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Zowie Fenderblast Interview part three

Zowie interview part three 5 June 2010

ZF: for anything to have any meaning for me anymore it has to fit, it has to be very much like a key in a lock. It has to be right. On every important (indistinct) approaching it, and I don’t-just doing something as a show or a song or anything. Basically just having a normal approach-it’s not just do something different but apply it differently and things like that. I'm not trying to be cutting edge it’s just I'm trying not to be bored.

JH: Okay

ZF: So what happened was this: I did something and an entirely new, completely different manifestation of the original idea came into being and I absolutely love it. Because, it is without limits and it’s very simple to do; it’s all very simple to do. And I must be very very (laughs) lucky or some type of coincidence happens or you for some reason you stumble upon this just by accident or something to that effect-you’ll never know I did it.

JH: (laughs)

ZF: except they’ll be a ton of material there but until you punch in the right code-simplest thing in the world-until you punch in the right symbol, it won’t appear. They’ll never find it. and uh…at the very end of it I realized I could use a binary code if I wanted to-not that I want to obscure anything but just to keep track of things like 1,2,3,4,5-so I didn’t want to title any of the videos.

JH: that reminds me of when the yippies would send joints to people in the phone book.

ZF: but the thing is, what I'm going to be doing is, what I'm gonna be doing is and to make absolutely no effort and try to make sure there is no connections to be made. there’s two ways. For instance using the medium of You Tube.

JH: Right

ZF: It’s been out there for years. When somebody posts a video on you tube there are two methods of disseminating that video. (indistinct) you try to promote it: subscribe to my video, rate this video-blah blah blah blah. And one of the automatic functions is, I think they call them “tags” or something

JH: yeah

ZF: so if you’re going to do, like suppose you’re going to do a video on-say Led Zeppelin. Okay this is me talking about Led Zeppelin but I want to make sure that people that are interested in Led Zeppelin-so in the tag section I'm going to put Jimmy Page, Robert Plant-blah blah blah blah blah. So the machine itself will make these connections and you’ll (your video) appear right? Well what if they’re no connections?  what if there are no patterns? and the only way you can find this is by punching in the right code. In the vast, the vast sea of information that You Tube in of itself is-you’ll never find these fucking videos and they’ll never appear. Unless you punch in the code. But if somebody does find them and then it starts to leak out, then-well whatever-I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.

JH: well if you put a video on you tube the first thing I would do is share it to Facebook and then all 66 of my friends on facebook would see it. Oh Jim has a video up. Of those 66 people six or 7 of my friends will look at it. and if I wanted to I could send them a note and say hey can you put this on your page?

ZF: Right

JH: facebook’s an interesting tool like that.

ZF: well I don’t even know what facebook is, it’s some site, a social network-I don’t know anything about it. But it’s odd because if you look at the idea about promoting something, about putting something out and the reason why you present yourself on video or pick up a guitar and record something or whatever is to get yourself out there. For a variety of reasons: maybe you have something to sell, or maybe you just want to express yourself. Or you want to complain about something, or you want to make people aware of your existence. I dunno. it doesn’t matter. But the point is just like-and it’s mirrored in a million different aspects all around us, is to multiply, to spread. And I…I want to bait a trap.

JH: Right

ZF: But I don’t want to-

JH: But already since you-

ZF: But I don’t want to promote it or to be identified with it.

JH: Okay

ZF: I made a discovery yesterday and it was linked to you. Because, I’ve pretty much not had any interaction with people, anybody with any intelligence for about ten years. As far as an outside, besides my wife-

JH: Right

ZF: and it occurred to me, it’s like: well-you get this entity that comes into my life. Maybe I could start poking out into the outside world. Not in any way that normal people do I suppose. And I have nothing to fear, it’s just I’m bored stiff the way most people put things out.

JH: Okay

ZF: it gets back to the kind of things we were talking about, it’s like why Zowie Fenderblast? why Irving God? well I got a new name now.

JH: Okay

ZF: and I won’t tell it to you on tape

JH: Good, good

ZF: I’ll tell it to you later.

(tape recorder shut off)

ZF: This is a story that demonstrates the signal to noise ratio. That I must often encounter at work, it’s about the Loch Ness monster. many years ago when I got my first computer, I had never been on the internet before and I didn’t know what to do. So, for the first experiment I decided to just type in a word from the search engine and see what came up. I had never done it before. And I don’t know what possessed me to pick this particular subject but it just seemed like well: why not? And I typed in Loch Ness monster. And suddenly I was at, I had a choice of hundreds of different sites about the Loch Ness monster. But the one that fascinated me the most I think it was the original loch ness website. What was cool about it and I was very much aware of this because it was all new to me. There I was, I was sitting in my living room and I was able, live, to actually scan both above and below the surface of the Loch Ness as I was back in my living room. Because of this technology they have live cams. So I felt this was novel…so I'm at work the next day, and it was the end of the day and my convicts were assembling for me to put them in the van back to prison. And I was, they were around me and I was sitting on the back deck of our office. I was talking to my boss, he was hanging out there too. And I said hey I got on the internet for the first time and I found out I could sit in my living room and actually search for the Loch Ness monster. And I told my boss basically what this was. I had an inmate by the name of “Jermaine Jackson’ and he was very excitable.

JH: (laughs)

ZF: and he was very opinionated and he also was a complete idiot, which isn’t unusual

JH: those things go together

ZF: Yeah, and he said the following, and I quote, this is his exact words: “Loch Ness Monster! Loch ness Monster! Sheeet, loch ness monster aint nuthin but a  big nigger running through the woods.” And I said, what? “Loch Ness monster ain’t nothing but a big nigger running through the woods.” And I looked at him and said, do you mean Bigfoot? and he looked at me and he was confused, and that’s the signal to noise, okay? You start on this level: Loch Ness Monster. The Loch Ness Monster is also considered to be a mythical beast-what do they call it?

JH: Cryptozoology-

ZF Cryptozoology-a very paranormal, cryptozoological beast, like Bigfoot. Now the Loch Ness monster more or less is perceived as a dinosaur like aquatic creature, it looks like a plesiosaur or something. Whereas another mythological beast, Bigfoot is a bipedal humanoid shape but somehow and I can only guess at this; Mr. Jackson’s ability to connect neurons, the ability to sort things out in his head…any mythical beast can be any other mythical beast. So that gave me the idea like I’m going…I’m going to Loch Ness someday and I’m going to tell everybody there they’re looking in the wrong place.

JH: (laughs)

ZF: Because it’s actually a large black guy running through their forest.

JH: (laughs)

ZF: (laughs) Now imagine if that continues I could literally write a book saying that-and create a website and everything else connecting somehow the Loch Ness monster 2.

JH: Elijah Muhammad.

ZF: Bigfoot, Elijah Muhammad which gets into some of the stuff I was studying yesterday-what I mentioned the Brotherhood of Satan

JH: (laughs)

ZF: one of the other things I do, I pay attention at times to people that study the occult or seemingly study the occult, the Illuminati and conspiracies and stuff and these people are endlessly lost (recording falters)

JH: Burroughs called that the place of dead roads.

(here the tape went out and you can barely hear us talking)

ZF: simply wish to, and I'm not against it but I just wonder why these people chase their ass in a circle endlessly until they drop dead.

JH: You tapped into that with Lee Harvey Oswald band. You picked on a cipher image to people and then the band itself was so mysterious.

ZF: well I have to say you know if there was any idea behind it, Rick (Simms) was behind it cos like I said

JH: You wrote the music I know.

ZF: I wrote the songs and I sang them. And I didn’t, whatever I was involved at the time was doing various things. You know but I had been screwing around with weird ideas for a long time but I personally didn’t have a lot of hand in that.

JH: But there are people who have read all 28 volumes of the Warren Commission report and then spend their whole life talking about the inconsistencies but they never pay attention to the ideology.

ZF: Right

JH: it’s like 9-11 to me these people that speculate there wasn’t enough jet fuel, it was the Jews-to me their idiots, to me that’s not the real question.

