Art Is Cheese Made Visible

CAST:

Phil Austin ....P.A.

Phil Proctor . P.P.

Peter Bergman . P.B.

David Ossman. D.O.

and introducing

SIDE ONE the Chorus

Overture

P.P.: It’s midnight in Metropolis!

D.O.: It’s noon in Gotham!

P.A.: It’s 8:09 in Duckburg and —

P.B.: IT’S HOURS SINCE WE ATE, SO . . .

CHORUS; LET’S EAT!!

P.B.: YES! YES! LET’S EAT!, THE ALL-PEOPLE’S NEW SIMPLIFIED COMPLICATED FIRESIGN THEATRE RADIO SHOW P.P.: and Afro-Japanese comedy hour,

P.A.: with coach Hilario Gump and the Tri-City Thumping Band, the pretty singing voice of the Lame Sisters,

P.B.: AND, DIRECT REMOTE FROM THE MYSTIC SNATCHUARY, THE PRESIDENT’S ENTHUSIASM CHORUS.

D.O.: And now, while the FCC sweeps the band, we’ll observe the traditional 15 secomis of radio memorial silence . . .

P.B.: WE’VE NEVER SEEN OURSELVES AS COMEDIANS. WE INCLUDE EVERYTHING THAT’S MOST SERIOUSLY SECRET IN OUR LIVES AS SOON AS WE FIND OUT ABOUT IT. THE MINUTE WE PUT IN SOMETHING THAT WAS SECRET AND SERIOUS WE MADE IT FUNNY, SO NO ONE COULD COME ALONG SAYING, “WELL, THE FIRESIGN THEATRE THINK CERTAIN THINGS ARE FUNNY, BUT HERE ARE THINGS THEY CONSIDER YOU CAN’T EVEN MAKE JOKES ABOUT.” WE MAKE JOKES ABOUT EVERYTHING.

D.O.: There’s George Tirebiter memoribilia all over the country now. 1 have a George Tirebiter credit-card, Phil’s George Tirebiter button was made by a fan in Philadelphia, someone sent in an article about the real George Tirebiter. . .

P.B.: WE’RE OPEN TO USING ANYTHING, AND WE WRITE CARTOON PLAYS FOR STONED IMAGINATIONS.

P.A.: What Peter means is we get our material from the streets.

P.P.: From obscure sources and shady people.

The TEENAGE Dwarf?

P.B.: WE WENT THROUGH OTHER PEOPLE’S GARBAGE BEFORE A.J. WEBERMAN EVER THOUGHT OF IT.

D.O.: We’re going through A.J. Weberman’s garbage now, but he doesn’t know it. He’s written to us asking for garbage, but we use all our garbage, which in turn limits the amount of snooping you can do into our private lives.

P.B.: WE’RE LIKE SHAKESPEARE IN A WAY - REMEMBER HIM? EXCEPT WE’RE SHAKESPEARE IN ’71, SO WE SPEAK ’71 STREET LANGUAGE INSTEAD OF 17th CENTURY STREET LANGUAGE. I GAVE UP READING SHAKESPEARE BECAUSE I COULDN’T UNDERSTAND MOST OF IT. WHEN I COULD UNDERSTAND IT I LIKED IT, BUT WHEN I COULDN’T UNDERSTAND IT, J COULD NEVER GET TO THE POINT OF LOOKING IT ALL UP. AND IF YOU LIVE NOW AND LISTEN TO THE FIRSIGN THEATRE AND ARE THE TYPE OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE LIFE EXPERIENCES LIKE OURS YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT WE’RE SAYING. THAT’S OUR FANS, RIGHT? THE WORLD DIVIDES RIGHT NOW BETWEEN PEOPLE WHO DIG US AND PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD OF US. THERE DOESN’T SEEM TO BE ANY MIASMIC IN BETWEEN - “OH, I PLAY A CUT OF FIRESIGN NOW AND THEN TO DANCE TO ... ”

P.A.: Four people, especially four men, using words and talking to each other, cannot get along unless they are jovial and we reflect that.

P.P.: We like to stimulate the imagination of the listener much in the way that radio did, because there’s something left out — a missing vision which you must supply. What do these people look like? What’s happening?

