A Phil Austin Story - This is the first audiobiography of Phil Austin I created shortly after his death.

Grateful Firesign - My 2nd Austin bio, this was inspired by an interview Phil did on WBAI about writing a screen play for the Grateful Dead. I combined it with Jack Kerouac's story, Visions of Neal and the 3 Stooges, considering how close Neal Cassady was to the Dead. Also featured, the Credibility Gap's portrayal of the 3 Stooges during a phone strike in LA in the early 70s. Various Beat generation folks make their appearances, and Bergman tells of losing a girl friend to Neal Cassady.

I Think We're All Bergmans On This Bus - As requested, an audiobiography of Peter Bergman, including stories of his death from a Phil Proctor interview.

Ossman Collage Graduation - Also upon request, an audiobiography of David Ossman on his 79th birthday.

The 6th Album (Part 1)
The 6th Album (Part 2)
David Ossman suggested I put the solo albums he and Phil Austin did together in 1973 with Proctor and Bergman's TV or Not TV (plus some extras from the TV or Not TV film) into one "album" Dave calls The 6th Album.

We're Doomed! Part One


HAPPY BIRTHDAY 2020:
Peter Bergman - Peter Bergman is born. World War 2 breaks out. Coincidence? Pete learns to make pretend butter. Goes to schools. Joins the Army. Starts the Firesign Theatre, Dies.
David Ossman - David Ossman unpacks his archives at a benefit for Hearts and Hammers at Langley, Washington's Clyde Theatre in 2019. The Not Insane 2020 campoon gets underway.

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Cars - In 2013, The Firesigns were given a digital radio station and needed programming. I created a series of 1-hour shows, collecting Firesign bits around a central theme. Considering the Firesign's interest in cars, or at least car ads, I created this piece. The whole series was called Freetime with the Cat Man, at Phil Austin's suggestion.

Cars A
Cars B
Cars C


Dope Humour - In 2013, Phil Austin asked us chatters for show ideas for the new Firesign Theatre streaming radio. I suggested some themed collages and then made 20 of them. Phil wanted the show to be called Free Time with the Cat Man. Here's a show I call Dope Humour. After listening to it, hopefully you'll go out and buy the brand new Firesign vinyl release Dope Humor of the 70s.

Firemusic - Columbia advertised the guys as the only rock group that doesn't need music. Maybe not "need" but they sure generated a lot of it. Since he was a small child, Proctor would burst into song at the drop of a hat, particularly if coins were thrown into that hat. All those Beatles references in their songs, not coincidental for, as the Library of Congress calls them, The Beatles of Comedy. "They" began as a musical act at Yale in 1960, Bergman writing lyrics and Proctor singing. Their last album The Bride of Firesign ended with a duet, which inspired the add-on mini-collage Cousins. Play on, 5th crazy guy! - Cousins

Food - Fantasy foods formulated by the Firesign Theatre. Swell libations too!

Rocket Bozos - Bozo boards his rocket ship and visits Australia, New Zealand, Planet X (it is after all, a Rocket Ship) and finally the middle east.  Not surprisingly, he finds the Firesign Theatre wherever he goes.

Rocket Bozos 2 - Bozo assembles a rocket ship with help from Phil Proctor.  Bozo then visits China, Russia and Mexico.

Power Show - The central message from all of the Firesign work has been Power, They want to empower YOU to resist the powers seeking to oppress you, To quote Phil Austin, "If you can laugh at it, it has no power over you."

Transportation - Based on a Firesign concert in Seattle in '94, which they dubbed The Transportation Museum.



Adventures In Hell - This is the first in a series of autobiographical collages, starting with events that happened in my early childhood. Beginning with my favourite Dylan tune, my story continues with a bit from Phil Austin's radio show Hollywood Nightshift, part 2 of their Train to Hell. Austin's song from Roller Maidens. The CBC comedy show The Debaters features a debate about the relative merits of heaven and hell, http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thedebaters. A clip from Dwarf is followed by Bergman's  radio free oz show from 1966, and finally my 1996 play Big Time with its debating angel and devil.

Death Takes A Holiday - Death Takes a Holiday is my second autobiographical collage, continuing from last weeks train ride to hell. It begins with Hellbound Train, by Savoy Brown. That's followed by my chinchilla tale, along with the Firesigns chinchilla piece from Dear Friends. Nearly getting killed is from an Hour Hour show collected on the Duke of Madness Motors compilation. It's followed by the Beatles' Day in the Life; Nick Danger, Electrician, Peter Bergman talking about death on an episode of his 1967 Radio Free Oz show; Give Me Immortality, a clip from the Magic Mushroom play Freak for a Week, a Radio Free Oz ad from their Pink Hotel Burns Down compilation, live Dwarf, Anythynge, Scrooge and a Neal Amid fragment. The Electrician finally shows up. He wants to see your passport.

Thanks Sputnik, Part 1 - This was inspired by seeing the program The Sputnik Moment that one of the chatters turned me on to, as part of the Making Sense of the 60s series.  An old Beatles single sums up what I remember of Kindergarten.  The Firesigns share their enjoyment of sleep as well. Also colouring books.  Eddy Murphy's Dr. Doolittle is reviewed.  Nick discovers a dog.  Science films prevailed.  Donald Duck discovers Math.  Hey, everybody.  Let's study science!

Thanks Sputnik, Part 2 - This is my 2nd collage about the effects of Sputnik on my education, this one focusing on the year 1959. Words from the Firesign Theatre from their Fools in Space satellite radio show.Vin Scully calling the 1959 World Series.  I Owe Russia $1200 by Bob Hope. More Fools in Space. The Peanuts album with Kaye Ballard and Arthur Siegel. Proctor interviewed by Clam Radio in 2002. How Can you be in 2 Places at Once. Monterey, by Eric Burden and the Animals, a song as good as the festival itself. How to tell real jade from fake, from You Tube. Bird of Prey Motors. The collage ends with the song Satellites by Rickie Lee Jones from her Flying Cowboys album.

Nukes - Even more frightening than the train to hell in episode one of my audiobiography and being a few hours from death in episode 2 was something that happened to me and every other life form on the planet in October, 1962. The Fighting Firesign Clowns have a song about it. Robert Klein recalls the 50s drop drills so we don't have to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tdT59cbwCs. An actual Civil Defence announcement. The Firesign's satelite show Fools in Space. The film The Man Who Saved the World, which everyone should watch and memorize.  https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-mozilla-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mozilla&p=the+man+who+saved+ther4+world%2C+youtube#id=2&vid=16401bf736ec79fdb4bbc7b1815a1733&action=click Vasily Arkapov is the only reason life still exists on this planet. Bergman's story about No More Hiroshima Day in Finland, 1961. In the absence of a camera, I recorded my impressions of Hiroshima in 1974 from its train station in the middle of the night. More comedy from the Firesigns, from their Duke of Madness Motors collection of their radio shows. The end of my family's vegetarianism, thanks to the Cuban Missile Crisis. A song from Bergman's pal, Dana Lyons.

Carleton - Yet another autobiographical collage, this one deals with the years 1969-70. The year 1969 began with me moving back from LA to Saskatchewan. Added are bits from Firesign's In the Next World, You're On Your Own, and the Star Trek theme. The story of my first radio show in Ottawa is matched by a bit of the song Old Brown Dog, from the Running, Jumping, Standing Still album by Spider John Koerner and Willie Murphy. A rejected screen play leads to my introduction to a popular herb. Something even the elves don't know about. Steve Miller's Song for Our Ancestors, from his Sailor album shows me the potency of the herbs, as does a televised hockey game. My room mate C. Dale visits the Le Dain commission and is warned about seeds. A beautiful plane ride is remembered, with help from Firesign memories of flying back from New York to LA. In LA, I meet the Firesigns and share a smoke. The Firesigns remember Taj Mahal's piano player, John Simon, whether they want to or not. John plays Taj's tune Ain't Gwine Whistle Dixie no more. While covering Parliament, I hear an atrocious reason not to alleviate starvation. The Firesigns remember Biafra. I revel in the beauty of Ottawa. Dylan also watches a river. A memory of some strangeness on LA freeways is serenaded by Eric Anderson. Memories of the two Steves. One of them makes a fine omelet. Be-bop craves eggs. A memory of listening to Vince Guaraldi at Grace Cathedral. While I'm kicked off a plane for not volunteering for Vietnam, Country Joe celebrates my decision. I end up going to LA via Saskatchewan, in time to tape the last 6 episodes of Hour Hour.

Saskatchewan (Part 1) - "Recently, I heard Marc Maron interview Canadian comedian Brent Butt who was promoting the animated version of his popular TV show Corner Gas. Brent tells Marc about Saskatchewan, where he and I were born. Marc had never heard of the place. He's not alone in that. A clip from Corner Gas. Elmertown, from Boom Dot Bust. A TV biography of Tommy Douglas, Premier of Saskatchewan when I was born and voted Greatest Canadian of all time. The Firesigns have fun with religion. Tommy's life continues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4_v2701GMg  Mouseland and a land with lots of mousers. A plague of Firesign mice. Back to Brent, talking about his brother, the clock fixer. Proctor tells highway jokes. Women are finally allowed into bars. Not  always a good idea, if the Giant Rat of Sumatra is involved. No longer waiting for the electrician in Saskatchewan. Nor the plumber. Another Sasktchewan native, Joni Mitchell sees a farm house burning, and is inspired to write Coyote. She sings about hitch hiking in Saskatchewan, which I've done, but mentions freeways, which do not exist there. Maybe she picked up a poetic license at the DMV. "

Saskatchewan (Part 2) - Marc Maron continues his interview with Brent Butt. The Firesigns explore Steel Hat, Nebraska. The Beatles salute Ukrainian girls. I remember my Ukrainian grandmother's culinary advice. A bit of Neal Amid about Saskatchewan farming. Bee stories Tommy Douglas luckily doesn't lose a leg. Dr. Whiplash gives bad advice. Tommy has a good idea. The Canadian way and the American way diverge. A bit from my play Radio Free Booze riffing on Bergman's mistaken idea of Tommy Douglas's first name and his radio show taken over by Hollywood Provo in 1967. More goodies from Tommy. While other politicians cozy up to Hitler, only Tommy sees him clearly. Hitler's doctor. Tommy sees the folly of the Vietnam war. Firesigns get a good review out of it. Brent gets a gig in Saskatoon. While a student there in 1970, I observe strange things in the sky. George Harrison explains them. A wondrous fall farm scene. Brent explains the success of Corner Gas. Prince Albert escapes his can. The CBC radio comedy show The Debaters debates whether Saskatoon is a tourist destination. The Guess Who, from next door province Manitoba, sing about Saskatoon. Better tune than city.