ZF: Yes you’re right, absolutely. it’s not the real question, and you know I think LaVey used to mention, something to the effect of rolling shit into little balls, you know, why? You can study anything in minute detail, every time something is copied or passed on, it’s a labyrinth it’s a maze-a pointless exercise in some respects. But I'm not against it, I feel that anyone that wants to pursue something for no reason. well usually they have a reason that’s the only thing I really don’t like about it. They honest to god think, let’s just narrow it down to the population of the United States of America-has the cognitive ability and the interest to look into this stuff and somehow become awake. To this hidden plot or this hidden truth and these people invest a lot of emotional currency in trying to manifest that and uh-if they want to do that it’s okay. I really don’t understand how they can be so oblivious to the complete point. For want of a better word, wasted time-

JH: well I think it’s part of this society’s ideology to keep them involved in the wasted time-

ZF: Sure.

JH: well it’s a lot easier to read the warren commission report and say it’s a lie cos you’re in the possession of the hidden knowledge.

ZF: well here’s a radical statement if you want to call it radical and possibly an illegal statement. Which I love, actual words-actual words that can have you thrown in prison in this country especially. I love that, it’s fucking brilliant. I was watching some documentary footage of protests against the invasion of Iraq. A general war protest that started even before the invasion and even protests against the invasion of Afghanistan. And I watched many documentaries, and when I watch something it’s not usually for the reasons that most people watch something. Again, I am much like HG Wells when he described Martians observing earth-how did he describe it? Something with cold intellect. I watch documentaries many times just to observe human beings I don’t really give a shit what they’re doing. I want to observe them to try to figure out how they arrive at where they are; what the hell they’re thinking. Most documentaries are trying to convince you of something and I don’t care about that. Here’s the good stuff. I’ve watched hundreds of thousands of people put up many hours of video tape about these protests. And I saw all these people carrying signs and protesting, getting sprayed with tear gas and being arrested and marching. Speakers were speaking through microphones and all of this, and…the only question that occurs to me is this: when it comes to political change the only political change that I’ve ever considered effective at all is not voting, not protesting but sending a well aimed bullet at a very high speed into the skull of whoever is trying to turn you into a slave.

JH: Right

ZF: because one thing you’ll notice is that this usually results in death of that person and one thing that you notice about dead people, if you’ve been around a few of them. Well they tend to be pretty fucking mellow. They kinda stop what they’re doing. If they hate (POLITCIAN) so much, if they hate (POLITCIAN b) so much; if they hate these corporations so much and the people…they are hundreds of thousands of these people, you’re gonna tell me that none of them has a rifle? That none of the know-can master the basic skills of marksmanship and figure it, hey this guys gonna be here next week and if I rent an apartment or something I can get a shot at this cocksucker y’know?  America-the reason-the most obvious thing I saw with those protesters was this: they wanted to feel part of the group, they wanted to express their beliefs-but do they really want to stop any of these people? They want to stop them enough…to kill them cos that stops people.

JH: Killing them stops people but you can’t shoot a social relationship-

ZF: I think actually you’ll find politicians, since we’re speaking of politicians, if you were to in one day kill fifty of them

JH: Right

ZF: Their consciousness would change radically.  And the survivors will start to do things in a very different manner.

JH: They would make more police forces.

ZF: Maybe

JH: All 9-11 did was solidify the power structure, it was the best thing that ever happened to them.

ZF: Well yeah, yeah but getting back to the folks that were protesting, apparently they never examined that the find the consciousness of those in power so alien they can’t comprehend it. And, imagine this, it’s very easy for me to completely believe this possible. There is (POLITCIAN), (POLITCIAN b) and everybody that they hated-and I have no use for these fucking people either and I never have. I have no use for any politician. But the entire corrupt evil Bush machine are out there and they’re observing the protests-let’s say a million people are out on the streets in New York City and Washington DC-and they’re having cocktails and sandwiches, the CEO’s of the top fifty companies. I fully believe that it is completely within the consciousness of those people looking down from that building to understand a simple fact, by Monday morning they’ll be gone. And we’ll still be here. Now when you say that bullets or violence cannot stop a social relationship-

JH: You can’t blow up a social relationship.

ZF: Yes you can. I’ve seen it happen. I have to disagree with you, when you examine something like Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. If you apply enough high explosives to any situation (indistinct) and what it’s been since then as far as what it aspired to be-cos there will always be people that want to wear a swastika armband. But the nation of Germany has not gotten that idea and ran with it since. and that was a huge war-

JH: No, no I see what you’re saying

ZF: It needed to be a huge war because there were a lot of fucking people with the same idea that needed to die. and if that was your intent, and suppose you got um, you know the social relationship of the People’s Temple-that’s fucking gone. All that took was chemicals and a little bit of kool aid. Dead people quiet the fuck down. Well the reason why we see terrorists basically so pointless is that there’s not enough of them. Because when you apply real sustained terroristic action consistently, guerrilla action consistently you will cause your enemy to fold.

(tape stops)

JH: what were the words that can get you arrested?

ZF: well apparently its illegal even between you and I, we’re sitting here at this table. If I tell you: “Jim I'm going to come to your house and kill you and your family,” that’s known as a terroristic threat and I can be arrested. But it becomes much much more serious-when you say assassination or suggest that to anyone really in power. It could be a senator, a state representative-they’ve made this little rule saying these people must remain untouched at all times.

JH: if you stand in front of the white house with a sign saying “kill etc” that’s illegal.

ZF: Exactly, two words. Magick words. It’s like going into some rap hip hop bar something like that and start screaming “niggers” at the top of your voice-now that’s a magick word because it causes a reaction.

JH: go into a bank and say holdup.

ZF: Exactly. Go through the security-say “bomb” “hijack”. A word because these people are so tuned-the tension is so high. It’s a reactive thing. Literally by the rules, written down for them-they have to react to it. To you or me it means nothing.

JH: Right

ZF: I have no intention of shooting anyone let alone some politician, but I'm watching these protesters  and I'm thinking if you were in Bolivia or Nicaragua you’d be in the mountains by now shooting anything in a government suit. But because you’re Americans you just want to put on a show. You want to feel better, but you don’t actually want to solve the problem. People, especially nowadays-they have the technology to render people completely harmless-the power has just grown exponentially-which is something I love. It’s tricky the amount-as long as you give people enough ability to vent- any customer complaint department will verify this. Let’em get it out of their system. Six minutes later they wanna shake your hand-

JH: they’re thanking you-

ZF: Right. and as long as people have the ability to call into talk radio and scream and bitch about something or protest in the street. Something like that it’s called a blowoff.

(tape stops)

ZF: The whole strange idea about sports I never understood any of that. I understand it as most people want to direct their attention to sports or entertainment rather than paying attention to their own lives. I’m not even suggesting that they pay attention to politics. Okay, I'm saying you’re actually living a life where every minute that passes you have less time. You are driving towards the grave here. But you want to focus you’re attention on a politician or worrying about whether the government can do something, or worried about a celebrity. More often than not, engaging yourself in this bizarre game of checkers or tiddlywinks involving guys in tight pants and funny hats, throwing a ball around. Now, for over ten years I’ve asked the question of every sports fan I’ve ever met: why do you enjoy sports?

JH: Well I enjoy sports because (tape stops)

ZF: the basic social lubricant nonsense that everyone else is into, they watch sports… They watch what’s popular on American idol, they listen to what’s popular in music that kind of thing. They never engage-f they’ve taken any kind of drugs it’s been under the auspices of a chemical roller coaster ride, for no other reason than to take drugs. Whereas if I was to take a drug it’s usually for a purpose, it’s not so I could see colors. And I'm not saying that the way that I do this is the right way or what they’re doing is wrong, and this is what I'm consistently being surrounded by-and this what is called normal. So I don’t see except for some legal technicalities any differences between the convicts and the people on the street because they act exactly the same. There are people in the street that have a higher degree of moralistic or ethical control. They are constrained by some outside force that are supposedly chosen by them. that’s something I never understood because one thing you do if you’ve worked in prisons, or have worked around people that have no freedom or power. You become acutely and very, very very hypersensitive to what is free and what is not. And that’s why I can’t make much of a difference between people locked up in prison and people walking the street. Because the prison is not a physical prison but they’re walking around with such a headful of nonsense it’s restricting them in a thousand different ways. Apparently, they not only accept this but they love it.

