Outdoor Music Festival: The Zappa Years

Many years and countless brain cells ago.







Fill the tank with a suction-cup siphon hose
Larceny is The Mother of Invention
Load the cooler and check the oil
Canned beer and stale sandwiches
Swimming in a sea of dirty ice

Roll down the windows
Roll down the highway
Sixty-eight Chevy, three on the tree
Chuggin’ orange juice and Dark Eyes from a plastic milk jug
Jack Daniels and blotter acid


Hippy redneck microbus
Dashboard hula girl and half-a-pack of smokes
Zippo spewing fire and brimstone
Love beads swinging from the rear view mirror
Loaded revolver ‘neath the seat

Shut it down in the parking lot
Radiator steaming disapproval
Bottlecap-scarred bare feet
Crossing black-hot pavement
Tortured souls on scorched soles

Festival seating
On the banks of the retention pond
White trash mermaids sing their siren song
Strumming mandolins


Reefer smoke hangs in stagnant air
Butt cheeks and Daisy Dukes
Lewd indiscretion in the tall grass
Love in the afternoon
Tube tops leaking lizard milk
Jazz isn’t dead, it just smells funny