The Wild Journey of Ben Vaughn
: From a One-String Guitar to Hollywood Composer

Welcome to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show. I'm Ted Bonnitt.

And I'm Phil Proctor. Or what's left of him.

Hi, Phil. How are ya?

Some of me is good.

Good.

So you know.

Yeah, I see you're just. I see you from the waist up. Where's the rest of your body?

It's under the table, I hope, but it's walked all the way to the other end.

That's the magic of Radio. Oh, man. So, yeah, today's gonna be all about music. And our guest is the lovely and talented Ben Vaughn.

Hello. Hello. Am I on?

Yeah, you're there. How are you, Ben?

What are you on, Ben?

What am I on? What am I not on? Can they pick up my. Can that recognition pick up a Jersey accent? Because I get ejected the minute people find out that I'm.Matter of fact, I'm leaving now.

Thank you.

Something I read. Was Ben Vaughn straight out of Camden.

Exactly.

And if anybody knows Camden.

Yeah.

Far more exciting than Compton.

And it's also a good place to be out of.

For people who are not acquainted. You're a singer, songwriter, musician. You're a record producer. You're a composer for television and film. The one tune that everybody knows you from.Let's just play it right now.

I can't wait to hear what it is.

Yeah.

The suspense is killing me.

All right. Name that tune, Phil. Name that tune.

That's the turd rock from the Sun.

That's right. That's opening theme, which Ben Vaughn, our guest, composed. You had moved out from New Jersey and you had an interview on KCRW here in town.Somebody heard you and hired you to do that.

I was on the air. I was being interviewed and I was. I just made a joke. If anybody has a TV show or a film out there, call. Call the station. I'm available.And the phone rang and it was the president of Cary Warner Productions. And they had that pilot, wow. For Third Rock. And they were looking for a composer who was not a Hollywood composer.Somebody from the outside from Camden. Exactly.

What a Hollywood story that is, man.

That's really amazing.

Yeah, it was cool.

Are you multi instrumental?

I am, yes. I started out playing drums, but I play guitar, bass, keyboards, harmonica when I'm in trouble in a biker bar.

Oh, yeah.

Lose. Harmonica will save your life. It really will.

My first business was club promotions. I promoted music clubs. New Jersey, North Jersey.

Oh, really?

And, man, talk about cutting your teeth, because all my clients were mob.

Oh, yeah.

If they're not happy with the promotion, they will Say to you, why don't I just break your legs? And I was like, well, I don't. I think it'd be tough for me to do the promotion for next week,

sit in the office all day and promote.

They would yell at me, and I'd say, stop yelling at me. I'll explain it. And then if you stand up to them when they're pushing you, then you realize that's how you gain their respect.So suddenly, I became Teddy. Hey, Teddy. Yo, Teddy.

I got this act that's gonna kill you. You got a Tuesday night. Cause we got this band coming through. They're gonna kill. And you're the guy.I told him you're the guy, so you gotta be the guy.

That's truer than you know.Because I walked into this place called the Cuckoo's Nest, and it was right across the street from where in Rockland County, New York, where Bruce Springsteen recorded Born to Run.

Oh, Blauvelt. Blauvelt. Blauvelt. Right.

And this club was right there, and they were doing disco and having, like, 10 people on a Saturday night. They were dying. So I went in and said, hey, have you tried a new wave? Yeah, let's do new wave. And I had 600 people show up the following Saturday.And it was a killer promotion because there were so many people showing up. There were cars parked on both sides of the road, and someone actually got hit by a car and killed.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Did you arrange for that?

I did not arrange for that publicity. But I will say, when someone says it's a killer promotion, I bow.

It's partly responsible.

And, Ben, you have produced a lot of folks, too. Alice Chilton, Ween. Lost Straight Jackets, Nancy Sinatra. How was that?

Working with Nancy was great.

Yeah.