ZOWIE FENDERBLAST'S first interview i guess 2010??

zowie fenderblast is a genius. ive never met anyone like him. i had this up and then i took it down. the last record is gonna be rereleased in September. So it's up. Im gonna do an essay about him. awreet? http://store.touchandgorecords.com/ here's the interview awreet?

Zowie interview 5-29-10

ZF: when you live in a dump, and have lived here for ten years you don’t um really have any contact with the outside world. you have no contact with any person, no connection with anyone no satellite television, no whatever, by choice-it seems like it’s easily overwhelming, but it’s not cos everything-you become a quote unquote recluse. But am I really? It’s not like I’m living in the middle of new york city and I never leave my house. The actual dynamics of this place-it’s a 400 acre facility with a gate that’s locked on the outside. I mean I just don’t have any reason to leave and I don’t really have any interest in the things that are outside.

JH: Right

ZF: It’s just like the Lee Harvey stuff, when the Lee Harvey stuff that’s put out. there’s this information, okay we’re from Texas-we’re from (indistinct)...being here for ten years and actually almost studying it from afar like an astronomer studying a distant planet with a telescope you don’t really know hat the fuck is truly going on cos you don’t know what’s real and what’s not. What is accurate and what’s not. Because over a decade things can change so much that you don’t know what’s PR and what’s hype and what’s-if you’re not actively even searching things out except maybe things that have been in the past. For instance like You Tube. As pathetically retarded as You Tube can be the point is, it’s like your collages-it’s something that has been recorded-a fucking Iggy Pop concert in Brazil a couple of years ago or something- did that happen? Did this happen? Did that happen?

JH: Well as ridiculous as You Tube is, these countries that are putting up political protests-what’s the country next to Rumania, Moldavia? Their protests were going up on You Tube and people were seeing them. So it has a double edged thing and I do think those things did happen.

ZF: The only complaint I have about things like You Tube, well look at it man. I think it was like, not a year ago, maybe six months ago-I dunno. Type in “Lee Harvey Oswald Band” and there’s some fucking guy or guys or girls that made music videos from songs that I wrote. Y’know that’s very interesting cos they do a good job and it’s kinda cool.  It’s like taking something and making something more with it-it’s like a collage again. And the potential for the good stuff that’s on there, the potential stuff that’s on there is amazing. But you see how few people look at that kinda stuff. Even something like Terrence McKenna-there’s like 2000 people in the entire You Tube audience that watched it as opposed to a monkey jerking off.

JH: Right right but that’s 2000 more people that could have not watched it-it’s there

ZF: But it’s all a mystery, who are these people? Who are these people? Who fucking knows? And that’s the strange thing about it. It’s like well there’s 2000 freaks or accidental freaks or 2000 whatever.

JH: well this one blog put the Lee Harvey music up saying it was great and at least 15 people downloaded it and said thanks a lot, myself included. So who are those 15 people?

ZF: Well that’s the interesting question.

JH: It really is, it’s just such a mystery. What brought you down here to Georgia in the first place?

ZF: Oh that’s easy. I was working at a prison in Pontiac Illinois, Pontiac Correctional Center. And uh, it sucked. And I’m married and I have been forever. Prison towns-I uhh grew up in a prison town, prison towns are notoriously boring and stupid. There’s nothing but the prison. You go to work at the prison and you come home and drink and then you go to work again the next day. That’s not really what I did but-I was working up there for about a year and my wife was like ‘we gotta get out of here’. I was like ‘yeah but we got bills we gotta pay off.’ So I made the decision, why don’t you pick out someplace to go and I’ll stay up here keep working and move into the officer’s barracks. I’ll generate the cash necessary to pay off the bills and you can find someplace to live and I’ll join you later. And she said cool and she picked Athens, Georgia cos it seemed like a place to go. We were kinda used to college towns.

JH: Right

ZF: Cos we had lived in Champaign. That’s where Lee Harvey started: Champaign-Urbana.

JH: So you were never in prison, you worked at a prison?

ZF: Right.

JH: Cos part of the myth was that Zowie was strung out or whatever and he was in prison for years. Now Rick (Simms) constructed that myth right?

ZF: As far as I know. I mean I never contributed to any of the mythos of that kind of shit I just lived my life. I think it freaked Dave and Rick out that I worked in a prison. A lot of the stuff that I did I think freaked them out. Not to be weird or anything, my life has been a little more intense than theirs. Like Dave working for muscular dystrophy, he would wear a shirt and a tie to go to work. And Rick even though he was in a rock band it wasn’t like he was some wild-

JH: It wasn’t like Dave was gonna go around a corner at work and someone was gonna shank him

ZF: Right. But also when even when I wasn’t working at the prison I had a tendency to drift, y’know I was repossessing cars. Doing it the old school way by sneaking up and taking not with a tow truck. You’d break into them and take them.

JH: So you got a percentage of that?

ZF: Yeah. That was awesome, for awhile. I quit when I took this guy’s truck. He was out in the middle of nowhere. He needed that to actually feed his family. And I said ‘fuck this, this is wrong.’ But I was always, one way or another, employed or sought employment in edgy fucked up things to do. It’s all working class shit. Being a prison guard, being a repo man-I was a tattoo artist after I stopped working at the prison. I taught myself how to tattoo while I was working at the prison. Then I had to come down here and legalize tattooing. Which fucking sucked. I had to fight the government.

JH: Tattooing was illegal when you came to Georgia?

ZF: Well Yeah in Athens. It was a fucking crime. It literarily took a year of my life to fight and win that.

JH: What, you had to convince the city council?

ZF: Not only that I had to purposely get arrested. The story of that is like epically fucking weird. Trust me. I did a thousand guerrilla tactics. I went to three attorneys and each one said it couldn’t be done. I said fuck it, it’s gotta be done cos I gotta make a living. This is from 93 top 94 cos I think it was July 3^rd 1994 when they legalized it. One of the weirdest aspects of this was that it was against a city ordinance, health and safety ordinance 3-5-10 which said it shall be illegal with the bounds of Athens Clarke County to tattoo for a fee or anything of value. On the ordinance book it was right between fortune telling and grave robbing.

JH: Yeah! Now wait a second if that was 94 and you said you’ve been here for ten years-that leaves six years unaccounted for.

ZF: No that’s when I had the tattoo studio.

JH: Oh, so you’ve been in Athens for 16 years now.

ZF: Yeah cos I opened up “Pain and Wonder” which is on Washington Street.

JH: That’s by the 40 Watt

ZF: Right next to it yeah. But that’s after I legalized it. The coolest thing, and my wife was there, my wife Karen. I had gotten a transvestite-well one of the things that I did-I needed a court date. Because I was attacking this on a lot of different fronts, I tattooed a friend of mine on the sidewalk of Washington Street and got this transvestite to basically give him an American flag that cost 16 dollars and he gave me and we videotaped this whole thing-I don’t know where the video tape is-anyway, and documented this. Then I called the cops on myself cos I needed to get arrested. And they wouldn’t come down and do it. “Listen you cocksuckers-do your fucking job.” So they finally did-well they gave me a ticket. And I had been working towards legalizing it for a year and going and bitching at the city council and everything else. So finally they, the city council, caves; but I still have a fucking court date to answer criminal charges of tattooing. I’ve got to appear in court and it’s like a week later, a few days later after I legalize it. So Judge Steven Jones, who’s the criminal court judge-I mean I was out-I got drunk the night before and I realized when I was out drinking-oh fuck I gotta go to jail tomorrow, y’know? So the next day I’m standing there next to all these guys in jumpsuits and the Judge says: “Mr Enn I understand that you have legalized, that you changed the law that you are-what’d he say-you changed the law that you are standing before me in prior violation of-or some shit like that. I said “yes your honor that’s true.” He looks at me and kind of adjusts his glasses and he says ‘Mr. Enn remind me to contact you next time I’m up for pay raise negotiations, case dismissed you’re free to go.’

