The time: A sunny late morning in June
The place: Governors Island, in New York Harbor
The player: A twentysomething bro in a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt
Twentysomething bro [gazing out at the Statue of Liberty]: Why'd they put it there?
THE GEOGRAPHY OF FRANK ZAPPA'S "BILLY THE MOUNTAIN"
Since I was a teen, I've loved "Billy the Mountain," a 25-minute, side-long epic anti-war parable from the Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention album Just Another Band from L.A., recorded live in 1971 at the Pauley Pavilion at UCLA.
The piece (it's too long and episodic to be called a song) cites a ton of places in Southern California. As a confirmed East Coaster, I figured I'd finally educate myself about the geography of this piece of music that I've been happily listening to all these years.
The story opens this way:
Billy the Mountain and his wife Ethel, a tree, are "residing between lovely Rosamond and Gorman"
Rosamond and Gorman, California are pretty obscure places, but Zappa knew the area very well: he went to high school in Lancaster, which is about fifteen miles due south of Rosamond. A small city in the Antelope Valley of the western Mojave Desert, Lancaster is only about 50 miles north, as the crow flies, from downtown Los Angeles but between Lancaster and LA stands the Angeles National Forest; I'm sure it's a world away from Tinseltown.
Forty miles almost due west of Rosamond, Gorman is in the extreme northwest corner of Los Angeles County, on the Golden State Freeway section of Interstate 5, one of the state's most heavily traveled highways, linking southern and northern California and points north. It's such a small town — about 15 homes — that the US Census doesn't break out population figures for it. But it's the site of a popular rest stop, and Zappa might well have been familiar with it from touring from Los Angeles up to San Francisco or San Jose.
Given his placement between Rosamond and Gorman, Billy would be part of the Tehachapi mountain range, which runs northeast, starting at Gorman. The Tehachapi range separates the San Joaquin Valley to the northwest and the Mojave Desert to the southeast and is one of the traditional boundaries between northern and southern California. The peaks in the range are from approximately 4,000 to 8,000 feet, so Billy is a pretty big boy.
And since Billy is part of the Tehachapi range, Ethel would probably be a black oak (Quercus kelloggii), Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri), incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens), or a white fir (Abies concolor), or possibly a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides).
One day, a man in "a checkered double-knit suit" driving a Cadillac Eldorado "leased from Bob Spreen, where the freeways meet in Downey" drives up to where Billy is and hands him a royalty check for all his appearances on postcards.
At the time, the city of Downey, about 13 miles southeast of downtown LA, was centered around aviation and aerospace manufacturing, and perhaps best known as a place you drove through to get from Pasadena to Long Beach, or from LA to San Diego.
The Bob Spreen auto dealership would have been just south of the intersection of I-605 and I-5, at 10686 Studebaker Road. There's still a dealership at that location: Honda World. It's about an hour and a half drive north by northwest on I-5, through Glendale and Santa Clarita, past the Castaic Lake Recreation Area, to where Billy was, and then a long walk, followed by a very steep hike, from the nearest road.
Billy is overjoyed at this windfall and announces to Ethel that they're going on vacation in New York, but first a stop in Las Vegas.
I'm not sure how quickly a mountain can travel but it would take anywhere from three and a half to four and a half days of continuous walking to cover the 250 miles or so northeast from Rosamond to Las Vegas, depending on the route. Billy and Ethel seem to have avoided roads and braved the very rugged and hilly terrain in the Mojave Desert.
Billy and Ethel's route runs straight through Edwards Air Force Base, the famous installation about 18 miles east of Rosamond, and Billy levels it. When news gets out about the destruction of Edwards Air Force Base, a TV announcer claims that Billy and Ethel have been linked to "drug abuse and pay-offs as part of a San Joaquin Valley smut ring!" And then there is an extended litany of towns involved in a "recent narcotics crack-down."
The TV announcer is a parody of conservative Los Angeles newscaster George Putnam, a pompous, homophobic fellow who was the model for the Ted Baxter character on the popular '70s sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
The San Joaquin Valley is a vast section in the middle of California, north of Los Angeles County, that is a major agricultural center. Several of the biggest cities there — Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, Visalia, and Bakersfield — have historically suffered from high crime rates.
