Old Hat from 1999
Winter
Yuletide 1999: The last updates before Christmas were done minutes before midnight, just before Christmas Eve, to the mellow stylings of Lakshminarayana Shankar's Raga Aberi. They were two new bootlegs: Frunobulax and the double CD of Nasty Rats. Happy Holidays!?
December 1999: A mellow month at the Zappa Patio, as the
webmaster is involved in other web projects. Nicely, the new Zappa CD, Everything
Is Healing Nicely, started arriving to US customers from zappa.com,
although it hasn't landed in Sweden yet. BUY IT!!! Unfortunately, the guitar-solo
album known as Trance-Fusion, promised earlier as a fall 1999 release,
has definitely been postponed - as Jawaka reported to alt.fan.frank-zappa:
According to my phone reply from 1-888-2EARFUL, Ryko has no Zappa product to be released in 1999, so no Trance-Fusion this year. There is an unnamed vault release and a DVD [!] for '00. Details maybe in January. Looks like the move from Salem to New York put stuff behind. Their webmaster quit and they have a spiffy new site coming. No updates on rykodisc.com since October 7.
On December 16, Ulrik Volgsten's PhD dissertation Music, Mind & the Serious Zappa: the Passions of a Virtual Listener went up for oral defense at the University of Stockholm department of musicology (from where it might even be possible to order a copy of the book). The webmaster is thanked in the preamble. Unfortunately, the "opponent" ruined the orals with a one-hour-and-twenty-minute "summary" of the book, reading slowly from his notes (about what the book is about!), during which several people fell asleep and/or left. Jerker Dalman wins the popular Swedish TV contest "Expedition Robinson", where a bunch of people are put on a deserted tropical island and try their best to stay there as long as they can - at the end of each episode they take a vote on who among themselves they want to get rid of, plus various sports and games are conducted, wherein points have to be scored. (Summer 2000 update: this is the same show that has been exported to the US as "Survivor" - and as I understand it, the gay guy won in the American version too.)
November 1999: Patio infected by CIH/CIH.1003 viruses. Disinfected. More of the corny Polish flexi-disc postcards on sideshow display. Link of the month: the Unofficial Ed Palermo home page - a good laugh when we need one! Also: more vacation for the webmaster. New Bootleg released in Japan around the 20th: Pachuco Hop, from the Rockpile 1969 show where the Mothers played a number of R&B oldies. That's the first time that recording has been on a bootleg; strange, considering how interesting it is. Meanwhile, the death threats continue. Swedish radio reports that 200 MOTELS will be "staged" "big-time" in some form in Amsterdam next summer, with orchestra and rock musicians. According to drummer Morgan Ågren, commissioned for the event by Gail Zappa, rumour has it that Rutger Hauer (apparently the Zappas' friend and neighbour) will play some part on stage.
November 11 1999: Formal death threat to webmaster from 13-year-old girl.
Autumn
Halloween 1999: Sorry, no Halloween stylesheet this year; I've been busy preparing new light-on-dark stylesheets for all subsections for all you IE4 and 5 users - a real facelift, I hope you'll agree, but due to lousy planning, it collided quite heavily with Halloween. But you would REALLY freak out if you saw the background GIFs I prepared for Halloween but decided not to use! Oh, man ... hey, by they way, didja know that here in Sweden, Halloween is celebrated a week later than in the US? That's when our All Hallows' Day is - trick-or-treat-style Halloween wasn't observed in our country at all until 1991, when it was introduced by retail, and didn't catch on until two years ago. (We have an Easter tradition, though, of children dressing weird and going around asking for candy.) If you have to have a pumpkin this time of year, here's a link to last Halloween.
October 19 1999 - Newsflash! In the year 2000, the Ensemble Modern will be playing "Dental Hygiene Dilemma", "Igor's Boogie Phase 2", "The Black Page #1", "Envelopes", "Dupree's Paradise", "Buffalo Voice", "The Dangerous Kitchen", "Moggio", "Love Story", "Put a Motor in Yourself", "Revised Music for Guitar/Violin and Low Budget Orchestra", "Jonestown", "Greggery Peccary" and "Beltway Bandits"! All this "transcribed and arranged by Ali N Askin in co-operation with the ensemble", and to be conducted by Peter Eötvös (who also conducted the yet unreleased Varèse album that Zappa produced, The Rage & the Fury, sound clips from which are available on zappa.com). Informants on that: Francesco Gentile & Kristian Kier. Other exciting link: a painting by Frank Zappa on the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW TV show! This is the coolest thing you'll ever see. The latest hype on alt.fan.frank-zappa is that everyone who has Guitar on CD should look for the LP version, "for the different segues".