P.B.: YOU HEAR A SOUND EFFECT. WHAT DOES THE TABLE LOOK LIKE THAT HE’S GOING OVER TO. WHEN SOMEONE FALLS DOWN ON THE RADIO IT CAN BE EXCRUCIATINGLY FUNNY JUST ON THE BASIS OF SOUND. IN THE FIRST SOUND LAUREL AND HARDY MOVIES THEY HAD ALL OF THE TERRIBLE ACCIDENTS HAPPEN OFFSCREEN, BECAUSE THEN YOU COULD HAVE A GREAT SOUND EFFECT, AND OLLIE GOING “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAHHHHH!!!,” AND THEN CUT TO THE AFTERMATH.

D.O.: And that makes everybody happy because they can imagine it. They’re a part of it.

P.P.: And you participate in our records in that what we’ve done is so involved and convoluted that it’s like a mystery play. You can puzzle it out, or follow a trend of thought, following one word to the next word, and if you miss a connection along the way, you’ll find yourself lost for a moment and then get back on the track. And that’s why we constructed them that way, because they’re like mysteries within the thing. There’s a lot of information crammed into those records, so that they’re not just theatric or comedic, but they can be enlightening as well. There’s a lot of knowledge in those things — not necessarily out of our own minds, but things that we've assumed, things that we’ve acquired, information we’ve utilized.

P.A.: Hi neighbors! Ahm Edgar Allen Poe, manager of Bird of Prey Motors, where you can follow the feathers under the sign of the black bird!

P.P.: If you’ve been turned down before, nevermore!

P.A.: Yes — heh! — that’s right Nick! Yes that’s mah bird Nick, and ah guess ah know a bird when ah see one . . . heh! heh! Look! Even if you’ve been killed in an auto accident, you can’t get your driver’s liscense back from the po-lice, we’ll help ya! Well ya know usually it takes a Lord to help a doctor cure a po-liceman P.P.: (Nevermore!)

P.A.: but if it’s action you want, well, we’re all actors here!

P.P.: And here!

P.B.: AND HERE!

P.A.: At all the Bird of Prey garages in Gotham, and Metropolis!

P.B.: AND NOW IN DUCKBURG AT THE DOCKSIDE OF THE CORNER OF SUMPINUMPA AVENUE!

P.A.: Our precision autosalvage and body belts, transmission problems too — Say you come on down here to where the President stands under every car, all day long . . . That’s the Bird of Prey Garages, serving the Tri-City area since 10 o’clock!

P.P.: Every morning!

P.A.: Hey! When do we close?

P.P.: Nevermore! Nevermore!

P.P.: The Firesign Theatre is and always will be a repository of ideas.

P.B.: THERE’S NOTHING THAT SAYS THE FIRESIGN THEATRE WON’T GET INTO ANOTHER MEDIA FORM, BUT WE’VE BEEN TOGETHER FIVE YEARS NOW, AND WE’RE STILL WORKING ON OUR MOVIE, WHICH WILL BE, IN MY OWN OPINION, AS THICK AND LUXURIOUS AS OUR RECORDS ARE, AND WILL DO TO THE MOVIE FORM WHAT OUR RECORDS DID TO THE RECORD FORM, WHICH WAS BREAK A WHOLE NEW FIELD WIDE OPEN. WHETHER OR NOT ANYONE ELSE IS IN THE FIELD RIGHT NOW, THERE IT IS.

D.O.: We’re those people that they used to have advertisements about, saying, “This man uses a dictionary!” We use dictionaries all the time. We’re very concerned with words and what they mean, and how when they’re changed or respelled they mean something else, or how a single word evolved .... You see, a single work spoken on the radio can mean any of the variations on the ’real’ meaning of that word. The spelling meaning gets totally lost when you say it, it becomes a series of sounds which everybody relates to in a different way. We try and pack a sentence and make every word .. .

P.A.: The genesis of a major idea for something like Dwarf or Bozos can go on for two years. It’s as if we all live inside the same brain, and that brain chews over its material the same way your brain chews over the material of your life. In this case the brain chews over four lives and lots of pieces of paper, and it does that all day long, even though we aren’t together, because one of us is working everyday on something or another, and we meet by a process of conversation which we’ve gotten down pretty good by now after five years. Our records are basically dramatised conversations — any record I listen to sounds like a conversation be-

Direct Remote From The Mystic Snatchuary

tween the four of us, being 30 characters, which is what we do when we’re together in life.

P.B.: THINKING IS JUST A MATTER OF HABIT, JUST AS MOST OTHER INVOLUNTARY ACTIONS, IF YOU MAKE NO EFFORT TO CONTROL YOUR THOUGHTS, THEN NO MATTER HOW OLD YOU GET TO BE, YOUR THOUGHTS WILL ALWAYS REMAIN UNLEASHED, LIKE THE CHINESE.

