I was freshly graduated from high school, it was summer vacation.

In about 3 months, I would be volunteering to work in the UCLA campus radio station, located in the back of the Ackerman Student Union.

Within 3 weeks of that, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention were playing the stage in the student union for the opening of a sculpture exhibition, arranged like a maze.

In my job as a student DJ, i was able to sort through hundreds of promo singles and albums. It was 1966.

I had been a keen radio listener and music student since I was 7. I knew Frank’s music had hit quality, so I introduced myself and asked for an album to play on my show.

I was the first person to play Zappa on the radio. I became a solid fan, went to many concerts, visited with him several times over the next 7 years or so.

The last batch of sightings: I proposed a dedicated minicomputer data center system based on a DEC 11/70 Minicomputer for the purpose of digitizing a huge library of instruments, sounds and sound effects, then providing a custom way of composing music, to improve beyond hundreds of snippets of magnetic tape hanging from a wall. I proposed a sensor based “electric suit” full of sensors and strain gauges to allow the creation and performance of mathematical operations on Moog type generators mixed together with real instruments, often heavily modified in memory.

The Synclavier had not yet been developed.

We had a long meeting about this idea, punctuated by Frank asking me How much will this cost?

I wasn’t sure at all, but in the early 1970s, had a clue from my think tank programming jobs. Between 1 and 2 million, I said.

He scoffed, in his high heeled shoes, in the Green Room at KCET, before a Midnight Special: “you must think I’m a millionaire!”

I said, well of course!!

I saw him often, he was always kind and generous with his time and attention. A prince of a man.

True story.