She's a perfectionist, though. She wants to sing over and over again. And her first take is amazing. She has a great voice. I mean, she's underrated. Just an amazing singer.And working with her up close is really cool. Like, to rehearse the material and hear her without a microphone, to actually hear her human voice near your ear was really great.And it was for a film called the Independent, which was a mockumentary about a B movie film producer. And the Independent.

Yes, I was in that movie.

Are you in that, Stephen Kessler?

Yeah, I was in that movie. My. My late wife Melinda and I played the parents of a Siamese twin, one of whom was a. Anti War Brothers Divided. The brothers Divided.

That's right.

That's you.

Yes.

I knew. I recognized.

He's been in every production in Hollywood.

That's amazing.

You're the father of the Siamese twins.

I am.

I knew I recogn. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I did the music. Brothers Divided.

Oh my God.

Amazing.

Meet again.

Yes.

You do. Of course, your own original music, which has been described as nearly impossible to define, which is the point. Can you explain that?

I never heard that description. I know.

It's on your website.

It's nearly impossible to find sometimes. A lot of it's out of print, but.

Wow.

I don't know. You know, I don't know how to. It's impossible to describe your own music. Really? Yeah. Or like, how would you describe what you guys do?

You don't want to hear, right?

You're right, I don't.

And you won't.

And even more so, you don't want to hear it either.

But you had it in your blood from the beginning. I read that you had your first band back in 1967. You practiced around the corner from a 7 11.I had one string guitar and I played it on my lap because I was 12 years old and I didn't have no strap. It was my first band.

That is completely autobiographical.

Your first guitar only had one string?

It did.I was a drummer and when I was 12 years old, I was playing gigs as a drummer, playing dances and stuff, which is a great instrument to start on because you can either inspire people to dance or inspire them not to, depending on whether you're good. And in Philly, the Philly area, dancing is really important.So you have to really get the beat right and keep people on the dance floor or you don't get asked back. And then I decided I wanted to write songs and I had a guitar, it only had one string, so I had to start.I was able to play Rebel Rouser by Duane Eddy until the key change and then I didn't have another string. So

you said your repertoire with the one string consisted of Satisfaction, Peter Gunn.

Yeah, yeah. And Half of Rebel, Half of Rebel Rel.

And in those days you were trying to go psychedelic and you then were in a band called Verbal Garbage.

Verbal Garbage, that's good.

That's a nice title. How'd you come up with that one?

I forget. We were just looking for a psychedelic name and Verbal Garbage sounded good.

Sounds good to me.

And your hit tune was Don't Spill Ketchup On My Toast Bread.

Yes.

Which had about a hundred and twenty verses and could literally last as long as four hours. You only played it live once?

We did.

Geez.

And the reaction we got was not good. And my drummer said, don't worry, that means we're ahead of our time.

Keep running.

But you stayed at it and you had another. This is a really funny one. The Derelicts.

The Derelicts, yeah. We were like a 50s rock and roll band. We greased our hair back and we did 50s rock and roll tunes.

This is early 70s.

Yeah, it would have been 1971, probably.

There's a quote here. Our last gig was a total embarrassment. We were too high to play our instruments. At least I was. Ironically.It was a benefit dance for a local anti drug youth group.

Yes, it was.

Yeah. It was called the Smart Set Dance. And the Smart Set was this. You know, I guess the faculty of the school decided to have an anti drug thing in.Try to attract kids to it. And we decided, perfect time to get high. So we were really loaded.

Those were the times. Ten years before that, a good friend of ours who's been on the show, Noel Blank, who's Mel Blanc's son, Looney Tunes fame.Had an advertising business in the 60s. And he was hired to do the first anti smoking campaign, really for cigarettes in the 60s. And when they did it, everybody was smoking cigarettes.Everybody was chain smoking through the whole session.

My girlfriend, Adele Abrams, who's from Jersey, by the way, she was working for the Tobacco Institute around that time. Promoting.

Right.

Her job was to promote tobacco.

I interviewed the spokesman from the Tobacco Institute, 1976. They were still touring around.

Should have been called the Tobacco Bureau tb.

