Frank Zappa's Crinkled Shoes
Frank Zappa, the composer-musician raised Catholic,1 died in 1993, aged 52. May he rest in peace. In its obituary, The New York Times called him “rock's most committed iconoclast,” and “a distinctive guitarist, playing solos that moved in irregular, conversational fits and starts.”
The Times also called him an “angry satirist.”
Some of that angry satire surfaced in the book Once a Catholic: Prominent Catholics and Ex-Catholics Reveal the Influence of the Church on Their Lives and Work (Peter Occhiogrosso, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1987).
Zappa mentioned how Gregorian chant (“that sort of monastic monody”) influenced his music but mostly gave reasons why he considered himself solidly in the “ex” category. Some of those reasons were what we’ve come to expect, while others were … well, uniquely Zappaesque. Here’s a few to ponder:
“I was never that crazy about the incense. Burning balsam is not my idea of a good time; it used to gag me.”
“Then there was the scapular business — you’re never supposed to take it off. How can you do this? These strings are gonna rot from sweat, y’know?”
“And the other thing was alot of kneeling down — and the way it crinkles your shoes. That really used to bother me. How would you like to go around with the toes of your shoes pointing up with wrinkles across them?”
Crinkled shoes, Frank? Okay, I’ll grant him this: it is true the Church cares more about souls than soles.
His devout parents, Frank, Sr. and Rose Zappa, are buried in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery.