Fast forward to the next morning. The sun was blasting unmercifully into the very large windows of our room, forcing us out of bed in rather untimely fashion, though we sorely needed a few more zzz's. Something about those clinically shiny hallways made my head throb as we headed down in the elevator to the lobby. There we found Candy and her brother Bob Zappa, griping about the grub in the dining room. Hospital food. Breakfast was included in our lodging; the Moorbad probably saved a bundle, since apparently nobody ate much. We decided to grab some espresso and a sticky bun in town.
Today was a big day for the town of Bad Doberan...the unveiling of the only monument to Frank Zappa that had been financed by a government institution...in this case, the municipality of Bad Doberan and various other local offices. Our tuba player Jay Rozen had, at my suggestion, worked out an appropriately pompous arrangement of Zappa's tune "Sofa", (which originally had lyrics in German). Jay had originally intended to perform with two other tubists who lived in Germany. However, the festival impresarios had apparently forgotten this fact, and the funding (train fare for Jay's two accomplices plus a few more Euros to cover beer and Wurst while at the festival) had somehow gotten lost in the shuffle...or the march. So the long-suffering but game Mr. Rozen wound up being accompanied by our own Joe Meo on tenor sax and Ed Palermo's intrepid baritone honker, Barbara Cifelli.
We arrived in the public square in time to say hello to some old faces (original Mother Don Preston, in whose Echo Park basement I had resided many moons ago; Jimmy Carl Black, the "Indian of the group"; the dynamic Napoleon Murphy Brock). Quite a few ex-Mothers were milling about the square...Roy Estrada, Bunk Gardner, Mike Keneally, Scott Thunes...John was floating on a cloud to be around his heroes, even more so when he was pressed into service to play a drum roll kicking off the unveiling ceremony. Jay, Joe, and Barbara pooted forth "Sofa", then there were speeches from the mayor of Bad Doberan (who expressed his delight that the Zappa monument would bring more tourists to Bad Doberan...at which he received some boos from the crowd). Next up was the festival's organizer, Wolfhard Kutz, then a few old Mothers.
Then came the moment for which everyone had been waiting: the statue was unveiled. Bob Zappa strolled up to it and rubbed its nose...followed by a procession of other folks who had known Frank, most of whom followed Bob's example. By the end of the ceremony the statue's proboscis was visibly shiny, leading me to envision a time, perhaps a thousand years hence (if the planet is still intact a millennium down the line), when the statue of Frank Zappa is housed in a museum...protected by an invisible force field...and hanging over it, a three dimensional screen on which a holographic docent narrates the legend of the Noseless Saint of Bad Doberan, a rural district in what used to be known as Germany (now part of the former Eastern EuroComFed)...the statue's origins have been lost in time, but it is believed that those who petitioned the Saint for a favor (scholars have differed over the Saint's exact role in early 21st-century Christianity...he may have been some sort of minor kitchen god, or, judging by his unkempt hair and the rustic agricultural garment he seems to be wearing, possibly the patron saint of small rainstorms) were in the habit of rubbing the statue's nose, which led to it eventually being worn down to a nub, and then disappearing entirely.
I had little time to ponder such historic improbabilities, however...I had to figure out how to contact all the band members and try to schedule a runthrough before our performance the next day. This proved to be impossible, since there was no phone in the pension where most of the musicians were staying, and the phone at the Moorbad continued to be kaput.
So, after an enjoyable lunch with Eric, John, Joe, and Paul Adamy at a quiet cafe in a picturesque alley off the main street (John was amazed that he could order chicken and broccoli in Germany), Eric and I headed to the festival site to hear Ed Palermo's band. For me (and evidently for a lot of others) this performance was the highlight of the Zappanale. Candy performed several songs with the group, whipping an already enthusiastic audience into a frenzy. As the sun set over the racetrack and twilight deepened, the music became part of the night and Time stood still, and in this comical, absurd, moving moment I suddenly felt that Frank was very close to us all.
NEXT: Phinal Phaze