History And Firesigns - This is about my own history, the history of the Firesign Theatre, and how we have interacted from the late 60s until 1999. It begins in 1959, with me being assigned to write a play in 3rd grade, while Proctor and Bergman were having an early collaboration at Yale: the play Tom Jones. A change of schools in 61 brings to my mind Bergman and his mother collaborating on comic poetry when he was in Elementary School, as he talks about in Fools in Space. Bozos references Charlie Brown, my main literary inspiration in the pre-Firesign days. A high school friend turned me onto Peter Bergman's Radio Free Oz show after it moved to KRLA in 67. Another high school revelation was how ignorant real DJs were about what was popular among their audience. Austin tries to summon the spirit of Boss Radio and Peter Bergman's high school 45, Attention Convention from 1956. I study and take part in radio in University, before going to Japan for work in 71. A friend sent me the Bozos album, as monkeys cheer. Later, I meet the owner of King Records who instructs his engineers to listen to Dwarf. The government radio station NHK invites me to babble about Bergman, and play Echo Poem. Real English is spoken on the American military radio station F.E.N., even though they also offer Japanese lessons. The long years in Japan were livable thanks to my Firesign collection, as I continued to write and record skits. Fat Freddy's Cat goes fishing. My then 3-year-old daughter expands her English vocabulary. The Bonzos don't exist. Back in Vancouver, I turn on a local Science Fiction radio programme to Firesigns and help them interview Ossman. No retirement checks for him. The internet connects me to Elayne and then the lads. Elayne and David discuss By the Light of the Silvery on WBAI sometime in the 90s. Elayne, her then husband Steve and I drive down to Whidby Island to meet David. I wonder if the Firesigns could do a radio show in Japan, as the Pythons did for German TV. Apparently the only Firesign visit to a World's Fair, 2 year old David in 1939 leads to Bozos. Phil and Melinda invite over to their house in LA and suggest I once more write for radio. Adbusters' Joe Chemo leads to Camel on the Lamb. A meeting with Peter Stenshoel begins a period where I wrote radio plays. His The Philip K Dick Van Dyke Show is here: http://zxquniverse.com/the-philip-k-dick-van-dyke-show/
The 1996 Big Internet Broadcast features George Tirebiter talking to the George Burns of Chimpanzees (played wordlessly by Proctor) but unfortunately, this doesn't lead to Ossman's job in a real World's Fair. I use the word “later” too much. Phil Austin offers to replace me in my next play. Phil and Melinda briefly summarize the Russian Revolution. My 19-year old daughter acts the part of King Tut's priestess in Neal Amid. Many Firesign fans meet in Seattle in 1999. Pete offers some comforting words to me, and then to everyone else.

Meetings With Mr. Fong - I met Dextre Fong twice, both in New York City. The first meeting, mostly involving art, was in 2005, http://seemrealland.blogspot.ca/2005/05/, scroll down to Saturday, May 21.
The 2nd time was in 2010. I stayed with Dex and his wife Myrna at their place in Manhattan. Dex was able to get us reservations at hard-to-get-into restaurants Le Bernardin and Per Se, which I filmed. Dex didn't want any pictures taken of his face so we only see his hands occasionally, but thankfully, his voice could be heard so I could make this collage. http://seemrealland.blogspot.ca/2010/10/  scroll down to Monday, Oct 18th. As some chatters may know, there was an explosion in the apartment next to Dex which destroyed the room his computer was in. He never got around to replacing it, which is why he left chat a few years ago. His many years on chat will be remembered by those of us who so enjoyed his company here.

Cat Meets France (part Un) - I remember 1964 for more than just the World's Fair. It was also the year I was first exposed to French: the language, the food and the films. I supplement my memory with Dwarf, some DOMM bits, The Beatles, The Bride of Firesign, Giant Rat, a fragment of a Carnation Instant Breakfast ad, Praise the Hoove from the Dear Friends album and Chef Entree from DOMM. My memories of cooking French food in 1964 segues into the food I encountered on my most recent trip to France in June of this year. I am joined in celebrating this moveable feast by Radio Free Booze, my friend Maurice Gauthier reading the menu from Le Jules Verne in French, the whole Carnation ad, SCTV presents Martin Short as Jerry Lewis in Paris, Upper Middle Class Wine from Austin's Hollywood Nightshift, Popeye, Nick Danger's sponsor Vino Bros, the Beatles in French and another DOMM fragment where-in Peter reads a letter from Paris. 

Cat Meets France (part Deux) - Parisian-for-a-week Cease decends into serious food porn (cuisine erotique), narrowly escapes death by eel, feasts on divine tarts, celebrates Spring with pigeons, sees his reflection in Monet's pond and says Au Revoir. The audio verson of www.seemrealland.blogspot.ca



VEGAS ATE, SUNDAY - This is the story of my 8th trip to Vegas, Feb, 2019. I go there to eat, hence the title. Vegas Ate. As I narrate and navigate Vegas, I am accompanied by Steely Dan's Show Biz Kids. The Firesigns visit The Land of the Pharoahs. Danny returns from ancient Greece. Proctor and Bergman advertise Sneezer's Chicken. Organ Leroy plays on, The fruit and vegetables get their own village. The French Fresh Chef does potatoes. Brian Gyson remembers meeting William Burroughs for the first time. My daughter Bit greets Tutankhamun. Steve Martin does the Egyptian. Hal and Ray eat crocodile croquettes in Vegas. Dr. Memory riffs on phonemes. King Tut struts back to Babylonia. Babble on.

VEGAS ATE, MONDAY - A few weeks after I returned from Vegas, my wife found a letter our daughter Bit had sent us from Vegas when she went there with her friend Steph and Steph's folks in 1993. Bit's friend Lara reads the letter. It segues into The Who riding their magic bus. Apricots take on new importance to me. The Firesigns advertise stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut. Tirebiter has trouble getting a pizza delivered. The Nigerian war ends. Monty Python is a lumberjack and he's ok. Hummus learns Turkish. Jim Morrison sings the 3 Penny Opera. The bartenders at Sparrow and Wolf make me some wonderful cocktails using Yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit.

VEGAS ATE, TUESDAY - I discover wonderful eggs at the 4 Seasons. I try and cut smaller and smaller pieces of the frittata. The Antelope Freeway approaches the Zeno off-ramp. The ancient Monsanto pavillion at Disneyland sends me shrinking into the realm of the atom, from my play Inside. A hamburger plays "spin the pickle." Great Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama delights me at the Bellagio. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Yayoi+Kusama%2C+youtube&t=ffhp&atb=v156-6b_&ia=videos&iax=videos&iai=iT360Glhb9o
Fleetwood Mac's Hypnotised captures her weirdness nicely. You've got to put Yayoi's mirrored bowling balls on the other side. Gypsy Doctor sees the present. I dine in Mordor. Not a good idea. Thankfully, I escape to Edo Tapas. It's mushroom and cauliflower dish is the best thing I eat during 5 days of continual eating. The Firesign Theatre turn into mushrooms during the 2000 Rose Parade. Back at the Luxor, I try their blackberry cocktail at the central bar. It was a mistake. Proctor makes the same cocktail mistake in Russia.

VEGAS ATE, WEDNESDAY - More wondrous eggs. Nick Danger agrees. So does Gen Curtis Goatheart. I ponder the impossibility of perfection in food. Is it all worth it? A great Greek lunch and useful blackberrry cocktail, then a serious dissappointment at the sangria bar. A bus delivers me to the Gehry bldg downtown. The Bride of Firesign offers some architectural comment. The Downtown Cocktail Room continues the beverage bummers. A Lyft takes me to The Palms, a new hotel for me. New Italian joint Vetri has better view than food, while Mr and Mrs Austin discuss pork. Some military metaphors come to mind. I re-visit Partage instead of going out for swordfish. A bad idea. Only John Goodman is friendly. Tirebiter campaigns for the ape vost. The Sparrow and Wolf yuzu drinks remain excellent. The Firesigns celebrate Easter,1970. Leon Russel helps them roll away the stone.

VEGAS ATE, THURSDAY AND FRIDAY - On the 5th day of my Vegas excursion, fruit replaces toast at Veranda, to my delight. The Brunts share my mirth. I find myself in a mislabeled food court, with Kip Addotta. The Firesigns experience Japanese cooking. Europe is pummeled by rain. So is Vegas. Julian insults apricots. Hockey deflates sangria. I am attacked by cantaloups. Anyone want to contact VD? Fidel liberates the Hilton. Michael Mina assaults the very idea of food. Phil Austin's school lunch menus offer more serious sustenance. Crab gets limed. Before catching my return flight on Friday, I have a final egg feast at Veranda. Home at last.

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Fair Worlds - Seattle - My first World's Fair, 1962 Seattle. Firesign on the road in Berkeley, 74, escaping shadows.  Elvis serenades a girl younger than his guitar on their way to the Seattle World's Fair.  Stupid Belgian waffles.  Some actual Worlds Fair audio, from assorted pavillions.  Ain't the internet great?  What a piece of ass fault!  The Science Pavilion movie.  You could talk like that to millions and expect them to understand.  How different from now.  The Bozos album, maybe the closest to my heart.  A Piddle Diddle Disneyland from Negativland,1993.  I loved the Tiki Room but also love to learn its secrets.  Artie Choke makes a joke.  My first radio play, Inside.  Monsanto's journey into inner space was my favourite ride.  I was involved with the Orangutan Foundation and the Great Apes Project at the time, which is all too obvious.

Fair Worlds - New York - C. Simril and Tom O'Neil's excellent adventures at the 64-65 New York World's Fair. Edwin Newman's World's Fair Diary: https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-mozilla-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=mozilla&p=Edwibn+Newman%27s+Worlds+Fair+Diary%2C+Youtube#id=1&vid=20d08029caf1a22cf5ac2781f2d09811&action=click
The General Motor's Pavillion. Austin's House of Little Men. D.O.M.M. Austin's Roiller Maidens - Come On Jesus. Bozos. TV or Not. Negativeland's A Piddle Diddle Disneyland. Ford's Wonder Rotunda. Austin's Yesterday's News. Traveller's Insurance pavillion. IBM. Giant Rat. Pepsi's Small Worlds. Zippy the Pinhead. Lincoln. Bill Maher show, Sept. 17, 2017, and C'est La Vie by Robbie Nevil.

A Fair for Al, and No Fair to Anybody - A phone conversation between Airship Al Gross, Tweeny and me from late September, combined with bits from How Time Flies, EYKIW, Lenny Bruce's Christ and Moses, Give me Immortality, my play Inside, Nick Danger's Case of the Missing Shoe, the Martian Space Party, Nick Danger's first caper, the Free Mexican Airforce, more EYKIW, Proctor interviewed on Jimmy Church's Fade to Black podcast ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYse660lCbo ) and Jennifer Warnes singing the late Leonard Cohen's First We Take Manhattan.

Fair Worlds - Montreal - Canada celebrated its 100th birthday by having a Worlds Fair in Montreal. I celebrated by attending that fair and then traveling across the country.  Thankfully there are a lot of You Tube sites to jog's ones memory of that fair. I found these podcasts particularly useful: https://www.concordia.ca/events/conversation-series/thinking-out-loud/expo67.html, the Thinking Out Loud series from Concordia University in Montreal. The women who do the podcast are just as passionate about Expo 67's flilms as I was when i saw them. Some of the information I used on this collage is from brochures given to me at the fair, or found online. Aside from the usual collection of Firesign goodies, musical additions to the collage come from Jim Morrison, Sgt Pepper, C.J. Li and Linda Ronstadt. Paul Krassner offered hjis Expo 67 story from his autobiography, Confessions of a Raving Unconfined Nut. Our own DJ Tweeny and My North Van neighbour Maurice Gauthier (whom you heard as Monsier Verne, and reading the French menu at Le Jules Verne restaurant on previous collages) remember their visits to the fair. Eventually, screens take over the world.

