Zappa


Michael Stuart Kelly

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Zappa

There is a very curious thread going on over at Solo Passion: Why Catholicism Is Beating Objectivism's Ass ... Still

It is a festival of nastiness, posturing, solid information, boneheaded proclamations, great music, horrible and mediocre music, and so on. A total collage with no center.

My interest was piqued because of the people bashing Perigo (of course), but that would not be enough for me to comment on it here. What interested me was the discussion of Frank Zappa. A weird debate developed over him.

I was never interested in Zappa before other than at a huge distance, so I took a look-see. Here is a small part of what I examined, and a few thoughts.

To start with, one of Perigo's harshest critics is a musician, a guy named Billy Beck. For as much as I enjoyed his comments (and he is a hoot), I found two items totally off-key. The first is that he treats Zappa as an object of worship. Or at least he insinuates this through his worshipful demeanor and belligerent proclamations, even as he tries to insinuate otherwise. The second is that I listened to his band (he provided a link) and it is gawd-awful. See for yourself (you don't have to listen to the whole thing to get the gist, although the second half is far better than the first):

I admit that a recording of a live show in a nightclub usually results in terrible sound and I could mentally get around level distortions and things like that from having done it so often. But the guitar was so out of tune it hurt. Also, there is a trick when you have a lot of medium frequencies all bunched up together. You use a spectrum analyzer to thin out mid-range frequencies in one instrument while you beef those frequencies up in another (and vice-versa and so on). This way when both (or more) instruments are sitting in the same frequency range, you can distinguish one from the other. In the recording, there is only a mishmashed jumble of midrange timbres competing with each other. They tried to compensate for this with sheer volume, but it doesn't work. I could go on, but there is no need to.

I generally wish people well and hope they do better. I have not heard other works by Live Coots, so I admit that this might have been an off-night, with everyone in their 5th whiskey and so on...

I wanted to hear the song as Zappa did it, so here is another clip:

FZ - I'm The Slime (Mothers of Invention on Saturday Night Live in 1976)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6gXJjbbFX4

Ahhhh...

Now that makes sense. (Also, notice how you can discern what instruments are playing what at any given moment.)

I even found the song to be a hilarious satire about the horrible crap that is presented on TV all the time. (Funny how that hasn't changed...)

As to plugging Zappa as some kind of god or mind-blowing experience, I don't think he would have liked that. Zappa was a professional entertainer and I heard him say so in many places. Here is an interview where he basically says he prefers old geezer record company executives chomping on their cigars and looking out for profit than the younger zealots. It's funny how he is so Rand-like at times. His point was that innovation can be profitable and he respected the old guys who may not have understood the music, but they certainly understood profit enough to take a risk. He does not seem to have such a high opinion of hippy executives.

As to interviews, the following is Zappa confronting America's best (at the time) from the conservative wing, even as he was opposing Al Gore's prudish wife, Tipper, in her hapless anti-profanity crusade to save the souls of the young-ens. I can't think of anything better that shows what is wrong with the conservatives than this interview. It is eerily pertinent to today. Just change the issue and you get the same old same old ("respectable" people more worried about how to control others while the strange fringe people carry the banner for individual rights).

, with Tom Braden, Robert Novak, and John Lofton (from the Washington Times)

All I can think of is what a bunch of jerks. The only one even slightly interested in individual rights other than Zappa was Braden. Their thing was sanctimonious anti-profanity. What's worse, in my mind's eye, I could see each of these gentlemen pulling out their stash of Playboy magazines when they thought no one was looking.

I was already impressed with Zappa's musical ability, but then I saw the following interview on the Today Show with Jamie Gangel, which gives snippets of his classical music compositions. I liked what I heard. I liked it very much. But it was still in an entertainment kind of way, not deep contemplative art. (In another interview, he charmingly stated that you get the London Symphony to record your music by paying them. And if you are controversial, you pay them a lot of money.)

One part of the interview jumped out at me within the context of that weird thread on Solo Passion. Zappa was showing Gangel some of the crazy noises on the synthesizer and commenting on how composition is putting together sounds.

Jamie Gangel: I don't know if it's even fair to ask... how much of it is for the sound and how much of it was for the humor?

Zappa: Both. You know, I think it is... The goal here is entertainment.

Noted. Entertainment. Not high art.

Zappa was no god, but he was a far better thinker than many modern intellectuals, and he was one hell of a talented entertainer who helped make the world a better place than what it was when he came on board.

I can think of far worse things to be.