The guy had such a deep, smoky, damaged voice, but in a nice way, golden tone. And he was defending it. I said, well, what makes it you want to.

I don't know, Ted, There are over

3,000 chemical combinations in a cigarette. That's something you want to boast.

Oh, more chemicals, please. Yeah.

But you eventually went on your own solo career, beginning in the late 80s?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah. So you were just absolutely determined.

Well, I mean, you know, like you guys, you know, if you don't do it, you'll die. Yeah. You gotta stay creative every day, you know, to live.

A rat must Chew, as the Firestein Theatre once put it.

One of your many albums is Rambler 65, which you released in 97.

Yes.

It was recorded entirely in your car in the driveway of your home in New Jersey. And it's considered to be a classic document of a man and his dream. You have a thing for Rambler cars?

I do. I've owned five.

Really?

Yeah. Rambling Man I am.

My family's first car was a 59 white Rambler wagon.

Really?

And I remember it very well because I got hideously car sick in it all the time.

Then this album is not for you.

You wanted to record this record, and somehow you were frustrated by the studio situation, the expensive studio situation, so you decided to record your album inside your Rambler.

Well, I was in a recording studio, an expensive recording studio, and we were not getting good sounds.

What was this? Back East?

Yeah, in New York. And I. As a joke, I said I could get a better sound in my car. And everybody laughed. And I started thinking about it like, I wonder if I could.And then I made the mistake of telling people that I could make a great record in my car. And then they told me to prove it, so I had to prove it.And the funny thing about it was, I was turning 40 at the time, and I thought that I was avoiding a midlife crisis by doing this. And then I realized, this is.

This is your midlife crisis.

A midlife crisis. A classic example. A guy moves his entire studio into his car for weeks. That's a midlife crisis.

Now, technically, what did you do? Did you run a wire from your. Your. Your basement into your car?

And I moved all my gear out, and I just ran a big orange extension cord into the house. Right. And every day I would move.

So your. Your studio was actually in your car?

Yeah, I had a reel to reel. I had a speakers and an amplifier. And one thing I discovered that was really great is the trunk of a car is a great isolation booth. Yeah.Because I put my Fender Deluxe AMP in there and I closed the trunk and ran the wire. And I ran the wire through the tail light.I took the tail light off and ran the wire out, and I was able to sing in the car and play electric guitar with no bleed through. It was completely.

And in Jersey, you were also entertaining the guy who was in the.

Locked in the trunk.

Yeah, exactly.

You recorded as. Saying that was. Was not the smartest decision you ever made. It was very claustrophobic in there with the recording equipment.But it was a dare I made to myself. I had to finish. At one point, there was a bee inside the car, and I jumped out.And I still had my headphones on my head, and I dragged all the equipment out onto the car.

Oh, geez. This is true.

This is true.

That was the B side.

But again, you stuck with it. You said, I dare anyone to get a good sound out of a Lexus. There's just more metal in the way when they used to make them.

Yeah.

That's true.

Wow. Well, let's play one of the tunes that you recorded.

Yeah, it came out great. It sounds great.

In your Rambler. This is Ben Vaughn and Seven Days Without Love.

Seven days without love makes one week. A man can stand on his own two feet. He can't do his job, can't get a sleep. Seven days without love makes one week. The first day it's quiet at home.You're enjoying all your time alone. The second day doing all right. You're going out with your friends tonight. But the third day, well, that's something else.You're getting tired of being by yourself. Seven days without love makes one week. A man can't stand on his own two feet. He can't do his job, can't get no sleep.Seven days without love makes one week. The fourth day, same old thing. Sitting there waiting for that phone to ring. There's a cryin shame walking in circles.Calling out a name of the sex day. Well, there's no use trying. If you don't come back, you're gonna lose your mind. Seven days without love makes one weak.A man can't stand on his own two feet. He can't do his job, can't get a sleep. Seven days without love makes one weak. You're a nervous wreck. Ever since she left. Another week goes by.You think you're go to die. Seven days without love. Seven days without love. Seven days without love makes one weak. A man can stand on his own two feet.He can't do his job, can't get sleep. Seven days without love makes one week. Seven days. Seven days. Seven days.

