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BONGO FURY

 Debra Kadabra

Notes and Comments
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shit-ass Charlotte, aint that a bitch?
From: David=Lane%HQ%Rational@Vines1.ratsys.com
  There's at least one other instance of this in the Beefheart world. In the "Blue Collar" theme song, the line "Foremen always wanna fight" was originally (only available on bootlegs) something like "Shit-ass foreman always wanna fight". I'd guess it was a local colloquialism where little Donnie was raised up.
From: Vladimir Sovetov <sova@kpbank.ru>
  And Frankie too 'coze this song although been performed by CB is credited nevertheless to FZ.
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Debra Kadabra, haw that's rich.
June, a rancho granny,
Shook her wrinkled fanny
From: fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller)
  fanny = heinie = behind = rear end = ass = buttocks ...
fan-ny \'fan-e^-\ pl fannies

[perh. fr. Fanny, nickname of Frances] (1928) :BUTTOCKS
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Witch goddess, witch goddess of Lankershim Boulevard.
From: nudeadguy@aol.com (NudeAdGuy)
  Lankershim is a long diagonal street that cuts through beautiful downtown Burbank and comes to a stop near Universal Studios. I got lost on it during my Honeymoon in 1981. I did find a great Pakistani restaurant and the chamber of commerce there, though.
From: saul+@pitt.edu (Alan Saul)
  Lankershim Blvd. is the main drag in North Hollywood (that, incidentally, has little to do with Hollywood, which is perhaps, what, 10 miles away I'd guess). There were a lot of clubs on or just off Lankershim in N. Hollywood and it was generally a reasonably hip place to be for some people.
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Cover my entire bodice, with Avon Cologna.
From: jh@cadre.com (Joe Hartley)
  Avon ladies used to go (maybe they still do) door to door selling cosmetics.
From: fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller)
  Avon is a famous door-door cosmetics sales outfit. Periodically suburbanites would be paid a solicitation visit from the "Avon Lady"
  CC
  This corrupted pronounciation of Cologne (perfume for men) features prominently in Thing Fish.
From: mdryden@cix.compulink.co.uk ("Martyn Dryden")
  "Don's mother, who sold Avon products door-to-door, had all this stuff from Avon stashed at the house, which everybody used. Y'know, it was free beauty aids. Don, being neurotic, and a bit of a narcissist, was quite prone to dumping any kind of beauty aid that he could find on to his body. He made the unfortunate mistake of taking some Avon cologne and putting it in his hair, one day, which made it start falling out. He also put some kind of Avon cream on his face, which made him break out in this giant rash. His face looked like an alligator. He was losing a great deal of status at the high school, and he moved out of our little desert community, Lancaster, where he went to school, and moved down to East LA to stay with his aunt for a while while he got his chops back together."
-- FZ quoted in Society Pages, No 7, September 1991

-- re-quoted in The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play

by Ben Watson, Quartet Books 1994.
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and maybe watch the rubber tongue, when it comes out
from the puffed, and flabulent Mexican rubbergoods mask.
From: larryh@ssd.intel.com (Larry Huntley)
  Probably related to "blobulent" (from "The Radio is Broken"); it's a Zappa-word. I figure it means lumpy, rubbery, cheesy-looking.
From: ap368@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (John Gillies)
  flabulent Mexican Rebel Goose mask"
  -a clin d'oeil at Trout Mask, see also Mexican Art History
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Next time they show the Brnokka
From: linetramp@delphi.com
  I think he is saying "Binaca", a concentrated breath-freshening fluid in a tiny bottle. Hey, it's Beefheart...it doesn't have to make sense to us!
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Give me bas relief!
From: jh@cadre.com (Joe Hartley)
  Yep, it's a pun. Bas-relief is a type of decorative molding or sculpture.
From: fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller)
  An artistic style. I believe it is a basically two dimensional raised sculpture. In other words basically flat, but the objects are raised from the two dimensional surface to give a wee bit of depth.
From: JRTX82B@prodigy.com (Raymond Ricker)
  There is a little more to this story - Fulcanelli believed that the secrets of Christian hermeticsm were to be found in Bas Reliefs throughout Europe's cathedrals - after he bestowed this knowledge upon a trusted disciple in 1920 (whereupon "Le Mystere des Cathedrales" was published) he disappeared without a trace. Thirty years later he made a single appearance to his disciple, before disappearing again, and, according to his disciple, actually had grown younger by at least 20 years.
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Make me buy The Flosser
Make me grow branaic fingers
(But with more hair)
Frank Zappa - A Visual Documentary By Miles p.67
  "Oh the ultimate worst is in a Mexican science fiction movie called The Brainiac. It's one of the worst of the movie ever made and when the monster appears, not only is the monster cheap, he's got a rubber mask that you can see over the collar of the guy's jacket and rubber gloves that don't quite much up the sleeves of his sport coat. When the monster appears there's this trumpet lick that isn't scary. It's not even out of tune, it's just exactly the wrong thing to put there it doesn't scare you, that's the greatest example I can think of. Did you ever heard the song 'Debra Kadabra' ( on 'Bongo Fury')? That's what that song is about and when you hear in the background DA-DA-DA-DA-DAHHH, that's making fun of that stupid thrumpet line taht's in the movie but nobody's seen it over here so you can't appreciate the humour of the song.
  When he's saying 'Make me grow Brainiac fingers' that's what he's referring to, because Vliet and I have both seen that movie and it's fucking stupid. Mexican monster movies are great, The Aztec Mummy's Ghost that's good one too [Zappa: 1983]
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Learn the pachuco hop, and let me twirl you!
From: fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller)
  I think it is a mexican american word that's kind of like "dude". "Pachuco hop" is obviuosly some sort of dance.
From: larryh@ssd.intel.com (Larry Huntley)
  Slight historical note:
  "Pachuco" was a term used to refer to male persons of the Mexican-American persuasion. It was used a lot in So. Calif. in the 50's and 60's. I don't know how widespread the usage was. Another reference to the Pachuco Hop is on "Crusin' with Reuben and The Jets."
From: Vladimir Sovetov <sova@kpbank.ru>
  The song name is _Jelly Roll Gum Drop_
From: Charles Ulrich <culrich@istar.ca>
  "Pachuko Hop" was an instrumental R&B record by Chuck Higgins. The Mothers performed it in concert in 1969. (As a Spanish word, "pachuco" should be spelled with a C, but the song title is spelled with a K on Art Laboe's Memories of El Monte on Original Sound, the same label that released the original 45. I haven't seen the actual 45.)
Got my eyes on you
The way you do the bop
Like a spinnig top
The Pachuco Hop

-from Plastic People Songbuch
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