JH: Allright.

ZF: That’s why I got such a case against governments or CONTROL bullshit.

JH: Well does that have to do with you performing behind a personality? Is that like a control thing?

ZF: It’s more of an interesting thing. It’s more interesting.

JH: Cos Savic Enn is not Zowie Fenderblast

ZF: Right

JH: And Savic Enn is not Irving God.

ZF: Right. But isn’t it more interesting when somebody is somebody else? Isn’t Halloween more interesting than say, July Fourth? I think it is.

JH: Well I already assume that everyone I meet is somebody else.

ZF: (Laughs)

JH: Right?

ZF: And you’d be right in assuming it.

JH: That gets back to you saying ‘who are the 2000 people’ that watched the Terrence McKenna video. If you’re into Terrence McKenna, you GOTTA be somebody else.

ZF: By default.

JH: By default-that Lee Harvey video on You Tube, which I of course thought you guys did-that little Jesus doll on the moon-I thought it was cool, I thought it was neat-

ZF: Right

JH: I just wonder who pretended to do that-they were pretending to be Lee Harvey Oswald

ZF: Well that’s fine with me.

JH: That’s why I was telling you about that Lee Harvey Oswald thing in atlanta where they wear all the ski masks

ZF: Right

JH: I was thinking can I be the Lee Harvey Oswald Band too and can I wear a ski mask? And I was thinking about getting you to wear a ski mask as well-I mean where can you go with this in terms of identity?

ZF: It can go any place that you want it to. Until somebody bitches and I’m not gonna bitch. You know when you show up and start asking these questions about the Lee Harvey thing, I mean, I never even thing about it. I don’t even know what it was about. (Laughs). All that we did, when Rick suggested that I write some songs I did. And then we’d record them. And then I went back to my fucking life. And then he called a year later and said ‘hey write some more songs.’ And I said ‘okay” and I would and then we recorded them. And that would be it.

JH: And you would do photo shoots too I would assume.

ZF: Yeah when we were doing-like all that stuff in the first EP, the second one “taste of prison”. Okay (in a photo) I’m playing guitar, I think I got a Fender-that was somebody’s who lived in that fucking house-I didn’t have a stratocaster. I’ve always played acoustic guitar, I write all my stuff on acoustic guitar. And uh, y’know it’s like okay throw this wig on wear panties and a garter belt and we’ll take some pictures-I said okay, fuck it.

JH: So there was no master plan behind this.

ZF: No, no, no. My primary involvement was always ‘just write some songs’-write songs, music and lyrics and that’s the material. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t remember because for the entire three album thing I never remember Rick, Dave or I ever sitting down saying “ok”-except for the very first time when we were stoned. The initial thing, okay we’re going to start this weird band and we’ll wear disguises and have funny names as some kind of mind fuck joke or something to the people of Champaign-Urbana. But as soon as that idea came and we were laughing about it then it started morphing into something else but naturally it was never discussed. It was never talked about. “Okay this is what we’re gonna do.”

JH: How often did you rehearse?

ZF: I never rehearsed at all. I mean-

JH: Well how did you learn the songs then?

ZF: Well I didn’t, I just wrote them.

JH: Okay.

ZF: That’s the thing, when I write songs-any recording that I’ve ever made was literarily- I recorded the damn song immediately after I was finished so I wouldn’t forget how it went. And never play ‘em again. All that stuff with the exception of a few guitar things I think-

JH: So you did “Getting Wasted with the Vampires” in one take?

ZF: Yeah as far as I know.

JH: Now I think I hear overdubs on that stuff.

ZF: Well yeah! That’s all Rick playing guitar and stuff. He did all as far as I know with the exception of a few small things on the first album, I think he played all the guitars. He did all the production. He did all of that stuff. It was his genius about the whole thing. He was the one who had the experience doing it. Now he was a songwriter but I don’t know why-I don’t even know if he liked my fucking songs. I guess he did.

JH: When you played me that demo yesterday, I definitely heard your guitar and when I went back to Lee Harvey I can hear you doing stuff there.

ZF: Right right.

JH: I mean I heard ya, it’s not all him.

ZF: No it’s not all him but I don’t remember what I did. On that, what is it, “when the satans go marching in” I definitely can pick out some guitar work I did on that. That’s some fucking nutty shit.

JH: Right. I never listen to that song, it’s all right.

ZF: Right. That was like fucking Groovy Carrots shit.

JH: And that was the experimental band you told me met John Cage-now did you really have meat on spokes of bicycle wheels? So when the meat would go around it would hit a microphone?

ZF: Yeah. We’d just do all kinds of shit. Oh! I want to give you a bit of trivia here. Dave Landes (sp?) name (in LHOB) Jimmy Meat. Do you know where that came from?

JH: No.

ZF: Do you remember this song by Rick Isley or somebody-it’s like “hey hey rock and roll, rock on my soul”-it’s some song and I don’t know what the name of it was but somebody had that fucking record and were playing it on a turntable. I think it was Rock or Dave or someone was fucking with it. Poking at the record to make it stop. And there’s a line in that song when it talks about James Dean. James Dean. And at that point, somebody stuck their finger on the record and it sounded like the record was saying James Meat. (Laughs) and that’s where that came from. James Meat.

JH: (Laughs) Now that was Groovy Carrots days

ZF No Groovy Carrotts days was even way before Champaign. That’s when Rick and I were living together in Mattoon, Illinois in this fucking unheated shack basically. All the experimental shit, meeting John Cage. that was in Mattoon Ilinois.

JH: We’re talking late eighties?

ZF: Yeah.

(tape recorder turned off).

ZF: rock music, one of the things that seems to turn that sour is personality cult shit.

JH: Right

ZF: Because you’ve stated and you’ve proven that when you like some music you want to actually know who the fuck these people are and why are they doing this.

JH: Right

ZF: Well most people don’t and when you don’t know about something all you’re basing your idea about them is on press releases, maybe some interviews somewhere that say this person is like this. This person is like that. When you don’t realize half the time that these fucking people are in show business. And show business is based upon the premise of the presentation of Self. Okay I’m gonna get out onstage and I’m gonna give you a show. And there’s nothing wrong with that but the whole thing is-like when I was in Los Angeles, in Hollywood. Y’know I started to realize that goddamn there’s an entire industry based off of creating image. As opposed to telling the truth about yourself. And I was like, fuck. And I know that seems a little bit strange but I am somewhat naïve in those things. Like I said I look out at the world and I get these little snippets of information and I try to make some sense out of it.

JH: So it doesn’t surprise you that people, like myself, thought that Zowie was a junkie who spent time in prison? I really thought that cos that’s what I was presented.

ZF: Sure. Exactly. And I’m not knocking that, it’s just that-assertions-human beings have a strange predilection to take any assertion as truth. And in the kind of culture we live in, I mean, if somebody gets on television and says something-oh, it’s true. It’s like every fucking thing is like an ad. You drink this product you’ll get laid. And I was never involved in any of the information that went out about Lee Harvey. And I wasn’t at all really interested in it. I was a little bit confused in a way about why Dave and Rick wanted to leave such a web of bullshit around it. But I wasn’t like against it. I just didn’t know why they were doing it.

JH: Well could it be, and I’m not speaking about Dave or Rick, could it be that some people are so unhappy with their reality that they feel a need to create a mythos?

ZF: I think it’s very simple. And especially knowing Rick and Dave, they jus wanted to fuck with people’s heads. Claim whatever and see if people believe it, and they’re tricksters.

JH: Well it worked.

ZF: Yeah. And I’ve never been like that and it’s not because of some moral or ethical thing. It’s just that there’s so much bullshit out there that goddamn it when you find some accurate information out there it’s like a breath of fresh air. But that’s more or less now. It wasn’t so much that way then.

JH: Do you understand my excitement at wanting to talk to you? I heard the stories about the band

ZF: Sure.

JH: And I loved the music-

ZF: Having the idea for instance, that I was actually in prison, I’m a heroin junkie, I’m this I’m that-that’s more interesting than the truth. In a way.

