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A blast from the past for us older boomers.
This was in the morning paper.
I must be old because when I toss out some of my favorite lines, people stare at me like I'm crazy. (which doesn't mean i'm not)
Maybe the younger generation will find them equally entertaining. Coming SOON.
Of course it will be interesting, since when most of us boomers were younger, we were a tad more liberal than we are today, and enjoyed the jokes. I wonder if they'll still be funny as we've gotten older and more conservative.
******************************
The sign on the door of Room 203 should read "Shhh, Dangerous Minds at Work," but "Do Not Disturb" will suffice.
Inside are Phil Proctor, David Ossman, Peter Bergman and Phil Austin, otherwise known as the addled geniuses of Firesign Theatre. The four comics are holed up at the Mayflower Hotel in Seattle, updating and fine-tuning material for their new show, "Radio Is a Heartbreak: The Big Broadcast of 2005."
Proctor likens the brainstorming-improv session to playing in a sandbox.
"We're basically breaking in a new show, trying out new pieces for Act 2," he says in a booming radio voice. "This is the first day we've all been together. We've been writing over the Internet."
Though teamed since 1966, when they first did topical sketch humor on KPFK radio in Los Angeles, the foursome is now spread out along the Pacific seaboard, from Tacoma to Los Angeles. The members supplement sporadic concerts with speaking gigs and voice-over work. Proctor, who lives in Beverly Hills, is the voice of Howard on Nickelodeon's "The Rugrats."
Their ages?
"Our agents?" Proctor mugs, not missing a beat. "Let's just say we're all in our mid-60s."
Before "SNL" and the Pythons, the Boomer generation tuned in to Firesign's scattershot blend of shtick, satire and vintage radio. The quartet started by lampooning Nixon, consumerism and war and now -- 24 albums and three Grammy nominations later -- is lampooning Bush, consumerism ... and war.
"We started in the mid-'60s, and now we are in our mid-60s," Proctor says, weighing the sound of a line that could make it into the new show.
"And we haven't gotten anywhere; we haven't moved an inch," shouts Bergman in the background.
Still a fixation
The "we" to which Bergman alludes is, of course, this country, this culture. More than three decades after Firesign's "Not Insane" and "Everything You Know Is Wrong" albums, we're still fixated on acquiring stuff, looking hipper than thou, force-feeding democracy around the globe. The new wrinkles: reality TV and the cult of instant celebrity.
"The basis of what we do hasn't changed at all," says Proctor. "We're still making fun of the status quo, and we're still satirizing society from the inside out."
In contrast to the more overtly political satire of Michael Moore and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Firesign is closer to punny, PG-rated tomfoolery. This is by design. Proctor, Ossman, Bergman and Austin have always seen themselves as politically conscious entertainers, not a pack of angry propagandists.
"We love our country; we love our society," stresses Proctor. "We see our satire as a tool for sharpening people's perspectives on what their world is and what it might become. We see it as a healing and revealing energy, as opposed to something that belittles and denigrates."
The amazing thing, he points out, is how much of the old material still works.
"That's one of the things that we found terribly amusing when we sat down again -- how pertinent the material from the '60s still is," says Proctor. "I think you're going to hear an update of the `Pico and Alvarado in the Army' piece from `Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers,' only now it's updated to the war in Iraq."
A graying audience
What about their audience? Has it changed?
"They've gotten grayer," replies Proctor, laughing. "We have an incredibly loyal audience that has stayed with us all these years. But there are also young faces popping up. They discovered us through the old records that have been repackaged as CDs."
(Many of the group's classic albums can be purchased at either www.firesigntheater.com or www.laugh.com, George Carlin's online comedy store.)
Any walkouts during shows?
"We have, on occasion, offended people," Proctor says. "You can't do satire without upsetting some people's sensibilities."
And for those who think Firesign has mellowed to a cheery glow, Proctor offers the following story: "We were doing NPR's `All Things Considered" show, and they wouldn't let us do our very political material which made fun of Bush and our, um, misadventures in Iraq."
The show's producer, according to Proctor, said, "Oh, this isn't funny."
Which is what people always say, he adds, "when they're afraid of the material."