Fair Worlds - Tsukuba - When my family was living in Japan, in 1985, the country decided to have a World's Fair. This was near the height of Japanese economic ascendancy, and what better party to throw?  Tsukuba Science City wasn't world famous, maybe a Worlds Fair will put it on the map. It was a long trek for us to an obscure site inconveniently north of Tokyo. My wife and her friend took our daughter and her friend's son to the fair, but they only played on the toy trains and other adventures of interest to 7 year olds. Later, my friend and I went. He says he remembers nothing. I remember the Jamaican pavilion, tiny even by Japanese standards, which seemed to exist only to sell Bob Marley cassettes. After waiting in long lines, we got into, maybe 2 of the popular industrial pavilions, which entranced easily entranceable eyes with 3D flowers floating tantalizingly in front of them, for a few minutes. SONY had a TV you could probably view from the moon. Thanks for the memories to the US Armed Forces Far East Network, every English-lover's link to that beloved language on Tokyo radio in the decades before the internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avn87a4VS9A

Fair Worlds - Vancouver - Expo '86 - My last Expo led me to my home, Vancouver. Thanks to our public broadcaster, CBC for its documenting Expo 86.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-pXFx4d-Yk
Contributions by The Firesign's Give Me Immortality, Waiting for the Electrician, and the Martian Space  Party, Papa Oo Mao Mao, Red Shift, Neal Amid, act 5, Developmental Valley School Lunch Menus from Phil Austin's Tales of the Olde Detective, EOBE, Humboldt, Terry Hadland, my review of the Firesign concert on the pier at Seattle, 1994, for Elayne's zine, Proctor interviewed by PsiOp radio, on November 22, 2017; a bit from Vancouver, No Fixed Address from the provincial  Knowledge Network, Dreamer by Supertramp. Thanks, Expo.

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Peace Pipe - Toward the end of 2009, I had a dream where Phil Proctor's daughter (whom I have never met) called me lazy. Lazy, eh? I reacted to that by creating the following collage. I had recently heard an interview with Carlin (archival) talking about memorizing the lyrics to Pass that Peace Pipe in 1947 when he was 10. I thought the song was written for the Duckman cartoon, which I saw in the late 90s. I asked Phil Austin if he knew the tune but he said he didn't, or at least didn't recall it. Still, Austin's 1967 radio play A Shadow Move Upon a Land and the Peace Pipe song are very similar in their listing "Indian" tribal names as a musical device.

Home - John Hockenberry's NPR show Heat, from 1990, was almost Firesonian good. Not surprising, as it featured Proctor and Bergman. The Firesign wanted to create an album based on Homer's Odyssey. Is this it?

Waiting For The Mortician - Bergman was way into death on his 1967 Radio Free Oz show. Now he's dead. Coincidence? I think not...



A Firesign Vegas (Part 1) - My March, 2023 adventures in Vegas, First 2 days, with The Electrician, Bozos, Donovan's Fat Angel, Proctor and Bergman flying from NYC to LA, the Free Mexican Air Force, Storm clouds, Steve Miller, an Hour Hour, several pieces from a RFO from 1978, Ossman on the RFO podcast, a taste of Flamenco from You Tube, Carumba from Proctor and Bergman, Ray Charles drinks gin, DF: Live from the Senate bar, Louie's burgers, Bozos,carrots from 1997, Cannonball Adderly, Bob and Ray's slow talker, Shiya and Caira from Vegas/Egypt, Marc Maron and Laurie Anderson, a Tai Chi exercise tape, EYKIW, Giant Rat, Electrician, Bride, WC Fields Forever, DF's Roosterama, Nick Danger and the Pythons.

A Firesign Vegas (Part 2) - The Vegas trip continues with the Case of the Missing Shoe, Dionne Brand, Proctor and Bergman's Power, Ossman keeps a record, Park and Lock it, Sneezers, US Plus, The Little Flower Shoppe, Box of Time, Inside the Money Bubble. Bozos, Nick Danger, Odysseus returns from Rome, Caira, Giant Towed Supermarket, Bear Whiz, the last inspiration from this can, aliens know where milk comes from, a fragment from a 1978 Radio Free Oz broadcast, the Good Ship Lollipop, The Firesigns rewrite Heat Wave, swine are guarded. a Limey is juiced.

The Meow of the Wolf Movie - Celebrating my recent visit to Omega Mart in Vegas with appropriate Firesign bits. We begin with the Movie commercial we all know and love from Dwarf, only this time it's changed.The first of Many commercials for the store, created by Santa Fe, New Mexico art collective Meow Wolf. It that Really Willy Nelson? A big chunk of this collage is from the Youtube channel Food Theory. Shoplifters, from EOBE; a Firesign clip from their Let's Eat radio show, One of Many Omega Mart ads you can find online. A brief clip from Roller Maidens, OM meat ads, Joey's House from Lawyer's Hospital, School lunch menus from Phil Austin's Tales of the Old Detective, OM ads, Food Theory, Firesign radio bit about growing your own soup, Me in Omega Mart checking out their "soup." Camel on the Lam from Immortality, Rat in The Box from Missing Yolks, That Billvillle Sound from Doom Dot Bust.Unboxing on Twitch, Proctor and Bergman's Lemon Car, OM ad, me, In the Alley from Fighting Clowns, Presidential profiles in butter. The Carpetbagger's Youtube channel. Meow Wolf history. end of side one, Dwarf. Nick Danger on the Daily Feed, Smoke Spud, Opium Gum from 3 Faces of Al, OM Ad and finally US Plus.

Brand Firesign - I review an earlier incident from the Vegas trip. where my note taking of the delightful food is hi-jacked, dragged into the poetic realm as I read a review of the poet Dione Brand in the New York Review of Books. Online, I discover her on You Tube. Writing Against Tyranny and Towards Liberation at Barnard Centre for Researching Women, April 25, 2017. Listening to David Ossman read his poetry on Radio Free Oz and its different iterations has prepared my ears to enjoy poetry. May I see your passport, please?  I am officially in poetry-land now. Bruce Cockburn calls it democracy, from his World of Wonders album. David Ossman reads a poem on Fred Wiebel's radio show on WEPM Martinsburg, West Virginia on July 19, 1996. Come on Jesus, show yourself, from Phil Austin's Roller Maidens from Outer Space. Tips Hotline from All Things Firesign. You're Under Arrest. Phil Austin remembers a night in the train yard. You've got Jaundice. Give him the antidote, Judy. David Ossman's poems from An Autobiographical Evening.


PART 1 - A friend was visiting recently and suggested we watch some Eddie Izzard on Youtube. I'd seen Eddie live twice in Vancouver- probably the best 2 standups I've ever seen. Seeing him on TV is different, but still great. I found a 2-hour collection of Craig Ferguson's interviews with Eddie on Youtube that is the basis for most of this collage, though I begin with Eddie at Wembley, the only concert film in my North Vancouver library. Of course the AMERICAN Indian lad wants to be called Eddie on the first cut of the first Firesign album. Like Firesign, Eddie's comedy has Very High expectations of the intelligence of the audience, so they go together well, right? See for yourself (if you see with your ears).

Call Me Eddie 1 A
Call Me Eddie 1 B
Call Me Eddie 1 C

PART 2 - We begin with Eddie in a raven costume made by his mother, from the biopic Believe. Followed by 3 raven poems from David Ossman's An Autobozographical Evening. The Eddie Izzard show Glorious.Eddie gets into lists of creations. The Firesigns make a list of extinctions from their Dear Friends bit called Echo Poem. The Bozos list. Ossman's list poem Time Capsule. Austin's Developmental Valley School Lunch Menu from his Tales of the Old Detective. More Raven lists. Eddie from the Believe DVD. Proctor and Bergman's album TV or Not TV. Eddie's famous Wolf sketch. An Ossman poem and a Proctor dream of wolves. Ralph Spoilsport from the Firesign's University of Maryland show. Fools in Space: Eddie Lizard. Eddie  (Doc Technical) visits my play CAST. The flag joke from Dressed to Kill. More Believe. Everything You Know is Wrong. Glorious. Nick Danger. The benefits of Hopscotch.

Call Me Eddie 2 A
Call Me Eddie 2 B
Call Me Eddie 2 C

PART 3 - We begin with Eddie in a raven costume made by his mother, from the biopic Believe. Followed by 3 raven poems from David Ossman's An Autobozographical Evening. The Eddie Izzard show Glorious.Eddie gets into lists of creations. The Firesigns make a list of extinctions from their Dear Friends bit called Echo Poem. The Bozos list. Ossman's list poem Time Capsule. Austin's Developmental Valley School Lunch Menu from his Tales of the Old Detective. More Raven lists. Eddie from the Believe DVD. Proctor and Bergman's album TV or Not TV. Eddie's famous Wolf sketch. An Ossman poem and a Proctor dream of wolves. Ralph Spoilsport from the Firesign's University of Maryland show. Fools in Space: Eddie Lizard. Eddie  (Doc Technical) visits my play CAST. The flag joke from Dressed to Kill. More Believe. Everything You Know is Wrong. Glorious. Nick Danger. The benefits of Hopscotch.

Call Me Eddie 3 A
Call Me Eddie 3 B



Fireheads (Part 1)
Fireheads (Part 2)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13973190/  Can't Get You Out of my Head is a 6-part BBC documentary series by Adam Curtis from earlier this year. I've  blended the first episode with the usual Firesign stuff as well as couple of songs, Bob Dylan's John Birch Society Blues and Switchblade Pitchforks from Phil Austin's Roller Maidens.  Also, George Monbiot on the looting of India and the fiction of capitalism. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/why-george-monbiot-is-fighting-to-build-a-politics-of-belonging-to-better-our-world-1.5720535

Fireheads 2 (Part 1)
Fireheads 2 (Part 2)
The second Fireheads collage is based on episode 2 of Can't Get You Out Of My Head.  There's a Sikh born every minute. Learning to play the dream flute. They're such little devils! Fu sings. Certs is a candy mint! Sell those demons!  Nazi Goring. President Shickelgruber. Bottoms up! World War 3? Power riffs. Deputy Dan will beat you up!  But Mom, I'm not hungry. Eyeball this! My Doors have seen you. The holy Trinitron. Un-revolutionary TV. Mr. Blank. Carry that bum! Live in the future Now! Look at the stars, man. You sold out!

Fireheads 3 (Part 1)
Fireheads 3 (Part 2)
For the 3rd episode of Cant Get You Out Of My Head, we feature Storm Clouds, Carlin, Sack O'Duck, Methedrine, La Bomba Shelter, Bergman's Woody dream, Valhalla gasoline, a poem by Mao, It had been night, Siberia, Coal, More Valhalla, Mr Foster Freeze, Halloween in Hollywood, the American Pageant, Humboldt County, new currency, Electrician, the fresh chef, Giant Rat, Radio Free Oz podcast, more RFO, Eddie are you Kidding from the Mothers of Invention album Just Another Band From LA.

Fireheads 4 (Part 1)
Fireheads 4 (Part 2)
Everyone in New York is a communist. Moscow memories. Anythinge You Want. Because News meows. Fascism gets voted in. Those beasts! Bait and switches. The Big Internet Broadcast of 1996. Paul Krassner from Brain Damage Control. The pie on your tie. Swell Pizza. Live from the Senate bar. Pete hates factories. The Old Grid building. Ghosts

Fireheads 5 (Part 1)
Fireheads 5 (Part 2)
Part 5 of Can't Get You Out of my Head mixed with The Pink Hotel Burns Down, Charlie Chance, Deputy Dan, Trouble Coming Every Day by the Mothers of Invention, A Shadow Moves Upon a Land, Nick and Guido hate cops, Giant Rat, The Whispering Squash show, Monty Python's Holy Grail, Lenny Bruce, Roosterama, Josh Johnson, Parallel Hell, Danger Down Under, Opium Gum, Fools in Space, Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol, How Time Flys, Tony the Tiger, Radio Free Oz, Abbey Road and finally All Things Firesign.

