The firesign theatre is bigger and better than Ralph Williams

The firesign theatre is bigger and better than Ralph Williams

To accept whatever comes, regardless of the circumstances, is to be unafraid or to be full of that love which comes from a sense of at-oneness with whatever." (John Cage)

It’s one of those brooding days in Hollywood, where smog and early morning fog vie for attention, and it’s important not to let go, not to give in to the gloom. I watched television all last night, and the car commercials were the most sanity I’ve found in a week, a kind of litany — “buy” — a hum — “Buy” — a primitive om - “BUY” - and on this smoky-colored day, on this head-shaped hill, covered with shabby leaves and a few isolated homes, I’m going to talk to the four players in Firesign Theatre, and just before knocking on the door, I remember that tomorrow’s Halloween.

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Michael Ross

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the firesign theatre has made three albums, all fantastic, using a collage of words and the medium of familiar media (tv, radio, et al) to turn the world topsyturvy, and re-make of it architecture all its own. the firesign theatre is four: Philip Austin (gentle, moonfaced, an avid-reader of TV Guide, a word-monger, a prince), Philip Proctor (brilliant, always acting, a sort of politicized Dustin Hoffman, court-jester, collager, hung-up on old-fashioned piety in government),

David Ossman (an organizer, a man, called ‘Dave Cassman’ by Rolling Stone, always stretching the confines of his own point of view, the father-figure of F.T.), Peter Bergman (a good-egg head, a perennial T.A., has smiles as careful as floral arrangements, the sort of person you like to tell your problems to, a collaborator in F.T.’s continuing search).

"The first album /Waiting For The Electrician,/ had one side about the present and a side about the paranoia of the future. The second /"How Can You Be In Two Places At Once?,/ takes a long took at history, it shows us how we got here. And the latest (Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers,/ is about multiple-identity — going through changes here and now. We are dealing with television: what the tv set gives you js the ability to plug in at any time, you can get any old movie, something from every bit of time . . .it's a life in the day of a man who looks at himself on television, metaphorically speaking. . . you can see yourself on tv, anyone of those people can be you . . . we make records of our time ... we made this one at the time of the Kent State murders, so naturally we wrote about schools . . . you can't call us satirists. . . but / think we're so current as to be timeless." (Ossman)

the firesign theatre creates worlds: kind of serious, kind of satiric, mostly state of the dis-Union addresses, a world where the pun is king, where outrageously mis-shapen words are spawned out of laughter for its own sake. They are mad (in both senses): mad at a hypocritical society, mad at machines. They invade areas where nothing’s obvious, ’cept split puns and a special F.T. footsteps-on-the-frog sort of reality.

"A meeting of two distant realities on a plane foreign to them both." (Max Ernst)

"The rest of them were artists. Duchamp collects dust." (Cage, again)

NEWS ITEM - "A very special guest at the premiere of Tora! Tora! Tora!, about Pearl Harbor, is Minouru Genda, the commander who was in charge of plotting the actual sneak attack.

"Phil Austin: From my heart. Phi! Austin is a genius and a free man ... That goes for all three guys. Phi!

Austin is the man who taught me what / know about.. . mechanical engineering. / learned quickly with him." ("Quick-liming,"somebody adds.) "Quick-liming, quick-lining also. Phi! taught me how to pass the old tee-square around the office. Phil & / met in an architectural office actually. / was an ideaman for William Knutt & Sons. We used to build knutt-huts, as they were called. Phi! is very important to my head... in terms of my ideas and in terms of seeing the world... I use his eyes.. .

"Revolution is revelation, and is turning, turning into new things, turning to new ideas, turning around to took behind you. . . turning and observing what's happening. . . and becoming part of the flow, translating that into your life. The reason most people become afraid and paranoid is because they are afraid to understand where they are, what they exist in ... and that they are a part of it, they have made it, just as much as any machine has made it.. . We must wrest the control away from these short-sighted people and become involved again in an action of being, of present times, and, more importantly, in asserting our humanity in whatever we do. Most people are incapable of this because they live in dosed systems and they have been taught, brainwashed, into believing that this is the only way to exist, whereas everything else is changing, no matter what the

system says." (Proctor)

"... the mechanicals with the terrible tragedy of 'Psarmus and Thisbe' are the best I have ever seen, with David Waller's virile bottom particularly splendid." (N.Y. Times, review of William the Shake's Midsummer Night's Dream)

"And Phil Proctor is my key to the avenue of constant laughter, in which / can disappear and forget my name. He's a funny guy with very fast spiritual hands, he's got a lot in him ... he's a young boy... , he's got good drive... he's all heart.. . he's got a heart the size of the head of a baby.. .

"And thanks to David's incredible ability to organize abstract and mundane thought... we here at Evanston beat Nutrere on the College Boards by a full three points. .. We're sending five more guys to school this year with GM scholarships... Dave has a lot to do with that He's organized the Flash study halls..: Whiiiiiiiiiish. We'd get twenty seconds of incredible study while walking down the hall.