Michael

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Zappa has always struck me as a musician for musicians bored with music, in the way that some esoteric jazz musicians appeal to other musicians not for the simple beauty of their accessible melodies, but for the way they play with technical skills. This parallels James Joyce, who is often enjoyed by writers who are bored with writing as a transparent medium. It doesn't bother me that people enjoy him. I myself just don't.

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Michael -

Zappa was certainly very articulate on that program. I especially enjoyed his comment about the greater danger being from fascist theocrats. I found the other participants on the program to be pretty disgusting - lousy argumentation, inability to stay on topic, appeals to emotion, etc...

Bill P

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Michael,

Thank you for assembling these items about Frank Zappa.

I started listening to Zappa's music in high school. I'd become interested in other forms of music by the mid-1970s and I didn't follow his later work as closely. By then, he had learned that certain gross-out themes in the titles or lyrics would reliably draw attention from certain audience demographics, and had come to rely more on musicians with hard-rock proclivities (though they were all highly proficient on their instruments).

Ted's comparison with esoteric jazz musicians strikes me as overdrawn. (But then, I like some jazz musicians who I'm reasonably sure Ted would consider esoteric :) ) In part, this is because Zappa did see himself as an entertainer—which would horrify most of the esoteric crew.

Zappa could and did write accessible melodies. Here are some, off the top of my head: "Any Way the Wind Blows," "The Duke of Prunes," "Who Needs the Peace Corps," "Peaches en Regalia," "Twenty Small Cigars," and "Oh No."

I haven't commented over at SOLOP for a long time, but Mr. Perigo's Schadenfreude over FZ's early death from cancer was too much.

Robert Campbell

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Michael,

Thank you for assembling these items about Frank Zappa.

I started listening to Zappa's music in high school. I'd become interested in other forms of music by the mid-1970s and I didn't follow his later work as closely. By then, he had learned that certain gross-out themes in the titles or lyrics would reliably draw attention from certain audience demographics, and had come to rely more on musicians with hard-rock proclivities (though they were all highly proficient on their instruments).

Ted's comparison with esoteric jazz musicians strikes me as overdrawn. (But then, I like some jazz musicians who I'm reasonably sure Ted would consider esoteric :) ) In part, this is because Zappa did see himself as an entertainer—which would horrify most of the esoteric crew.

Zappa could and did write accessible melodies. Here are some, off the top of my head: "Any Way the Wind Blows," "The Duke of Prunes," "Who Needs the Peace Corps," "Peaches en Regalia," "Twenty Small Cigars," and "Oh No."

I haven't commented over at SOLOP for a long time, but Mr. Perigo's Schadenfreude over FZ's early death from cancer was too much.

Robert Campbell

I would add Watermelon in Easter Hay to that list of melodic compositions. I'll stop now before going on way too long...

Bill

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Well, my brother-in-law is an Objectivist, and he likes Zappa. I have only probably heard six songs by him, so I am no expert. I simply got the impression that other things like humor might be more important to him than melody. He obviously had technical skill, hence my jazz analogy.

As for the music snobbery, the bottom line is that a person's inability to enjoy something is never a proof of virtue. Yes. There are an infinite number of things any of us doesn't like. I am not interested. Tell me what you do like.

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Well, my brother-in-law is an Objectivist, and he likes Zappa. I have only probably heard six songs by him, so I am no expert. I simply got the impression that other things like humor might be more important to him than melody. He obviously had technical skill, hence my jazz analogy.

As for the music snobbery, the bottom line is that a person's inability to enjoy something is never a proof of virtue. Yes. There are an infinite number of things any of us doesn't like. I am not interested. Tell me what you do like.

A quick recommendation: Listen to the CD Hot Rats.

Bill P

Edited by Bill P
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Well, my brother-in-law is an Objectivist, and he likes Zappa. I have only probably heard six songs by him, so I am no expert. I simply got the impression that other things like humor might be more important to him than melody. He obviously had technical skill, hence my jazz analogy.

As for the music snobbery, the bottom line is that a person's inability to enjoy something is never a proof of virtue. Yes. There are an infinite number of things any of us doesn't like. I am not interested. Tell me what you do like.

A quick recommendation: Listen to the CD Hot Rats.

Bill Parr

Thanks, Bill. But it would be a lot more helpful to me if you could recommend a few good songs, by title, I can find on youtube, since I probably won't see my bro-in-law until t'giving.

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You say the hill's too steep to climb,

Chiding!

