The Big Green House

Friday, December 06, 2002

 

Who am us, anyway?

Over the weekend we rented the new Firesign Theater DVD, Weirdly Cool; it�s a collection of live performances put together for PBS last year, plus a few goodies from days gone by. Well, actually, I was the one that rented it. I watched the whole thing & enjoyed it immensely; I think Science Girl watched about five minutes of it. She was busy doing other stuff, and her taste doesn�t run to the silly as much as mine does, I think. She did laugh when I sang her the �folk song� from How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You�re Not Anywhere At All? :

This land is made of mountains
This land is made of mud
This land has lots of everything
For me and Elmer Fudd

This land has lots of trousers
This land has lots of mousers
And pussy cats to eat them when the sun... goes... down.

Discovering these guys when I was 19 was a revelation. Listening to an album was like peeling an onion � there are layers on layers of surreal, subversive comedy. Very densely packed, weirdly cool verbal origami. Check out the aforementioned How Can You Be In Two Places At Once..., or the equally amazing Don�t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers(Headphones and, um, herbal refreshment add to the experience, but are not essential.) You�ll find yourself saying things like �He�s no fun � he fell right over� with little or no provocation.

Anywho, I did a little poking around on Google today. They have a website, as one might expect. What kinda surprised me at first was the fact that they also have a blog, although it made perfect sense once I thought about it � Firesign is all about words. And, as if that weren�t enough, Phil Austin (you may know him as Nick Danger, Third Eye) has a blog of his own. And there�s a multitude of DVDs and CDs which I have never seen/heard, having been out of the Firesign loop for awhile. I have some catching up to do.

(Today�s post has been brought to you by Loostner�s Castor Oil Flakes � the all-weather breakfast. Remember, kids: �It ain�t no use if you ain�t got the boost / the boost you get from Loostner�s�.)


bmarkey 12/06/2002 09:04:00 PM