Fireheads 6 (Part 1)
The last episode of Can't Get You Out Of My Head is the longest so I'm going to break it up into 3 parts. For Part 1 tonight, we feature La Brea Man and  and family from Bozos, Bing Crosby on Teenagers. They'll eat shirkers but they won't eat workers. The Saturday Night Gun Mart. Violent Juvenile Freaks. Nick Danger learns how radio works and Bergman in Vegas. 

Fireheads 6 (Part 2)
Continuing with Cant Get You Out Of My Head, part 6, Adam Curtis is joined as always by The Firesign Theatre. Mr Acme knows what to do. He want to know yes or no. Creeping socialism. We all live in a yellow sub. Dive. Putin is razzed on KBOO.  Freak for a week. You're naked, Miss Dudley. We tortured Harry Shearer. 

Fireheads 6 (Part 3)
Can't Get You Out of my Head part 6 is 2 hours long, so I've cut it up into 4 pieces. This is part 3. Firesign bits you'll hear are: Out of the fog, Valhalla Gasoline, Temporarily Humboldt County, The Firesign Rose Parade, a clip from my new play Vegas/Egypt, the Whispering Squash Show, the Bonzo Dog Band, Boom Dot Bust and Deputy Dan.


Fireheads 6 (Part 4)
Finally, the end of Can't Get You Out Of My Head. The BBC documentary series finale is mixed with Back in the USSR, Sodom and Jubilee, Lawyer's Hospital, How Time Flies, Nick Danger, Fools in Space, more Nick, Let's Eat, Le Trente Huit Cunegonde, Garden Gnomes, The Fuse of Doom, Bride of Firesign, more Fools, more Bride and ending with the end of Bozos.



Kaput-alism (Pt 1) -This collage is based on the 6-part TV series Capitalism, particularly episode 4, What if Marx was right? Also, from The School of Life on YouTube, from their series Political Theory, Karl Marx. Captain Capitalism meets Captain Equinox. Haunting with Karl and King Bernardo. No one's gonna have to be a slave all the time no more. Opium Gum creates the industrial revolution. Cars for commies. Don McLean does an ad for libraries. Bob Dylan, the Bircher. Capitalism creates a world after its own image. Dr. Marx diagnoses its problems. Bergman does some tie dying. Paint the town red. Expendable people. Barney has to clone. Andrew T.P. Lungett invents the cotton magnet. Profit is theft. Look at the mouth of that gift horse. Derivatives in your daily life. Sorrows of marriage. Capitalism colours our world, so let's start a theme park. Capitalism rots the mind. Leisure for everybody. Lots of varied jobs for Lili Bergman, Karl Marx and Captain Equinox. Wendell Pierce tells Marc Maron that he's a capitalist. Billy Bragg sings North Sea Bubble.

Kaput-alism (Pt 2) - This is the 2nd part of my 3-part collage series, Kaput-alism, which started with Karl Marx and now moves on to another economic visionary, Karl Polanyi. Two, Two, Two Karls in one. Certs is a breath mint! No, it's a floor wax. Professor Nancy Fraser explains why he's important. Mutt and Smutt put the "Is" in Capitalism. Al has 3 Faces. Multiple-Identity Poster Girl Rosie Rottencrotch. Mesopotamian secrets revealed. Bergman's dog Nurgi is an Assyrian god. A bit of biography from the 6-part TV series Capitalism. Polanyi's daughter speaks of smoke and where there's smoke, there's WORK. Bill Sprawl loses his assets. How did Europe collapse and what can be done to rebuild? Stop worshiping the Free Market, for one. Morse Science High turns into a wasteland. What are all these Mexicans doing here? The 1939-40 New York World's Fair turns into the Firesign's City of the Future. The market is embedded, along with Porcelain.

Kaput-alism (Pt 3) - Continuing the story of Karl Polanyi, ancient tablets reveal economic life in distant times. Tiny Dr. Tim has other tablets. Not traders but bureaucrats. Did you remember to carry the bum? Sumer declares debts all forgotten. The Firesigns celebrate the Jubilee.  What is it about debt?  Tennessee Ernie laments. Al Capone collects. Early Firesign Freak for a Week introduces Flower Child gangsters. Debts are always negotiable between equals. Scrooge is approached by a debtor. Mythical commodities. Smoky the Bear helps out. Society vs The Economy. The golden age of consumption benefits Mutt and Smutt. Karl dies, but his ideas live on. Louis Marshman speaks. Debt is the currency of fear and that's where we're rich.



Lanier and Virtual Pete (Part 1) - On today's collage, we listen to Jaron Lanier interviewed on a recent episode of Ted and Phil's Sexy Boomer Show, KPFK, Tuesdays from 1-2. It's not surprising that this pioneer of Virtual Reality should connect with Peter Bergman who rants about VR on his brief radio show The Digital Diner, May 26, 1994. The Crazy Commandos, from EOBE. The Pink Hotel Burns Down. DD lovers. Paul Krassner Live at MIT. Lenny Bruce, What I Was Arrested For. Lil Feat is Willin. Virgil "Gus" Grissom. W.C.Fields Forever. Airplane's White Rabbit. Goin' Down Slow by Bruce Cockburn. The National Toilet, from EOBE. Roll Away the Stone, from Leon Russel. 2,000 Light Years from the Stones. Canapa Seeds from Firesign.

Lanier and Virtual Pete (Part 2) - Pete's dream and Skinner boxes. David Crosby and the Airplane sail away. The Stones push the LIke button. Harry Shearer talks Chat GPT with  professor Gary Marcus. The world ended in Dwarfland. Lanier demystifies. Some music from David Ossman's Radio, Any Questions show, along with Pete's law. Fireplugs from Bride. Mr Blank takes the census. Buy the numbers, from Boom Dot Bust. Dr Memory is unhappy. Did you remember to carry the bum? Lanier is pissed off. Mark Time. Bear Whiz Beer. Polar Pro.

Lanier and Virtual Pete (Part 3) - Moving on to part 3 of the Sexy Boomer Show interview with Jaron Lanier, where are humans? They're right here to use the power of that ton of coke and make apps. Chat GPT inspires the CBC radio show Because News. Oh Nick, you're such a tool!. Tirebiter's Virtual Reality autobiography, from Digital Diner. Oh Blinding Light!  Politics with Pappoon. The Hot Dog deity. Ralph welcomes you to your new home. TIPS hotline, from All Things Firesign. Immortality sucks. The first sports broadcast, from the Firesign's History of Radio. Ask Dr. Whiplash.







McLuhan-1 - Marshall McLuhan was a great inspiration to the Firesign Theatre. His bright comet passed over public consciousness in the late 60s just as they were beginning to deconstruct media in real time. He even made an album, The Medium is the Massage with Firesign pal John Simon in 1967, while they were writing Electrician and Sgt Pepper was filling the air. This collage takes the first 5 minutes of that album and mixes it with other things, just as it was a collage of Marshall's voice and Simon's production ideas. This will be the first of an intended series of meditations on Mcluhan. Perhaps he will give us a clue to surviving a world of alternate facts and a true madman with his finger on the button.

McLuhan-2 (Temporarily McLuhan Rag) - Marshall McLuhan suggests that we're living in the rear-view mirror and trying to live in the past. or at least enough of us are to elect Trump.  The Firesign Theatre explains how this didn't work out so well for the "American Indians."  Steely Dan also explores nostalgia, though a bit more tunefully.

McLuhan-3 (McLuhan's McLuhan) - McLuhan's McLuhan is Harold Innis, a contemporary of McLuhan at the University of Toronto and a media theorist very influencial on Marshall's thought.  This collage is based on part 2 of a 1994 CBC Ideas series about Innis, written by prolific Ideas creator David Cayley. I've also included more of Tom Wolfe's biographical talk about McLuhan that mentions the Innis-McLuhan connection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzBPmRPa7ls  I used part of this in an earlier McLuhan collage. Also featured, Samantha Bee's interview with Russian journalist Masha Gessen, from http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Masha+Gessen% 2c+Samantha+Bee&view=detail&mid=FA4F0D420A1775DDBD19FA4F0D420A1775DDBD19&FORM=VIRE
Thanks also to Judith Stamps' book Unthinking Modernity: Innis, McLuhan and the Frankfurt School.



Ram Firesign 1 - From Paul McCartney's Ram album, 3 songs. Monkberry Moon Delight, featuring Buddha Buddha Bergman, Duke of Madness Motors, Bozos, Down Under Danger, more Duke; Chuck Berry and John Lennon compare flat tops; a zen tale from Duke, and Anythynge. Next up, Paul's song about his wife's hair, featuring Dwarf, Nick, Bozos, Bozo bees, The Reserves and the Anarchist Army: the last cut of the final Hour Hour broadcast, Long Bozos and Hair. Finally, Too Many People at the Osaka World's Fair, The Gluttons on Paul Gorman's WBAI show Lunch Pail, March 3, 1970; Bozos break the president and ending with the beginning of KWKWT TV, also from Duke.

Ram Firesign 1-1 Monkberry
Ram Firesign 1-2 Long Hair
Ram Firesign 1-3 Too Many
 
Ram Firesign 2 - Continuing with Paul's 2nd album, Ram On, sort of the title track with comments from Paul Krassner, Firesign's 1997 April Fools Day spot and a Duke of Madness riff on Aztecs. 3 Legs brings forth Mr Ed from the Fiersign's Mushroom play KWKWT, the dog Relent lifts his leg and saves the day from Bride of Firesign, Mark Time from Dear Friends and Phil Austin's story The Money Hat. Uncle Albert gets rained on from a Duke of Madness Phil Austin riff on storm clouds, a big hand from Bozos, Molly Bloom is in 2 Places, a Bozo is a sailor, an ad for Radio Free Oz from 1967, some buttery cuts from Firesign's Campaign Chronicles, WC Fields Forever gets ahead and some chocolate heads also from the Chronicles, Smile Away includes Foot-fighting Charlie Fat from Boom Dot Bust, Certs is a dessert topping! $100 Ben from Dear Friends and the end of Roller Maidens.

Ram Firesign 2-1 Ram On
Ram Firesign 2-2 Three Legs
Ram Firesign 2-3 Uncle Albert
Ram Firesign 2-4 Smile Away

Ram Firesign 3 - Finishing the trilogy of collages based on Paul McCartney's Ram album, Dear Boy features Nairobi boy Bergman, a cottage that isn't too dear from Sgt. Pepper and some dear groceries from Next World. Heart of the Country features holy Nino from EYKIW, Sleep from DF and Climate Control from 2 Places. Eat at home is mixed with my 2009 Collage Home, featuring John Hockenberry's 1990 NPR show called Heat, me reading Loren Eiseley, Firesign Mushroom play A Shadow Moves Upon a Land, dead reckoning from Duke and the end of Bozos. Also featured are Scaled Down Danger and a small clip from Giant Rat. We finish the collage with Back Seat, combined with a Jack Poet ad, Dwarf, the Free Mexican Airforce and Beat the Reaper.