P.P.: David Ossman comes out with this name, Don't Drush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, one day when we’re riding to a meeting on Zacharia, which is the first two lines to a song. We decided to name our album that, and over the years since then, people have related to me about this, not just in terms of, “What did you mean by that?” but they’ll come to me and say, “You know, have you heard about the Munchkins?” And I say, “Well, sure, I know that they got them in European sex circuses and brought them over to New York and put them in a bus and drove them out to Los Angeles.” He said, “Yes, yes, that’s true, but after the movie was made you know what happened to them?” “Well, no, I don’t.” “Well, they had no jobs after that, so luckily for them the Second World War came along and they put all these little dwarves to work in the defense plants as they were small enough to get inside the wings of the airplanes and do riveting work.” Don’t crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers. Put him to work. .Cure the crippled. Hire the handicapped.

P.B.: AN ENGLISH FRIEND OF MINE CALLED ME ON THE PHONE FROM YALE AND SAID, “I WAS SITTING WITH SOME FRIENDS AND SUDDENLY I HAD A MOMENT OF ENLIGHTENMENT.” HE THOUGHT HE DIDN’T HAVE TO SAY ANY MORE TO ME, THAT OF COURSE I KNEW WHAT HE KNEW I KNEW. I HAVEN’T THE FOGGIEST IDEA.

D.O.: We got a letter from Viet Nam the same way, saying, “A friend of mine sat and looked at the record album for 20 minutes and finally arrived at the explanation for the title of the album. Period. ” So we have no idea . . .

P.P.: I used to think it meant when a television set would go wrong, everything would get squashed down and everybody gets dwarfed — don't crush — don't break the set, just get the pliers and fix it. Because it’s only technology.

P.B.: DON’T CRUSH THAT DWARF - DON’T POISON THE AIR AND THE FOOD AND TURN EVERYBODY INTO A

Even If Yxfve Been Killed

DWARF OF THEIR REAL SELVES. HAND ME THE TOOL, WHICH IS AN EXTENSION OF HAND, WHICH IS THE OPPOSING THUMB, WHICH SEPERATES US FROM THE OTHER ANIMALS . . . USE YOUR HEAD, SCHMUCK!

P.P.: The Japs and the Germans were dwarves. As far back as the First World War, the German Huns were dwarves. And when the Japanese became involved in war they too became dwarves. And of course they, because of technology and the application of pliers in modern industry, have become ...

P.B.: GIANTS! THERE YOU HAVE IT! THE GERMANS AND THE JAPANESE HAVE BECOME GIANTS BY MAKING EVERYTHING SMALLER THROUGH PLIERS. IT’S NOT OUR FAULT, IT’S JUST FUNNY.

P.A.: We have such tremendous confidence in ourselves — and our audience, which is the same thing because we’re just entertaining ourselves — that we leave a tremendous amount open to chance. We feel very confident of our work so that we can constantly imply things happening just outside your field of vision which are just weirder than shit, but which we don’t have time to take you on because we’re ramrodding a story through . . . Whatever we call a story.

P.A.: My theory is that anytime anybody says anything true you tend to laugh. That’s what laughing is: an expression of truth. People who lead true lives like Indians and beaners laugh almost all the time, depending on the quality of the dope.

P.B.: WELL, IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS, AND NOBODY LIKES TO BE THE GUY WHO HAS TO TURN THE LIGHTS OFF ON THE TREE. AND IT’S BECAUSE OF THAT THAT I MUST TURN THE SPOTLIGHT AND THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS TIMELESS ANNOUNCEMENT - ER, TIMELY ANNOUNCEMENT - ON OUR MOST RECENT AND YOUNGEST EMPLOYEE, OUR DIRECTOR OF COMMUNAL - COMMUNITY RELATIONS, RALPH SWINGER-SPRINGER.