JH: I totally disagree. I think the truth is more interesting.

ZF: Exactly.

JH: You worked as a prison guard

ZF: Well that’s what I’m saying

JH:  you wished John Wayne Gacy good luck before his execution was botched!

ZF: (Laughs) Yeah that was fun. Well I saw a lot of violence and I was involved with a lot of violence and some fucked up weird shit. But at the same time this is why I have a love hate relationship with any kind of culture. Especially when you’re talking about producing something like music or art, however you want to define it. You put this stuff out and...

JH: A Russian bomber pilot told Zappa that he listened to “the Grand Wazoo” album while he was bombing Afghani people-

ZF: Wow!

JH: And I don’t think Frank had that in mind-you make a piece of culture and then it’s out there-

ZF: Actually that’s the interesting story okay. Because I work for the county I had to attend-everybody had to-a sexual harassment in the work place thing. Well the first thing that came to my mind was Zappa’s piece of music: “sexual harassment in the workplace.”

JH: Right.

ZF: And (laughs) I really fucked with the instructor, ah, I was a disruptive influence. I just started thinking about that song and the relationship to the reality of what I was doing. The story, the information I think is much more interesting is: what in the fuck was in your head, what were you doing, under what circumstances were you listening to Lee Harvey Oswald? When you listened to “Getting Wasted with the Vampires”-what in the fuck are you thinking?

JH: At the time I was doing a lot of coke and I clearly remember once cueing that song up when I was doing the last line.

ZF: Like I said there’s like 2000 people that really dig that song, or 5000, or 10,000-why in the fuck do they like that song? What do they do when listening to that song? What do they believe? If they gave it any thought whatsoever. Who wrote this song, or any of that stuff, that’s the interesting question.

JH: The interesting point about that song is you’re describing an everyman: he was a moose, a republican-why did he gun down thirty people in a laundry mat-you never know what it was-I always thought, was he a vampire? You know cos vampires wear three piece suits-but who knows what it’s really about-

ZF: Exactly, and that’s the most important aspect. In that song in particular a lot of things are very obvious, remember James Huberty?

JH: Yes! He’s the guy that shot the McDonald’s up-he was like the first of those people-

ZF: Exactly. And you start thinking okay, this guy in the song goes to a Laundromat.

JH: Right.

ZF: Really there’s no difference but what happens is, you’ll notice in the lyrics, y’know it’s the way the news media presents this shit. “Scarier shit on the television screen, watching Mr and Miss America crawling through the broken glass”. It’s the presentation of violence as shown to the American public through the lens of a news camera. It’s like, they were never-all these people who do shit like fly their plane into the IRS building or go and do some shooting on a college campus. You’re given this little wrapped up package-okay he did it because of this or he did it because of that. Thirty minutes later, three days later-okay that’s taken care of-bye. But you never fucking know. You never fucking know what it really was or who this person really was cos of the media’s distortion of so much of that shit. For the practical purposes of well they got a time slot and they wanna fill it.

JH: Yeah but at the same time too do I really want to know why the guy flew a plane into the IRS building. I think that’s a bad a thing to do-

ZF: Yeah, but I’ve been fascinated with violence all of my life that’s one thing that’s very different from me and Rick. He’s terrified of guns. I have this huge collection of assault weapons. I’ve been around death, violent death, I’ve seen it repeatedly; I’ve dealt with it. I’m actually authorized to kill my own fucking people now.

JH: You’re talking about prisoners here at the dump?

ZF: Yeah, if they try to escape or they try to do something harmful I’m authorized to fucking kill them. And the Georgia code states so specifically, I’m a sworn peace officer. I don’t wear a uniform it doesn’t matter. I could kill them with a fuckin axe it doesn’t matter, as long as I stop them.

JH: Well certainly there has to be some explaining-

ZF: Well I can’t just walk up to them...but when you’ve seen what violence really is and then see how it is presented in the news media. It’s like Jesus Fucking Christ these are two totally different things when you’re up real close to it and you see it.

JH: I got Falcons season tickets and I tell people you don’t know how violent football is until you see it-

ZF: You can almost feel-

JH: You go ouch-

ZF: Yeah somebody broke a bone on that play-

JH: The one thing that’s different about James Huberty and “Getting Wasted with the Vampires” is that the Laundromat is a class thing-there would be poor people at the Laundromat and McDonald’s has everybody-

ZF: Yeah. When I wrote those things it wasn’t like I was writing a political statement, it rhymes, and okay here’s some fucked up shit that happens. If you’re alive in America, shit like this happens-

(break)

JH: “Jesus Never Lived on Mars”

ZF: Jesus never lived on mars is like some fucking guy in a band gets hit in the head by a car. Now he believes he’s Jesus Christ, well he’s already in a band, suddenly-like Syd Barrett or somebody going crazy-it totally destroyed Pink Floyd as it was. (Giggles). It’s a very simple idea. You’re in a band and suddenly your lead singer thinks he’s Jesus Christ and we got a show to put on. It’s a real simple dynamic suddenly you’re on stage and the singer is fucking up all the songs because now he thinks he’s Jesus. And you got an entire full house of people looking at you like you’re fucking crazy.

JH: Yeah but they already paid.

ZF: The old carny adage, fuck you I got your dollar.

JH: But the question is, are they gonna come back?

ZF: Right. That’s what I know the most about-literarily the whole history and reasons and wherefores of Lee Harvey is a fucking mystery to me. But the actual songs I wrote I kind of understand them from a certain perspective. But what’s more interesting is what the people that enjoyed those songs-what they thought of them. Now that’s something, unless I’m talking to you about it, I’ll never know. Remember that Don McLean song “American Pie”?

JH: Yeah

ZF: The thing is, when that came out when I was a kid, it was like: what the fuck is this song about? And I know what it’s about now.

JH: There was an exegesis on the web about how it was about the Book of Revelations and you can go on all day about what it’s about.

ZF: According to Don Mclean it was his poetic interpretation about the death of Buddy Holly. The thing is, when, I’m a kid right? I’m just starting to listen to music and I’m really intrigued by these lyrics. I’m just imaging this fucking amazing collage-whatever it is, it’s just this huge poem and it was magical to me. The moment that I found out, ‘oh this is about Buddy Holly’, it lost its magic.  It’s weird because it’s not like I had a certain idea about it. But it lost its magic because then I had that knowledge I interpreted every line through that lens. Oh, that’s what this means, that’s what that means.

other side of the tape

ZF: a weird Goddamn moment of television and then twenty, thirty years later you’ll run into somebody, you’ll mention and (they say) ‘I remember that too and it freaked me out.’

JH: Right

ZF: There used to be the Donny & Marie show, so you’re watching this and they’re doing this 3 Dog Night song called “Joy to the World”

JH: Jeremiah was a bullfrog

ZF: yeah Jeremiah was a bullfrog. And there’s this lyric in it: throw away the bombs and the guns and the war and make sweet love to you. Right? Well that apparently was way too hardcore for Donny and Marie. So what they did was: ‘I threw away all the bombs and the guns and make every-body-drink-MILK.’ And the camera focused on him, it panned in and it looked right at you in the eye. It’s like that’s not the lyric. That was a radio hit too and I’ve ran into people later that saw the same thing. And they were like what the fuck was that about? Well that was censorship cos they were Mormons probably but the whole thing was that one piece that just gets taken out and replaced by something else.

JH: That was a time when people had a collective experience through television that no longer exists.

ZF: Exactly. You know the best ad I ever saw. This is so cool on so many different levels. I was at a restaurant. I had to go take a piss. I go into the restroom of the restaurant. I whip my cock out and I’m pissing in the urinal and I look down at this plastic grate thing. There’s a section of it where you can print stuff and it says ‘just say no to drugs.’ Now you gotta look where you’re pissing or have a tendency too but what are you doing? You’re pissing on that message! (Laughs)

JH: Right! but remember, The Partnership for a Drug Free America started in the 80’s as a political action committee supporting the contras in El Salvador.