Great.

All right then.

Vroom, vroom.

Seven days without love.

How'd you get the drums in there?

Yeah, how'd you get the drums in the Rambler?

It's just a snare drum I'm hitting. There's no kick drum. The kick drum is my foot on the floor.

Okay. Ben Vaughn.

Yes.

Singer, songwriter and radio person. Yeah.

So tell.

You do a radio show now?

I have a syndicated radio show, the Many Moods of Ben Vaughn.

How long has that been on?

Oh, yeah. Really? That long? 15 years? 20 years.

Oh, wow.

And it's syndicated radio?

Yeah, individually syndicated, though. Like, I call each. It's like Death of a Salesman the

way I do it.

I call or I email and say, do you have an hour? Yeah, I offer it for free and I have 26 stations out there.

Wow, that's so quaint.

It is. Yeah. That's the idea. I'm living the quaint life. However, I Can.

I think it's great. Particularly young people are starting to rediscover radio. The most effective messaging is in the audio medium.It clings to people because it's like a personal experience. And I guess because you have to stimulate your visual imagination to comprehend radio so it just sticks a little better. I mean, I'm sure we stick to

people pretty well, like super glue.

So you're bicycling your show to all these different radio stations?

Yeah. In Philadelphia, there was a guy named the Gator with the heater, a disc jockey, the boss with the hot sauce.And I studied under him, I became friends with him. He played all these crazy doo wop and hardcore R and B records. And I became friends with him and I would go with him and watch him sell ad time.He would buy time on stations, commercial stations, and then he would sell all the ads himself. And I would go with him to pizzerias, used car dealerships, all this stuff.And I just, I studied under this guy and I'm like, this is a great way to live. He had a.He had a connection with all these people, you know, and he was on a bunch of little stations, like a 90 mile radius, maybe five or six little stations. And he had relationships with all the. All the station managers and program directors and stuff. And I watched this and I thought, well, this is.

Did he have regular shows on all these different stations?

Really? He had a four hour show every day. And he played amazing stuff, just amazing stuff. So what Philadelphia station in Philly he was on? It changed a lot.He started on WCAM in Camden. That's where I first discovered him. On the top floor of City hall there was a radio station.And at night you would drive by and see the light on up there.

How cool.

Legendary back there. And so when I decided I wanted to do a radio show, I just copied the guy that I.

How old were you when you did

that, the radio show? When I was. I was a kid when I discovered him and hung out with him and everything, you know, I don't know, 12, 13.

That's so funny. Cause I sorted out we're the same age. And I was in Delaware at the time. And that's where I got turned on the radio.

Really.

I was listening to local radio and our station was all Philadelphia. It was Deputy Fil Dandy Don Rose in the top 10 days. It was just an exciting time for radio because the hits would come out and they were great.Motown and then Bowie kind of made it famous with his Philadelphia Sound fame. The Funk record.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, because Philadelphia does have a distinct sound, does it not?

Oh, completely. Yeah.

Why isn't it better known? Or is it.

I think it's pretty well known among soul music fanatics. Because, you know, Philly Soul. Yeah. Gamble and Huff and all that stuff.

What kind of turned you on to the whole thing?

Yeah. Before they were big, they had Cowboys to Girls by the Intruders Expressway to your heart by the Soul Survivors.These were the tunes we heard constantly in Philly. And Philly had two soul stations that I would listen to and two top 40 stations.And we had a country station, too, which is kind of weird for Philadelphia. It was wrcp. Real country power. So I was a radio fanatic. I would stay up all night and I would tune in WLS in Chicago.I could pick up the Grand Ole Opry. And then I got a hold of a shortwave radio and I would listen to Radio Luxembourg. Holy. I didn't sleep.

Same here.

I stayed up all night.

Quito. Used to listen to Quito, Ecuador. They had a big station radio.

Yeah. Wow.

And what was the other top 40 in? It was FIL and WIBG. IBG.

