and here's one more from the Baltimore Sun.
marc rosen
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-zappa-celebration-20100920,0,6412269.story
pasteage:
Speeches and regalia: Zappa fans celebrate rocker
Hundreds come together to honor Baltimore's newest favorite son
Dave Thompson, alias Frank Zappa wears a mask in the musician's honor
on Eastern Ave. Thompson bought the mask right after he died.
(Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna / September 19, 2010)
9:14 p.m. EDT, September 19, 2010
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For Baltimore musician Warren Cherry, Frank Zappa was an inspiration —
an artist who stubbornly went his own way and fought to protect
artistic freedom.
Sunday, Cherry and several hundred other Zappa fans came to
Highlandtown to pay homage to the late rocker.
"I've been a fan of Zappa since I was a teenager," says Cherry, 57.
"He was just such an iconoclastic guy, and so unique. I mean, my gosh,
just with the way he looked, with the hair and the goatee. I was an
outsider, I was an artist, I was a musician. … He was our hero."
There was a lot of hero worship going on in Highlandtown Sunday
afternoon. A crowd massed at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Conkling
Street to cheer as a bust of their hero was unveiled, to rest
forevermore atop an imposing pedestal outside his hometown's newest
library. Most, it seemed, were wearing T-shirts adorned with Zappa
catch phrases such as "Are you hung up?" "You are what you is" and
"The world's most plentiful ingredient is stupidity." Though smaller
than the 5,000 organizers had expected, the audience made up in
enthusiasm what it lacked in size.
All cheered loudly and lustily as, first, the Lithuanian benefactors
who donated the bust of Zappa were introduced, followed by Zappa's
wife, Gail, and three of his children, Dweezil, 41, Ahmet, 36 and
Diva, 31. The crowd whooped as Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake credited
Zappa and his legacy with Baltimore's vibrant alternative music scene,
proclaiming, "it is on his shoulders that you stand." And they roared
as Dweezil and his band, Zappa Plays Zappa, kicked-off a tribute
concert with his father's "Stinkfoot," possibly the only ode to smelly
feet in the annals of rock and roll.
"Welcome back to Baltimore, Frank," shouted Enoch Pratt Free Library
CEO Carla Hayden.
Few had a problem explaining their devotion to the man who fronted the
proudly disreputable Mothers of Invention and famously warned people,
"Watch out where the huskies go / And don't you eat that yellow snow."
It had been 25 years to the day since Zappa's testimony before
Congress against music censorship.
"I've been a fan since '73, when I was 17 years old and went to my
first Frank Zappa concert," said Larry Cecchetti, of Owings Mills, who
came to the dedication with his 24-year-old son, Alex. "What people
need to do when they listen to Frank Zappa is, not get caught up into
the theatrics and get distracted with that. Look past it, look at the
composition, look at the structure. You'll really appreciate him for
the composer he was. He was just awesome."
Zappa, who died of prostate cancer in 1993, lived on Park Heights
Avenue and left Maryland before his teens. While he didn't embrace his
Baltimore roots with the same enthusiasm and visibility as people like
John Waters and Barry Levinson, he made no secret of it, either. He
included a song, "What's New in Baltimore?" on his 1985 album, "Frank
Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention." He even returned to Maryland
in 1986 to testify before the state legislature.
"He had a real attachment to Baltimore and to Maryland, and he was
very excited to appear before the Maryland legislature and give his
views about freedom of speech and freedom of artistic feeling," said
lobbyist Bruce Bereano, who brought Zappa to Annapolis. He met with
the family Sunday morning after their talk at Highlandtown's Creative
Alliance, where a wrap party was set for Sunday night.
"He talked fondly about his roots and about being from Baltimore,"
Bereano said.
Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge John Prevas smiled proudly and
waved his arms emphatically when introduced from the stage as a Zappa
fan of long-standing. The judge recalled first hearing Zappa's album
"Freak Out" in a fraternity brother's dorm room in 1966. He's been
hooked ever since.
"I fell in love with both the music and the social commentary," Prevas
said. "I've been proselytizing about Zappa and Zappa music and Zappa's
defense of freedom to people everywhere I go ever since.
"He's one of us, just like H.L. Mencken and Edgar Allan Poe and Babe
Ruth and Billie Holliday," Prevas added. "He's one of us, he's our
kind of guy."
While Zappa's family members were greeted with warm applause, the
Lithuanians responsible for erecting a bust of Zappa in their country
and sending a copy of it to Baltimore may have received the day's
loudest ovation. For many Lithuanians, Zappa represented the struggle
for artistic freedom during the era of Soviet oppression. One of them,
Saulius Paukstys, exuberantly waved a Lithuanian flag during and after
the ceremony.
Zappa, Paukstys said, represented the struggle for freedom and
expression to many people in Lithuania. Zappa showed, he said, that
"if you have got desire, strong character, you can do everything."
Not surprisingly, however, the people most affected by yesterday's
ceremony were Zappa's family. When the bust was unveiled, Ahmet Zappa
blew a kiss to the audience while a beaming Dweezil shook hands and
prepared to take the stage for his concert. The crowd responded in
kind.
"I couldn't have predicted how emotional this would be," Gail Zappa
said after the unveiling. "It was brilliant."
Added a tearful Diva Zappa, "I'm just totally surprised at how
overwhelmingly amazing this all is. Thank you so much for just loving
my dad."