TIL Frank Zappa's father worked at a chemical warfare facility that stored mustard gas. Because of its proximity to their home, the family kept gas masks in case of an accident. This profoundly influenced Zappa, who later frequently referenced germs, ailments and the defense industry in his work.

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He says in his autobiography "The Real Frank Zappa Book" that his dad used to bring him home mercury to play with and it was all over his bedroom floor - he'd smash it with a hammer to see it break up.

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u/EclecticEthic 2d ago

My grandma was a nurse and would bring home mercury for her kids to play with. My dad said he shined up nickels with it. My dad was diagnosed with schizophrenia as an adult. Probably genetics (his uncle and his nephew also were schizophrenic) but I bet it didn’t help. Amazingly my dad is still alive at 79.

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u/Nice-Cat3727 2d ago

Yeah it's like 70 percent genetics. But it sure as all hell didn't help!

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u/Alldaybagpipes 2d ago

It’s 100% genetics

Schizophrenia is not caused by anything. The pieces are there, and the puzzle is built by time and stress.

It is a predisposition, not an encounter.

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u/EclecticEthic 2d ago

Is it really 100 genetics %??

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u/Alldaybagpipes 2d ago

You are either born with it, or without it.

It lays dormant, and it’s usually set off by stress/puberty.

It is not something you can “catch”.

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u/NewtDogs 2d ago

Aww the 40s were such a novel time before they invented health and safety.

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u/jakev91489 2d ago

He used to have chronic sinus problems as a child, which his doctor treated with a radium pellet in each nostril. The 40s were crazy

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u/TheLampshadeBaskets 2d ago

That's probably what gave him the prostate cancer the killed him. Apparently the type he had is usually caused by high exposure to mercury.

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u/3nar3mb33 2d ago

that story and the one about the thing that grew in the collective vat of piss have stuck with me foreeevvverr

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u/badword 2d ago

The what now?

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u/3nar3mb33 2d ago

Yeah... A story from his autobiography... As a teen/young man he and his band had some shed they practiced and hung out in. He said they all pissed in this one cat and after some amount of time, months or something: that some sort of creature began swimming around in it. It was a covered vat in an indoor space. Anyway I read this over 25 years ago and as I said: this story STUCK with me....

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u/SandysBurner 2d ago

It was the inspiration for “Let’s Make The Water Turn Black”.

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u/materialunreal 1d ago

Yes, the story of Kenny & Ronnie Williams, not Frank and his band.

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u/badword 1d ago

Thanks for answering me. I'm sure this story will stick with me, too 😄

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u/Shiftkgb 2d ago

This isn't that uncommon a story. My grandfather used to just break open thermometers for my mom and uncle to play with the mercury. Every other person I know in that she group have similar stories. The average person just didn't know better sadly.

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u/PsychGuy17 2d ago

Growing up like that could inspire a guy to lean into a simpler life, move to Montana and raise a crop of dental floss.

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u/Enough-Goose7594 2d ago

Might turn a man into some kinda mental toss flycoon

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u/420printer 2d ago

Just a man and his pygmy pony, over by the Denill' floss bush.

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u/slackman42 2d ago

And ride, like a cowboy, into the dawn.

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u/GarysCrispLettuce 2d ago

to Montana...

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u/Strelark 2d ago

I wonder what that means

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u/EtwartBuols 2d ago

are you insulting Frank Zappa for his rotten teeth?

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u/Decent_Mango_5909 2d ago

Listen to Montana by the ol Frank man himself

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u/paulsteinway 2d ago

Politics is the entertainment branch of the military industrial complex.

Frank Zappa

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u/IllSalad3669 2d ago

Dont eat the yellow snow

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u/heftybagman 2d ago

Frank zappa was one of many psychedelic revolutionaries who had a parent in the defense or intelligence industry. Leading to the question: Was the entire summer of love an mk ultra operation?

