Perhaps In Maryland

Bruce Bereano:

Thank you, Chairman Miller, members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. My name is Bruce Bereano. I'm an attorney here in Annapolis, Maryland. I am here on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America, which is a trade association out of New York City, which hired me to represent their interests after this bill passed the House of Delegates to seek the defeat of this legislation. RIAA is a trade association of the manufacturers of records and tapes in the United States. With me, at my invitation, as my guest, is Mr. Frank Zappa, born and raised here in the state of Maryland, a recording musician, songwriter, and entertainer for some thirty-odd years. I'd like to make a few remarks before I turn the microphone over to Mr. Zappa.

This legislation, like other legislation unfortunately considered in legislatures throughout the state and other states, deals with trying to have government intervene in the development, the establishment, and the dealing with matters that should be and should remain within the responsibility, the commitment, and the obligation of the family structure.

I will not spend a great deal of time going over lyrics that I could cite as well. Let me just indicate one though:

Love for sale
Appetizing young love for sale
Who's prepared to pay the price
For a trip to paradise
Love for sale

—Cole Porter, 1930.

I'd like to ask Mr. Frank Zappa to please comment on this legislation. Mr. Zappa.

FZ:

Thank you. First of all I wanna make it very clear I do not represent the RIAA, nor would they wish me to.

These are my personal views, these are opinions. I'm not a lawyer. I'm a guy with a high school education. I did not go to high school in Maryland. I escaped. And, uh . . . This is working here? Hello. Which one's working? None?

This is censorship.

Alright, I'll have to talk louder. Uh, I oppose this bill bec—, for a number of reasons. Uh, first of all, there's no need for it. The idea that the lyrics to a song are going to cause anti-social behavior, as an exclusive cause of anti-social behavior, I think is not supportable by science, in spite of the fact that a psychiatrist just sat here and told you—and I don't where he gets this, that this exposure to this type of material will keep young people from thinking or impair their thinking process. It's a fascinating theory.

In looking at the bill, in spite of the fact that I'm not a lawyer, I see some unusual—

You guys read this? Or did you read the synopsis?

In the part where it talks about uh, the . . . it says, "In this section the following words have the meanings indicated," the, the bill seeks to uh, keep you from seeing, renting, buying or listening to material described as "depicting illicit sex." And the description of what "illicit sex" as per this bill, here's the descriptions: "Human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal." Is that illicit sex? Perhaps in Maryland!

"Acts of human masturbation," not animal masturbation, this is talking 'bout human masturbation, you can't see that but any other kind I suppose you could see. Mechanical masturbation, perhaps. Or acts of government.

"Sexual intercourse or sodomy." Why, why do they indicate that sexual intercourse is illicit sex and put it next to sodomy in the same line? The next line: "Fondling or other erotic touching of human genitals." That is illicit in the State of Maryland according to the law as already written?

Next. "Distributing includes renting."

And then, "3. Nude or partially denuded figures means less than completely and opaquely covered human genitals, pubic region, buttocks, or female breast below a point immediately above the top of the areola."

Now, I like nipples, I think they look good and that . . . and if you are going to look at a woman's breast, if you take the nipple off, which is the characterising determining factor, what you got is a blob of fat there. Okay? And I think that when you're a baby, probably one of the first things that you get interested in is that nozzle right there, and you get to have it right up in front of your face, okay? You grow up with it so to speak, and then you grow up to live in the State of Maryland and they won't let you see the little brown thing anymore.

Then it says, "Human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state, even if completely and opaquely covered." Now, I thought 'turgid' was like, you know, water swirling around in a, you know, like maybe a Bendix, or something like that—I don't know whether that's really the right word for describing the male genital. Now is this talking about, you can't sing about or look at human male genitals with water swirling about them?

"Even if completely and opaquely covered."

I think you have problems in the law as it already exists, let alone amending it to include audio references to the things that are already in this document. Then, because it talks about not being able to advertise matter containing these objectionable topics, it opens up the possibility for this: a person wearing a Mötley Crüe T-shirt, if Mötley Crüe was adjudged, by whatever forum is gonna make these decisions, to be a pornographic act, if the person is wearing the T-shirt, theoretically he could be fined a thousand dollars or go to jail for a year for his wardrobe. And if he wore it twice, it's "Five thousand dollars or imprisonment not to exceed three years or both unless otherwise provided."

Some people, when they start talking about pornography, and saving the children, and the rest of this stuff, in the desire to help a child, sometimes choose some strange ways to express it, and, what I know about this bill basically is what I see on this paper and things that I've read in clippings sent to me from Baltimore papers. And some of the statements made in support of the bill, for example uh, I hope I'm not in—, incorrectly quoting you, Delegate Toth, in the reference to uh, rock music being "the major cause of incest in the home," did you say that?

There, I'm sorry if I'm misquoting you, somebody reported to me that you had said that, and I've, you know, been baffled by it ever since. But, if you had said it . . . you know, well I won't even bother to answer it since you didn't say it, but is it true that someone has said, I believe it was uh, Delegate Owens, that rock music is "the worst form of child abuse, big mass child abuse"?

Then somebody in the newspaper is quoting him wrong, because that's from the Maryland papers. OK?

Senator Yeager:

Mr. Chairman.

FZ:

Yes?

Thomas V. "Mike" Miller, Chairman:

Senator Yeager.

Senator Yeager:

Is Mr. Zappa testifying or is he cross-examining the sponsor of the bill?

FZ:

Well, if I'm— Are you accusing me of—

Senator Yeager:

Could he keep his testimony to testimony? I would appreciate that.

Chairman:

OK. Thank you.

FZ:

Well, see, I haven't— I don't do this very often so I don't know the protocol but I thought it would be fair to ask before I accused somebody of saying something they hadn't said, so, if he wants me to just blab it out, I'll do it.

?:

We appreciate [...] Please proceed.

FZ:

OK.

To say that rock music is the worst form of child abuse, and that it's mass child abuse, I would call that sky-high rhetoric.

Because if you ever seen photographs, which I have on CNN or other news shows that show stories about abused children with bruises over their body or they're cut or, you know, they've really been badly injured. That's an abused child.

There is a difference between that photograph and a photograph of a kid with some earphones on listening to a heavy metal album. I don't equate the two at all.

It is my personal feeling that lyrics uh, will not harm you. There is no sound that you can make with your mouth, or word that will come out of your mouth, that is so powerful that it'll make you go to Hell. It's not gonna do it. It's also not gonna turn you into a social liability.

Disturbed people can be set off on a disturbed course of action by any kind of stimulus.

If they are prone to being anti-social, or schizophrenic or whatever, they can be set off by anything, including my tie, or your hair, or that chair over there, or anything.

Anything can set it off. You can't point to statistics of people uh, doing strange things in the vicinity of rock music, because all you gotta do is look around at all the normal kids who listen to it, and live with it every day, who do not commit suicide, they don't commit murder, and they grow up to be, in some cases, legislators.

So, I would hope that the State of Maryland would send a message to the other states that are considering this type of legislation. I would hope you would kill it here so that the other states will not continue with this kind of foolish stuff. Because you know it feels like a fad or a trend and it's something that should stop here and I hope we can stop it here.