The places listed in the narcotics crackdown — Torrance, Hawthorne, Lomita, Westchester, Playa del Rey, Santa Monica, Tujunga, Sunland, San Fernando, Pacoima, Sylmar, Newhall, Canoga Park, Palmdale, Glendale, Irwindale, Rolling Hills, Granada Hills, Shadow Hills, Cheviot Hills — basically comprise a grand tour of the eastern side of Los Angeles County, from Palmdale in the north down to Rolling Hills in the south.
The crackdown will, the announcer nonsensically notes, "...avert a crippling strike of bartenders and veterinarians throughout the Inland Empire."
The term "Inland Empire" was apparently invented by real estate developers, so the definition varies, but the Inland Empire is basically western Riverside County and southwestern San Bernardino County, just east of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Inland Empire area is home to massive industrial distribution centers, and is one of the least educated areas of the state, with one of the lowest average annual wages in the country.
Zappa had a strong Inland Empire connection: in the early '60s, he learned how to engineer recordings at Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga (now called Rancho Cucamonga). The studio was where the Surfaris recorded the classic "Wipeout." Zappa bought Pal in 1964 and renamed it Studio Z, although it closed the following year due to municipal construction. You can hear some of Zappa's recordings at that studio on the compilation Cucamonga.
Billy and Ethel have apparently made a U-turn and, instead of heading to Las Vegas, have passed through Glendale, in Los Angeles County, which Billy has "leveled." In response, Jerry Lewis hosts a telethon "to raise funds for the injured and homeless in Glendale." Unfortunately, on top of all the destruction, Billy has caused a fissure that releases "the pools of old poison gas and obsolete germ bombs [in]... the secret underground dumps right near the Jack in the Box on Glenoaks."
The joke about "the injured and homeless in Glendale" is that Glendale was a stereotypically vanilla, mediocre place.
There is a Jack in the Box at 1200 W. Glenoaks Boulevard in Glendale, although I can't verify that this is the location that the song refers to. But Glendale really does have what the US military calls Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) that contain toxic or radioactive waste.
A "freak tornado" comes through and blows all the poison gas to Watts.
Watts, 14 miles due south of Glendale, and much farther away in many respects, is a predominantly Black, low-income neighborhood of Los Angeles that had been the scene of a massive, nearly week-long riot several years earlier, in the summer of 1965, in response to chronic police brutality. Plus ça change.
The line about poison gas is a prescient dark joke about environmental injustice, as poor, inner city neighborhoods such as Watts tend to be disproportionately plagued by pollution, resulting in things like dramatically higher asthma rates; indeed, residents of Watts can expect to live 12 fewer years than their neighbors in Bel Air, 25 miles northwest.
The blowhard square TV newscaster returns to announce, "We now have confirmed reports from an informed Orange County minister that Ethel is still an active communist..."
Heavily conservative in 1971, Orange County is a huge suburb southeast of Los Angeles; the minister could well be the televangelist Robert Schuller, then the host of the widely viewed Hour of Power TV show, who built the 2,248-capacity "Crystal Cathedral," designed by iconic architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee, in 1968 in the Orange County city of Garden Grove.
"It was right outside of Columbus, Ohio when Billy received his notice to report for his induction physical."
It's unclear how Billy and Ethel got from Glendale to Columbus, Ohio, almost 2,000 miles to the east by northeast. Maybe they had resumed their journey out to New York. But even the narrator concedes that he may have misunderstood Billy's whereabouts.
Billy had to undergo an induction physical because this was during the Vietnam War, when young men were drafted and then had to have a physical to determine whether they were fit to kill people.
At one point the narrator mentions "City of Industry."
City of Industry is a real place. Like most of the locations in "Billy the Mountain," it's in Los Angeles County, on the eastern side, in the San Gabriel Valley. It's so named because it's almost entirely industrial: although it's twelve miles in area, it has only 264 residents, according to the 2020 census.
A fellow named Studebaker Hawk ("fantastic new superhero of the current economic slump") is dispatched to stop Billy's rampage and convince him to show up for his induction physical. Hawk is apprised of the news that Billy has somehow traveled all the way from Columbus, Ohio to El Segundo, California, which he has destroyed.