You say you'd like to see me try,

Climbing!

You pick the place and I'll choose the time

And I'll climb

The hill in my own way

just wait a while, for the right day

And as I rise above the treeline and the clouds

I look down hear the sound of the things you said today

Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd, smiling

Merciless, the magistrate turns 'round, frowning

and who's the fool who wears the crown

Go down in your own way

And everyday is the right day

And as you rise above the fearlines in his frown

You look down

Hear the sound of the faces in the crowd

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Well, my brother-in-law is an Objectivist, and he likes Zappa. I have only probably heard six songs by him, so I am no expert. I simply got the impression that other things like humor might be more important to him than melody. He obviously had technical skill, hence my jazz analogy.

As for the music snobbery, the bottom line is that a person's inability to enjoy something is never a proof of virtue. Yes. There are an infinite number of things any of us doesn't like. I am not interested. Tell me what you do like.

A quick recommendation: Listen to the CD Hot Rats.

Bill P

Thanks, Bill. But it would be a lot more helpful to me if you could recommend a few good songs, by title, I can find on youtube, since I probably won't see my bro-in-law until t'giving.

Peaches en Regalia

Watermelon in Easter Hay

Twenty Small Cigars

Chunga's Revenge

That will do for starters.

Enjoy,

Bill P

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I haven't commented over at SOLOP for a long time, but Mr. Perigo's Schadenfreude over FZ's early death from cancer was too much.

Robert,

These kinds of things constantly pop out in Perigo's rhetoric. Just a little while ago he called for President Obama, when still a candidate, to be hung if he were elected so he would not be able to take office. He later retracted, but I don't believe he is sincere in the retraction. I believe he would rejoice if President Obama were hung.

Despite all the hysteria he presents in saying he is a defender of heroes, yada yada yada, I believe he is a bully who greatly values death. And these kinds of statements constitute evidence. (The fact that he is an incompetent bully does not change the nature of being a bully.)

I have planned some literary work on character because it is perplexing to me that a person can read such a strong appeal to reason as Rand made and still be a moral jackass. I have been mulling over a point you raised—the issue of Schadenfreude over the death of others. I believe this hits something fundamental.

I have seen people of two bents when thinking about the death of others:

1. Those who lament the death of any human life, and

2. Those who rejoice in the death of humans who are not like them.

These are not black and white positions, but instead emotional starting points. So you get a mix more often than not, but if you pay attention, you can discern which part is more fundamental in any one individual. People constantly gives themselves away.

The attitude a person has toward a prisoner executed under capital punishment is a good example. A person of the first bent might agree with the justice of it and endorse that particular punishment in that particular case, but he would treat it as an unpleasant form of payment enforced to keep the rules of society in place, especially the ones covering heinous crimes. Underneath he would feel a tinge of sadness and the execution of the prisoner would not be a good day for him. A person of the second bent would have a party and engage in a lot of mocking. The more contained will not make a big issue out of it, but if pressed for an opinion, they will say things like, "Good. Now there is one less piece of shit walking the earth."

I believe there is an emotional premise involved. This is an emotion that starts at the very beginning of when a concept is formed in a person's mind (when still a baby). The emotion in the case of those who rejoice in death is (on an infant level) something like a drive to control others and rage when they cannot bend the will of others to their wishes. The emotional premise for people of the lamenting human death bent is (on an infant level) something like overwhelming curiosity about the world wedded to love of life.

A person can change his emotional premises (which is one of the things therapy is all about), but those like the person under discussion never want to. They wallow in their emotional slop and spend a great deal of their intellect trying to justify it, always rejoicing when they "trounce" someone who detects what they really are and says so.

I believe the harsh opposition against Perigo's musical opinions on that thread derives from this. Otherwise, who could ever care about the musical taste of a dude like that?

People know he bullies other people into silence or into publicly agreeing with him. Or worse, he sets up "us against them" tribal categories and assigns people he disagrees with into enemy tribal camps with all kinds of derogatory hip jargon and outright foul language as icing to the cake. And for as much as he he says he believes in letting people enjoy what music they find enjoyable, people sense what he is up to but don't have the words for it. Every time they try to express it, he cries foul because he has provided lip service to the contrary. But if you ever give a dude like that real power, you will soon learn exactly what the real issue is.

Anyway, enough rambling and back to Zappa. Incidentally, I detect in Zappa, for as gross as he got, that he was a person who lamented the death of any human life. He had good character and did not strive to control others.