Ram Firesign 3-1 Dear Boy
Ram Firesign 3-2 Country
Ram Firesign 3-3 Eat
Ram Firesign 3-4 Back Seat


We Await Tristero's Empire - In his 1966 novel The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pyncheon imagines a sinister alternate postal service, The Tristero, which uses WASTE recepticles as its Post boxes by inserting periods between the letters, becoming an acronym for We Await Silent Tristero's Empire. The recent TV movie Wasted http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/episodes/wasted-the-story-of-food-waste  by Anthony Bourdain shows the need for the world to come up with a better definition of waste. Two recent Ideas programmes also explore this necessity: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-hidden-power-of-food-finding-value-in-what-we-eat-1.4414810  Another recent Ideas show about restaurants offers some good advice: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-restaurant-a-table-divided-1.4669493.  The Ontario Public Interest Research Group came up with an audio piece called The Supermarket Tour Show in 1990. The Who's Baba O'Riley from their Who's Next album contributes the appropriate music for this series of collages. As always, the Firesigns make us laugh.

W.A.S.T.E. 2 - Part 2 of my Food Waste Quartet is called From Pork to Beans, much more oriented towards vegetables than meat. We learn some lessons from Canada's First Nations, and hear a couple of bits from my play Red Shift.

WASTE 3 - So You Don't Go To School - "Let's all go to school."

WASTE 4 - Red Famine - The first three parts of my Food Waste Quartet look at how modern agricultural policies are bringing us not only an epidemic of obesity, but continued starvation. Part 4 is based on another Ideas programme, this one about the Ukrainian holocaust of the early 30s http://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/ideas/episode/15542897 where Stalin forcibly starved millions of Ukrainians, including my relatives. Food waste indeed.

Vegas (part 1) - Vegas, Part 1 is about my first two nights in Vegas from my 4-day trip in February. The music on the streets and in the hotels is always my kinda music, but I was particularly delighted to hear a rather obscure favourite, Donald Fagan's IGY when I was walking down the street. Billy the Mountain decides to take his wife Ethel the Tree to Vegas, where they find themselves at Bob's Brazerko Lounge. Stephen Paddock checks into the Mandalay Bay. I eat at Rivea in the Delano Hotel, which is part of the Mandalay Bay complex. The John Dory isn't frozen. A strange piece of basil appears on my gnocchi. A cab takes me to the Paris hotel's new sangria bar Alexxa. Get the Bubbly. Even Steve Miller wants one. The Pirates of the Carribbean enjoy the Rojo more than me. I check out the new Japanese restaurant Zuma and am glad I did. The Firesigns riff on fish. Paddock uses the service elevator.
Day 2: Bouchon at the Venetian serves a dissappointing crepe and an undrinkable pot of tea. Thankfully the Le Guin novel The Dispossessed cancels Keller's restaurant bummers. The Deuce bus delivers me to a dispensary, and I emerge with some kiwi slices. The CBC-AM show about marketing Under the Influence offers the history of this tasty fruit. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence  Lunch at the great Greek restaurant Milos. Superb shrimp and much visual entertainment. I remember my daughter's love of shrimp and my glasses fogging up in Ottawa 50 years ago. Back to the Paris hotel with the Youngbloods, I make a lunch reservation for the following day, but misplace my shades. Timbuk 3 offers me a new pair. I read a few chapters of Ossman's latest novel. Five o'clock reservation at Le Cirque, with How Time Flys and TV or Not TV. The Petrossian Bar has no idea what it's advertising. Dog dolls bring back intense memories. The menu alterations I request are observed at le Cirque and I dine magnificently. Back to Alexxa, I sip a dissappointing cidre sangria, a tasty one called Moonshine, and a drink that tastes more like Kool Aid then a proper sangria. My favourite bar Vesper delivers more mint than necessary. A young lady from Borges-land brings me some tasty mushroom croquettes at Jaleo. Fools in Space sample other croquettes. Back to my hotel room and needed sleep, I am alarmed when a door opens. George Tirebiter comes in and out. Paddock goes back home to reload.

Vegas (part 2) - Donald Fagan continues his future dreams from 1982 as I relish the original International Geophysical Year and what it did to my schooling. Day 3 begins with one of the best omelets I've ever eaten. The fact that it contained lobster may have been a factor. The Eiffel waffle causes resistance. A vast shrimp cocktail summons forth Jimmy Buffet. The very first shirmp cocktail is recalled with a serious cocktail and the rodents race. A limey gets juiced. Ursula K Le Guin is summoned. A cidre called Easy eases into David Ossman's Maxwell Morgan, Crime Cabbie while I read his latest murder mystery. Corns, now we can make whiskey! Robots rules of orders are applied. Knees are powdered. Chubby Checkers plays Fats Domino. Twist foods pour forth. A mushroom dish conquers the Mt Everest of my palate's sense of eternity. An apple pie follows it up. An annoying voice booms. Great tea accompany's far too many sweets. Kiwi replaced by Sauron. A mirror comands me to go the Aria inspite of obvious intoxication and listen to Bob sing opera. Alexxa meets Orson and John. Good and bad oriental culinary influences.  You so smaat! Pumpkins are great! The Firesigns attend a wine testing. I sleep well. Suitcases are moved.

Vegas (part 3) - Fagan celebrates freedom. I mistake a chia pudding for food. Tapas are explored. Hockey helps Vegas heal. I return to the mellowness of the Mandarin for enchanted tea-based cocktails. I visit a new bar, but forget my phone back in my hotel. The sun splash goes un-photographed. A friend is encountered at Prime. Picasso pretends to serve me good food. The Grassroots Gourmet visits All Things Considered. Le Cirque comes through again. Bergman orders Mr. Picasso Potatoe heads at the Digital Diner. They might be giants, or Turks. Your book is followed. Peter goes to Turkey and earns a poem. Ken Kesey explains the fallacy of gambling. The Fools in Space disparage Kiwis. The Young Radicals salute me. Plans are made for my next Vegas food trip, which won't include The Excalibur. Pythons sings their approval of that decision. Paddock keeps stockpiling At the airport, I fill up on a Caesar Salad wrap while recalling what her friend Steph Scott said about her unfortunate adventures with my daughter and the mistaken Caesars. The Firesigns celebrate Caesar Chavez Day. Fagan fades out.



Spain 1 - Welcome to (not so) New Spain - This is the first collage about my May trip to Spain. My adventures there are mixed with cuts from Immortality, Live from the Senate Bar, German beer from Duke, Humboldt County, Bride, Deputy Dan, Clay vegetables from Duke, More DD, Not Insane 1980, 2 Places, more DD, Billy Flanagan from FIS and Hard Cheese from Duke.

Spain 2 - Bilbao to Donostia - This is the 2nd part of my adventures in Spain, from  Bilbao to Donostia. Firesign additions include begging Bergman from Power, the RFO podcast from May 31st, 2010, How Time Flys, Talkin Transplant Blues, one of David Ossman's Old Man poems, Nick Danger's Daily Feed, Nick Danger's First Episode, The Electrician, Fantastic Fungae, The Alternative Rose Parade, Charlie Chance and the Poisoned Puff, from the 1967 RFO and the latest release, Not Insane, 1980.

Spain 3  - The last of the collages about my trip to Spain. Additions include Bergman talking about eating cheesecake in Fools in Space, the Netflix show Fantastic Fungae, Proctor as a mushroom in the alternative rose parade, Charlie Chance and the Poison Puff, from 1967, Harry Shearer's Le Show, Bozos, and finally, Electrician

 
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Free Huey, President Dewey - Phil Proctor's new podcast on Podbean allows us to hear his great autobiography, Where's My Fortune Cookie combined with the audio effects we expect from the Firesign Theatre. As I was reading the book, I could hear Phil speaking it in my head, having heard his voice so often from Firesign and numerous interviews but the effects add a dimension my Firesign-besotted brain lacked. After half a century of being inspired by the Firesigns, it's not surprising I was inspired to add some audio footnotes of my own to Phil's tales, and Bergman trying to get China out of his life. The book, living up to its title, begins with the gangland massacre Phil and Peter survived at the Golden Dragon restaurant in San Francisco. The reason for the massacre, as Phil explains, was retaliation for the death of a gang member named Huey. Free Huey, President Dewey and Louie Louie: Donald Duck's nephews? LA radio station KCRW has a podcast called Lost Notes. Their episode about the song Louie Louie is here: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/18-Lost-Notes-29152529/episode/louie-louie-the-strange-journey-of-29178595/ Mel Blanc drops by to announce train stops. A Youtube show (Cartoon Conspiracy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_8kU0VCTCc)  about comic book characters provided the background for the duck nephews. From the Firesign's Hour Hour show, Jane does a duck voice she learned from Donald. Daffy runs for president, but isn't cartoony enough for American politics.

Phil's Miniatures - In episode two of my Proctor Podcast Collages, Phil creates a small world, and Disney doesn't sue him. They heard us talking and they changed their form. Randy Newman insults midgets. Nate Eagle celebrates them. Zippy shrinks. Marc Maron visits Robin Williams and is sworn to secrecy about his toy soldier collection. Robin's biographer explains the fascination. The Firesigns descend into the humous. Peter sees an educational film about oil. You can trust your car to the man who wears the horns. Nazi's Berry Farm. Phil's tolerant parents. Steve Martin does drugs. The Jefferson Airplane asks Alice. Phil Austin's Scaled Down Danger. A king of infinite space. I steal Monsanto's Journey to Inner Space from Disneyland for my play Inside. A Plastic Fantastic Airplane soars. A catalogue model intrigues Austin.

Don't Crush That Phil - Just like Peorgie Tirebiter, Phil Proctor is off to school in this episode. As a child actor, Phil helps Uncle Danny read the funnies, while Uncle Underground tries unsuccessfully to find comix to read on the air. Elliot Gould provides the olives. Young Phil gets moody and tempermental, but still uses his linguistic gifts to find his way out of a dangerous situation. Shibboleth and other things get marched to. Dentistry is not Phil's destiny. Group W gets Benchleys. Mr Disner explores exploiting the Maya for fun and profit, from my play Box Of Time. Phil practices his Scottish accent on a primitive recording device, in preparation for a 1997 skit. Which reel is this?

Unconscripted - Phil does some fencing, and then acting.  John and Yoko give various pieces a chance.  Judy Garland serenades Acheson. Country Joe cheers on the dominoes.  Pete gets a good review.  Bourdain is besotted with Nam-land.  Arlo proceeds.  The organ recital from Bride of Firesign.  Napoleon sends Phil to the psychiatrist.  Hal and Ray endanger Dwayne's job.  Phil signs lots of papers.

Your Next 3 Words In Russian - The latest collage based on the Proctor Podcasts begins with Prokofiev'sTroika, the theme from the Woody Allen film Love and Death. Not surprising as this episode is about Phil's trip to the USSR in 1959 with the Yale Russian chorus. Phil demonstrates his fluency in the language from Electrician. Phil and Melinda relive the Russian revolution from my play Neal Amid. Bit asks a question. Robin Williams delights in Russian. I try and learn a new language. Fumiyo displays her linguistic skills. The Firesigns ask questions. From the Firesign show Questions and Answers, Firesign Theatre Live in Santa Cruz, 5/9/75. The Porridge bird lays an egg.  I ask Phil Austin a question at the Firesign Q&A on Whidbey Island, 2011.  Phil discovers Alla. More Love and Death. Elvis speaks as many languages as Phil. Vassily saves the world. Commercial goods on parade. Potemkin explains the facade of reality in Russia, from the TV series Waterfront Cities of the World. Yakov Smirnov smirks. The KGB gets beat up. Nobody listens to Phil.
Reagan fades away. 