P.P.: Thanks, Jay. Tonight I wish to cast some light on a heretofore unretouched subject: the responsive broadcast management’s responsibility to respond. It’s our view that opinions expressed, editorial or otherwise, should be carefully defoliated. And so we wish to state unequivocally that the opinions expressed on this program do not in any way represent the opinions of the member of the broadcast unit, or their guests or the various members of our radio staff, or their families and their few friends. Nor do these views express the opinions of the audience and their staff, who are free in a free society, listening to our free radio station. Free to express their opinions whenever they want, except publicly. Unless, of course, they are willing to accept the responsibility for those opinions and views, no matter how irresponsible they may seem. Making it clear that those viewpoints do not impinge in any way upon the opinions of others, or their family and friends, or staff. Furthermore, it is our opinion and I’m speaking only for myself here, that the opinions expressed by any guest on this program, and others so inclined, are theirs to be expressed by any guest on this program, and others so inclined are theirs to be expressed, and do not in any way, shape or form constitute an endorsement of those opinions by anyone, unless it’s purely coincidental, living or dead. I hope this has helped to aid in the clarification of an often confusing subject in an otherwise untenable and intolerable situation, because we believe that the delineations of responsibility in these and similar situations must be drawn before it is too late for any of us. Anyway, that’s what it says here, and I’m only reading it. Thank you for the interruption, and now back to our regularly scheduled schedule.

D.O.: We’re great collectors of information and facts and things we don’t understand. Everything is out there to be collected, brought in, and then to be selected and used in whatever \yorld it is we ultimately decided we’re going to create.

P.B.: WE COLLECT MUSEUMS OF THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING NOW, THINGS THAT ARE GIVEN TO US THROUGH BOOKS AND MEDIA THAT HAPPENED THEN, AND THROUGH BOOKS AND TELEVISION THAT TELLS HOW IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN SOON. SINCE IT’S ALL HAPPENING IN THE PRESENT, WE MIX IT ALL UP AND TELL PRESENT STORIES, SO THAT THE NEXT TWO OR THREE YEARS OF THE FIRESIGN THEATRE WILL BE CALLED MORE A SCIENCE FICTION GROUP.

P.A.: Nick Danger is our strangest work. Nick’s looking for him in there, and it turns out that Lt. Bradshaw is what Nick’s all about. Nick isn’t the lead; it’s what he’s looking for. It’s why he’s so paranoid that’s the lead. Why is he so crazy? What is this world he’s trapped in? Bradshaws’s the strong central figure: “I’m going to have my own radio show, and no Jewish writers.”

P.P.:: We never know anything. We just write it down.

P.B.: PEOPLE LOVE WORDS, MAN. THEY USE THEM.

P.A.: Shit man, I never liked anything but Chuck Berry anyway, but if Andy Williams came on the tv singing “Moon River,” I wouldn’t turn it off. I like that song.

P.P.: He spoke Italian like a native. A native, that is, of Copenhagen.

P.A.: No matter how advanced the technology gets you look around and you will not find people controlled by it. You will find people thinking they are controlled by it, which is the acid horror vision: ‘Uh oh, I’m going crazy because I’m a robot,’ not ‘I am crazy,” but ‘I’m going crazy.’ When you wake up you realize it’s the fear of what’s going to happen that you’ve been infected with. School does that a lot: ‘You’re going to get it.” Not, ‘You are getting it.” What we’ve always said is, ‘Fuck man, it was really bad in 1959.’ Or 1941 or 1935. It can only make you laugh, because 1971 is better than Nick Danger.

D.O.: I think we’ve been allied with every utopian novel, which is an honor, yet the world that we predict is always now. What else is there?

P.B.: HOW CAN YOU BE IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE?

P.A.: We’re right here, we’re right now. We always deal in the present. It’s just people who write these insane reviews saying, “Yes, 1984. The boys give us a look about what it’s going to be like.” Fuck, man, all science fiction writers just write about what they see. Where else can they get their information from?

D.O.: 1984 is a vision of the Fifties. Looking Backward is a vision of the Thirties. Metropolis is a vision of the Twenties.

P.B.: DWARF IS A VISION OF THE SIXTIES.

Thinking Is Just A Matter Of Habit

P.P.: I have a picture in here of a little glass sphere being levitated by a laser light.

P.B.: THAT’S ALL A SCAM. IT’S JUST A PICTURE. IT’S ALL A FAKE.

P.P.: Yeah but it’s really happening. Why does a porridge bird lay his egg in the air?

P.A.: This question has never been answered.

P.B.: UNANSWERABLE. THAT’S FUNNY TOO.

