ARF LOGO
TINSEL TOWN REBELLION

 The Blue Light

Notes and Comments
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Your Ethos
Your Pathos
Your Porthos
Your Aramis
From: evilbob@tbag.tscs.com (Evil Bob)
  Aramis was/is a popular cologne (I don't know if it is still sold).
From: Vladimir Sovetov <sova@kpbank.ru>
  Weren't Ethos, Porthos and Aramis the names of trois brave mousquetaires from Alexandre Dumas Pere novel?
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  The Three Musketeers, of Alexandre Dumas' novel, were Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. In the lyric above, "Ethos" is a pun on Athos; ethos is the original Greek word for ethics or ethical system. "Pathos" is also Greek and means having a quality that inspires pity in others - the silent film clown Charlie Chaplin usually included moments of pathos, wherein his tramp character was badly treated and the audience felt pity for him. It's the root of the word "pathetic".
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Your Brut Cologne
  Was it brand name or another Avona Galoot?-)))
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  Brut was indeed one of the first scents to be agressively marketed to men.
From: fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller)
  Yes. I think it was even hawked by famous American Football Quaterback, Joe Namath.
  CC
  ThingFish mutated this into Galoot Colognuh. Where we see a full stream of consciousness progression from Classic Literature and Ancient Greek, through modern "hygiene" products into complete illiteracy.
From: Mark Edmonds <mmje@mmje.demon.co.uk>
  In the UK, this cologne was heavily advertised on TV. So much so infact that the catch phrase (UK TV advertising) "Splash it all over" briefly came part of the common language.
 