Studebaker was an American automobile manufacturer that had a line of sporty models called the Hawk: the Golden Hawk, the Sky Hawk, the Power Hawk and the Flight Hawk. The Hawk line went out of production in 1963.
El Segundo is in Los Angeles County, about 15 miles south by southwest of downtown LA. It's on the Pacific Ocean, the northern border is LA Airport, and its neighbor to the south is Manhattan Beach.
The Spaniards didn't name it El Segundo — Standard Oil did, because in 1911 it became the site of their second California refinery. El Segundo is still the site of the largest producing oil refinery on the West Coast, as well as a nearby wastewater treatment plant, which explains the town's nickname, “El Stinko.” Another pall over the town is its extensive racist past, which was still very much in force in 1971, something a Southern California audience would have picked up on immediately. Old folks may remember how the Fred Sanford character on the '70s sitcom Sanford and Son regularly ripped on El Segundo.
Hawk springs into action. His first step is to get some "big large, unused cardboard boxes" from "the back of the Broadway at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine."
That's the historic Broadway Building in downtown Hollywood, with its famous neon sign on the roof that says "The Broadway Hollywood." At the time, the building housed the Broadway Department Store, so it would have been a great place for Hawk to find cardboard boxes.
Then he needs to buy some maple syrup, some aluminum foil and "a pair of blunt scissors," so he goes to "Ralph's on Sunset."
There is still a Ralph's (a Southern California supermarket chain) on Sunset at 7257 W. Sunset Boulevard. That's probably the location Zappa was referring to since it's a five-minute drive west of the Broadway Building.
Hawk rigs up some wings with the cardboard and aluminum foil and coats his thighs with maple syrup, attracting a large swarm of flies which carries him into the air. He eventually catches up with Billy and Ethel and stands on "the edge of Billy the Mountain's mouth" and orders him to report for his induction physical. Billy just laughs at this, dislodging Hawk, who tumbles off his mouth, 200 feet down into "the rubble below." The end.
-----------------
Note: some of the facts in this piece are straight from Wikipedia. I won’t properly research and fact-check this thing unless and until I get compensated for it. In the meantime: you get what you pay for.
Politely offered corrections accompanied by credible supporting sources are very welcome.
"We're an American Band" — TRANSLATED
I have been on tour for nearly six weeks. The previous evening, in Little Rock, Arkansas, has left me disoriented due to the performance of a very kind woman by the name of Constance, who — and I am not lying — entertained, so to speak, every member of the band.
I was up into the wee hours with legendary blues musician Freddie King, who very much enjoys playing poker. I can indulge freely in liquor and female companionship, provided they don't prevent the band from arriving on time at the following evening's venue.
We are a rock group from the United States. We are a rock group from the United States. We are en route to your city and upon arrival we will assist you in establishing a festive atmosphere. We are a rock group from the United States.
In Omaha, Nebraska, a quartet of ladies anticipated our arrival after our performance. I am in a good mood and it is a Saturday evening. The head of security at our hotel was most cooperative.
The aforementioned attractive quartet of young women intended to make our acquaintance, stating, "Gentlemen, we invite you to get intoxicated and have sex with us." And we obliged, desecrating our hotel in the process.
We are a rock group from the United States. We are a rock group from the United States. We are en route to your city and upon arrival we will assist you in making it a festive place. We are a rock group from the United States.
We are a rock group from the United States. Ooo-ooo. We are a rock group from the United States. Ooo-ooo. We are a rock group from the United States. Ooo-ooo.
"Every Picture Tells a Story" TRANSLATED
There was a period of my life when I considered myself substandard. Before a looking glass, I adjusted my coif into a myriad of configurations and yet it didn't significantly alter my appearance. My father declared, "Travel, young man. I'd completely understand if that's what you want to do. I would only advise you not to fall deeply in love with a lady who will be profligate with your financial resources." And so I left home. Woo.
The famed City of Light was a location where it was possible to go into hiding if one felt like an outcast. However, the Gallic gendarmes harassed me, asserting that I was an odious individual. On the southern bank of the Seine — woo — a group of fleeing protesters pushed me to the ground and I was taken into police custody, charged with instigating a benign uprising, when in fact I had merely been seeking a spot of Earl Grey. I was held responsible — woo — and so I left town.