"The guys at Nutrere, who'd been spending a lot of time putting their lunchs away" — "Get to the point!" screams Ossman — "He's always putting us to the point.

The point is the place we run from." (Bergman)

the firesign theatre is a joint stock company for the exploitation of ideas — there are more than 491 firesign theatres — the firesign theatre transforms itself — affirms — simul' taneously says the opposite

— screams — whispers — the firesign theatre is useless — long live the firesign theatre

— power to the firesign theatre —

"What is meant by 'every man has his price' is that every man has his depth of uncertainty about the validity and sanity of his perception of the truth. To 'sell out' is but to capitulate to that uncertainty ... It is this uncertainty which is at the root of rock's decline as a revolutionary force ..." (Robert Levin, Rock & Repression, Jazz and Pop, May 1970)

the firesign theatre draws moustaches on nixon — the firesign theatre is a Christian body — the firesign theatre made the charts this time around — the firesign theatre is a ventriloquist of our time — it is bigger & better than ralph williams —■ the firesign theatre is no sideshow geek — the firesign theatre destroys bad words

"... But this is shit!" "But, it's good shit, Mrs. Presky!"

the firesign theatre is high on the real thing — changing seasons — life — tv guide — macdonald carey

— macdonald duck — the firesign theatre is against impure additions to the water — commie martyrs high

— metropolitan transportation — most comics — the united snakes of amerika — the firesign theatre has something apposite to say about the world — the firesign theatre doesn’t want nudism and sexual intercourse in Doylestown

"We live in a society that doesn't accept devilution along with evolution, because it's so scared of the concept of death. Everything has to be progress, being alive, the daytime, seeing the sun, and nighttime . . ,which is devilution, decay, death, top soil, shit, collective unconscious, we're scared to death of, so we resist it and try to pretend it isn't happening." (Ossman)

"We play with language to a great extent. There are words that we cannot use yet, because they shock even us. But, in essence, if you make people laugh at words which create fear & shock in them, by removing

the power of cruelty or shock value, then you educate . . . "All our humor comes from complex paradoxes, which are based essentially on the fact that while some people refuse to move forward and demand that we stand still for 'sanity'. . . other people (because of the nature of being human beings) become 'one' with the present, and some become, as always, the visionaries, the artists, dealing with projections in the now that will create a more humanistic future . .. "OUR HUMOR IS A KIND OF ICE-BREAKER We're dipping into all these events that are happening and are exposing the paradoxes, and perhaps we're helping people to attain objectivity through laughter which is a healing force ... As fire can heal, by cleaning, as awful as it can be when it loses control.. . "ALL OF US ARE IN VOL VED WITH HEALING OURSEL VES through the function of exposing attitudes in humorous ways. Being a professional actor, like Phil Austin, I've found it increasingly difficult to express contemporary ideas in the existing forms. In New York, for instance, the function of theatre has

become as a jester to a depraved and moribund court." (Proctor)

"Mason warned that 'bad elements' would be drawn to Doylestown from as far away as Canada, and added, 'We don't want nudism and sexual intercourse in Doylestown.' " (Levittown Bucks County Courier Times)

"We are the chroniclers of our time ... we do not satirize anymore... we become what we are and have a common ability to become theatre." (Austin)

Are you a Pisces, by any chance? Phil Austin asks me. “Yes.” “You have eyes just like the guy who did our music, and your face is so similar . . . (pause) . . .

He’s been locked up.” “And you’re next,” someone else says. “Look right into Peter’s eyes.” “Yeah, that’s Thad’s eyes,” affirms Bergman. “Something has happened to the idea of law and order in the past five years,” reads Proctor. “The individual is to be held responsible for his acts . . . The government is not to be held responsible for its acts.” “You figured it out,” say the other three, almost in unison.

the firesign theatre is a collage of words — of worlds — the world of the apocalypse — the world where abbie and archie fight side-by-side — the firesign theatre is a comic striptease

ITEM: A toy in the shape of an A-bomb is being sold in Japan. It explodes and creates a tiny mushroomshaped cloud.

"The Firesign Theatre is like a very small university. We bring ideas to each other and teach each other and turn each other on to things... I went to a lot of colleges, and / don't think / learned as much in six years at Yale than, definitely, I've learned in four with Firesign. Fuck, if the university had given me what / get here, I'd have had no reason to leave the university." (Bergman) Adds Proctor: "Of course, it's hard to graduate from the Firesign Theatre."