Michael

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What about those who rejoice when their enemies and tormentors are overthrown and fall down? Do you find anything wrong with that?

I still celebrate the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to this day. Every August 6 I light a jahrzeit candle (a seven day candle for commemorating the death of someone close or special, usually a relative). The candle burns until August 9 and then I pee on it and put it out. I cherish those two days dearly. I will never forget nor will I ever forgive what happened on Dec 7, 1941. Never. Not while I live.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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I haven't commented over at SOLOP for a long time, but Mr. Perigo's Schadenfreude over FZ's early death from cancer was too much.

Robert,

These kinds of things constantly pop out in Perigo's rhetoric. Just a little while ago he called for President Obama, when still a candidate, to be hung if he were elected so he would not be able to take office. He later retracted, but I don't believe he is sincere in the retraction. I believe he would rejoice if President Obama were hung.

Despite all the hysteria he presents in saying he is a defender of heroes, yada yada yada, I believe he is a bully who greatly values death. And these kinds of statements constitute evidence. (The fact that he is an incompetent bully does not change the nature of being a bully.)

I have planned some literary work on character because it is perplexing to me that a person can read such a strong appeal to reason as Rand made and still be a moral jackass. I have been mulling over a point you raised—the issue of Schadenfreude over the death of others. I believe this hits something fundamental.

I have seen people of two bents when thinking about the death of others:

1. Those who lament the death of any human life, and

2. Those who rejoice in the death of humans who are not like them.

These are not black and white positions, but instead emotional starting points. So you get a mix more often than not, but if you pay attention, you can discern which part is more fundamental in any one individual. People constantly gives themselves away.

The attitude a person has toward a prisoner executed under capital punishment is a good example. A person of the first bent might agree with the justice of it and endorse that particular punishment in that particular case, but he would treat it as an unpleasant form of payment enforced to keep the rules of society in place, especially the ones covering heinous crimes. Underneath he would feel a tinge of sadness and the execution of the prisoner would not be a good day for him. A person of the second bent would have a party and engage in a lot of mocking. The more contained will not make a big issue out of it, but if pressed for an opinion, they will say things like, "Good. Now there is one less piece of shit walking the earth."

I believe there is an emotional premise involved. This is an emotion that starts at the very beginning of when a concept is formed in a person's mind (when still a baby). The emotion in the case of those who rejoice in death is (on an infant level) something like a drive to control others and rage when they cannot bend the will of others to their wishes. The emotional premise for people of the lamenting human death bent is (on an infant level) something like overwhelming curiosity about the world wedded to love of life.

A person can change his emotional premises (which is one of the things therapy is all about), but those like the person under discussion never want to. They wallow in their emotional slop and spend a great deal of their intellect trying to justify it, always rejoicing when they "trounce" someone who detects what they really are and says so.

I believe the harsh opposition against Perigo's musical opinions on that thread derives from this. Otherwise, who could ever care about the musical taste of a dude like that?

People know he bullies other people into silence or into publicly agreeing with him. Or worse, he sets up "us against them" tribal categories and assigns people he disagrees with into enemy tribal camps with all kinds of derogatory hip jargon and outright foul language as icing to the cake. And for as much as he he says he believes in letting people enjoy what music they find enjoyable, people sense what he is up to but don't have the words for it. Every time they try to express it, he cries foul because he has provided lip service to the contrary. But if you ever give a dude like that real power, you will soon learn exactly what the real issue is.

Anyway, enough rambling and back to Zappa. Incidentally, I detect in Zappa, for as gross as he got, that he was a person who lamented the death of any human life. He had good character and did not strive to control others.

Michael

Michael; This is a good post.

Your classifying of people into the two groups was interesting and informative. Now the tough question: Which group would Ayn Rand be in?

I have to say I think she would be in group two. I remember reading a comment on the infamous Whitaker Chambers' review that while his famous comment that every page said "Get thee to the gas chamber." is not true about the book he was on to something about Ayn Rand.

I think it is the attitude of many but not all of the ARI people. The first attitude is absolutely the TAS-TOC group.

I must add that my personal attitude is summed up by a quote from Clarence Darrow who said he had never killed anyone but he enjoyed reading some obituaries.

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What about those who rejoice when their enemies and tormentors are overthrown and fall down? Do you find anything wrong with that?

Bob,

Inside my mind, when I judge people, I make a huge distinction between the joy some people feel when hostilities and threats are ended, and the joy other people feel when death is administered.