In the City of Seven Hills, I was not obtaining sufficient quantities of those things which are critical to sustaining a lad. I had powerful body odor and yet I retained my élan — woo — during a period when I was enduring great misfortune. My despair was growing, yes it was, and I was quite a sight to behold. I really ought to leave before the Holy See retracts its approval of me. I was not prepared for such an eventuality; no, I was not.
I traveled toward the rising sun, yes, I did, and now hear me out. I was in good spirits en route home on the boat from Beijing. By the particular lunar light unique to Asian skies, I began an amorous relationship with a woman whose eyelids featured the epicanthal folds often found in persons of East Asian descent. Lily, who hailed from Shanghai, did not employ oral contraception, asserting that it's unacceptably synthetic. She escorted me aboveboard and gave me a hickey. My listeners, I was delighted to have encountered her. Oh yes, I was delighted to have encountered her. Woo-hoo. And now let's pause a moment.
I was fully confident that I was self-sufficient. I honestly believed that I required no one but myself. But that was profoundly incorrect. I would not allow the ladies with whom I have had relationships to knot my laces. They had no respect for anybody. But I was smitten by the woman whose eyelids featured the epicanthal folds often found in people of East Asian descent. My heavens, I was delighted to have encountered her. I have some helpful life-advice, but I won't cite the 19th-century English novelist Charles Dickens, or the 19th-century English Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats because they've already said what they've said. My advice is this: try to see the upside of adverse circumstances and dismiss them with good cheer — ha — after all, you did not choose to be born.
So don't forget that every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it. Woo.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it. Woo.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it. Woo.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it. Woo.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it. Woo.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it. Woo.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it. Woo.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
Every image imparts a narrative, doesn't it.
"Sympathy for the Devil" TRANSLATED
It's nice to make your acquaintance. I'm a rich man with an outstanding aesthetic sense. Also, I'm quite old and have overseen many Faustian bargains. In fact, I'm so old that I was present when the Savior wondered whether God had given up on him, and I made sure that the governor of Judaea gave him the death sentence.
In 1917, I was in Petrograd and I could tell a revolution was necessary, so I murdered Tsar Nicholas II and his Cabinet. His daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, cried out, but to no avail. About 25 years later, I was a high-ranking military officer riding in an armored vehicle while the German army staged massive attacks on European cities. There was a strong odor of putrefaction.
I very much enjoyed a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages over disputed claims to the French throne. I outspokenly inquired who was responsible for the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy although, let's face it, it was really everybody's fault. And then I ensnared itinerant poets who were put to death before they arrived in Mumbai.
With the ostensibly paradoxical thought that all law enforcement officials are in fact lawbreakers, and those who transgress divine law are worthy of being canonized by the Church, and the obverse of a coin is the same as the reverse, you may refer to me as Lucifer because I require some curtailment.
That said, if we should cross paths, exercise good manners, and show compassion and aesthetic discernment. In summary, be nice to me or I will kill you.
"You Don't Mess Around with Jim" TRANSLATED
There are petty swindlers at the northern end of the city and there are unhoused persons on the Bowery. On 42nd Street, one can find an imposing gentleman named James Walker, who is quite good at billiards. Although he is a hulking and deeply unintelligent fellow, he possesses great physical strength. Accordingly, when criminals gather in the evening, they deferentially refer to him as "Boss."
Just as it is inadvisable to clutch at Superman's mantle, expectorate windward, or remove the Lone Ranger's facial covering, one ought not quarrel with James.
One day, a fellow from a rural area of southern Alabama announced, "I seek a gentleman named James. My name is William McCoy, although my intimates have assigned me the cognomen of 'Slim,' and I play billiards. I seek the monarch of 42nd Street, who drives a Cadillac convertible. Several days ago, he relieved me of my entire net worth and now I endeavor to retrieve it." Whereupon all assembled admonished him thusly:
"Sir, just as it is inadvisable to clutch at Superman's mantle, expectorate windward, or remove the Lone Ranger's facial covering, one ought not quarrel with James."
Suddenly, the billiard parlor went silent as James strode in. There commenced an altercation, and at its conclusion, James was completely covered in his own gore, save the undersides of his feet. He suffered approximately five score lacerations as well as two bullet wounds. No sooner had James collapsed when the assembled witnesses revised their wisdom thusly:
"Just as it is inadvisable to clutch at Superman's mantle, expectorate windward, or remove the mask from the Lone Ranger's face, one ought not quarrel with Slim."