October 11 1999 - NEW ZAPPA ALBUM: Everything is Healing Nicely:
Yes, as of October 11 1999, Barfko-Swill
is accepting pre-orders for Everything is Healing Nicely, a "behind-the-scenes
look at the rehearsals, out-takes, improvisations, and unused pieces from the
Yellow Shark". The Duke of Prunez reported the following "relevant
spewage" details to alt.fan.frank-zappa:
- Your credit card will be processed as soon as you pre-order;
- $19.95 - add CA tax and $5.95 for shipping & handling on top of that, and you get something more like $28.00;
- Shipment will take place "the week before Christmas, or the week before that".
(According to 818-PUMPKIN, "they are still telling us that Trance-Fusion [the new guitar-solo album] will be out this fall", and we think that "they" are Rykodisc.)
October 8 1999: Due to problems with myself and my computer, the Zappa Patio is down between approximately 20:00 and 21:30 CET, and as if that weren't enough, when it finally comes back on-line, there are two hit counters on each page - and I actually had e-mail complaining about this. Of course, it's all right now. Koo Sung Yeon, competing for the People's Republic of Korea, captured third place in the world judo championships (men -90 Kg), winning his bronze match with a headspring!
Summer
September
1999 -
Thing-Fish: The Massive Confus'ment
on alt.fan.frank-zappa over the differences between the vinyl and various CD versions of Thing-Fish. "ESSENTIAL VERSIONS FOR
COMPLETISTS" guidelines added to most Vinyl-vs-CD
entries. 818-PUMPKIN confirms that Frank Zappa's new guitar-solo album Trance-Fusion
will be released "this fall", and "it will also be
available through Rykodisc" (but "we don't have a release date yet".) Plan
your parties! The Zappa Patio has a new logo: the Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a
Drowning Witch, with the added fin of the Yellow Shark, against
the "Orange-Coloured Sky". And she's drowning in "Aybe Sea"! New
search function, powered by FreeFind -
hooray! Another new page: the Japanese
Drowning Witch Obi 
! New award: The Roto-Plooker
Prize for Useful Zappa Stuff!
August 25 1999 - "C Instruments": Craig Jones posts a previously unavailable Zappa composition, "C Instruments", used for auditioning musicians, to alt.binaries.fz in the form of scans of sheet music (in David Ocker's hand) and a MIDI adaption, because Craig is great! It is a guitar-solo transcription that later went into the first movement of "Sinister Footwear", with a lot of changes. (The "precursor" to this piece, "Pre-C Instruments", was posted by Jon Naurin on June 16.)
August 1999: The Indian magician Ishamuddin, sole master of the Indian Rope Trick, visits Stockholm. New Russian & Polish flexi-disc information. STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE opens in Sweden on August 19. The webmaster does have tickets and shows up in a white tux. Link of the month: "We Been There".
August 2 1999: The webmaster caught in a forest fire! On my way home
from the local beach, through the woods, I was caught in a raging forest fire, from which
I easily escaped; but the Zappa Patio was less than a kilometer from being burnt to the
ground! As of this typing, around 5 AM the next day, the whole area is clouded with smoke,
but the fire seems to be under control ... but listen to this RUMOUR:
last night, when hundreds of curious and nervous locals were out in the fields and woods
all night looking at the flames, smoke, firemen and water-bombing helicopters, several
people reportedly SAW ONE OR MORE NINJA 
running around in the dark, fiery woods,
flashing drawn swords! Can the whole fire actually have been started by ninja, and if so,
for what reason? (Perhaps a spark from blades clashing in a sword fight?) So far, no news media have picked up on this rumour and I don't think
it's likely that they ever will. As of this typing (9 AM), another,
perhaps less credible, rumour has spread about a "mysterious" "man with a
straw hat".
July 1999: The aeons are
closing! A message on the 818-PUMPKIN hotline confirmed that Frank
Zappa's new guitar-solo album Trance-Fusion would be released in fall
1999! Moreover, rumour has it that the SHAW BROTHERS vaults in Clearwater
Bay, Hong Kong 
are finally opening! HBO
Táiwan 
and Chinese Film in Taiwan will supposedly
be buying all the 700+ movies for HK$ 400 000 000. Nostradamus predicted the
end of the world as we know it for July 1999, too. Do you believe any of those scenarios?
