ARF: Notes and Comments: APOSTROPHE('): St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast

APOSTROPHE(')

St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast

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From: Charles Ulrich' forthcoming book Project/Object In concert, FZ usually explained that St. Alfonzo is the patron saint of smelt fishermen of Portuguese extraction, and that his church is located in the Columbia River Delta. The Portuguese form of the name is Afonso, with no l. The Spanish and Italian form is most often spelled Alfonso, with an s. A church in the United States would use the Latin form of the name: Alphonsus. There are many Catholic churches named after Saint Alphonsus in the United States, including one in Baltimore and one in Los Angeles. But there doesn't seem to be one in the Columbia River Delta area (at the border between Oregon and Washington).
There is more than one saint named Alphonsus, Alfonso, or Alonso. But none of them seems to be the patron saint of any type of fishermen.
Smelt are small, silvery fish belonging to the family Osmeridae. They are commercially harvested on the Columbia River, and it is quite possible that many of the fishermen are Portuguese-Americans.
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	At St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast
From: db832@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Phillip A. Freshour) It's quite common, in the U.S. anyway, for churches to serve pancake breakfasts as fund-raisers. I believe that's the connection.
From: Jack McGavin In 1974 or 75 I spent a week in Quebec City. While driving around on Sunday looking for a church to go to we stopped at a beautiful old church. When we came out we noticed that right next door was the Chapel of St. Alphonse. My cousin had just seen Zappa perform in a hockey rink in Quebec a few years before and we wondered if he may have driven past this same church.
About three years later I met Frank in Philadelphia and I asked him if the chapel in Quebec sparked the idea for the name in the song. He sais "No. Actually there are quite a few St. Alphonso's that I've learned about since that song came out. In fact there was one in East L.A. and they actually served pancake breakfasts. But they had to stop them because somebody got stabbed.But that's East L.A." For what it's worth.
From: Charles Ulrich' forthcoming book Project/Object A pancake breakfast is a common fund-raising event for churches. Pancakes might be accompanied by sausage patties-sausage meat in a flat (non-phallic) shape.
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	As she abused the sausage pattie
From: "Tony Pfarrer" <TONY@UMS1.Lan.McGill.CA> A "Pattie" is a flat, disc-shaped object, generally food. Something like a flat hockey puck. A "sausage pattie" is sausage meat pressed into pattie shape and fried.
From: db832@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Phillip A. Freshour) A "patty" of ground sausage (meat), resembling a hamburger.
From: bhyde@harris.com (Brian Hyde) Sausage patties are a breakfast food in the USA. A sausage roll is cut into disk-shaped pieces and fried in a skillet. (Not recommended for a low-cholesterol diet!) :)
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	At Saint Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast (Hah! Good God! Get off the bus!) Where I stole the mar-juh-reen . . .
From: B.Watson. Negative Dialectis Of Poodle Play p.223-224
Now Ben's notes on mar-juh-rene and even transcription of Sydney, Australia, 26 June 1973 version.
SPELLING MARGARINE
Performances of 'St Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast' on the 1973 tour included a section where Zappa free-associated according to the initial letters of margarine (spelt mar-juh-rene). In Australia the 'm ... under these circumstances could stand for marsupial', the 'r for rebus'. The hyphen 'could be used by a very desperate stenographer for purposes of sexual gratification'. In Sydney someone in the audience lit a firework. Zappa very expertly paused midsong, called on security to remove the culprit, no doubt not wishing to relive his memories of the fire at Geneva [VS: Montreux, of course] in 1971, and then used the routine to both vent his wrath and reassure his audience:
where I stole the mar-juh-rene . . . and here's exactly how I did it. Groping my way, I proceeded into St Alphonso's pantry and located by the mere sensitivity of my fingers themselves the box containing the mysterious mar-juh-rene. And I took out a bit of it and rubbed it on my right eye, I pumped the mystery and the majesty of the mar-juh-rene, and I said the 'm' of the mystery mar-juh-rene must stand for moron, which is the kind of person who lights fireworks in a crowded room, and the 'a' of mar-juh-reen stands for asshole, as if moron was not a good enough word to describe the motherfucker and 'r' in this case stands for rat, which is also what that guy is for lighting fireworks in this room and there is a hyphen, ladies and gentlemen, 'm-a-r-hyphen' the hyphen should be stuffed up his ass, 'm-a-r-hyphen-j' and 'j' is for juvenile hall, which is where they would send him if they caught him in Los Angeles and 'u' is for unguentene, which is a remedy for burns which might be used for a potential victim of his stupidity over there, folks, and then-then (stutters) de-ded-de there's an 'h' which stands for hot, which it would have been if it would have got on you and then there's another hyphen 'm-a-r-hyphen-j-u-h-hyphen'. This hyphen, this second hyphen, this delightful hyphen - you should stuff that one up his ass again too because one's not enough, they're small, and then there's another 'r' which should be for religion - a person like that needs true religion, don't you think? or a girl named Ramona, either way - maybe a little of both, to lay down and pray with him, and then there's an 'e' 'm-a-r-hyphen-j-u-h-hyphen-r-e' it's a very long 'e', that 'e' stands for ejaculation, which is what that thing was doing over there and then there's an 'n' which stands for nude, which is how everyone should sleep when they get home, of course it is, and then there's another 'e' on the end of that - 'm-a-r-hyphen-j-u-h-hyphen-r-e-n-e-to-the-enth-degree-n' - a little tiny weenie dwindling 'e' which shall go undisclosed tonight simply because . . .
VS: For more Yellow Snow cues and variation check out Charles' notes.

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