You Did Not Dream This

Jesse Walker | April 12, 2009

In 1990 the Financial News Network asked Frank Zappa to sit in as a guest host. You can click here to see Zappa interview NPR's Daniel Schorr and here to see him chatting with restaurateur Sirio Maccioni. But for a really potent blast of archival cable weirdness, you'll want to watch his conversation with a fellow from Soviet television about investment opportunities in the USSR:

The conversation continues here, including the interviewee's brief comments on the power of Russian rock lyrics.

[Via Beware of the Blog.]

Comments

Anonymous|4.12.09 @ 11:53PM|#

Frank Zappa on "FNN" talking investment capital with a Soviet representative.

It's like something out of "Tales from the Darkside": amusing, but ultimately unconvincing.

|4.13.09 @ 12:26AM|#

Well, FNN gave Wayne Allyn Root an early big break... let's just say they seemed to go for the weird.

Richard Marx|4.13.09 @ 2:18AM|#

Great golden-age Japan bashing from Schorr: They bought Rockefeller Center! They bought Columbia!! Now they're buying a former president!!!

[can\'t make a \"cents\" sign |4.13.09 @ 3:37AM|#

"Golden-age Japan bashing" was a great engine of cultural progress.

If not for all that era's hysteria about Japanese economic takeover, our imaginary aliens would still be goofy lizard dudes, not tiny Japanese businessmen ("grays"), and the collective internet id's fantasy girl would be some Swedish nudist, not a Japanese goth chick with a squid jammed up her ass.

State of the Union right there|4.13.09 @ 5:05AM|#

can't make a "cents" sign on this phone

the innominate one|4.13.09 @ 5:50AM|#

Zappa rules!

Just Saying|4.13.09 @ 7:21AM|#

restauranteur Sirio Maccioni

There's no "n" in restaurateur, dammit!

Jesse Walker|4.13.09 @ 8:03AM|#

Pedants may protest the n, but both spellings are acceptable:

http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/5130.html

Ravac|4.13.09 @ 8:17AM|#

a Japanese goth chick with a squid jammed up her ass.

Linky?

Just Saying|4.13.09 @ 8:31AM|#

From AP Stylebook:

restaurateur
No n. Not restauranteur.

I cling to my rigid pedantry.
And that Zappa vid is a yawner.

jtuf|4.13.09 @ 8:41AM|#

Our foreign policy over the past few decades has foccused heavily on making peace but neglected the task of maintaining peace. The net effect is that a country making belligerent threats interacts with an American government ready to be generaous while a country that posses no or little threat to America faces a mostly indifferent US State Department. Just look at how many policy experts (and street protestors) urged us to reach out to the Soviet Union. Then compare it to how little attention Russia got after its collapse. This doesn't excuse belligerence towards America, but it does show why rattling a sword towards the US is a rational strategy. If we want to maintain peace in the long run, we have to extend the warmest overtures to people when and where they are dedicated to peaceful interactions.

|4.13.09 @ 8:57AM|#

Frank Zappa miracle:
http://tinyurl.com/c3n7ys

Jesse Walker|4.13.09 @ 9:18AM|#

Dammit, I'm supposed to follow AP style. OK, I'll change it.

You win this round, Just Saying. But one day we'll get that n accepted everywhere, and you naysaying pedants will be reduced to complaining about split infinitives.

|4.13.09 @ 9:25AM|#

Jesse,

I never thought I'd see you reduced to towing the lion for the spelling pedants.

Just Saying|4.13.09 @ 11:16AM|#

To be fair, people add the n when saying the word because it's easier on the tongue and the brain. (They don't go to restaurats to eat.)