Moon Unit Zappa on childhood with strange father Frank

Fiona Sturges in conversation with Moon Unit Zappan / The Independent (title: Moon Unit Zappa on her childhood with dad Frank, groupies and guns: 'I was primed for subservience')
Translation: Telegrafi.com

Fame came early for Moon Unit Zappa, the eldest daughter of legendary musician Frank Zappa and his wife, Gail – though not by choice. Her unusual name, coined by her father – “Unit” supposedly symbolizing family ties – made her recognizable from infancy. Her teenage years brought a new wave of fame, which, as she points out, “I didn’t ask for either.” A rare, spontaneous moment with her father in his home studio, during which he recorded her speaking in the exaggerated Californian teenage accent – ​​“It’s, how can I say, unpleasant to the max”! – became the essence of the unusual song, Valley girlReleased in 1982, it became Frank's biggest hit and propelled Moonan – then an acne-ridden and extremely shy 14-year-old – into the bright light of fame she had never sought.

In her memoirs, Earth to Moon, she describes appearances with Frank on television shows, including “Late Night with David Letterman,” where she quickly learned that some stories elicited “big reactions. Like the one about the New Zealand groupie who moved in … or the unconventional parenting story, when Gail tied me up with [younger brother] Dweezil, taped our fight, and played it for us to listen to.” It was, she says now, “a confusing time.”

Moon, now 57, speaks through Zoomfrom her living room in Los Angeles. She’s a great conversationalist: open, articulate, and ready to laugh. During the hour-long conversation, she veers between a wry tone and a sensitive anger about the way she was treated by her narcissistic parents (in addition to Dweezil, she has a brother and sister: Ahmeti and Divan). Her book, out this month in paperback, is a coming-of-age story—both shocking and surprisingly funny—as she describes life in their Laurel Canyon home, a place that was always under construction, rarely cleaned, and had an orgy painting in the living room.

We learn from Moonan’s childhood that it was a period of deep anxiety and turmoil—and her name was perhaps the least of her worries. (Although she says that Elon Musk’s unusual names for the children, like X Æ A-Xii, caused her “anxiety.”) As the oldest of the children, she was both hurt by her father’s lack of interest in the children and a hostage to her mother’s unpredictable emotional states. She recalls one night when Frank woke her up and said, “Gail is having a crisis. You need to hide the gun.”

And so, while the writing process was sometimes liberating, it was also painful, as it opened up old wounds. “I had to remember that I was giving birth to a new version of myself while reliving the worst experiences of my life,” Moon reflects. “At times, I felt like I was falling into a void.” Even promoting the book brings mixed emotions. “I’ve been to events, and people are expressing this anger on my behalf, and it’s like a wave of emotions hits me again. You go through life taking one step at a time, and then someone says, ‘I’m so worried about you.’ And then you think, ‘Oh my God, it was even worse than I remembered.’”

A renowned musical rebel, Frank Zappa rose to fame in the early 60s after an appearance on “The Steve Allen Show,” where he played a bicycle as a musical instrument. Later, he would combine complex jazz and classical elements with surreal narratives in iconic songs like Don't Eat the Yellow Snow and bobby brown – the latter about a proud misogynist who fantasizes about raping a cheerleader. Frank was a self-confessed workaholic, releasing 62 albums in his lifetime – he died of pancreatic cancer in 1993, aged 52 – and inspired a fervent devotion from fans who saw him as a creative genius. When not on tour with The Mothers of Invention, he would lock himself in his home studio and deliberately keep his family at a distance.

The mention of the word “G” [genius] elicits a dismissive reaction from Moon. “There’s this strange dichotomy between the fact that my father was called a genius and the fact that he didn’t care if [his children] didn’t know how [life] works in real life. He didn’t invest in our education or our future. He never asked us, ‘How are you?’ That seems unacceptable to me. If that’s the definition of genius, then, ugh! No, thank you!” Still, Moon acknowledges his father’s charisma and understands the appeal he had for those who didn’t depend on him. “To them, he represented freedom, integrity, civic conscience, and the courage to speak out against injustice. He spoke to the marginalized and the weird. I watched that, and I saw how meaningful it was to people. And they’re still unbridled—those who love him, love him forever.”