In the first case, death is administered, but it is part of a bigger picture of valuing one's own life. You mentioned Hiroshima. I see people who rejoice the end of WWII, even with the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, but they still wince when they think of the need to do that.

There are others who think the Jap bastards had it coming to them and, like I said, are glad those pieces of shit are no longer walking the earth. They get deep pleasure from contemplating a reality where this is the only way things work and love the idea of beating other human beings into submission.

I have my animal moments and I am quite competitive when I get on a roll, but on the deepest level of my being, I do not identify with the second group. And for all your bluster and hate-kill-scalp talk, I have detected that you don't either.

Now the tough question: Which group would Ayn Rand be in?
I have to say I think she would be in group two.

Chris,

This is not tough to me at all. Rand was obviously in the first camp (lamenting when human beings are killed). When asked about capital punishment (I think it is in the Q&A book), she talked about the justice (in payment terms) of forfeiting your life if you took another person's life. But she argued against capital punishment because man is not omnipotent and can make mistakes—most importantly, she mentioned that executing someone is not something you can undo if you did make a mistake. If I remember correctly, she stated something to the effect that keeping all of mankind's most loathsome murderers alive but confined was worth knowing that not one innocent person would be executed. She valued human life that much.

Michael

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Thanks to Maestro MSK for the thorough and just treatment on Zappa.

I haven't yet bothered to go "over there" and sludge through the thread in question, probably won't, can only imagine. I must be aging because I have lost some of my zeal for checking out roadside massacres.

I normally am not too hard on guys who are about what this Beck fellow seems to be about--for one, I figure, at least he landed on Frank as a primary influence, and that could be worse. I kind of feel uncomfortable and embarrassed around this kind of thing though, because I feel the musician/artist/writer/whatever has gotten "stuck--" never getting past that springboard stage that comes from encountering and vibing with one of The Great Ones. There are a lot of people that are like this about FZ and ended up this way. I don't know how Frank felt to this kind of stuff, other than being sure that he looked at it as he did many things--a bug under his microscope. Probably wouldn't have liked the renderings, that's for sure.

My sentiment for FZ is deep; he is beloved to me for many reasons, and I consider him to be one of the greatest ever American Composers. Also, there will never again be guitar played like he played--but we do have Steve Vai, arguably the best rock guitarist on the planet. Vai came out of the Zappa camp, having been recruited young based on his amazing ability to transcribe Zappa's work, something that in some cases even Zappa questioned the possibility of doing.

Two other things that I always remember about Frank--his ingenious use of compositional techniques (particularly the hemiola), and the fact that he virtually singlehandedly resurrected the work of composer Edgar Varese (and while he was still alive!).

Zappa was notorious as a harsh taskmaster in rehearsals--his charts were incredibly, super-humanly difficult and he stood for very little less than perfection. I think maybe the only guy that he ever kept in his band who couldn't read music was Adrian Belew (understandably so, if you know of his work) and even then, there was a penalty involving Belew having to wear a French Maid costume on stage for awhile.

Frank fostered incredible musicians into the world...Adrian Belew, Steve Vai, Ralph Armstrong, Terry Bozzio, Ruth Underwood...the list goes on and on.

Yup, one of the few I cried over when I heard of his passing.

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As for the music snobbery, the bottom line is that a person's inability to enjoy something is never a proof of virtue. Yes. There are an infinite number of things any of us doesn't like. I am not interested. Tell me what you do like.

Exactly.

Mr. Perigo often gives the impression that his great love is not the music that he claims to prize, but the act of denouncing and excoriating the fans of the music that he professes to deplore.

Robert Campbell

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Rich,

My recollection is that Roy Estrada (bass guitarist in the early Mothers of Invention) couldn't read music. But that would have been before Zappa wrote the Black Page...

Robert Campbell

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Here's Watermelon in Easter Hay.

I see the technical skill, and can imagine that Zappa might have been a demanding performer. But those are meta issues. What is of primary interest in music (as opposed to for musicians) is the emotional impact of music. What song of Zappa's will make me feel the same thrill as Hey Jude or Les Preludes?

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Mr. Perigo often gives the impression that his great love is not the music that he claims to prize, but the act of denouncing and excoriating the fans of the music that he professes to deplore.

Robert,

This is spot on as attested by his behavior. Perigo is never what he claims to be. His thing is bullying qua bullying—on a metaphysical level as how life could and should be. He has no commitment to truth and facts that I am aware of when this sense of life kicks in.