This was in the morning paper.
I must be old because when I toss out some of my favorite lines, people stare at me like I'm crazy. (which doesn't mean i'm not)
Maybe the younger generation will find them equally entertaining. Coming SOON.
Of course it will be interesting, since when most of us boomers were younger, we were a tad more liberal than we are today, and enjoyed the jokes. I wonder if they'll still be funny as we've gotten older and more conservative.
******************************
The sign on the door of Room 203 should read "Shhh, Dangerous Minds at Work," but "Do Not Disturb" will suffice.
Inside are Phil Proctor, David Ossman, Peter Bergman and Phil Austin, otherwise known as the addled geniuses of Firesign Theatre. The four comics are holed up at the Mayflower Hotel in Seattle, updating and fine-tuning material for their new show, "Radio Is a Heartbreak: The Big Broadcast of 2005."
Proctor likens the brainstorming-improv session to playing in a sandbox.
"We're basically breaking in a new show, trying out new pieces for Act 2," he says in a booming radio voice. "This is the first day we've all been together. We've been writing over the Internet."
Though teamed since 1966, when they first did topical sketch humor on KPFK radio in Los Angeles, the foursome is now spread out along the Pacific seaboard, from Tacoma to Los Angeles. The members supplement sporadic concerts with speaking gigs and voice-over work. Proctor, who lives in Beverly Hills, is the voice of Howard on Nickelodeon's "The Rugrats."
Their ages?
"Our agents?" Proctor mugs, not missing a beat. "Let's just say we're all in our mid-60s."
Before "SNL" and the Pythons, the Boomer generation tuned in to Firesign's scattershot blend of shtick, satire and vintage radio. The quartet started by lampooning Nixon, consumerism and war and now -- 24 albums and three Grammy nominations later -- is lampooning Bush, consumerism ... and war.
"We started in the mid-'60s, and now we are in our mid-60s," Proctor says, weighing the sound of a line that could make it into the new show.
"And we haven't gotten anywhere; we haven't moved an inch," shouts Bergman in the background.
Still a fixation
The "we" to which Bergman alludes is, of course, this country, this culture. More than three decades after Firesign's "Not Insane" and "Everything You Know Is Wrong" albums, we're still fixated on acquiring stuff, looking hipper than thou, force-feeding democracy around the globe. The new wrinkles: reality TV and the cult of instant celebrity.
"The basis of what we do hasn't changed at all," says Proctor. "We're still making fun of the status quo, and we're still satirizing society from the inside out."
In contrast to the more overtly political satire of Michael Moore and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Firesign is closer to punny, PG-rated tomfoolery. This is by design. Proctor, Ossman, Bergman and Austin have always seen themselves as politically conscious entertainers, not a pack of angry propagandists.
"We love our country; we love our society," stresses Proctor. "We see our satire as a tool for sharpening people's perspectives on what their world is and what it might become. We see it as a healing and revealing energy, as opposed to something that belittles and denigrates."
The amazing thing, he points out, is how much of the old material still works.
"That's one of the things that we found terribly amusing when we sat down again -- how pertinent the material from the '60s still is," says Proctor. "I think you're going to hear an update of the `Pico and Alvarado in the Army' piece from `Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers,' only now it's updated to the war in Iraq."
A graying audience
What about their audience? Has it changed?
"They've gotten grayer," replies Proctor, laughing. "We have an incredibly loyal audience that has stayed with us all these years. But there are also young faces popping up. They discovered us through the old records that have been repackaged as CDs."
(Many of the group's classic albums can be purchased at either www.firesigntheater.com or www.laugh.com, George Carlin's online comedy store.)
Any walkouts during shows?
"We have, on occasion, offended people," Proctor says. "You can't do satire without upsetting some people's sensibilities."
And for those who think Firesign has mellowed to a cheery glow, Proctor offers the following story: "We were doing NPR's `All Things Considered" show, and they wouldn't let us do our very political material which made fun of Bush and our, um, misadventures in Iraq."
The show's producer, according to Proctor, said, "Oh, this isn't funny."
Which is what people always say, he adds, "when they're afraid of the material."
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