You're writing home
You are hopeless
Your hopelessness
  See comments about Frank's vocal style in The Man From Utopia N&C
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Oh well, you travel to bars
You also go to Winchell's Doughnuts
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And hang out with the Highway Patrol
From: evilbob@tbag.tscs.com (Evil Bob)
  Winchell's Doughnuts is a popular West Coast donut chain store. It's rather like "Dunkin' Donuts". For some reason, Police Officers (particularly officers of the Highway Patrol) often hang out in Donut shops in the wee hours (presumably on their breaks).
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  We had Winchell's Donuts in Texas too, but it was sold to another company several years ago.
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Sometimes you'll go to a pizza place
You go to Shakey's to get that
From: evilbob@tbag.tscs.com (Evil Bob)
  Shakey's was once a very popular chain of pizza restaurants. I don't know if there are still any left.
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American kind of pizza
That has the ugly, waxey, fake yellow
Kind of cheese on the top...
Maybe you'll go to Straw Hat Pizza,
To get all those artificial ingredients
that never belonged on a pizza in the first place.
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  Nearly identical to Shakey's Pizza. The thing about these places is that they "recreated" an 1890s atmosphere, with the staff in straw hats and striped shirts, etc. That distracted you from the food.
From: "Peter de B. Harrington" <harring@helios.phy.ohiou.edu>
  I stopped at Straw Hat Pizza once in CA to get directions. I think they put stuff on pizza's that don't really belong there (e.g., avocados).
From: fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller)
  Pizza in California, particularly from Chains during that period of history, were probably some of the most appalling. Pizza is a New York/Chicago thing and don't you forget it.
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You go to Santa Monica Boulevard,
You go to the Blue Parrot
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  Must have been a club in L.A. For what it's worth, The Blue Parrot was the name of the club in the movie Casablanca that was operated by Sydney Greenstreet, in competition with Bogart's Rick's Cafe Americain.
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(Death Valley Days straight ahead)
The future is scary
From: evilbob@tbag.tscs.com (Evil Bob)
  Death Valley Days was a popular American TV show of the 50s. What makes this bit of CCC particularly interesting is the little-known fact that Ronald Reagan was the host of the show. The fact that The Blue Light was recorded at the beginning of his "reign" in the 80s puts a definite spin on this lyric.
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  Actually, Death Valley Days lasted as a TV show into the 1970s, but it began as a radio show back in the 1930s.
From: dflync01@homer.louisville.edu (David F Lynch)
  Death Valley Days involved Ronald Reagan in some manner, I believe. "Welcome to Death Valley Days. The driver is either missing or dead."
From: Paul Hinrichs <paulhinr@nando.net>
  Ron replaced "The Old Ranger" (I don't know the actor's name), a wizened old coot so nasty lookin' rattlesnakes fled. I think he died, but it was hard to tell - decomposition had set in on him prematurely.
From: ulrich@sfu.ca (Charles Ulrich)
  Stanley Andrews hosted Death Valley Days as the Old Ranger from 1952 to 1965.
  CC
  For more Death Valley continuity check out Agency Man. AHEAD OF THEIR TIME N&C
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Well, the puddle is rising
It smells like the ocean
A body of water to isolate England
And also Reseda
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  Small town in California near FZ's old stomping grounds.
  CC
  cf Dummy Up[ROXY and Elsewhere album]:
Jeff Simmons: Where you been livin', Reseda?
N.M. Brock: Naw, San Jose.
  also cf Capt. Beefheart, "Hair Pie Bake 1," from Trout Mask Replica:
Beefheart: "Where did you move here from?"
Kid: "Reseda."
Beefheart: "Reseda.......she's nice."
Kid: "?????" (silently)
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The oil in patches
All over Atlantis, Atlantis
You remember Atlantis
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Donovan, the guy
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with the brocade coat
  CC
  OK, Donovan is an english singer (see 200 Motels) N&C with the hit about Atlantis. But what about the coat?
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  Brocade: a rich oriental silk fabric with raised patterns in gold and silver (Webster's Dictionary). Donovan wore a coat like this as part of his "costume" around the time that he recorded Atlantis. Can be glimpsed in the photo of him on the cover of "Sunshine Superman," I think.
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Smoke a banana
You would scrape the stuff off the middle
You would bake it
You would smoke it
You even thought you was getting ripped from it
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  During the original 1960s LSD California hippie days, the idea went around that when the hippies didn't have any other drugs, they would scrape off the insides of banana peels and smoke that for a high. Now whether that was based in reality, or just some nightclub comic's idea of a joke, I don't remember, but as a joke it got used a lot for several years.
From: "Peter de B. Harrington" <harring@helios.phy.ohiou.edu>
  Back in the late 60's there was a myth circulating that if you baked a banana peel in an oven, and scraped the insides of the peel so that you could roll it into a joint, smoke it and get high just like from pot. I had some friends that actually attempted this, and all they obtained was a headache. I think, the reasoning was pot smoke smells sweet and bananas smell sweet, therefore pot and bananas are inherently the same when it comes to "getting ripped."
From: johan_wikberg@ssco.se (johan wikberg)
  Several people have commented on these lines, but I think they've missed the point:
  This banana drug myth did not die - several people at my high school (late 1980s) tried it. (The original rumour was spread by hippes as a put-on.) But THE POINT IS that DONOVAN recorded a song (a big hit) called "MELLOW YELLOW", which is about smoking the banana drug.
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Woop! Atlantis,
they could really get down there
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The plankton, the krill
The giant underwater pyramid, the squid decor
Excuse me, Todd
The big ol' giant underwater door
From: spb0377@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu (Pat Buzby)
  In an interview I've heard where this came up, FZ replied that he couldn't remember what he was referring to, but that it was probably a reference to someone he saw in the audience or something like that. I (and many others) always figured that it was some sort of reference to Todd Rundgren, but there's no way to substantiate this that I know of.
  ....
  I have one live tape from '77 where Zappa shouts out "Todd Rundgren, ladies and gentlemen!" at the end of the first verse of "Dirty Love."
From: lantz@primenet.com (Bill Lantz)
  I think someone also mentioned that Todd's stage had a giant underwater look to it during one point in the late 70's.
From: David Bagsby <dcb@utulsa.edu>
  I also thought the "excuse me Todd" was refering to Rundgren, but if you listen close, right before Frank says that, you can hear Ike or Ray talking off mic to the audience saying "Hi Todd"...so my guess is that's it's some friend of the band in the front row and Zappa's chiding the offending greeter. Wear headphones and you can hear it clearly.
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Your language
Your future
You can't even speak your own fucking language
  Here's an explanation of the phrase meaning that you could enjoy thanks to tireless
Patrick David Neve <splat@darkwing.uoregon.edu>