ZF: Right. Well his goes on a very long and bizarre tangent. Do you now what the symbol for the partnership for a drug free America is?

JH: No.

ZF: It’s called an interrobang.

JH: What’s that?

ZF: Go to their website. It looks like an exclamation mark melded into a question mark. That is an amazing symbol. I’m actually having a badge of that made which I’m going to wear, not because I’m into the Partnership for a Drug Free America, it has to do with this idea that I’m doing.

JH: what idea is that?

ZF: it’s very complicated and weird. It’s almost like real science fiction that happens in real time.

JH: so it’s gonna be a sigil.

ZF: Yeah. And a series of videos having to do with multi-verse dynamics-

JH: Well I see your Peter Carroll books here on the shelf-

ZF: Chaos magick, yeah

(tape recorder is turned off)

ZF: what if a guy, who’s been living at a landfill for ten years, meets a talking duck who recruits him into an intelligence agency that is tasked with saving the planet earth. And the reason why it needs to be saved is very simple-you have to raise the intelligence of everyone on the planet to save it. This opens up a wide variety of problems. For instance, credibility. You got some guy who lives in a landfill who probably is going to be viewed by anybody who hears these claims-I did experiments on this as soon as I came up with this stuff-the next day I went to work. I just went up to the first fucking person that was throwing away garbage and I started telling him how I met a talking duck. This was just an experiment to see if they’d believe me. You know what they said?

JH: No.

ZF: Is your name Savic? I said yes. My students have told me about you, can I bring them out here? He was a professor of conceptual art at the University of Georgia.

JH: Wow.

ZF: He didn’t question. And what happened was, we did the tour I introduced them to the Vuck and everything else and I explained to them how this whole thing works. It’s like I’m being taken to other landfills and you would never know it until you started noticing the differences through my training about how I’m going to this. I’m given a series of intelligence tests that are training to enable me to fulfill my mission. Now what comes in mind to the public is: is this guy serious? is this guy crazy? is this guy whatever? Is this just some fucking nut whose lost his mind and videotaped this whole narrative. Has he lost his mind, cos he’s on You Tube every week telling you what’s happened.

JH: Have you seen the guy on You Tube who says he’s talking to the spirit of one of the Bowery Boys? He gets shit on etc but I’m convinced something is going on with this guy but I don’t know what it is.

ZF: No (I haven’t seen that). With everything that I say if you will actually investigate what I’m talking about. If you actually just take snippets of the stuff and start rolling-start chasing that information you’ll find out what I’m saying is true.

JH: Okay.

ZF: And it’s like: what the fuck? And it’s like, is this guy crazy or not? That kind of thing. I wouldn’t even call it a piece of art-it’s like an experiment. I do tons of experiments. I literarly can call myself a pseudo-scientist. Especially the last tens years I’ve been doing consciousness experiments everything from creating my own psychedelic drugs to-

JH: Do you want that on tape?

ZF: Yeah. I don’t care. It’s all totally legal shit. Which means, I’ve had some pretty fucked up experiences, to my investigation of Raja-Yoga to all kinds of shit-basic reality creation-fucking around with my sanity. And-it’s been a great deal of fun. Most people don’t do this shit cos they’re so distracted all the time with their everyday life. They’re neighbors, or this or that. If you live someplace for ten years and you don’t really interact with anybody else except my convicts or-

JH: What part of the experiment is me interviewing you?

ZF: Fuck if I know. That’s like a curveball kind of thing. Somebody that liked music that I did-what, fifteen fucking years ago? That somebody is coming to talk. Well, I got involved in a bunch of other shit and I didn’t do any more work on the thing-the intelligence agency-but I’m about to get back to that cos I get depressed and pissed off about shit and it takes me in direction where I gotta do something about things. I get sidetracked, I’m coming back on track now. Cos the stuff that I do out here, or I’m trying to do out here-really, when people find out about it they get really freaked out and excited about it. My mad scientist laboratory that I’m building, I’ll show it to you-

JH: Allright

ZF: Cos I thought: ‘I’m going to do a children’s show,’ based upon a mad scientist but he’s admittedly so fucking crazy that you really don’t understand what all this shit is about-it’s not like ‘oh I’m not pretending to be a mad scientist, no I am insane.’ Cos you just grow up-maybe-we’re you grow up? Pittsburgh?

JH: Yeah, Pittsburgh.

ZF: When you were a kid did they have horror movie hosts?

JH: Yeah they had a guy named Chilly Billy. He’s actually in the “Night of the Living Dead” movie.

ZF: Yes exactly. I got a book, there it is, you’ll find him right in here. (“Television Movie Horror Hosts” by Elena M. Watson). Well I got this idea. What if I build a set that represents basically the kind of bullshit they used to broadcast on the local TV stations. What if I build that and build this character and not introduce movies but do it like it’s an on spot broadcast of this person who’s suffering from severe schizophrenia- (we’re looking at the book of horror movie hosts)-and look at the stuff around him: that’s just a painted set. But my set is real. I’ll show it to you. It’s under construction and everything but I have machines that actually work and light up and do things. I have a full size electric chair, I have a cryogenic crypt that’s actually made out of a real coffin.

JH: (Laughs)

(tape recorder turned off)

ZF: Because if you do, okay, if you do this, you write some songs and then you do some tattoos-you become a tattoo artist then that happens, then you do something else-and I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s not a very good career move to change what you’re doing. Okay, it’s like, Frank Zappa starts the Mothers of Invention and when that breaks up he becomes a sculptor. When he gets sick of that he becomes this uhh, he becomes a marksman or something. A Zen archer or something. It’s like people can’t follow that if you don’t give them more of the same. They can’t follow that. But I’ve never been trying to produce something to offer it as a commodity. But I started thinking about all this You Tube shit-all the barriers for creating your own television show per se or, making your own music video are kind of gone. And if you want to do it you can do it. So fuck it, do it. But my problem is I’m 47 years old, if I was 30 I’d have a lot more energy-when I get off work I just wanna chill the fuck out. I don’t want to go work in the lab or sit here writing a bunch of stuff. It just sucks. You get older and you just wanna say fuck it and not do anything. At least for me. Cos I get really fed up with-it makes-I want to produce some stuff but I’m having a helluva time doing it cos I really don’t. The only thing I might be interested in is, again, where does this shit land and what do people make of it? But you got it make it first. Here’s the genesis of my fucking problem right here. If you’re an artist, you write songs or you paint paintings. You’re producing culture. Now go to You Tube, there again You Tube-that’s an avenue I look at the world at and I’m not really looking at the world. I’m taking these fucking brilliant people and I’m looking at them, what they’ve produced. Fucking culture is not your friend and you will hear Terrence McKenna in a single statement that last maybe three minutes or so just absolutely nail a 100 percent, exactly 5000 percent, exactly the situation we’re in. Now he’s talking about the larger operating system people have in their heads, but this also applies to subcultures and artists I think. But his solution to the problem of culture not being your friend, basically it being for the convenience of government and churches, the media and things like this-he says-well somebody in the audience says: well how do we fight it? He says: by making art. By putting the art pedal to the metal. Well yes, in a way. But can you think of anything more useless? Because, in this country in particular, nobody really  responds to art. I mean when was the last time you opened up the newspaper and they had an arts section? Maybe in the New York Times or something but they have sports, and they have politicians telling all these lies and some shit but where’s the fucking art? There isn’t anything in there usually. On a normal newspaper, now yeah you can go out and pick this stuff but the only thing that it does that I find interesting is this: he says, ‘it will make you incomprehensible to the machine.’ Because when you think about all these performance art people, these people that you know. When you talk about John Cage, when you talk about Genesis P-Orridge and the work that she did-all this stuff. Of course it was incomprehensible, totally incomprehensible to the machine, y’know if it got some attention.

JH: do you think that creating art gives people a conception of God, that you’re a mover and shaker making something?

ZF: Right. Just like writing songs, to me the one hundred percent most important and most enjoyable aspect of the thing is creating the goddamn thing. Creating it. Not watching people sell it. There’s only like two things that are interesting, that is creating the thing and what people individually have made of it. What their own personal experience of it was.

