Fialka worked for musician-composer
Frank Zappa as archivist, production assistant, tour assistant, and
factotum from 1983 to 1993.[10][11][12][13] He answered the phone for Zappa’s
Barking Pumpkin Records hotline,[14][15] and ran Zappa’s mail-order merchandise business
Barfko-Swill.[16] Fialka appears giving a tour of Barfko-Swill in the 1987
VHS release (but not the original 1979 film release) of Zappa's film Baby Snakes. While not listed in the film credits, he is credited on-screen as "GERALD FIALKA Cool Guy Who Wraps Stuff So It Doesn't Break".[17] A short clip of this appearance is also included in the 2020 documentary film Zappa.
Fialka has published articles on Zappa, and was a co-interviewer in 1988 when Zappa expressed his thoughts on
media theory.[18][19][20] In a 1990 interview, Zappa mentioned that Fialka gave him a present that impressed him more than any other present from his staff: a videotape of The World's Greatest Sinner.[21] Zappa band member
Ike Willis called Fialka "one of the most brilliant people I have ever known and ever met ... an astoundingly astute and brilliant person ... the kind of guy that Frank [Zappa] loved to have in his orbit."[13]
Associations with other musicians
Fialka was Executive Producer[22] for the first song, "Revenge of the Nurds", ever released by
Dawayne Bailey, who went on to play guitar for rock music bands including
Chicago and
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band. Fialka also acted as Bailey’s first manager.[23][24] He has also produced recordings by local Venice, California musicians, including Sunny War. [25]
Fialka has written, directed, produced, and/or acted in several short experimental films.[28][29][30] Collaborators have included Mark X. Farina,[31][32] Will Erokan,[33][34][31] Clifford Novey,[29][32] Bruno Kohfield-Galeano,[35] Tyler Bartram,[36] Tim Corvin,[37] and Mike Sakamoto (who is making a film about Fialka);[38] and some films feature Fialka’s wife
Suzy Williams,[39] or
Morgan Ågren,[40] who played drums for various
Frank Zappa projects and concerts.
Fialka produced and directed a feature-length experimental documentary film The Brother Side of the Wake,[41] released in 2021, about the people of
Venice in Los Angeles, California. It is billed as a
remake of
Orson Welles's
satireThe Other Side of the Wind, since both films probe the same question: "Is the journey more important than the destination?"[41] Fialka's film mixes in elements of "psychic effects of
direct cinema, abstract animation, films about films", communal
call-and-response ritual, and
James Joyce’s book Finnegans Wake.[41]
Fialka has published a full book, Strange Questions: Experimental Film as Conversation,[69] of his interviews with notables in avant-garde cinema who offer insights into "its creative processes, formative influences, and hidden psychic effects."[70] Some of his other interviews have been cited or republished by others.[71][72][73]
Other published works
Fialka has published essays in various experimental film magazines including cineSource Magazine,[74][75]Otherzine,[76] and Canyon Cinemazine,[77] and regularly publishes essays on local news in the Free Venice Beachhead.[78][79][80] He sometimes writes using a
pen name that is an obvious take-off on his real name, such as Geritol Fialkaseltzer or Germy Folkywaze.
Fialka has written a chapter " ‘Don’t Even Look At It' ─ Pixelvision & Multi-Screens"[81] in the book Undependently Yours: Imagining A World Beyond The Red Carpet,[82] and contributed an essay to the book Craig Baldwin: Avant to Live![83]
Personal life
Fialka married singer-songwriter
Suzy Williams in 2001. They currently live in
Venice, Los Angeles, California, where Fialka founded, organizes, and leads reading clubs on
Marshall McLuhan’s books and percepts on
media theory and
James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake,[84] annual Venice film and photography festivals,[85] and a variety of other community events[12] including film screenings, discussion groups, and art shows. He also displays his own artwork, primarily collages, in local art shows,[86] and produces local live musical shows.[87] He performs in local music bands, including as a contributor to the
Waywords and Meansigns international project setting Finnegans Wake to music.[88]
Fialka and Williams were the featured couple in the July 2020 edition of Venice Living magazine.[89] An entire subchapter "Pixilated Populism" of the book Venice, CA: A City State of Mind (which includes a photograph of Fialka on its cover), is devoted to Fialka, and summarizes Fialka's significance to Venice by stating "Gerry's a master at introducing people and steering the wayward onesomes to action ... to spreading awareness ... His encyclopedic grasp of Venetian and media history swells the archive that circulates in the heads of citizens."[90]
^Watson, Ben (2005). "Houston... Fort... Marcuse: Sin versus Archetype in Zappa's Oeuvre". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 72.
ISBN978-0946719792.
^Gamma (2005). "Poodles: a Zappological reading of Ulysses". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 208.
ISBN978-0946719792.
^de Kloet, Co (2020). Frank & Co. Doetinchem, Netherlands: Haver Producties. p. 297.
ISBN978-90-821095-3-5.
^Prentis, Simon (2005). "'The Torture Never Stops' Frank Zappa & the Mental Hygiene Dilemma". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 69.
ISBN978-0946719792.
^Jeunot, Dominique (2005). "The secret meaning of 'Arf': Canine continuity in the output macrostructure". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 62.
ISBN978-0946719792.
^Gispert, Jürgen (2005). "The conservatism of Easy Rider: Zappa's critique of dumb concepts of freedom". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 156.
ISBN978-0946719792.