Wednesday, January 25, 2017

day three of the trump regime: an ironic homage to zappa

Back in 1968, as a part of his critique of bourgeois hippie culture and right-wing politics, Frank Zappa released "We're Only in It for the Money" with The Mothers of Invention.  The album clearly advocates for freaks - those creative, non-traditional artists and social visionaries in every age who celebrate freedom and new vistas beyond the status quo - while making it clear that the flower power conformity of suburban hippies is just as aesthetically bankrupt and morally compromised as straight MOR corporate goals.

The closing track, The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny, urges listeners to first read Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" and then listen to what will become standard operating
procedure whether phony hippies or crypto-fascists win the culture wars. On day three of the Trump regime, Zappa's prescient insights are sobering.

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