JH: Do you think it’s bad that Warhol said ‘selling art was art.’

ZF: Y’see I don’t make any judgments against the stuff, against any other artist cos I can’t. I’m not them. I’m not in their shoes. I deal with my own problems. Basically, why am I doing this and what am I doing. Why did I chose to do this cheesy ass shit or why am I interested in this idea? and the reason why I’m thinking about video now is because video is the predominant means of presenting anything to people. Because, I’ve actually been described as a performance artist. Here-in town in the newspaper-it was like: that’s weird. I think it was because I done some stuff. Here’s the only thing I did. There was a-I picked up a Flagpole magazine. There was a full page of this guy-oh he got busted on like 400 counts of child molestation later-but anyway I was fascinated by this fucking guy’s ad-it was Nuwabian dude-

JH: That guy! Yeah yeah yeah!

ZF: well anyway I picked up a Flagpole and here’s a fucking picture of this guy-a full page ad for the Nuwabians and here’s a picture of him and he’s like in a tuxedo with a crown and all this kinda stuff and I read the copy and it was just all over the fucking place. And it was all a really awkward attempt to sell, to sell himself.

JH: Right to sell his religion with the flying saucers-

ZF: Right. As a matter of fact, up at the office my boss actually kept a fucking copy of what I recorded. Because what I did, I went to the bar and I said I have something I want to do. And you gotta understand, people were freaked out because they were kind of scared of him-it’s like, ‘let’s do this, this is cool’. So I got myself a tuxedo, a crown and everything else and I got this friend of mine to wear like this fucking robe. And he was whipping himself.

JH: (Laughs)

ZF: And I recorded what he (the guy whipping himself) supposedly was saying. I come up on stage and I’m standing their just like the photograph (in Flagpole). Malachi York, that’s what his name was. Now I prerecorded all of this. (In Arabic voice) “who is this man?”-and this friend of mine is at the front of the stage, this happened at Tasty World. And I guess they thought this was performance art or something. I just wanted to this cos I thought it was cool. “Who is this man?” It’s up at the office you have to hear it. It’s on cassette cos that was the only way I had to record it. And I haven’t heard it since I did it. But it’s my little assistant in the robe it’s his voice, he’s got a microphone-it’s not-I actually recorded it, it looks like he’s saying it. “He has risen, he has risen blah blah” then all of a sudden boom-prerecorded music of me doing some fucking songs that I wrote, just crazy rock songs and I just get up there and start singing them right? I do two or three songs and I fucking walk away. People were like: ‘what in the fuck’ they dug the shit out of that. So I just came back to the fucking landfill and I forgot all about it. And a month later this fucking guy (Malachi York) gets arrested.

JH: (laughter)

ZF: (laughter) And I was the only one that thought isn’t this weird? am I the only one that recognizes this is a local weird (indistinct) and nobody’s saying shit about this? It’s like fuck, work with this. (tape stops)

this is the text Savic Read that night at Tasty World:

Who is this man? and what does his presence mean to Athens, Georgia? When man speaks great man of history, leaders, scholars, grand contributors of elite knowledge and abilities. One must ask oneself of this one great man: who he is? His name are NANU-OLEO-OPTIGON-he is Dr. Rev. Savic Enn 11:11 Satan Bengolu Phd. this man is FEARLESS, with him comes along many large black people, firemen, legal officers, dentists, breadwinners, sport athletes, military enthusiasts, and famous cheerleaders who want to be at home in Georgia and produce an army of children.

     Dr. Rev. Enn sacred spiritual occult power has knowledge of the universal mind ray consciousness. His psychologic profile are studied by many American universities and law enforcement agency policemen. Dr. Rev. Enn honors include him as Grand Vizier to Hassan Narcoleptic of Coosbexistan, 82^nd degree Cyclops order of the Golden Frog, and bloodletter general within the imperial temple cryptic wind triumphant, Reno Nevada.

   His holiness, Dr. Rev. Enn has also inventor of scientific machine devices offering mankind wonders such as the automatic phone, the moto-wig and the famous, psyco-lubricon. His exaltedness, the Dr. Rev Enn is a lecturer and writer of over 500 books, pamphlets, and scrolls. Including: “Do as I Command,” “Eat the Dead”, “Ginger’s Dirty Secret,” and of course “The Book of Truth”. The merciful the Dr. Rev. Enn’s political intentions are conformed into S.P.I. Or abbreviated as Savic’s Political Intentions also known as Congo Politico. His methods are necessary and humane. His goals are simple and just. Goal One: to reenlist and establish Neo-Congo Politico self defense militia learning centers for American afros-right here in Georgia. Goal Two: to attempt and applaud nude white drive-ins, as a solution to mental and philosophical well being. Goal Five: to render gender bending genocide faceless unless racist based arrest of sexy restless stereotypes remained untested. The Dr. Rev. Savic Enn 11-11 Satan Ben-Galoo-Phd. is here to set the record straight. His holy majesty has come to give you what you didn’t know that you wanted until he gives you nothing that you do not desire. Tonight good friends, the all loving all mighty enlightened one, great Dr. Rev. Enn brings you his music of the spheres. As he who is has performed beside famous Hollywood stars such as Jimmy Hendrix, Miles David, the Choco-motions, Ben & Jerry, Cher Belafonte, and Yanni. OOOOH Holy father! Holy one almighty Man of war, whose motto is when in doubt check me out! His divine man who is not a criminal or a felon, but a time tested man of the hour, this wise leader who speak like Ancient Jews who brings the joyous gift of music to the ears of fearless livers. This peaceful wise lord leader descendent of the sun Gods, blood relation to Michael Stipe-all knowing-obsequient prolocator-mad flagerlator-human rights agitator-Grand masturbator who signs wise and terrible-correct and erect-be not unwashed woman nor beast-unkempt unhampered by unwisdom-

  Prepare thee-all now people for true divine Armageddon revelation has become-SILENT BE THEY EVIL TONGUE-for his truth shines forth-

  HE HAS RISEN! HE HAS RISEN! HEAR HIS WORDS! oh the master speaks!

ZF: so here’s the ad, free condoms and I got the addresses of my Grandma, my own address all my friends all this kind of shit and I just started making names. Martin Luba, Tobias Sertswine, this that and the other thing. To see if they’d mail, to see if I get mail under these names and I did and I got like thousands of condoms. The whole point was to get me on a mailing list so all this fucking porn like dildo ads and shit like that would just fill up the mailboxes of all these people. (Laughs) They hated me for it cos they would get in trouble. Their moms and dads were wondering why they were getting massive dildo catalogs...but uhh Kenny Law he wanted to work in the porn rag industry in New York and I kinda taught him a little bit about magick. He called me up one day in a panic because he was the editor for Screw magazine for awhile and then Screw went completely downhill. They had a problem with their covers.

JH: You did covers for Screw?

ZF: Yeah. The first one I submitted was apparently so obscene the printer wouldn’t print it and I had to do a different one. It’s a fucking cartoon! Apparently you cannot depict-it was a woman on her hands and knees dressed up like a cat, little cat ears and stuff and she was getting fucked from behind by this giant rat. And apparently even as a cartoon you can’t show shit like that or something. So I said fuck it, how ‘bout a dragon? Dragons don’t exist so I did an Asian girl getting fucked in the ass by a dragon and they printed that one. I got a drawing up in my office-I was supposed to get 350 bucks for that-

JH: Right

ZF: And I never got paid, so then I did a picture of Al Goldstein in Jewish hell getting fucked in the ass by the angle of death-

JH: (Laughs)

ZF: (laughs) I sent the line drawing in and said when that cocksucker dies I want that on the fucking cover. I got the line drawing up in my office.

JH: Did they ever pay you?

ZF: Fuck no. That’s one reason why I never really pursued art that much, I’ve always been a working class guy. It’s like if I’m gonna do something fucking pay me. I didn’t get seriously upset about it because I thought it was so funny in a way. At the time I was like you owe me fucking 350 bucks. Fuck it. But the magazine closed down so they never got to use my cover of Al Goldstein getting fucked in the ass-(in the drawing) he’s doing lines of coke and shit, he’s down on his hands and knees lighting a cigar with a hundred dollar bill and it says on this pile of skulls behind him-welcome to Sheol population 6 million plus

JH: Nice!

