUARY 24 1988

Last episode:
FEBRUARY 21 1988