On another note, I was inches away from being run over by a car on July
17, after the handlebars of my bicycle broke at high speed in the city
traffic of downtown Stockholm. If I had fallen, which I almost did, the car would have run me over
and killed me, and the Zappa Patio would have gone off-line when my swipnet account terminates in the
summer of 2000 (only to be resurrected as a static mirror by Miguel Amorim 18 months
later). The quote of the month is in Swedish, and quite long:
Mellan de tvenne glasdörrarna, som ledde ut till trädgården, fans [sic] en apparat av mässing som vi icke behöva vidare beskriva, så snart vi sagt att den tjänade till bostad åt en papegoja, vilken med den allvarsamma min och värdighet, som äro egna för dessa fåglar, därifrån observerade sin omgivning. Papegojornas ironiska hårda fysionomi, gröna frack, röda mössa och gula stövlar tillsamman med de hesa burleska ord som de pläga framstöta, ge dem ett besynnerligt frånstötande utseende, som är mitt emellan allvarsamt och löjligt. De ha ett visst oförklarligt tycke med diplomater. Stundom se de ut som narrar och alltid likna de vissa inbilska personer, som vilja ge sig ett sken av överlägsenhet och därigenom slå över till det löjliga.
Penitenciario tyckte mycket om papegojan. Då han lämnade Perfecta och Rosario i samtal med den resande, närmade han sig papegojan och sade, i det han välvilligt lät fågeln bita sig i fingret:
"Din skälm, din spetsbov, varför säger du ingenting? Du vore inte mycket värd, om du ej vore en pratmakare. Bland människorna lika väl som bland fåglarna finnes det fullt med pratmakare."
(It is from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdóz, translated by Karl August Hagberg.) A John R reports that a mysterious Zappa CD, Zappa on the Road, is listed on rock.com with a 1999 release date from DBN Records and "it's on backorder". However, it turns out to be a mislisting:
JOHN SEMAN:[It] is most likely the Argentinean (?) performer also named Zappa who I find quite often in import bins here in the US. DBN records is based in Buenos Aires, so it is unlikely they are concerned with Frank.
MARCELO GASIÓ: Regarding the "mystery" Zappa on the Road CD (DBN) it is actually the Zappa on the RADIO CD compilation I made for Argentina. Someone misspelled it. You can read all about this CD on my page. The record is now withdrawn because of some legal problems, since DBN was not supposed to export it.
June 16 1999 - "Pre-C Instruments": Jon Naurin reveals to the on-line Zappa community sheet music for a previously unknown Zappa composition used for auditioning drummers! Within the week, a scan and a midi adaption appear on the web (LA LA LA NICE LADY). The sheet music is said to have come from David Ocker. I, for one, am fantastically excited!!!
June 1999 - SHORTPERSON SIGHTED: I had just got home from my vacation and was walking, late in the afternoon, through some fields here just outside the suburbs of Stockholm, when I saw a LEPRECHAUN some 10-12 meters away! A tiny man, less than one meter tall, with white hair, walking towards the woods - when he got there, he disappeared into thin air. Had he been stroking St Alfonzo's smock?
***
June 1999: It's time for my vacation, so don't expect any updates in the near future (I don't know when I'll be home again). If I reach some spectacular location (not likely), I promise to do my best to get on-line and update the web from there. If I die on my vacation (why not?), this web site will go off-line forever when my swipnet account runs out some time in August or September.
May 1999 - APOSTROPHE ('): David Goodwin, Biffy the Elephant Shrew and Bill Harper discover that Ryko have switched to using another master for their Apostrophe (') CDs - their audiophile Au20 CD master, which was just like the vinyl master! (The original CD master was a slightly different mix, with different edits of "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" and "Uncle Remus".) See the Apostrophe (') Vinyl vs CDs page for details.
Early May 1999: The first
pictures of the Polish flexi-disc Postcards
have arrived, courtesy of Mikael Agardsson. The cute one on the right is
"Don't Eat the Yellow Snow". After these, I've begun to expect the paranormal
whenever I see Mikael's name in my mailbox.
May Day 1999: Bossk (R) assembles a skiffle group and records "Conditioner", his track for the alt.fan.frank-zappa CD currently in production, during a break from working on a drum & bass version. It was supposed to be an indie-pop tune, but there was no time to rehearse a guitar band.
Spring
April
1999 - the Gloria Estefan Poster: I found a Gloria Estefan maxi single at a
garbage store - EMI 658837 6, "Miami Hit Mix" backed with "Live for
Loving You (Underground Club Mix)" and "Christmas Through Your Eyes", with
a potent "FREE POSTER INCLUDED" on the cover. When I picked it
up and realised that the cover was the poster, folded around the inner
sleeve, and that it was gorgeous, I bought it right away and put the
poster on the wall over my bed, next to the Swedish poster for Wong Kar-Wai's 
FALLEN
ANGELS 
. I put a robot on dyking down all the pictures of Gloria from every Gloria
web site I could find, and had to wade through hundreds and hundreds of bad pictures of
Gloria with her family, Gloria with fans, Gloria with trumpet players and Gloria with drag
queens, but I never found the picture on the poster, so I can't show it to you. She's
leaning against a wall in a colourful, short knitwear dress - if anyone has
that picture, you can e-mail it to bossk-office@telia.com.