"Gone, all gone lamented Milton Mayer, 62, is gentle, messageless humor, and come all the sullen young men and curious young ladies. It is not only power that is never funny, observed this educator-humorist" —someone yawns —"but the struggle for power the struggle to increase, and the mortal struggle to hold on to it. Whoever wants power wants trouble, whoever has power has trouble. Trouble isn't funny. Revolution isn't funny. Lenin is purist pain and, for pure pain, I always take propane ... It dulls my senses and helps my digestion" (Proctor)

"Doctor Duck ... A quack . . . Quack Hospital . . . The Young Quacks . . . with Brod Crawford as Dr. Duck . . . Huey, Louie, Dewie, and Dr. Duck ..."

the thing about them, the four of them, is that they’re the funniest person in the world

"We have learned to approach contemporary absurdities with a sense of humor in them. The forms we have found are electrical as opposed to typographical, although typographical mistakes are funny . . . anything that is an exposure of the machinery that operates perfection, and that which reveals the god of the technocratic society, which so many people deify, has day feet, or Cassius Clay feet. Ne pull out the plug, and deal through electrical media in a non-electrical way. We communicate as humanely as possible through the function that has de-humanized so many people." (Proctor)

"In 1970, exposure & over-reaction have to be about different things. We have found those things. We found them from the beginning when we were doing the first humor about marijuana, we were approaching it as if it were already something you could be funny about, like a stand-up comic talking about his mother-in-law." (Ossman)

note: this is the firesign theatre, in October, a brooding day, the day before halloween, up in the hills of silver lake, as close as I could come to the fantastic, alive, creative, funny thing they (it) are (is) . . .

"The key thing about Peter is that wherever Peter is, somehow something will always be happening that will take care of himself and everyone else that is around him" — "It's the tuck of the Jewish," says Austin, in an Irish brogue — "We all partake in at least that part of Peter's spirit. . . Peter worked out a way of casting l-Ching hexagrams to fit us all and, interestingly enough, the two Phils turned out to have the same one, with this fellowship to men, Peter's was peace, and mine was the dark of the night. . . we find a way to use things like that. That's very much our relationship: we put things to use." (Ossman)

Obit of Francois Mauriac:

” . . . His son Clause is both a novelist and a movie actress and the wife of French director Jean-Luc Godard." (Hollywood Reporter)

THE COUNTRY IS REACTIONARY BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN TAUGHT THAT THE THINGS THA Y FOUGHT FOR ARE AT STAKE, WHEREAS WHAT THEY FOUGHT FOR IS CONSTANT CHANGE IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY.

THE GO VERNMENT IS NOT THA T IMPORTANT TO ITS EXISTENCE. THE SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE IS WHA T'S IMPORTANT!!

AND THEIR SENSE OF HUMOR, THEIR ABILITY TO SHINE AND BE CONFIDENT AND PROGRESS PERSONALLY.. . NOT IN TERMS OF BIGGER & BETTER MACHINES.. .

BUT PERSONALLY . . . IS WHAT'S IMPORTANT. AND TO RE-ESTABLISH THAT IS ONE OF OUR GOALS. (Proctor)

the firesign theatre takes words out of silence — beats them — makes them come alive — gives eyesight to the blind — wrote a movie called Zachariah

Proctor, throwing a rubber foot on the table: 7 asked a girl to give me head, but she only gave me this foot."

"Comes a time when the poet must choose: either to step deep in the stream of his people, history, tradition, folding & folding himself in wealth of persons & pasts. . . Or, to step beyond the bound onto the way out, into horrors & angels, possible madness or silly Faustian doom, possible utter transcendence, possible enlightened return, possible ignominious wormish perishing." (Gary Snyder)

the firesign theatre is for the high cost of living — firesign is for — firesign is — — hurrah for firesign

"... We bought a huge 40-foot cross, piece-by-piece ... we ran a marathon two weeks ago — for Jesus ... I should mention that I'm enthusiastic at the beginning and David, who is my mirror, has no enthusiasms at the beginning, so the two of us make a pretty good team. We always come to the same place. That's the secret of the Firesign Theatre: we're always at the same place, because we created this thing called the Firesign Theatre, just by saying it. . . It's there, a present reality. And I would like to say that a major function of the Firesign Theatre in the next ten years will be to demonstrate that four men can be in each other's presence and dig each other and get a lot out of it, which is a life-style that will appeal to a lot of people." (Bergman)

"We absorb — we become a lot of the things people tell us we are. That has a lot to do with what multiple-identity is all about too.

There is, however, an extremely strong goalcentered thing inside each of us, which moves us along a path to what each of us considers

enlightenment.

The paths are different, and what we have done, uniquely, is to learn about other people's paths to enlightenment without having them ever coerce us

into their path .. . The l-Ching talks about keeping your own identity source, no matter what is going on around

you." (Ossman)

"David did a drop-out as completely as / have ever seen. David is totally human, a man, involved in the process of being real. . . Proctor knows no fear. When he walked into an office at MGM for an interview, he treated the whole experience as a performance. In fact, his whole life seems to be a performance, constantly filled with things, objects collages. Phil turned me on to the feeling of cut-up. He's never had to drop out. . . Peter's a strange guy. Peter was the first hippie / ever met, right back from Europe, making a movie, writing, riding around on a motorcycle, he had a goatee. Peter's the original professional holy man, a mass media guru." (Austin)

'To accept whatever comes

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