Trouble comin' every day... still!

Last night I got a quick note from one of my dearest, long-time friends, RR. He taught me the first guitar chords I ever played, we formed a rock'n'roll garage band back in the day, went to the same church, sang in the same choirs and shared a love for Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. One of the first songs we ever played in church was Zappa's reflection on the riots in Watts, a song that continues to be prophetic 50 years later, "Trouble Comin' Every Day." 

Zappa was an iconoclast with a prescient wisdom concerning America politics, economics, popular culture and absurdity. He was a master of marketing - albeit with a barbed wit and wicked eye for detail.  Oddly enough, while in Woodstock just two days ago, I bought this little memento of a former Zappa poster that used to proclaim  Phi Zappa Krappa.

And now we're back in the East Village on sabbatical 50 years later - we'll stroll past both the former Garrick Theatre - where we first saw FZ - and then the Fillmore East - now a freakin' bank - where we saw the Mothers countless times. Sadly, not only are America's streets going to burn yet again, the racial/economic divide is greater than ever. I was encouraged to read this morning that police violence was being faced head-on by Baltimore's prosecutor all the while knowing what an impossible and polarized job it is in law enforcement. Bad, brutal and vicious
behavior must be challenged. So too the agonizing paradox facing police officers on our mean streets.  Some young newscaster said "I never thought I would see such a militarization on the streets of America."  And all I could think was "How old are you son?" It is a sad, hard time that will get much worse...

Well, I seen the fires burnin'
And the local people turnin'
On the merchants and the shops
Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item
Watched the mob  on tt turn and bite 'em
And they say it served 'em right
Because a few of them are white,
And it's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin' "You can't understand me!"
'N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
(No matter if it's black or white)
Because he's out for blood tonight