April Fools' day, 1999 (no fooling): The hubba-hubba Pattareeya Siringamwong won the Miss Tiffany (T*) pageant in Thailand, and a Swedish paper (Metro) published a picture of her taken by a Pornchai Kittiwongsakul. Thank god for the English and Thai languages (with a nod to Chinese and Sanskrit as well)!
March or April 1999: This web site at http://home.swipnet.se/~w-59501/ finally gets a name. The name is The Zappa Patio, inspired by the antics of a hacker named PAPA, known for flooding alt.fan.frank-zappa, massive mailbombing of Zappa fans, putting up a web page about how he had hacked into Cal Schenkel's AOL account, and for the phrase "PAPA ALIVE ON PATIO". DISCLAIMER: No one affiliated with the Zappa Patio has anything to do with PAPA, and we do not like PAPA or anyone who likes him!
Some time in 1999: the entire sub-domain home5.swipnet.se is replaced by home.swipnet.se. Home5 is still in place, but I guess it won't stay in place forever, and this may affect links to this page out on the web. I don't care.
March 2 1999: A painting by Frank Zappa appeared on the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW TV show! This is the coolest thing you'll ever see.
March 1999 - Bobby Brown spotted in Stockholm: You thought Bobby Brown was white, didn't you? He's not! Some time in March, I was invited to a '70s disco somewhere in Stockholm by an old classmate, and I went, as "Marc from San Francisco", speaking only English, in a fur coat and full make-up, carrying little plastic bags of "cocaine". (I later found out that several people had thought this was real cocaine.) At the bar, I was introduced to the DJ - a silly guy in blackface and an afro wig - by someone who called him "BOBBY BROWN". I shook hands with him and said "Bobby Brown? I've heard a lot about you! I'm Marc, nice to meet you", and he said "Hi, I'm Jimmy [!]". Unfortunately, he didn't play "Bobby Brown", just "I Will Survive" type stuff, but it was nice to finally meet him. Quote of the month - for our Swedish readers, from singer-songwriter Dilba: "suga röv" (DN, March 22, Part B, page 1).
Late February 1999: From Italy, we have The TRUE STORY of the POSSIBILITIES UNLIMITED Logo, on the Broadway the Hard Way page in the Return of the Son of the alt.fan.frank-zappa Vinyl vs CDs FAQ (under "Cassette"). Recommended reading!
(Tibetan New Year 2126: This year, Tibetan and Chinese lunar new years almost coincide. In Tibet it's the year of the the earth hare. Zappy Tibetan new year!)
Chinese New Year 4697 (Year of the Rabbit/Hare): Zappy Chinese New Year! They've been counting for a while.
Early February 1999: Mikael Agardsson forwarded a list of flexi-disc postcards, which are now on a separate page. Maybe they're bootlegs, maybe they're not; it hasn't felt safe so far to place them among the bootlegs or in the Weirdo Discography, among the weird but fully legal albums.
February 3, 1999: In a cutting-edge move, Ryko started selling Zappa MP3s through their web site, rykodisc.com. These really are the '90s!
Mid-January 1999: THE AEONS ARE CLOSING! The vaults are opening! Cal Schenkel has confirmed that "a corner's been turned", Gail Zappa has told the Barfko-Swill mailing list that "1999 is the year of the beginning of the release of the remaining Frank Zappa masters" (Zappa's own Everything is Healing Nicely, The Rage & the Fury, Dance Me This and Trance-Fusion, as well as a The Petit Wazoo CD, apparently Spence Chrislu's final Zappa project), and by January 10, there was a message on the 818-PUMPKIN hotline that said "if you've been wondering what the hell we did over the Christmas break - think Roxy" (they mean the Roxy 1973 video)! There have to be two links-of-the-month: zappa.com (which is probably not updated to reflect any of this :) and Splat's Zappa Page, where you can read about these unreleased albums.
January 1999: The webmaster livens up a dinner party by phoning the Monkey King and inviting him over. He shows up!
Early January 1999: I've just seen BLADE OF
FURY 
, didn't like it and don't recommend it, but fell in love-at-first-sight with
Kenja 
, the enigmatic Japanese master. How can anyone LOOK
like that? Mystico! My video-capture friend has gone to Germany to see
some Star Trek movie, but as soon as he comes home I promise to re-rent
BLADE OF FURY and set up a Kenja Home Page [now down]. On alt.fan.frank-zappa, someone stipulated a theory that Thing-Fish
was part of "the government conspiracy" to spread HIV and AIDS among (parts of)
the population, because it "was produced in '83 for an '84 release, and the best any
of us could remember, AIDS wasn't announced until at least '85", so
Zappa must have had some inside information. Rolf Maurer knew that the 1985 date was years
off, because he had a copy of the original press release. :)
New Year's Eve 1998/1999: New stylesheets for Windows IE4 users. Happy new year!