Relix magazine, Vol. 6 No. 5, Nov. 1979

F_R_A_N_K Z_A_P_P_A He's Only 38 and He Knows How to Nasty
------------------------------------------------------------

By CLARK PETERSON
  ZAPPA - What answer? What question?
  RELIX - The answer to how to live your life.
  ZAPPA - Sure. Ultimately, it does.
  RELIX - Paul Kantner says he doesn't feel the need for fulfillment just the search. Do you feel the same way?
  ZAPPA - (sarcastically) I'm not that metaphysical kind of a guy. I don't talk about fulfillment and searching and all that. That's for people from San Francisco. That's all they care about up there. They have so much brain damage from all the LSD tests the government did on them that they can't even talk English anymore. They're swimming around in pools of metaphors and cosmic debris.
  CC
  And for the old despise of Frisco way of life see also
  200 Motels. Tuna Fish Promenade.
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Your meat loaf
Don't let your meat loaf
 
From: bzavitz@fres2.glfc.forestry.ca (Brian Zavitz)
Meatloaf is a food. I don't know how to make it, I don't know where it originates from, but it is meat in a loaf format and when prepared well, it is quite good.
  Meat is a euphimism (sp?) for penis.
  Loaf as a verb means to hang around, be lazy, do nothing.
  When you have this information, the quote is quite funny. However, some people may consider it juvenile if you were to run around repeating it over and over. I think that Zappa means to use it in a juvenile vein, because of the way that he laughs after saying it. Maybe this part about the laughing can only make sense when you've heard it. Perhaps Zappa is making fun of the people who find this amusing? Perhaps he's making fun of the people who find this juvenile?
  Regardless, it's funny. Believe me.
From: Joe.Palmer@lambada.oit.unc.edu (joseph palmer)
  Well, that provides one dimension of the joke. But it ties into meatloaf the, unfortunately American, "food" made by mom's through out the nation (actually, some moms make really good meatloaf, but it's a great dish for a bad cook to show off how bad they really are with). And ther reference to the singer Meatloaf (who, of course, recently had a come back).
  Like all good Zappa jokes this one has multiple demensions that play on each other.
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  Oh, bullshit. No one can say for sure it's a purely American dish. Loaves have been around for centuries. It is, to be sure, a dish common to family gatherings, church suppers and the like, but a well-made meatloaf can be a real taste treat.
From: fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller)
  Surely the foundation for the meatloaf is the "Solisbury Steak" which I hope actually did originate in England
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Heh, heh, heh
Your Micro-Nanette
From: "Mr. Mike" <a02632@giant.mindlink.net>
  A Nanette was a small mop used for cleaning the dust off your car. I think it was impregnated with some kind of chemical which would "attract" the dirt to the mop.
  And the last question!-))) Could anyone explain what's this song about?
From: John Henley <jhenley@mail.utexas.edu>
  Not me - never could.
From: fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller)
  Pop Culture, and the de-evolution of Language.
From: dflync01@homer.louisville.edu (David F Lynch)
  Vocal improv. A lyrical extension of the geographically-based bits of Billy the Mountain.
From: "Peter de B. Harrington" <harring@helios.phy.ohiou.edu>
  I always associate this song with peer pressure, including the pressure of being ignorant to fit in. The lyrics varied quite a bit, and usually associated with desperate attempts to find sex partners (one of my favorites is from a Bloomington '82 show at Indiana University and refers to hanging out in the library to pick up a librarian), which connects to the don't let your meat loaf, which is also Frank having fun with the language.
From: Vladimir Sovetov <sova@kpbank.ru>
  Well, now it seems that this RELIX interview unearthed by Pat and cited above leave no mystery at all about the song meaning. Doesn't it?
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