Yeah, WIBbage.

But we could get ABC Radio from New York, too.

I used to listen to cousin Bruce eto. And I would listen to Gene shepherd coming down from wor.

That's what I was just going to

mention when I discovered him. That changed everything. Yeah, that.

That's what kept me up.

Cause it wasn't about music, just music anymore. It was. He was a genius storytelling.

Sounds like you had a dual love of music and radio.

Yeah.

So you eventually came out here to Los Angeles? Why?

The weather, for one thing. No, I came out in 1995 to do music for film and TV. Because what happened?When I was a kid, I decided, for whatever reason, that I wanted to be a practitioner of surf guitar. But this is back when surf guitar had. It was a dead language.

But Dwayne Eddy.

Yeah, Dwayne Eddy and also Dick Dale and all that stuff. But nobody won it in, like, 1970. So I spent all this time learning how to play surf guitar. And it became really proficient.But there was no market for it at all. You know, it was literally a dead language.

Hoops.

Yeah. Until Quentin Tarantino put out Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction. And then all of a sudden, I had the coin to the realm.

Yes.

I realized if I go to Hollywood now, this is my only chance to be relevant, interesting. Because I know how to play this stuff. And I can write in that style, too. And I landed here, and everything happened really fast.Cause everybody wanted that edge.

And you came out relatively late in life for people who come out to Hollywood to make it right.

I thought you meant came out. Well, actually, today is the day, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, we have 15 more minutes.

Actually, one of the gifts for the pledge drive is a date with me.

Ooh. How can you put a price on that? You didn't come out in la. You came out to la.

I just did.

And the third Rock from the sun had that sound. And is that kind of how connected?

Yep.

Wow.

Interesting.

Yeah, everybody wanted that sound. And I landed in town. Like, the right week isn't sweet. Yeah, the timing was amazing.

And you came out to Santa Monica. Yeah, same here. Boy, did we luck out.

Yeah, I just kept driving until there was no land left. Yeah, right. I was either gonna drive into the ocean or get an apartment, so I got an apartment.

You scored several films. Psycho Beach Party. What the heck's that about?

Oh, it's a. It's a great film. It's a parody of the Frankie and Annette films.

I like that film.

Yeah.

Oh, wow. Okay. Are you in it? Are you in that movie?

I wouldn't be surprised.

Not that one.

And the independent?

Yep.

Scorpion Springs featuring Phil Proctor.

Phil Proctor Peterson.

Wow. And then you got into producing as well. Lost Straitjackets. How did that happen?It sounds like you just came out here and you just met a lot of people.

Well, I was a record producer before I came here. That was what I was doing, kind of what I was known for.And that was one of those things where I just started telling people that I was a record producer because no one could define what the job is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, it's like being a film producer. You can get a card printed up and hand it to somebody and enough people will believe you and hire you.

It worked for abstract Hollywood personifies reinvention.

It does.

You can come out and do whatever you think you can do.

Yeah, I came out. I became a film and TV composer here. And I wasn't. No one called me that before I came here.

Were you working in Philly or.

Yeah.

So you. Did you ever spend time in New York?

Oh, yeah, a lot of time.

So you were working New York and

then were your folks musically inclined?

No, no.

Really?

No, I discovered it all on my own.

And are you a single kid or.

Two brothers. Two older brothers.

Are they into music too?

Into it, but didn't play.

Huh.

I have no idea where it came from.

Wow.

Radio.

Well, yeah, definitely yeah, definitely.

No, but the talent, that's from God.

So you. You still playing in your. And you do tour occasionally?

I do. I'm popular in Spain.

Ah.

Which is a great place to be popular all through.

Throughout this country or region.

Yeah, so I go over there and play France. My records did really well in Europe in the 80s.

So you're the Bad Bunny of Spain.

Yes, that's true. I sing in English.

Right. Yeah, not a problem there. You're probably not being attacked by rednecks.

No, I never saw one redneck in Spain.

There's a lot of hot sun there, though, I gotta tell you.

