Lorraine Belcher (Nicknames: Pete - on the Freak Out! sleeve - Lumpy Gravy)
" I was born in Tacoma Washington. At age 15, I moved to Ohio to live with my real father, but after a few months returned home to find the house sold and empty. As a result, I ended up a ward of the court and was in a series of reform schools until four months after I turned 18. I flew to Santa Barbara then and enrolled in college. That lasted a year, after getting pregnant and then giving the child up for adoption.
It was a couple of months after giving birth that I met Frank in the Carolina Pines, a coffee shop/late night hangout on Sunset & La Brea in Hollywood.
It was about 4 o’clock in the morning and my friend was talking to somebody in there she knew – some guy – and I was getting a little bored. I looked across the room and sitting in a booth was Frank in a little striped t-shirt with a guy in iridescent green suit with iridescent green Bobby Rydell hair and another guy who turned out to be Captain Beefheart.
I looked right at Frank and he – with his very intense gaze – looked right back at me and crooked his finger, beckoning me over. I gave him my back. But after a few minutes, I was getting a little bored, so I thought I’d take a peek at him again. He kind of tilted his head to the side and grinned at me and waved at me again to come over. I thought, ‘Oh, what the hell,’ and I got up.
As I was strolling across the restaurant, he was very smart and took another chair from another booth and put it on the outside of his booth so that I wouldn’t get squeezed in with them. As I got there, Frank said, “Pleasure looking at ya!” And as I sat down I said, “Likewise.” I thought he was fantastically attractive and so ridiculous looking! He had beautiful eyes and such an odd manner.
We sat their laughing and talking for at least an hour before my friend noticed I was gone. Anyway, he ended up driving us both to Cucamonga...."
- In the recent radio interview with Nigey, you told the wonderful story behind Call Any Vegetable – care to relay that one more time for the world ?
" He told me that his wife never made a sound during sex. This made him feel bad.
One day, after he’d been on the road to a meeting in LA for a while, he realised he’d forgotten something and turned around. When he got home he found his wife passed out on the bed with a potato carved like a dildo. He was originally very upset, since she’d apparently been so satisfied she had to take a nap! Then he asked her to tell him about the potato. She had apparently tried all the other vegetables and found the potato to be the most harmonious with the vaginal canal... pH balance, etc. It didn’t produce any kind of infection or discharge and held up well.
That’s why he wrote Call Any Vegetable."
- And ‘the bust’ story?
"We were really broke and one day this guy came by pretending to be a used car dealer. They were going to have a bachelor party for someone who was getting married and, originally, he wanted a pornographic film. But Frank said he didn’t have the materials for that, but he could make a tape. So he said okay and he’d be back the next day to get it. So Frank pulled the bed out of the bedroom into the middle of the recording area and put up microphones. He said this is what we’re gonna do: you’re under age and I’ve picked you up in a bar and we’ve come to a motel. That was all I knew.
We were fully clothed, the lights were on and Theo played this background music. Frank said, “Well, little honey, have you graduated from high school yet?” And I looked at him and said, “NO, I graduate in June, but I’m gonna go to summer school.” He didn’t know what I was going to say, so he asked, “What are you going to study?” And I said, “Cosmetology!” And then we’d laugh.
It took about 45 minutes to an hour to record and then Theo said, “Okay, get down to business,” and we’d start moaning and groaning and carrying on. And laughing! Frank stayed up half the night editing what was a great comedy tape into a nasty little heavy breathing and moaning tape that lasted about five minutes.
In the morning, there was a knock at the door and this guy goes into the control room with Frank. I was with Theo and her baby in the bedroom. Then suddenly, the doors burst open – it sounded like a herd of elephants coming across the room – and there was Frank leading them saying, “Pete, Theo - we’re under arrest.” I had nothing on and I grabbed the sheet and pulled it up over me. There were eleven men in the bedroom and Detective Willis steps forward and says, “Identify yourself.” I said I’ll identify myself after you get out of here and let me get dressed. So they backed off.
I managed to brush my teeth and do my hair and make-up. When I eventually stepped out from the jukebox, Willis right away asked me, “Tell me, have you ever engaged in oral copulation with Mr Zappa?” I laughed and said, “I know that’s a felony in the state of California, but are you asking because it pertains to this little charade or for your own perverse curiosity?” I was very frightened, but I wasn’t about to let him see that.
Frank, knowing that I had been in reform school was just devastated. He was so worried and he was apologising to me. I did that little finger burst thing and said, “Oh, what the hell!” And we started laughing. He had his arms around me as the photographer kicked the door open. That’s where that photograph came from – it looked like we posed for it.
Then the band showed up to rehearse. They had them all in a line with their sleeves rolled up and I’ll never forget Motorhead looking over at me saying, “Pete, they’re looking for tracks!” He was so excited. Because he didn’t do drugs, he thought that was really exotic!"...
( Interview by Andrew Greenaway; 24 May 2017 )
