Filling in for an AWOL Keith Richards (who had visa problems at the time, stemming a then-recent drug bust in Toronto), Frank Zappa reads “The Talking Asshole” routine from William S Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. The occasion was the Nova Convention, a three-day celebration of Burroughs’s work that took place in New York City in early December of 1978.
Others on the bill at the Nova Convention included Patti Smith, Robert Anton Wilson, Brion Gysin, Laurie Anderson, poet John Giorno, Timothy Leary, Philip Glass, John Cage and author Terry Southern, who can be heard at the beginning of the clip, introducing Zappa.
Andre Perkowski says, “Loveable Levar Burton takes a look at Burroughs’ ode to addicting fluids, control, and giant aquatic black centipedes in this episode of “Reading Rainbow” suitable for children of all ages.”
Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.
Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.
Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin leaving the carcasses to rot.
Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.
Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.
Thanks for the KKK.
For nigger-killin’ lawmen, feelin’ their notches.
For decent church-goin’ women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.
Thanks for “Kill a Queer for Christ” stickers.
Thanks for laboratory AIDS.
Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.
Thanks for a country where nobody’s allowed to mind the own business.
Thanks for a nation of finks.
Yes, thanks for all the memories—all right let’s see your arms!
You always were a headache and you always were a bore.
Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.