Among the devotees was Gail, a former model who made a brief foray into music with a Sonny and Cher parody titled Bunny and Bear, and who met Zappa while working as a secretary at the famous Los Angeles club, the Whiskey a Go Go. Gail refused to leave her husband, despite her anger at his frequent and open infidelities. In addition to bringing girlfriends to the family home, Frank once took Moona and Dweezil on a trip to New York, in their early teens, to see the musical Cats. After the show, he dropped the kids off at a hotel with room service and disappeared. Later that night, Moon was awakened by a loud noise in the next room: it was his father having sex with one of the show’s dancers. “The irony is,” Moon says, “he was cheating on Gailan and telling her, ‘I always come back to you [all]. They don’t matter to me.’ But as a child, I interpreted it as, ‘I’d rather spend time with people who don’t matter to me than with you, my child.’ My brain was telling me: I’m worth less than the thing that ‘doesn’t matter.’”

It's no wonder that, by the time Moon reached her mid-teens, she was determined to leave home. At the age of 17, with the money she had earned from Valley girl and the occasional acting jobs that followed (her career includes the crime series Crisps and comedy The Facts of Life), she bought her first house. After settling in, she recalls, “I literally lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling because I was leaving, but I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was like I was in prison for something I hadn’t done, and then when you get out, you don’t know how to live in the world.” She sought guidance from a spiritual guru, as “I was prepared for submission. I had been trained to ask for nothing and to be a nobody. Thank God for not letting me cut my hair, become a renunciate, and move to India. She told me, ‘You belong in this world.’”

However, Moona’s independence was short-lived. Not long after Frank was diagnosed with cancer in 1990, Gail visited him and said, “You cost us $200 to raise you, so we have to sell your house to pay for your father’s cancer treatment because he doesn’t have health insurance.” Ever the obedient daughter, Moon sold the house and returned to live in the family home.

After Frank's death, she slowly began to find her way back into the working world, creating art, continuing to act, and writing a semi-autobiographical novel, America the Beautiful, in 2001. The following year, Moon married [musician] Paul Doucette of Matchbox Twenty, and they had a daughter, Mathilda (Moon and her husband divorced in 2014). Becoming a mother made her realize how little her mother had cared for her. “It was like, ‘Wow, I was creating a life out of a place where I had no map. I wasn’t taught how to do this.’ And so the wound was reopened, because I couldn’t help but think, ‘Nobody did this for me.'”

Asked why she waited so long to write about her parents, she replies: “Because I always thought it was Gail’s story that needed to be told. Gail loved music. Gail chose my father [as a partner] and lived with him.” But then she changed her mind – partly because “it became clear that people were interested in knowing what it was like to be his daughter,” but mostly because of her mother’s infamous will.

In 2015, Gail died of lung cancer, leaving behind a large debt – as did her husband. She also left most of the Zappa estate to her younger children, giving Diva and Ahmeti 30 percent each, and Dweezil and Moona 20 percent. This put the youngsters in charge of everything related to Frank, meaning they make decisions about his legacy and his trust and benefit most from future profits (this despite the fact that Moon had cared for their mother in her final years). A decade of battles between the Zappa children followed, often involving lawyers. Moon has since come to realize that her mother “did her a favor” – “although I don’t thank her for it.” Instead of managing the family business, she has spent the last few years nurturing her own talents and personal career. "This was, literally, what I needed for my stubborn brain to understand: 'You have to invest in your life.' It was a dilemma to either become a victim of this circumstance, or to believe in myself."

And how is her relationship with her siblings today? “Well, Ahmeti read the book and said he liked it, so that was pretty good. Dweezil doesn’t talk to either of us right now, but Diva and I are making some good strides forward. I think part of it is that I stopped hoping that these relationships would be like the ones you see on Hallmark cards. I’m just letting them be.” Currently, Moon teaches yoga and meditation classes and has her own brand of tea. She’s also writing a new book. “I’m giving literature a chance, because for the first time in my life I’m able to leave the past in the past,” she says, smiling. “And you know what? It feels good.” /Telegrafi/