My friend Ron Anteroinen just sent me this infamous Frank Zappa anecdote:
“I was reading about Joe Pyne, the conservative talk show ancestor to Morton Downey and Bill O’Reilly. The Wikipedia article on him includes this account of a Frank Zappa interview:
“Joseph Pyne was born in Chester, Pennsylvania. He earned three service stars but lost a leg while serving in the Marine Corps during World War II…
“Pyne was generally a conservative and supported the Vietnam War and ridiculed hippies (a favorite target) and the women’s movement…
“Pyne was confrontational with guests on his show and often attempted to throw them off-balance by opening the conversation with an insult. One occasion when this backfired was when he began a dialogue with Frank Zappa by saying, ‘So I guess your long hair makes you a woman.’ Zappa responded with ‘So I guess your wooden leg makes you a table.'”
I think I’ve heard this story before. I did a search and found no video footage of it and I don’t know whether it’s apocryphal or not. It’s widely reported online as actually happening. Seems hard to imagine that anyone can be that quick, but if anyone can, it would’ve been Frank. Does anybody know more about it?