Phil Manchu - Phil gets disoriented. Edward Said explains Orientalism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aNwMpV6bVs  Phil meets a Korean speaker at a party. Cat watches a program reviewing restaurants in Las Vegas. There are gooks all around here. Grubs again. The landmarks of Phil's life change forever. Dr. Fu Manchu is sentenced to death. Dr Wu becomes a shadow. Charlie Chance solves a mystery while unhooking frogs. Harlan Ellison almost pukes when he smells chitlins in South Chicago. Pat Obrien delights veterans. General Blame remembers the war. Pete explains war movies. A non-submarine. A Japanese Zero gives Pat a bracelet. We all burst with happiness at Phil's tales.

Hotel Tales - A tale of strangeness in a New York hotel from Phil Proctor's autobiography. The Pink Hotel Burns Down, Firesign's first foray into gameland. East St. Louis baffles Proctor and Bergman, while Wally Cox shills for the Prince George Hotel. The only nice motel in town welcomes Mr. & Mrs. John Smith. The Radio Movies Screen Test lets you co-star with George Tirebiter in a dramatic phone call to the Angst Hotel. Produced by Judith Walcutt, WGBH, 1987. Don Adams stars in Firesign's The Madhouse of Dr. Fear. Who wonna 2nd World War? Don Adams. Tirebiter searches for interdimensional reality. My recent adventures in a Vegas hotel, mixed with news of the hotel killer. A hotel with two realities, based on Proctor's trip to a divided Berlin. Hotel Sex ends the collage, as a candle burns on.

Wild Duck - Phil evokes an old film to describe his adventures with his friend Brandan De Wilde. Malcolm X John Lennon isn't hungry. The Byrds attend a Gathering of Tribes. A cut from the first Firesign album sounds alarmingly like the film Phil evoked. The Cabin restaurant sponsors the Firesign's radio show. Phil gets a job and girl friend at the same time. Jimi sings about the wonders of electricity. Benny wears electric boots. Phil tells the same story with more details. We find ourselves outside of Rochester. Phil promotes Himself. Salvador Dali picks up some threads. Electricity gets eaten. Pete explains the title of the first album. A button gets a coat sewed on it. Nothing presages Electrician. Diana reinvents herself, as HAL croons. We try and figure out change. See the USA through your turret bay. Phil's parking error causes problems, but dope and insurance get rid of them. Cop won't arrest child actor. A Jim High School reunion.

Cummings, Mother - This collage is about Phil's adventures with Bob Cummings and Peter Fonda. Phil gets raves, but Bob, though travelling with his wife and daughter, was having an affair with his secretary, territory explored in the Proctor & Bergman play Power. Bob was one of the first health food nuts in Hollywood, and we revisit Power for more potency riffs. Another of Bob's addictions leads to Firesign speed jokes, first from their stage play A Life in the Day and then from their album Dwarf, along with the same pills the chief's been on for a week. The ingredient's in Bob's shots evoke a bit from the Firesign's Eat or Be Eaten album. Bob's overacting becomes surreal as Bob's face dissolves, along with Dr. Firesign from Bride of Firesign. The Byrds get 8 Miles High, while Phil Austin talks about the Byrds' producer Gary Usher, also a creative force in Firesigndom, on a late night WBAI radio show. Peter Fonda introduces Phil to his guru, Jacques Honduras, evoking an episode of The Golden Hind. Guided meditation in search of a goal doesn't always work out as planned, for Phil or Mick Jagger. Hanging out with Phil's actor friends on the Sunset Strip puts them in the middle of a police riot. The LA Free Press has its parallel in the Firesign play Freak for a Week. As Mick sings about blowing a 50 Amp fuse, the Fiesigns perform The Fuse of Doom from their XM satelite radio show Fools in Space. Phil's East Village Other press pass protects him, as the blind newsboy from Bride of Firesign and Mr Kane from Boom Dot Bust add relavent audio. Buffalo Springfiled gets a good song out of the riot, while Phil's life is re-oriented.

Power To The Pupil, Er, People - Firesign Theatre is born on the radio, as a put-on film festival. Phil uses his French to create a film maker who has made a film following Fred for a week. Read about it in the Toilet, after Breakfast with the Brunts. Ossman pretends to throw cameras, for aesthetic reasons. Phil Austin pretends to be Neal Cassady and explains baseball. Joni Mitchell begs for help. Peter falls through the hole in the centre of the CD. PKD has less luck with the I Ching than David, the pretend film maker.  Austin pretends to be a pornographer. The phone lines light up at the thought of censorship. Things to do in the dark. The Beatles sing an anthem. Phil explains The Electrician. Taking the audience into outer space. Can we think for ourselves? A powerful question.  Elayne talks to David on the radio. Oh, heavenly grid. Power inspires madness. Who is going to empower you? Little Feat sing Day or Night. Most of the Firesign film festival discussion is from their appearance on the Les Crane TV show, immortalized on the Firesign DVD Everything You Know is Wrong.

Going Ape On The FM Dial - Phil settles into a mansion in Encino with, among other things, an ape cage. Bergman rocks out. Tirebiter seeks the ape vote. A racist runs for governor in Florida. Roll up a couple of bombers and put them in the shelter. 2 girls for every boy, and they all make commercials. The Firesign future is plotted, and then vaguely remembered on the steam-powered internet. The Firesigns do a benefit for striking DJs at original freeform SF rock station, KMPX. One of the DJs there, Rachel Donahue corrects Phil's memory. You Tube provides some more memories of KMPX and its successor, KSAN. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytQhf05aNsw Rachel's husband Tom weaves a countercultural spell on the radio. Quicksilver Messenger Service helps him out. Firesigns follow the snake. KSAN organizes a clean up of an oil spill near Frisco. Pete rhapsodizes the clean up. KSAN makes its own commercial. The KSAN movie gets promo'd. Carlos Santana can hear his long songs on the radio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgaytaFuB8s Phil creates combinages to celebrate the moon landing. The moon does Zen. Phil learns about the moon's power while living at the House of Little Men. Echo Poem circles the earth. Phil explains the brain. Steely Dan celebrates the FM dial.

Car Town - The envelope for my collage Car Town is "C. William (Bob) Heeblehauser, A Profile" from Phil Austin's Tales of the Old Detective and Other Big Fat Lies. Some Firesign car babbling from their radio shows. Proctor relives his first car purchase. Pete's dream. Boom Dot Race. The Nash Rambler song. Jim Carrey and Bill Maher talk Trump. More car radio babbling.  From Proctor's podcast, memories of the Jack Poet ads. Harlan Ellison and Tom Snyder remember Ralph Williams. An outtake from Ralph's TV commercials. The whole Firesign Theatre comments on their Jack Poet ads from their EYKIW DVD. More car radio babbling: home is where the stash is. From Proctor's podcast, Pete's salacious Toyota ad leads to termination with extreme prejudice. Duke of Madness Motors ad. A YouTube bit about a Canadian pastry. And speaking of Canada, Take Off, eh.

Ants and Stamps - Back in Procto-land, this time with ants and stamps. Marx and Lennon get a stamp. Stamping and Seizing mechanisms. 30 year olds go crazy when the price of stamps goes up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGaS2lsPHqw The Smithsonian's Youtube piece about stamp collecting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu6vw5qlO3M. The last meeting of the philatelist club. Enkidu in space. A stamp sized movie screen. Fuddles sends a letter. I read from The Crying of Lot 49, Pyncheon's postal novel. Peter tells ants to leave his house. They leave. Thanks, Hopis. Enkidu and an eagle converse while turning Japanese. Family Guy's ants. Japanese cooking gets eaten. My history with reading. Eddie Murphy IS Dr, Doolittle. Rex Harrison begs to differ. Phil Austin's story The Money Hat. Its the bees and spiders again. Nick and Relent. Don't bogart that Smokey.

Orders - Phil explains the Firesign idea for Zachariah, and the whole idea of Westerns, the story of bringing order to disorder. Stones calls for violins. WC Fields Forever salutes the Western. Maron and Cleese exchange a joke about the West. Fighting Clowns talk bullets. More stories from Zachariah. Phil Austin brings disorder to art. Phil Proctor escapes death in Mexico. Steve Milller heads south. Stamp collecting brings order to disorder. Pete's suitcase disorders reality. Order your chocolate heads today! Mellow Jello heads the atheletic dept. Paul Krassner riffs on Tim Leary's head. And the Red Queen's, "off with your head." Henry Kissinger is standing by, awaiting your order for butter dishes. Christopher Hitchens makes a movie about Kissinger's disorder. Ordure in the court. The court room scene from Dwarf. No orders for Private Parts. A pizza is ordered, stuffed. Pizza toppings: the usual, and thanks to Austin, the Very Unusual. Order today!

Another World - This is the final collage based on Phil Proctor's podcasts. It begins with a bit of the Frank Lloyd Wright biopic by Ken Burns. Next, Phil Austin's intro to his play Danger Down Under. Peter Bergman torments his ex-wife from beyond the grave. Nanette, by Hannah Gadsby. Helen Fagin reads her letter to a young reader from the new book A Velocity of Being, by Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick. Pete's favourite Firesign review. Phil remembers seeing Cheech and Chong and considers the purpose of comedy. Mandela, by Aaron Davis, from his album Neon Blue. May we all find other worlds to escape to.




The Magic Firesigns - Terry Southern was an important American writer from the 50s until his death in 1995. Magic Firesigns, the first collage in my Terry Southern Project, begins with Paul Krasser reading his Realist interview with Terry about his inspirations for writing his novel The Magic Christian. Funny enough for Paul to use as a stand up routine. John Cleese interviewed for Marc Maron's podcast, George Tirebiter's name is mispronounced. Back to the Cleese interveiw, Peter Sellers is remembered, starring in the film adaptation of The Magic Christian. Ringo can't help but amuse. A clip from the flick, about an imaginery British car. Phil Austin imagines an even stranger car. Ralph Spoilsport immortalises Ralph Williams. A tasty traffic ticket. A ticket to ride with the Beatles.Terry reads himself. Phil Proctor reads Terry. Peter Sellers and Ringo re-invent pornography. The Firesigns worry about words. Godless TV.

Sex and Death - A profile of Terry Southern from Open Road Media. Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove. Peorgie contributes to the continuation of the human race. Uncle Underground tries to find something to read on air. A one-eyed snake invades the Pink Hotel. Terry reads from his screenplay for The Loved One. The snake is a river. Man's river vs god's river. Boomers on a Bench, with beavers. More "Inside Strangelove." Vegas, not Dallas. I read Paul Krassner. Terry reads from Blood of a Wig. Bergman promises to read it on the Zen Hi Jinks marathon. Terry really loves underpants, on the set of Easy Rider. Terry reads from Candy. A Firesign listener solves their weekly puzzle. I am a Walrus. Eat or Be Eaten. Bozos' predicts the future. Some calendar-inspired tunes.

