Family Snapshots From Rock’s Counterculture

We all want to know what’s going on in those other houses, particularly if the occupants go against type. Today, our case is a mother, Gail, and her kids--Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva. The father was Frank Zappa, rest his soul.

On a recent “Politically Incorrect,” smirky Bill Maher had as guests Gail and Ahmet Zappa and Paul Kantner (of Jefferson Starship) and daughter China Kantner.

The premise was that the Zappas and the Kantners represented atypical, countercultural families. But let’s see.

Frank Zappa, founder of the Mothers of Invention, may still be better remembered as a profane cultural outlaw than a composer. (“Weasels Ripped My Flesh,” “Dog Breath Variations,” etc.--his music was never commercial.) Even though Gail and Frank (it wasn’t “Mom and Dad”) ran a house in which it was OK to draw on the walls, no one had to watch their language and kids’ lovers were welcome to sleep over--well, there’s plenty of evidence that Gail and Frank were traditionalists. (The kids are all grown--Moon Unit’s 32, Dweezil’s 30, Ahmet’s 25, Diva’s 20.)

All are in the entertainment industry. The hilarious Ahmet is on MTV’s “Web Riot.”

On “Politically Incorrect,” Ahmet recalled being disciplined as a child: “It was, ‘Go see Frank.’ We’d walk in there. Then he would say, ‘What did you do?’ And then he had a way of just looking at you and saying, ‘You were acting like a jerk.’ And you’d be like, ‘Yeah.’ And you just felt so ashamed. You felt so bad.” So when the kids acted badly, Gail and Frank let them know it and didn’t seem preoccupied with damaging their self-esteem.

Part of Ahmet’s memories, Gail suggested in a phone interview last week, was that “it was not a good thing” for a kid to have to interrupt Frank in the studio. Where Frank was calm and more subtle (terrifying?), Gail was “pretty much a normal mom--I would be a bit shrieky about things.”

Frank and Gail forbade drugs. “It wasn’t a responsible indulgence. You’d be thrown out on your ear if we thought you had a stash. [Drugs] would interfere with your ability to concentrate, like drinking. It was better to be in possession of your senses than not,” she said.

As for the Kantners, dad Paul--another guy with an indelible smirk--noted he was a “just-say-no kind of guy for my kid.” China said she started drinking at age 12. But she’s been through rehab already and doesn’t blame her parents. (It was her choice. No one forced her.)

Did Ahmet rebel? Why bother? “In our family, there was really no rebellion, I don’t believe. . . . No, we just followed the example set. My mother and my father, they would tell me to not do something. I was like, ‘OK, I won’t do that. And if I did something bad, I was punished, and it felt like normal.” China, though, became a Christian and a “student wife.”

There is one suspicious thing about the Zappas, though. While Frank died in 1993, at 51, of prostate cancer, Gail and the kids seem to still be close. Dweezil and Diva are sharing the family home in the Hollywood Hills with Gail. Moon and Ahmet live nearby.

That is beyond the pale, isn’t it?