My Sentiments Exactly -OR- Things He Said, But Couldn't Say

"Better look around before you say you don't care, Shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of my hair, How would you survive IF you were alive? Shitty little person."

I stuffed this quote away after last year's Zappadan had passed, when I hadn't figured a way to work it in. I've disremembered where I ran across it along with the story of how Verve Records insisted that the lines be changed. You won't hear the lyric on We're Only In It For The Money's "Mother People". Instead we got "Lemme take a minute and tell you my plan, Lemme take a minute and tell who I am, If it doesn't show, Think you better know, I'm another person".

I was 14 in August of 1969 when I saw FZ at the Aragon Ballroom. I was just a kid, but no longer a child. That had been taken care of the previous August during the Democratic convention; witnessing LAW & ORDER up close. Being an "L" rat and street smart meant I could go places and do things. Seeing Frank Zappa was important to me.

I wore that record out. So there I was singing along having a great time when suddenly he wasn't singing what he was supposed to. The chorus above sounds about right for what I heard and I remember thinking it made more sense.



Do it again!
Do it again!

We are the other people
We are the other people
You're the other people too
Found a way to get to you...
Do you think that I'm crazy?
Out of my mind?
Do you think that I creep in the night
And sleep in a phone booth?
Lemme take a minute & tell you my plan
Lemme take a minute & tell who I am
If it doesn't show
Think you better know
I'm another person
Better look around before you say you don't care,
Shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of my hair,
How would you survive IF you were alive?
Shitty little person.
Do you think that my pants are too tight
Do you think that I'm creepy?
Lemme take a minute & tell you my plan
Lemme take a minute & tell who I am
If it doesn't show
Think you better know
I'm another person
Better look around before you say you don't care,
Shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of my hair,
How would you survive IF you were alive?
Shitty little person.

We are the other people
We are the other people
You're the other people too
Found a way to get to you
We are the other people
We are the other people
You're the other people too
Found a way to get to you
Do you think that I love you...
Stupid & blind?
Do you think that I dream through the
Night
Of holding you near me?

Lemme take a minute & tell you my plan
Lemme take a minute & tell who I am
If it doesn't show
Think you better know
I'm another person

Better look around before you say you don't care,
Shut your fuckin' mouth about the length of my hair,
How would you survive IF you were alive?
Shitty little person.

Yep. Where we were is where we are. Everything is different, but nothing has changed.
Written in 1968; written this morning. We are still the other people for whom concern is unworthy. Shitty little people are still calling the shots, making the rules and getting away with it. Now it is the shitty little sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of 1969's shitty little people. The pool has widened a little, but it's no deeper now. Dick Cheney entered politics in 1968, working for Nixon and helping to conjure up a "silent majority" who shilled for the shitty little people.

This is the maddening aspect of the blame game aimed at "Liberal Ideology". For roughly 40 years before `68, there was a progressive movement to which America moved and shook. In its waning phase, several key progressive components were attempted. Only one truly succeeded. That was Medicare. Its success is wholly owed to the success of Social Security. Therein lies the rub. Medicare was a Republican ruse. It did the right thing, just not the right way and certainly not for the right reason.
Medicare came into being as a devil's bargain to prevent the more progressive (and logical) movement for Universal Health Care. By granting UHC to seniors and funding it with heretofore untouchable Social Security Trust Funds, the Conservative movement won their first major battle and shifted the balance in their favor.

With Nixon's election there was an influx of "pure" conservatives into positions of oversight and direction where they could control funding. Now that the cork on SS had been popped, it was open season. Anything that hastened the draining could be funneled to assure maximum flow for diminishing results, which would require additional taps into the reservoir.

I've made conscious choices not to become a shitty little person. Even as I watched people I thought I knew take the bait and become just like them. I've paid a price for my choices. I've watched in a mixture of horror and bemusement as the tables were turned and all that had been attained, built and saved has been redistributed according to the Randian model. Using our shared sacrifices and investments to bankroll the operation. Easy come, easy go?

This Zappadan is yet another chance to come to our senses. To realize we've been had.
To stop accepting the mountain of excuses for our perceived decline and begin the process of restoring actual, equitable law and reasoned order to our lives. We are lucky, I suppose, to have prevented the worst of the repressive movement on our daily lives, but the incremental losses have only quickened as we've moved further and further from our stated goals. Yet another tipping point. Who better than one of the brightest observers of our dysfunction to show us the way?

I understand that we're supposed to be in the Christmas ceasefire, but sleaze never ceases. The torturers NEVER stop. They use our lulls and distractions to redouble and retrench. It's long past time that we do the same and fight back with purpose.