Peter Bergman, Philip Proctor, Philip Austin and David Ossman were Firesign Theater from sometime in the early 60’s till last Friday, when Peter died of leukemia.
Not even his cohorts/conspirators/co-workers knew he was going to do that. You can imagine then, the kind of shock it was for those of us who loved his work from beyond his horizon. And for those who cannot, let me see if this does the trick:
A big light in the sky went out. Not the Sun; I could still see clearly, but the day was noticeably less bright, and a little more drab. After a swift physical assessment told me I’d had no seizure or aneurism or neurological failure, I looked around, to see if a light bulb had crapped out and I’d over-dramatized things, since sometimes I do that. Noting every bulb in the house burning brightly, I turned most of them off. Darned kids, I thought. Why don’t they turn them off when they leave the room? Or, in this case, the house, in 1999? When I returned to the computer, ever-present Facebook – now the brightest thing in the building – held the news.
Apparently, after his Tuesday broadcast on Radio Free Oz, Peter checked in to an LA hospital. He called people, then settled back into his capsule couch and resumed the countdown.
His last broadcast is transcribed at www.radiofreeoz.com, But I’d recommend hearing it here. There’s more love in his voice.
Firesign Theater’s history and origin tales can be found by googling. Instead of reciting old testament, I will tell you how I learned my first three words in Turkish.
Bath.
Towel.
Border. May I see your passport please? Thank you. Hmm. Would you step this way, please, Sir? Just a few questions…
Firesign Theater was to radio what Escher was to the graphic arts. What was the floor in one sentence became the wall in the next. The entire scene shifted on the various definitions of a single word, and the contexts that surrounded each definition. The story modulated from one key to the next that way, all the time making sense like bebop jazz. This quartet worked as smooth as Gillespie, Parker, Mingus, Powell and Max Roach. that night in Massey Hall. The Quartet. Dave Brubeck. Time, Far Out as You Can Get.
Word Jazz.
Before them, there was this guy. Ken Nordine. He might have been a staff CBC announcer. With vocal pipes like the Great Organ of Chartres Cathedral, he might’ve been a god in some Polynesian sect of fire-worshippers. Nordine made two albums, the first actually entitled “Word Jazz”, the second something like “More Word Jazz”. I guess the first one sold to the “Hi-Fi Stereo” buffs of the 50’s and the hippest jazz fans (including All Those Madison Avenue types), so they figured Brand Recognition demanded a Recognizable Name = the same thing, again, would evoke the same success. After #2 sank without a ripple, Nordine went on to produce radio commercials. He made a lot of money doing it, I guess.
And, there was Stan Freberg. Stan made a high-production “comedy” album about the “history of the United States”. Again, capitalizing on earlier successes in radio-style productions of deranged versions of fairy tales and TV shows – “St George and the Dragon Net” was a “#1 hit” in 1953 – the “History” album was just plain cornball. Too late. We were already deranged, and getting weirder.
Firesign Theater, in their first album, “Waiting for the Electrician Or Someone Like Him”, presented a history of Western expansion. Included in it was a journey to (or from) Goshen to The Great Divide along two shining steel rails, slapped down on the Nation’s flank in the name of “Rock. A. Fel. Ler. Rock-a-fel-ler Rock a fel ler Rokafeller Rockafeller” Whoo Whoooo. Leaving the original residents of the place kinda stunned, kinda sad, and shit outta luck.
Their fourth album, “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus”, celebrates the journey of Ah Clem as he visits “FutureWorld” in search of The Answer … I’m not sure, really, what he was doing there, anymore. I know it took me four tries to hear the last line of dialog because I kept tripping out on my own thoughts while listening to it. And, I was straight, three of the four times. The album was Shakespearean in depth. Every word, it seemed, was equally valid in all its definitions. The imagery was holographic, three-dimensional, thoroughly rotational in all axes and so dense it took a calm ear and a steady cortex to sift through all of it, in a hundred hearings.
I haven’t listened to them in years. Still, lines of dialog deeply graven in my brain rattle into being at the oddest moments: “He just passed a gas station.” “Squeeze him again. He may pass another”; “How can you be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all” (lyric to a Tin Pan Alley tune; title of their second album); “Let me take your hat and goat. Just put your mukluks in the crinkling cellophane to dry off” (Catherwood the Butler to Nick Danger, Third Eye, having come in from the winter); “He’s no fun. He fell right over!” Among others.
They explained a good deal of what was happening then, and what would happen for years to come. They’re an invaluable part of our culture. Their role will, I think, expand, because they affected so many creative lives in this country, elevating the level of consciousness across the board.
We’ll hear from them again. Only a few of us will know where it’s coming from. O well.