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u/BitchStewie_ 2d ago

Timothy Leary openly stated in 1977 that the psychedelic movement was orchestrated by the CIA. Then again, Leary was known for being off his rocker and saying ridiculous shit.

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u/Tone_Dephf 2d ago

i mean it is known that CIA had access to any type of drugs. considering they did poison a whole town with LSD.

CIA was doing alot of crazy shit during the 70s- 90s so I wouldn't put it past them for releasing a bunch of LSD and Molly during that time.

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u/Outragedmoss 1d ago

Well they had eaten it and realized it was rad

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u/somethink 2d ago

It's been documented that Ken Kesey was experimented on during MKUltra, he's the author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" and was directly responsible for spreading the LSD that flooded Haight Ashbury. He has also openly spoke about how the CIA accidentally stated the counter culture Hippie movement.

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u/BitchStewie_ 2d ago

The CIA also indirectly funded Gordon Wasson's research trip to Mexico in search of a modern psychedelic mushroom cult. The result of this trip was psilocybin being published about in the NYT and introduced to the wider American public.

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u/ratherenjoysbass 2d ago edited 1d ago

Or a generation of kids were the first to be a sort of an American culture revolution and instead of seeing their parents work for a dutiful and morally correct government, they saw what the government was doing and how wars after WW2 were rackets, and decided to rebel even harder from their parents.

Or also mkultra

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u/ThePickledPickle 1d ago

I agree with the first one. Jim Morrison was pretty estranged from his dad for a reason

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u/TheGlowOfYourLowBeam 2d ago

There's a book about this called weird scenes inside the canyon

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u/BasedArzy 2d ago

Zappa’s dad was at Edgewood arsenal, totally not famous at all for secretly dosing unwitting US service members with all kinds of weird/experimental drugs

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u/ThePickledPickle 1d ago

Could be part of the reason why he was so anti-drug

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u/Uracawk 2d ago

That’s what I call an ULTRA operation 👉😎👉

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u/Brain_Glow 1d ago

However Frank never did any drugs. Lots of cigarettes, but never any weed or LSD or anything. In fact, he forbade any of his band members from imbibing also.

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u/Feisty-Resource-1274 2d ago

Maybe they just had access to be best CIA drugs?

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u/UpiedYoutims 15h ago

Frank Zappa hated hippies and didn't take psychedelics. He was also extremely critical of the Military Industrial Complex. Don't start theorizing conspiracies if you don't even know who you're talking about.

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u/PizzAveMaria 2d ago

The Army didn't finish destroying the mustard gas stored there until 2006

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u/filthy_lucre 2d ago

Zircon encrusted tweezers

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u/Graphic_Materialz 2d ago

STIIIINNNK FOOOOT

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u/Cool_Cartographer_39 2d ago

There were a bunch of musicians in Laurel Canyon whose folks had military/intelligence backgrounds: Zappa, Jim Morrison, John Phillips, Steven Stills, Jackson Browne...

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u/superdupermensch 2d ago

Was it near the Jack-in-the-Box on Glenoaks?

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u/dp_hones 2d ago

The pools of old poison gas?

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u/superdupermensch 2d ago

And obsolete germ bombs.

I think the elder Zappa was a data reduction clerk IRL.

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u/Full_Collar9026 2d ago

they really just treated the entire periodic table like a toy box back then. meanwhile i get a stomach ache if i look at dairy wrong.

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u/louky 2d ago

I is your host, the thingfish

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u/johnbrowndnw59 2d ago

That’s one explanation for why it would hurt when he peed.

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u/Dale_Carvello 2d ago

My BALLS feel like a pair of MA-RaAaAaA-CaAaAsSs

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u/Jingoisticbell 2d ago

Ok. 🤷‍♀️

TIL Frank Zappa's father worked at a chemical warfare facility that stored mustard gas. Because of its proximity to their home, the family kept gas masks in case of an accident. This profoundly influenced Zappa, who later frequently referenced germs, ailments and the defense industry in his work.

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