So you're the Jerry Lewis of.

I have a song called Jerry Lewis in France. You do? Which is about being appreciated. It's a love song. Like, you can't be more appreciated than Jerry Lewis was in France.You know, he was a genius there.

Although I heard a funny story that when he was invited over to get his Les Genneur, his special national award for being a cultural favorite, when he got up to speak, people were disappointed because the voice that came out of him was not the voice of the overdubbed.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jerry Lewis, huh? The French guy who did it, you know. You got it.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the story I heard that didn't make sense.

I thought it was always incongruous, because I would. When I was a kid, I read his book about filmmaking.

I love that book. Yeah, I love that book. There's one moment where he says, I love 35 millimeter film so much. When no one's looking, I lick the emotion.I love that book.

And I have a book that he signed over to me because I got to work with him a couple of times, which is a French book, a study of all of his films by, you know, a great French critic and everything. And it's.

That's why. Why Jerry Lewis and France?

Well, they love, you know, Chaplin, they love Pratt Falls. Physical comedy.

It's the art of it, too.

Jacques.

Jacques.

Tati.

Tati.

Another person. I had that.

And I also think, you know, maybe they get a kick out of thinking all Americans are idiots, too. I have something to say about the Fireside Theater. That first album.

Yeah.

Waiting for the Electrician. Yep. That first track on there explains the founding of America better than any history book. God bless.

Vespucci Lamb.

It is so great. Oh, thanks. It is so great. I loved it then and I listened to it again again now before I came over. And I was like, it still holds.That is really, really everything you need to know about the founding of of the west is in that first track, civilization.

And you know, the music that was supplied on that album through Jimmy Gwercio was the Wrecking Crew and Glenn Campbell plays on that album.

I was wondering about that because the music is really good.

Yeah, they do. We. We walked into the studio and there's this band ready to. To do our stuff. I mean, it was. Oh, I tell you.

You're listening to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer show. He's Phil Proctor.

I am.

And I'm Ted Bonnitt. And our guest is Ben Vaughn.

And that's true too.

You do a podcast as well?

I do.

What's that about?

It's called Straight from the Hat. And my co host is Laura Pocadello. She runs Sun Records down in Nashville.

Yeah.

And she is a younger person, but she loves older music and her record collection is immense. And I've worked with a lot of the people in her record collection.We worked on a project together and we got to talking and we both realized pretty quickly that we were both Sonny Bono fanatics and not ironic Sonny Bono fanatics.We really, you know, his career, even before Sonny and Schar, he had at least 10 years of working with Phil Spector and producing for specialty records, a lot of R and B stuff. You know, he career before that.

He lived on my street, by the way.

Did he really? Yes, really.

And Margaret, Elvis has been on our street and. And he lived up at the top of our street in Benedict Canyon.

When I met Ben and I said, you should come on our radio show, he said, yeah, because I'd like to talk about the Sonny Bono murder mystery.

Ah, what?

I said, really? He goes, yeah, I know everything about Sonny Bono. I said, murder mystery. Oh, do tell.

I can't really say too much other than the going. The going information was that he was addicted to painkillers and was a wild skier because of it. And that's what Mary Bono said.And even Scher chimed in and said, oh, yeah. But the toxicology report showed no drugs.

So you think a tree reached out and killed him?

You know, he was a congressman. Yeah. And he might have been uncovering something that didn't, you know, that people didn't want uncovered. Huh.

So a secret branch of the government got him.

Now he's in the trunk.

Where's my rim shot? Premise of the podcast is she pulls a name out of a hat and your challenge is to tell us.

Yeah. With no preparation. Kind of like what you guys?

Any kind of a name, you mean?

Well, she Pulled out, you know, Lynyrd Skynyrd. And it turns out I, you know, I played harmonica with them on stage in front of 20,000 people.

Really?

Wow.

How was that?

It was weird. Yeah.

Was it?

It was like being in a movie. You know, when you're on a stage that. With an audience that large. What was that?

What was that?