Doctors - Terry Southern reads the beginning of his first novel, Flash and Filigree. Dr. Whiplash from Dear Friends. Beat the Reaper, from Waiting for the Electrician. I read from Flash and Filigree. Dr. Strangelove. Coal! Nino gets into holes. Sleep.. Dr. Strangelove again.  Boom Dot Bust on poisoned wells. Flint's poisoning isn't fiction. Jackson Browne's Doctor My Eyes, with exquisite guitar by Jesse Ed Davis.



By The Light Of The Silvery Harlan (Pt 1) - This is part one of a trilogy of collages about Harlan Ellison. As David Ossman tells a New York radio station, Harlan had asked the Firesigns to contribute to his Dangerous Visions series and Elayne helps him remember the name of the mushroom play, By the Light of the Silvery which they contributed. Harlan unlocks the secret of how to be smart. By the Light of the Silvery begins with ominous violins. Harlan is asked to talk about his Selma walk. Harlan wants a shot at fame, but on his terms. Tom Snyder wants to know why Harlan is always confrontational. Preparing for real life. An amazing story about Ralph Williams. Spoilsport's going out of body sale. Harlan explains why he lives in LA, despite the eggs. Where is Hare? The Beatles howl at the moon, just as they did in the first presentation of By the Light of the Silvery, in 1967.

By The Light Of The Silvery Harlan (Pt 2) - Ellison Firesignland: By the Light of the Silvery Harlan 2 begins where Silvery Harlan 1 ends, in the middle of the 1967 Firesign Sherlock Holmes parody. Harlan talks about marching with Martin Luther King in Alabama. P J Proby gets more references than he deserves. Harlan discusses Close Encounters with Peter Gzosky and guests on Pete's Canadian version of The Tonight Show in 1978. The Firesigns bring back Everything You Know is Wrong for a 1997 April Fool's Day broadcast. Harlan regrets what Star Trek did to his script. The Firesigns end their play with 1967 popular music references.

Biting Through With Sharp Teeth - Dreams with Sharp Teeth is a biopic of Harlan Ellison. Robin Williams appears in it, as he does in the Firesign's TV show Weirdly Cool. Everyone is doing the duck. Harlan and Phil Proctor seek to avoid violence. Peter Bergman's mother helps sculpt his future career as clever wordsmith. The U.S, Army fails to conquer Harlan or the Firesigns. Harlan isn't going to go through it anymore. TV dies, kills. Network rants. Pete loves himself on radio, from his 1995 Digital Diner. The snake with one eye will never look the same. Ossman presents, Radio Movies. Naomi loses weight. Dumb guys change countries. A kid meets his saviour at MIT. Stand behind yourself. Bricks get broken. Horatio Ellison revels in LA. When the smog lifts, it's another city. Everything makes Harlan angry. Even hot tubs don't help. May his words warm us forever.


Burroughing In - William Burroughs appears on Saturday Night Live in 1981. Dr. Benway reappears on the first Firesign album. Terry Southern discusses his friend in the movie Burroughs. Iggy Pop discusses Burrough's addiction on a BBC radio programme. A drug expert appears on the Firesign's Hour Hour radio show. Bob Dylan gets the nobel prize for drug use. Burrough's Do Easy discipline is made into a short film by Gus Van Zandt -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoOUBETTyMI The Firesigns explain the Do Easy-esque concept of a Chinese Homer. Wyatt Earp walks into the Last Chant Saloon. Frank Zappa appears at the Nova Conference, talking about and reading from Naked Lunch. The novel buries unhip resistance.

Proctor and Bergman and Burroughs - LA based film maker Andre Perkowsky made a film based on Burroughs' novel Nova Express with Phil Proctor, Peter Bergman and Burroughs himself -  http://nightflight.com/andre-perkowskis-nova-express-phil-proctor-reads-the-subliminal-kid-and-the-control-machine/ With the end of the world nearing, the Firesigns interview a man doing things backwards on their Fools in Space satellite radio show. Gil Scott Heron reads the TV guide. The Jan 1, 2000 Rose Parade covered by the Firesign Theatre for Pacifica Radio. Turn off the sounds of your TVs and listen to the Firesigns instead. Iggy Pop talks about Burroughs on the BBC. Bill and Brian's excellent BBC adventures. Willy the Rat, in a box. Proctor talks about making collages in his autobiography, Where's My Fortune Cookie? McLuhan approves of unusual combinations. More Nova. Ossman appeals to your divided attention, from his show An Autobozographical Evening. Bergman vs the Death Dwarves. A game called The German Dwarf, from Hour Hour. Nat Eagle works for little people. The origin of the title, Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers. Memories of Burroughs.



Part 1: Babies and Bombs - In 1993, journalist David Halberstam released a book called The 50s, which I read at the local library. In 1997, it was turned into a 7-part TV series. Now it's this collage series. As the Firesigns and I were all alive during that distant decade, it seemed worth taking a new look at. While Halberstam opens his series with the fecundity of that time, David Ossman remembers his 1936 birth, and uses Harry Shearer and his then wife to create The Years in Your Ears about the 50s from his SF audio play, How Time Flys. I remember the Soviet nuclear threat from my years in elementary school in LA. hiding under my desk during drop drill. Ossman's play New Mexican Overdrive imagines that high end stereo could be weaponized in the early 50s. Oppy becomes Hoppy. Part of the continuing back story of George Tirebiter. Phil Austin, Frazer Smith and Michael C. Gwynne had a radio show in LA in the late 70s called Hollywood Nite Shift, which imagined Ed Teller as an atomic wimp. https://archive.org/details/Hollywood_Nite_Shift_16bit_44_1ksamp_sec
The Presidents in Hell, from Lawyer's Hospital. More Nite shift, then Coal, from Dear Friends. The best selling American author of that decade was Mickey Spillane, known as Mickey Speedway in New Mexican Overdrive. Terry Southern also wrote about him. Gotta hammer those Commies. The Beatles take us out with Paperback Writer.

Part 2: As Seen On TV - Continuing my exploration of the TV mini-series, David Halberstam's The Fifties, this episode focuses on TV and advertising. Tom Waits' song Step Right Up captures that spirit well.  While Tom promises to walk your dog, a popular tune of the era wonders about the price of the dog in the window. Mutt n' Cheops display the vast variety of goods available to the American consumer. They evolve into Mutt n' Smutt as the Firesigns peddle their wares on NPR's All Things Considered. Fears of returning to the great depression must be combated to show Americans the virtue of consumerism. Money and god share a car. You've earned the right to be Not Guilty. Maidenform cactus. TVs as currency, from Just Folks. A clip from David Ossman's show Radio, Any Questions? about the ubiquity of Amos and Andy.  A clip from Sara Cwynar's film Rose Gold. Bergman remembers reading The Puppet Masters. Vance Packard brings home the fear of manipulation, and Sara expands on the theme in her talk at the Art Institute of Chicago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bxYwt7ynUU. If the Chinese commies can do it, what about American advertisers? A clip from The Organist podcast, about the Firesign Theatre and psy-ops. Who wonna 2nd World War, you so smaat? Television, the drug of the nation, by the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy brings the collage to a close.

Part 3: Bunnyland - Nichols and May start off the third part of Halberstam's The 50s. Sex Jail, from Paranoid Pictures. Hollywood Blvd. changes.  Phil's actress friend is shocked. The U.S.S. Censorship. Alfred Kinsey is obsessed. It comes in, it goes out like anything. From Freud to Kinsey. The marriage course. The Firesigns object. Heffner goes on a crusade. Dad is clean-minded. Desi Arnez talks to his son. Pick up the right accessories from Mutt and Smutt. Cloud 9 tantalizes Phil Austin in his story House of Little Men. Clouds of girls. Hugh Heffner and the 119 Associates. Vanity in a Lear Jet.

Part 4: Elvis Has Left The Building - Elvis rocks. The cross-roads are good to him. Memphis says, come on in. A juke joint beckons. Clothes make the king.  Sam is financially curious. Good ballad singer, hold for later. Nixon remembers Elvis's top half. She looks great with clothes on too. Dylan escapes Mobile. Elvis has a good hobby. John Lennon doesn't believe. Louisiana hay ride slides on down. Elvis rides a train. Support. and the Lone Ranger. Are you okay? Bananas are OK. Keeping up with the bop. Sir. No fighting for Elvis. Church spasms. Phil Austin channels Elvis, for the bad news tonight. A good looking white man sings the black. Doors open. Professor Mintz explores the world of teenagers, and their effect on reality. Bing explains. The young conquers all. Freedom, then prison in Graceland. Fun with guns. Nixon has to detente and open dialogue. Hoover's "gun belt" makes Elvis happy. FM promises nothing but Blues and Elvis, but that's not a bad thing.

Part 5: Jack's gone. Real gone. - Elvis blends into Kerouac. Something strange was happening. New York City was pulsing. Jack plays the typewriter. Bird soars. Ginsberg explains. T-Bone Burnett explains the Beat generation to Marc Maron. Are we cool? Everyone was somewhat interested. The old detective recalls an old case, with spiders. Myths get created. Beat Street Jack emerges from the alley. Cafe Buddha, from my play Red Shift.  Ralph Spoilsport gets Babe on the road.  Kinsey recruits the Beats for his survey. Merv the Perv gets wound up. Al Howls. Another one for re-grooving. Help, it's the police.  Al is scorned, Jack is attacked. Sputnik spouts poetry. Alcohol drowns Jack. Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg visit his grave, during the Rolling Thunder tour.


Part 1 - This collage series is based on a 4-part BBC TV series from 1972 called Ways of Seeing, by art critic, novelist and painter John Berger. In it, Berger shows us how looking at 500 years of European oil painting can open our eyes to the ways we see. Can those revelations also be heard? Billy Flanagan thinks that's an insane question, from Firesign's XM satellite show Fools in Space. How many images can be made? 1? 2? 3? 40,000? Once unique place-dependent paintings are now wall paper.  Dwarf's Powerhouse Church of the Blinding Light probably has no Botticelli in it.  Seeing is more habit than we think.  The human eye can only be in one place at once, unlike the 2nd Firesign album. A Russian film theorist makes a movie to illustrate his theory. We can go back and change the past. Clone me, Dr. Memory.  The camera multiplies and destroys meaning. The corridor between you seeing a painting and the painter painting it is explained in the film version of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. Paintings become films. Relent barks. Ambiguity can be our friend. Art Snob, from Eat or Be Eaten. Berger show a painting of Jesus by Caravaggio to a group of school children, who see more deeply into the painting than most adults could.  Bisexuals OK with Jesus, from the end of Roller Maidens from Outer Space. Would art ever be the same?  Berger uses images for his own purposes. Sara Cwynar as well. Proctor's Leningrad girl friend offers him the key to understanding the Soviet Union. Be skeptical, but keep your mouth shut.

Part 2 - Berger continues his series with a comment about dreams. The Firesigns dream into existence a radioactive pillow, from their Give Me Immortality disc. Tom Wolfe remembers going to a topless restaurant in San Francisco with Marshall McLuhan. The Firesigns get hopelessly lost. A BBC art series called The Renaissance Unchained.  Sara Cwynar at New York's Museum of Modern Art. https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/102?utm_source=social&utm_medium=bitly&utm_campaign=Magazine&utm_content=Photography%20Commission%20Cwynar A Netflix series called Explained talks about the mirror test. Phil Austin's Tales of the Old Detective. Nixon looks at a naked picture of Elvis's wife. Eddie's one of our prize students. Molly Bloom's soliloquy from How Can You Be. Ralph Spoilsport's Used and New Body Farm. Berger discusses his ideas with Anya Bostok, Eva Figes, Jane Kenrick, Barbara Niven, Carola Moon and Sara Cwynar. Louise Wong's balcony. Roller Maiden's Norwegian Tits. Proctor's character changes sex. Nancy and Dan get the wrong negative from Rococo. Phil Austin's House of Little Men. The Lone Ranger vs Your Developing Breasts. The doll drop. Peter Bergman's last words. Leon Russell's Magic Mirror.