ZF: No goyim

JH: No goyim, nice that’s very nice. You ever see that picture of Lenny Bruce with the newspaper that says “6 Millions Jews found in Argentina”?

ZF: (Laughs) No shit? I’ve never seen that. See I love Jews man. I think Jews are some of the most intelligent freaky people. Some of the best aspects of culture would have a fucking not existed had the Jews not existed.

(tape stops)

ZF: Lynyrd Skynyrd have turned into this fucking flag waving bullshit

JH: It’s like a Beach Boys thing

ZF: I don’t know what it is now. They did this song “that’s not my America.” Some shit like that I heard on conservative talk radio. (In cornpone voice) “That ain’t my America, that ain’t no red white and blue.” It’s basically some anti-Obama shit or some shit like that. I don’t give a fuck about politics but I know cheeze when I see it. It’s like, okay there’s a movement going on and we can move some albums if we write a song to go along with this shit. Ray Stevens is doing the same shit. (Laughs) (So I’m talking to this guy) The same fucking people that did “sweet home Alabama” are now doing this and I go on You Tube and I find this song. I say this song is bullshit. He said yeah that sucks. I said, here’s what doesn’t suck and I showed him a performance by the Sex Pistols. He was trying to make a point by saying look how many people watched the Sex Pistols as opposed to how many people watched the Lynyrd Skynyrd thing. I said exactly, that’s because there’s a lot more fucking morons out there than there are people that have any fucking perception or taste. And I don’t want to be shitty about it, but do the fucking math. Y”know when I was telling you about that old Apple computer ad. “Think Different” well everybody knows who Einstein is, everybody knows who blah blah blah is, that single commercial-what if you had everybody from Anton LaVey to Genesis P-Orridge to Terrence McKenna to Robert Anton Wilson-

JH: That wouldn’t sell any computers-

ZF: Exactly. That’s exactly my point, which is if you were actually serious about thinking differently-yeah Einstein thought differently and all this stuff-you can think differently only up to a point

(tape stops)

JH: well Lee Harvey Oswald was on Touch & Go and I only heard you cos my roommate Dave bought every album on Touch and Go-

ZF: that’s Corey’s aesthetic-let me tell you something Touch and Go is the greatest record company on the fucking planet from my perspective-no contacts-them saying once we get our money back then we start paying you guys, that’s just the way it works, no fucking bullshit to it or anything. It’s like fuck, okay, do what you want. Anybody who’s poked their nose into the music business knows how fucking retarded shit can be. Yeah the companies are the one risking their money-Touch and Go, Corey was just fearless. He didn’t give a shit, if he liked the band he wanted you on his label, it’s as simple as that.

(tape recorder off)

ZF: I recognize all these different artists-and you have to ask-you ask yourself-okay as a working class guy all my life-it’s like, how the fuck did they get to do this stuff? Because didn’t they have jobs? Didn’t they have shit like that which took so much of their fucking time and energy that they crawl home and create something? I’m not mad at these people, it’s like when did you ever have the fucking opportunity to create something and put it out there, especially the amount that you created cos it’s like me I’ll do-if I need to do something-or if I do something I’ll do a painting-it’s not like I’ll do twenty-and that’s what’s required. Everyday you get out there and you do stuff. It’s like how the fuck do you make a living off art? It seems like it’s almost impossible in certain circumstances. But that’s the way it seems cos I don’t know-I actually went to college-I dropped out of high school, got my GED and there was a special program for poor kids, to go to college. And that’s how I met my wife she was a student there: Southern Illinois University. I just went there to paint. I’m down there painting and they had this visiting artist’s program and all these big name artists from Chicago were coming down. And critiquing our paintings and stuff it was weird. Cos first of all I’m from a fucking nowhere town and I had no conception of how-ever since I was a kid I was interested in painting. I wanted to be an artist. I had no clue on how to do fucking do that and get paid for it. No clue whatsoever. It kinda freaked me out cos this visiting arts program, they’d be ‘artists’ who’d come down from Chicago. These people were showing in galleries in Chicago, NY and Paris; and they see my paintings and they’d go ‘oh my God this is fantastic’ and they’d go on and on about what it meant. I’d say, ‘no, no, it’s just a painting of an assault rifle.’ It’s Heckler and Koch 91. And they would go “oh”. (Laughter) I was started to get this vibe, wait a minute-that’s how you get to be an artist-you bullshit. And I don’t know how to bullshit. You’ve got to get in with this weird crowd and then, I guess, agree with them or speak some kind of weird language about what you produce.

(Later)

ZF: Now the paintings of the assault rifles that I did were just a one color background and then a Heckler and Koch 91. An Uzi, an AK-47, any of these things the reason why I painted them was because. When you look at these machines themselves, they’re collectively known as the black rifles. They literarily look like to me living things.  It’s like you look at a shark, a shark looks inherently dangerous. These rifles to me I didn’t need to add anything. It’s like check this out, look at the fucking shape of that thing. Pick up a FN-Fal 308, it’s a combination of these odd parts it shoots this 308 bullet-it’s being used now in the South African bush wars. It can vaporize people’s head from a half mile away. These things are just inane pieces of machinery. And I didn’t think I needed to add anything to them. If I woulda had a gallery show and I had the money I would have just bought the fucking rifle. Since I only had canvas and some paint, I was like this is what they look like, just the intrinsic design the way they were but I started to realize that even with an approach like that-when you give somebody the truth like that-they’re disappointed. I started getting this vibe that they would accept an explanation that meshed with their own. But if you told them something else, and that was just one example. I mean I did this figure-we did figurative paintings, studies, we’d have a nude model come in-stuff like that. I did one. She was laying down. I made it look like she was n an autopsy table and I just left out the head. You couldn’t see where the head was cut off or anything-but it didn’t have a fucking head. And I didn’t specifically paint or illustrate stuff from an autopsy it just looked like that. I think the thing gave me the idea was they had some fucking medical lights. Then they complained that it didn’t have a head-what’s your complaint-you love it otherwise. It kinda looked to me like it was a dead body-I didn’t do an illustration like there was a doctor there but if it gave that impression and you liked the fucking thing, what’s the fucking problem? It seemed like “oh that’s what art is” it’s agreeing with people who are ‘in charge’ of art. I was like: I can’t do this. I don’t know fucking how to do this. It’s like you produce what you fucking produce and if the fucking people that are in the business of taking the stuff and turning it into money-or turning your name into a recognizable name-I’m fucked. Because I’m not speaking their language. I’m producing whatever the fuck I want to produce. And I consistently got-people were like this is amazing-I got these big sheets of paper and I did these female torsos on it. I thought wow-they sexy. And what’s even sexier than that? Well, I took some candle wax and I did all these lines-across the ass and across the back so you couldn’t see the lines but when I went over the top with some paint-it looked like whip marks. My art teachers and stuff were like blown away-it was just like the torsos too. It was serial killer art or something like that. But they loved it. Visually that looks more interesting. Paint a picture of a women’s ass, well that’s nice. If you’re a guy and you’re heterosexual you like a woman’s ass. But smack that ass with a fucking belt and it creates this red and white welt across it-that’s something else added to it, isn’t it? That suggests something too. I was never ever trying to say anything-it was like what looks interesting. Just like the songs with Lee Harvey I wasn’t ever trying to make a statement. It was just what makes a very interesting song that interests me. I mean just recently I started fucking around writing stuff that’s political-if you wanna call it political where I’m actually saying something overtly, or it seems more overtly that I ever have. It’s like (my unreleased song) “said the angry youth”. My stuff has always been more ambiguous. I started to write a song the other day called “the Crime of the Century”. And yes, it’s cryptic but when I write: “tell me do I smell like rose or is that the shit of the CEO’s?” You start to understand what the song is about. But I’ve never done that previously, or prior to that. I use various cultural images, very much like collages.