That was our audience.

Are the aliens here?

Okay. So it was Leonard Skynyrd. And she also pulled out. Well, Sonny Bono, you know, shows up, but she wrote down all these names. And it's really like.I threw some names in, too, but we don't know what's coming out.

Yeah, that's cool.

And then I just.

With.

No, I'm. Pull a name out.

Okay.

Frank Zappa.

Frank Zappa. I met him in 1970. Mother's Day.

Oh, perfect.

Perfect.

They did a Mother's Day concert in Philadelphia. And a friend of mine, I loved the Rubin and the jets out. Because I love doo wop. That record was so good, and it was my favorite Mothers album.I maybe didn't like the Mothers as much as I liked Ruben and the Jets. So we went to see Frank Zappa. And afterwards, my friend said, we're gonna hang by the stage door and we're gonna meet him.And I was like, we're never gonna meet him. Yeah. But we hung out. And he said, don't worry, I'll do all the talking. And I said, okay. So we're waiting, and all of a sudden, Frank comes out.I don't know if you've probably met Frank Zappa. Striking man. Like, just his presence is, like, tall. Something's going on. Very commanding and almost like a predator. Yes.

Very intense stare.

Very intense person. And my friend all of a sudden couldn't talk, so I had to do all the talking.I told him how much I loved Ruben and the jets and how much I love doo Wop. And then he asked me if there's a record store in Philadelphia where he could buy doo wop records. So I directed him. So we were.It was great for making. I was like 15 years old.

Oh, wow.

And everybody told me I was too weird. And then I met the weirdest guy, and he approved of me.

That's right.

The affirmation that I needed at that moment was to have someone like Frank Zappa put his hand anoint me.

I had five years in a row, front row, watching him do his Halloween show at the Academy in New York.

Really?

And then Baby Snakes was premiering his movie in Times Square. And our radio station was Promoting it. So unfortunately, my friend who ran the station made me dress up in a hideous superhero.

Oh, is that when that happened?

Yeah, Eve's costume. The guy who made Christopher Reeves outfit made into my body.And they made me put on this paper mache oversized head which looked like doubly do right on acid. And it would scare children, make them, you know, cry. But at least I didn't know one had to see my face in this outfit.So as soon as I got to the theater, they wanted me to do a meet and greet on the red carpet. And I hated it. And having worked in radio movie theaters, I knew where I could hide. And I found the manager's office of this theater in Times Square.And I ran in there and I couldn't see out of this helmet. And I turn around and I slam the door. And into the door I scream f me. And I go, where am I? And I turn around.It's this tiny little room that's triangular shaped. And cowering in the corner is Frank Zappa all by himself.

How about that?

And he said, oh, God, I'm so sorry. I'm just hiding. He said, well, why do you think I'm here? He said, sit on down. And we had this.I was like 19, 20, you know, and we had this half an hour conversation. And he was so kind and genuine.

His pianist, Ian Underwood was the first guy to turn me on. He was at Yale and he got me stoned for the first time.

Really? Ian Underwood? Yeah.

Wow.

Cool.

Oh, man. Ben Vaughn, thank you so much.

Sexy Boomers is the best name for a show I've ever heard in my life.

Oh, thank you.

I love it.

Thank you.

It. It's like. It's like gold.

You're going to get a bumper sticker for that.

Do you have?

Oh, yeah, I got one for you.

Sexy Boomer on board.

You can hear.

Really?

Yeah. Now you can go to our website at Sexy Boomer Show.com and all your favorite podcast platforms and hear all of our shows.

And we love meeting new people like yourself on the show. And so good to get to know you.

Really good to know you.

This is. This is a blast.

Hey, thanks. Thanks, man. Thanks so much for coming on.

Anytime you got anything to promote, give us a call.

I'll be here next week.

All right. Ben Vaughn, thanks so much.

You are welcome.

I'm Ted Bonnitt.

I'm Phil Proctor.

Thanks everybody. Really appreciate you joining us.

And again, stay sexy.

Bye.

Bye.