Indeed, that hulking fellow James possessed a fedora. He discovered that it's unwise to swindle individuals with whom one is unfamiliar, notwithstanding the fact that one may possess a bespoke bipartite billiards stick.
And so, in closing, allow me to reiterate: just as it is inadvisable to clutch at Superman's mantle, expectorate windward, or remove the Lone Ranger's facial covering, one ought not quarrel with Slim.
"Lola" TRANSLATED
I made her acquaintance in a nightclub in the red-light district of central London where the sparkling wine is, shall we say, very much on the doux side. (That's spelled D-O-U-X.) She approached me and invited to me take a turn around the floor. I asked her name and she said it was Lola. (That's spelled L-O-L-A.)
I'm hardly the most hot-blooded fellow and when she embraced me, I was sure I had fractured some vertebrae. Which got me thinking: I'm a reasonably intelligent person and yet I couldn't figure out why she had a feminine gait but a masculine voice.
In the light of incandescent bulbs made to look like tapers, we continued to drink the overly sweet sparkling wine and dance throughout the evening, until at one point she hoisted me onto her lap and invited me to her home.
I must admit, I'm a fairly staid fellow but when our gazes met, I nearly fell in love with Lola. But then it finally dawned on me: Lola is a male cross-dresser. I rebuked her and quickly headed out of the club, but just as I reached the door, I knelt down and our gazes met again and, well, I was a goner.
I've since grown perfectly comfortable with the fact that Lola is a cross-dresser and I don't want her to change. After all, there will always be some gentlemen who adopt feminine traits, just as there will always be some ladies who adopt masculine traits. Everything is so unstable in this life — everything, that is, with the notable exception of Lola.
Truth be told, I'd moved out of my parents' house only days earlier and was a virgin. This confession visibly amused Lola, who squeezed my palm and vowed that she would personally induct me into manhood. Believe me, I know I'm no Tarzan; nonetheless, I'm quite self-possessed and I'm comfortable with the fact that I am cis male, as is Lola.
"Takin' Care of Business" TRANSLATED
Every day, the alarm clock wakes you up and soon you are departing the suburbs on an 8:15 AM train. There is some sort of whistle overhead, the crowd is jostling and young women strive to appear attractive. Assuming your train is on schedule, it's possible to arrive at your workplace by 9:00 AM so you can begin your exhausting labor and then eventually receive compensation for it. Should you be peeved about that, note that I work for myself and very much enjoy being constantly idle.
And I have been completing my tasks on a daily basis. Completing my tasks in all senses of the expression. I have been completing my tasks, and I have full ownership of the means of production. Completing my tasks and doing so beyond scheduled working hours. Now, engage in strenuous labor (by which I mean perform a guitar solo).
If only it were as easy as casting a fishing line into a lake, then anybody could become a professional musician. If you feel you're capable of producing tones that are either blaring or dulcet, purchase a used six-string and it's very likely that you will succeed — that is, if you find a special chemistry with some other players. Non-musicians may observe you sunbathing. Just inform them that you prefer this way of life: it's a good way to avoid true labor. We work for ourselves and relish the fact that we are constantly idle.
Woo. All right. Ow. I love it. Completing my tasks in exemplary fashion when I'm not at home, on a daily basis. Woo. Ha. Oh yes.
Completing my tasks. Woo! Completing my tasks. Completing my tasks, assist me. Completing my tasks. Completing my tasks on a daily basis. Completing my tasks, in every sense of the expression. Completing my tasks, I have full ownership of the means of production. Completing my tasks beyond scheduled working hours. Woo!
Recent Posts
- OVERHEARD: Statue Placement
- THE GEOGRAPHY OF FRANK ZAPPA'S "BILLY THE MOUNTAIN"
- "We're an American Band" — TRANSLATED
- OVERHEARD: The Singer's Name
- "Every Picture Tells a Story" TRANSLATED
- OVERHEARD: When to get smashed
- "Sympathy for the Devil" TRANSLATED
- "You Don't Mess Around with Jim" TRANSLATED
- "Lola" TRANSLATED
- "Takin' Care of Business" TRANSLATED