[Updated June 21, 2011: Photographer Eddie Caraeff says:

[Larry certainly was crazy!

[I think Frank was just making a PG rated gesture w/ his hand,  however that was many, many years ago.

[Not sure you know that my Grandmother is featured next to him on his album cover. Not in person, since he was too nuts for that,I made a life size cardboard cut-out of Grandma Goldie which he stood next to outside in my backyard. I still lived with my parents when I started working with Frank at age 17.]

The New York Times published this photo at the top with its obituary of Larry “Wild Man” Fischer and I got to wondering: What IS going on with Franz Zappa’s right hand? Is his index finger really longer than his middle finger?   So I tracked down the photo on the left, which is cropped from an image of him playing the guitar.

Hm. I think we have what NASA would call “an anomaly.”

You don’t suppose Zappa was making “a rude gesture,” do you?

Like here?
Or here?

Ed Caraeff is credited as the photographer, so I emailed just to see. I’ll let you know what I hear.

Photo: Frank Zappa and Larry “Wild Man” Fischer Credit: Ed Caraeff