P.A.: All over our neighborhood of Mixville, which is this kind of Chicano neighborhood in Los Angless there are these little kids stoned on reds and glue, and they write things on the walls into these amazing word paintings. These people aren’t literary cats in Marshall McLuhan’s world — Marshall McLuhan wouldn’t know what to do with them. But they are literate. They have a total literary life, just like all people do. Everybody in any small community is writing things down or taking pictures of it Or talking about it with other people — •

D.O.: Watching it on television and then turning it back into words as they talk about it. It doesn’t stay images — you can ’t pick up the image and walk across the room with it. ‘You know Ma, what I heard on television?”

P.P.: We started writing Bozos about a year before the record happened. We played with Dr. Memory during the course of the radio show, the main joke being, “It’s time for Dr. . . . uh . .. ummmmm . .. uh . . . Memory.’’

When we speak of G-Men, all of us get a picture immediately of a band of little known courageous men, risking their lives to defend the Tri-City area from the soft underbelly of criminal spies, sabateurs, or shoewackers and desperate violators of the 1912 Motorized Indian Act. During the present emergency, however, ratlike small shots might scuttle to their holes and lie down for a while. Yes, spies have met their match in the hardworking, on time boys of the Federal Gun Squad. Tonight in the studio with me is Mr. Blank, Special agent in charge of the Feudal — Federal Chest of Drawers — sorry, Federal Bureau of Drawers — to investigate little known facts about his work.

P.A.: Yes, Mr. Announcer, everyone is hearing about espionage agents and saboteurs so much now it’s hard to think . . . that just a few years ago no one even knew that saboteurs had agents.

P.P.: To start off with, Mr. Blank — shouldn’t I have your name here?

P.A.: Blanc.

P.P.: What are some of the violations handled by the squalid — squad which are not as well known as the White Trash Traffic Act and the National Migratory Sponge Theft Act.

P.A.: Well, for example, you, Mr. Announcer, are presently in violation of the Concealed Radio Statute, heh heh heh. By not broadcasting the call letters of this radio station every ten minutes you could be jeopardizing the security of this area, and my family and friends within it’s perimeters.

P.P.: Gosh, Mr. Blanc, this is exciting and serious as if it were real.

P.A.: Oh yes, yes, of course this is real, and you’ll be convicted and sent to radio prison after the show is over.

P.P.: No doubt, Mr. Blanc, many of our listeners who have travelled around extensively and other small towns in Arizona, will remember that radio prison is located in this particular section of extremely rugged and unusual beauty, because of the Pointed Desert nearby, and the many vari-colored canyons.

P.A.: Yes, that’s where the colored people are kept.

P.P.: Mr. Blanc although we think of women as the gentile sex, I recall that in the past you g-string — G-men — have been dealt from the bottom of the deck of sex with some who are not gentle in any sense of the term.

P.A.: That makes sense to me, Mr. Announcer, Yes, a special agent was once assigned the task of taking 15% of a mannish, big boned woman of 150 pounds, who was charged with shooting a frog.

P.P.: It must have been terrible, Mr. Blanc.

P.A.: Yes, Mr. Announcer. You know, taking a picture of a Frenchman can have some pretty serious consequences nowadays.

P.P.: I get the connection. You bet, Mr. Blanc.

P.A.: No, I don’t. It’s against the law, too. Accompanied only by three dozen officers, he started down the path to the shack. But this path was by no means easy. No, it was guarded by two mean griddly bears, who lunged horribly right toward them. The party walked around them. Then walked around them again.

P.P.: Was she finally taken into custody?

P.A.: Why yes. The officers entered the one room shack. Even then it took two days to reach the other side. Yes, the one room shack was'also a zeppelin holder, or hanger. So called because you could either hang the zeppelin up when you weren’t using it, or you could hold onto it. Now the special agent talked to the woman, stroking her gently, describing the pleasure of a 75 mile ride in a fast car. Well, she went willingly, and later confidentially advised her agent that she liked the jail very much since she was steam heated and had to be around a lot of water.

P.P.: You must be thinking of comely Lucy Bommeler, the 39 inch secretary to Kurt Klauspfeffer, the Nazi spy.

P.A.: I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop thinking about her.

P.P.: Well, Mr. Blank — Blanc, I want to thank you for being here. You have given us all a new slant on the topic of Oriental girls and crime, and it has been most interesting. With you G-men on the job we must sure feel that Nazi communes will be unsuccessful in their attempts, however vague, to injure our area.

P.A.: What’s happening?

(NEXT MONTH: The saga continues. Be sure to tune in for Ingham, the intrepid Aussie rock-spy, and his further amazing word-for-word warnings of the perils of hanging out with the Firesign Theatre.)