I constantly see him distorting issues to feign being the victim so he can sucker punch someone. His present crying the victim thing is once again being "blacklisted" and "banned" by TAS. This is a flat-out distortion and anyone with have a mind to look at facts can see it.

A talk by Perigo was canceled one summer and rational reasons were given. That was all that happened.

He was not, to my knowledge, prohibited from attending the conference, nor is he prohibited from submitting new proposals. But rather than go to the seminar, he went to the region where it was held to try to leech off of TAS's audience to advance his malice.

I don't have confirmation on my view that he is not banned by TAS, but I never heard otherwise so it is reasonable to assume that he is not. If I am mistaken, I request one of the TAS people to correct me.

He certainly deserves to be blacklisted and banned for nonstop malice and irrationality, but that is another issue. That's my view, not any TAS policy I am aware of.

Michael

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Michael,

To my knowledge, it's gone like this:

Mr. Perigo spoke at two or three TAS events through 2004, without incident.

At one point (1999 or so) he was even offered a job by TAS. Before taking up his duties at the TAS office, he picked a fight with Roger Donway over a newsletter article and "flounced," to use his language. TAS still brought him back as a speaker after the flouncing.

In 2006, Mr. Perigo accepted another speaking invitation. A couple of months later, he picked a public fight with Will Thomas over the invite and publicly reneged on it, because he didn't want to speak at an event at which Barbara Branden would be appearing. Reneging also advanced his relationships with Diana Hsieh and Jim Valliant, both of whom then wanted him to boycott TAS events.

Messrs. Perigo and Valliant then staged their counter-event at the Borders bookstore in Orange, California, drawing a mostly hostile audience of 12 or so.

In 2008, Will Thomas foolishly offered Mr. Perigo another speaking invitation. After many protests from TAS regulars, it was withdrawn three weeks later, ostensibly on account of Mr. Perigo's "incivility" (including his nonstop derogatory references to TAS).

So far as I know, Mr. Perigo was not told that he would be unwelcome if he wanted to attend future TAS events. In fact, this kind of ban strikes me as unlikely. But someone who knows more may be in a position to correct me.

Robert Campbell

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What about those who rejoice when their enemies and tormentors are overthrown and fall down? Do you find anything wrong with that?

Bob,

Inside my mind, when I judge people, I make a huge distinction between the joy some people feel when hostilities and threats are ended, and the joy other people feel when death is administered.

In the first case, death is administered, but it is part of a bigger picture of valuing one's own life. You mentioned Hiroshima. I see people who rejoice the end of WWII, even with the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, but they still wince when they think of the need to do that.

There are others who think the Jap bastards had it coming to them and, like I said, are glad those pieces of shit are no longer walking the earth. They get deep pleasure from contemplating a reality where this is the only way things work and love the idea of beating other human beings into submission.

I have my animal moments and I am quite competitive when I get on a roll, but on the deepest level of my being, I do not identify with the second group. And for all your bluster and hate-kill-scalp talk, I have detected that you don't either.

Now the tough question: Which group would Ayn Rand be in?
I have to say I think she would be in group two.

Chris,

This is not tough to me at all. Rand was obviously in the first camp (lamenting when human beings are killed). When asked about capital punishment (I think it is in the Q&A book), she talked about the justice (in payment terms) of forfeiting your life if you took another person's life. But she argued against capital punishment because man is not omnipotent and can make mistakes—most importantly, she mentioned that executing someone is not something you can undo if you did make a mistake. If I remember correctly, she stated something to the effect that keeping all of mankind's most loathsome murderers alive but confined was worth knowing that not one innocent person would be executed. She valued human life that much.

Michael

Michael; Your point is a good one. I will think about it and get back to you.

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Robert; I think that if Lindsay showed up at a TAS event he would be made to feel uncomfortable. I don't know of anyone who attends TAS who can double as a bouncer.

Chris,

I'm amused. I'm beginning to wonder if people here have read Truth and Toleration. It asked for debate on movement issues. Of all of the people voicing opposition to Lindsay, you know that only you and Jordan Zimmerman even attended the event. I'm beginning to think I should have been more vigorous in my support of this case and paid Lindsay's way from New Zealand to attend Portland as a participant, but I didn't think of it at the time.

I think there would have been plenty of people who would have welcomed him.

Jim

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Right you are Ted. I have to admit I don't like Zappa's music, but then I don't like Larry Flynt's pornography either, but I vigorously protect their right under the First Amendment and have never rejoiced at their health problems.

Jim

Edited by James Heaps-Nelson
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