Part 3 - In part 3 of his series Ways of Seeing, Berger talks about the European oil painting tradition as about consumption. We do love to consume. From Firesign's Fools in Space satellite radio series, Billy Flanagan teaches us how to produce valuable insane art. Art galleries are like banks, just like Tonto's money hole. Art has become religion, and Rev. Barnstormer sure knows religion. Some seductive dinosaurs. Sara Cwynar asks us to consider the museum. Art surrounds its owner better than music or poetry can. Oil paint or course, comes from oil. C. William "Bob" Heeblehouser is no fan of oil. Can a fluid steer anything? We only see the exceptional works of art. Brent Butt's brother loves to take things apart. Oil from Canada, etc. Columbus worships gold. Temporarily Humbolt County residents get religion. From a painting of the West African slave trade to Uncle Field Marshall Tom. More golden rule, less rule of gold, from the Netflix series Explained. Eat or Be Eaten's hunger. This is the portrait gallery, Nick. No portraits of the poor. Run away from poverty. Swimming in silk, and eventually drowning with the mayor.  Hamlet asks a question. Anthropology builds walls. Bob Hind welcomes visitors. Oil painting celebrates private possessions. US Plus owns it all.

Part 4 - John Berger dissects the promise of another world. Phil Austin helps him out. Berger attempts to persuade us that advertising should be called publicity. Proctor and Bergman sell us a car. We envy the president of the World Bank. Thanks, methedrine. We explore glamour. Princess Goddess helps. Proctor reads from The Greening of America, while Bergman scoffs. Dull jobs require an active imagination to survive. We dream. Tonight. The Firesigns boil in a hot tub. Splish splash. Skin. We dream for 1001 nights. The oasis of El Petrol beckons. Ancient castles. Prams get pushed a lot. Advertising is a philosophy. Reality is abused. An essay on public nudity. I never did plan to go anyway to Black Diamond Bay. Our needs are papered over. Green Christmas from Stan Freberg.
A Warm Naked Firesign - The first in a series I'm going to make, inspired by Firesign music, called The Firesign Jukebox. Hour Hour breasts. What was in that cigarette? Boobie Chew from a Firesign flick. Le Trente Huit Cunegonde. Eat or Be Eaten. Holy Modals like boobs a lot. A horny teenager named Phil visits Russia. Shakespeare. Milk. Molly Bloom. Violet Dudley. Pitchforking roller maidens. Desire in Furs. Hundred dollar Ben. More hour hour. A Shadow Moves Upon a Land. The Fugs search for electrical plugs.  Goat's Head pipe tobacco. Duckman buries the hatchet. All over the sky.

A History Lesson - This is the second in my Firesign Jukebox series, inspired by various bits of Firsign music and others. A History Lesson, brought to you by La Brea Man, Attila, Noni, some weird cooks, Vespucci, the little guy, Field Marshall Thomas Legree Quadroon, Chief Dancing Knockout, Nancy, young Tom Edison, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Billy Joel, a time capsule, Jim and Nellie Houseafire and finally old man ribba.

Saint Firesign - Welcome to the third installment of The Firesign Jukebox. We begin with Peter talking about saints from the Bridey Murphy Mushroom show from Halloween, 1967, Bob Dylan wears a crown of thorns and the airplane salutes the Crown of Creation. Pastor Flash is high alright, In the Free Mexican Airforce. Jerry stumbles toward the flaming Ford. Dick Privates finds too much light, Manfred Mann loses his sight and a blind newsboy makes an appearance. Jesus heads for Bakersfield. It's Krishna consciousness. Mystic, Connecticut meets Louis' Wipe-Out and the Gluttons chant. You must be the Indians. Grubs again.Firesign was just a little child baby in Hopi-land. The Smokey the Bear Sutra. Pete meets The Roshi.A helpful sailor from my play CAST. Pete Seeger hammers. Paul Blackburn's bike is safe. Frank Gehry has a plan. Paradise is The Future. Or is it Panorama Land 2000? My Client Curley from Norman Corwin. Down to seeds again with the birds. Human health food options. Zen Foods in New York City. More Corwin. Phil Austin answers my question.

3 Live Dwarves Go To Boston U - This is part 3, the final part of our celebration of the 50th anniversary of Don't Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers. We begin with a cut from Firesign's Radio Now Live, a recording of the Portland stop on their 1999 tour. The Dwarf-inspired track is called Parallel Hell Redux. Next up, from their 2001 PBS TV show Weirdly Cool, a somewhat longer version of the same scene from Dwarf. The final live Dwarf is a much fuller version of the album, from their 1993 Back From the Shadows Tour. Then, from Peter and David's Radio Free Oz podcast from May 24, 2010, Dave reads an article about a Boston University graduation and it brings back the making of Dwarf, like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist. Following these 4 segments, we re-visit A Life in the Day of KWKWT, a mixture of the source material they used to construct Dwarf. Happy 50th, little guy. You don't look a day over 49.

A Bee Road, Side One - Come Together features Chuck Berry inspiring the Beatles, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Henry Aldritch, another Beatles tune, Electrician, 2 clips from Dwarf and Lenny Bruce.  Something features clips from 2 different Nick Dangers, Cut Em Off at the Past and Scaled Down Danger.  Maxwell's Silver Hammer features Maxwell Smart, Maxwell House Coffee, Max Mogan Crime Cabbie, an Hour Hour clip, Jack Benny, Neal Amid and Peter, Paul and Mary.  Oh Darling features Phil Austin as Akira Oh in the Underworld Olympics episode of Let's Eat.  Octopus's Garden features an Hour Hour clip, Dear Friends and Ossman's anti-Trump poem Garden Gnomes.  I Want You, She's So Heavy features Dwarf, Dear Friends, Vince Ptomaine, Down Under Danger, Hour Hour, Dwarf, Maxwell Morgan, Dear Friends, Giant Rat, Proctor and Bergman's Power, Bozos, Gabor Mate and the Martian Space Party.

A Bee Road, Side Two - Here comes the sun. He's not your son, Fred. It's going to be alright. Oh. It's the Ice Show! It's been a fundamentally better sun. Because the wind is high, it's in the Free Mexican Air Force. Joni's blue. Have a nice blue moss. Blue mutants. Open your funny papers, kids. Bergman dreams of Jagger. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7; Bergman's riff from '67. Mark Twain on heaven. Fleetwood Mac's Albatross. Louis the 14th makes an appearance. So does the giant rat. Echo poem. Many knows. Armies mixed Mr. Mustard. Father Time doesn't like mean time. Alice Barnes makes obscene calls. Loretta and Pam go trans. Real roller maidens. Jack Benny saves a dime. Let's see the war dance. I hate cops, Guido. Your money or your life. Tuesday Weld and Phil Proctor make a movie. Hockenberry goes home, without Homer. The Band's gonna carry that weight. I guess this is the end. Beatles brand bombs. A belly full of Pinot Cinema Noir.

A Cat In Denver - I celebrate my visit to Denver with Tom Waits' medly Jack and Neal combined with California, Here I Come. Finally, I am in Neal Cassady-land, fertile ground for the Firesign Theatre. The live parts of their album Lawyer's Hospital was recorded in Denver, which they mentioned freely in the performance. A fine mix of modern and old. There's a vacancy, from 2 Places. The Firesigns do a wine testing, from All Things Firesign. I quote Streetcar Named Desire. Nick Danger sniffs a perfume. Bergman is cold, from the  Eat or Be Eaten album. A clip from Neal Amid. How Time Flys. The Firesigns go to the LA Children's Zoo, Bree! Bree! Bree! Nick Danger smells a rat. Pete pigs out on Insect Chips in Denver. Let's get out of this mud. A clip from my latest play, Vegas Egypt. What are all these Mexicans doing here? Bozos are just a joke. Brick-breaking from Dear Friends. Marc Maron interviews Naomi Klein. US Plus does pork. Deposed heads of 1979, from darkest chocolate Africa. Low Riders, from WAR. Timbuk 3 needs shades. Nicks doesn't deliver to the hills.
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Part 3

A Charlie Firesign Christmas - Vince Guaraldi is a personal god and Schultz's Peanuts was as important to me from the late 50s to late 60s as the Firesign Theatre has been since then. Put Peanuts and Guaraldi together and we have the perennial holiday classic A Charlie Brown's Christmas. Xmas in Ratland, from Firesign's Let's Eat radio show. As Pig Pen raises a cloud of dust, Phil Austin riffs on storm clouds. At a Firesign Q and A in 2010, Phil tells me of his fears. Buy land in Brazil today! I read from Schultz and Peanuts by David Michealis about Schultz awkwardly proposing to his mistress. What kinda car are you gonna buy me, Daddy? How about a Humbler? The Radio Movies Screen Test from David Ossman's Time Capsules.  From dog germs to The Plague. Peter Bergman named his dog after a Babylonian god. Do you want to be happy for the rest of your life? From the golden age of funny tunes. I share Charlie's skepticism that a bunch of kids dancing can be called a "play." Orson Welles reads from the Biblical book of Nixon. Would you buy a Chevy from Tricky Dicky? Merry Christmas, Russia. Christmas carols with The Doors.

A Firesign Christmas Carol (Part 1) - The Alistair Sims version of A Christmas Carol, Ralph Spoilsport's Going Out of Body Sale, Nick Danger, The Man Who Invented Christmas, How Time Flies, Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol, Electrician, Hour Hour, Python's Money song, EOBE, Popeye's theme song, A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's Money Randy Newman Loves, Just Folks, more Charlie Brown, It's Money That matters to Randy Newman, In the Next World, Marley the movie, Where's My Fortune Cookie, Catch and Release Whaling, Dwarf, More Nick, Humboldt County, 2 places.

A Firesign Christmas Carol (Part 2) - For Part 2 of A Firesign Christmas Carol, we're still with the ghost of Christmas Past, now visiting Scrooge in business. Mr Fezziwig declines to sell out to the Vest Without Sleeves (from the Firesign Theatre's Hour Hour), and the New Model Government machines but Scrooge follows the allure of lucre, meeting his new pal Jacob Marley, years before Mr. MacNee would star in The Avengers. Nick Danger looks for the servants. One shining steel hat. Where's the dead cat? Another clip from the Marley movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marley_(film) Everything You Know is Wrong! The Seance, from the Magic Mushroom shows. The blind newsboy, from The Bride of Firesign. Roosterama. A mighty hot dog is our Dwarf. Radio Now. George Tirebiter cleans his star, from Radio Follies. More Radio Now. Bob Marley observes the hypocrites. The future is fair. The Grassroots Gourmet, from All Things Firesign along with Mutt and Smutt. Shoes for the Dead. From the shadows. Marley sings in a cemetery. Bozos suck up appetisers. All Things Wine. He fell right over. Flying humbugs. Coal, you say? Let's go on vacation.