It had completely slipped my mind, but Phil Austin actually dropped by the blog back in 2009 to squeeze the wheeze (honk honk) and tip us off to a quartet of shows The Firesign Theatre had scheduled in Hollywood.
He will be missed. And thanks to Mike Deme for sending me to Doctor Memory with this remembrance from Mike Tiano.
I have yet to hear word one from John Cleese.
Nick Danger is no longer at The Old Same Place. Phil Austin, who voiced that character and so many others for The Firesign Theatre, went west on Thursday. He was 74.
I stumbled across Firesign in high school, years before I ever heard of Monty Python, and snapped up almost every bit of work that they did, either as a group — a collective self-dubbed “Four or Five Crazee Guys” for the invisible fifth person that arose from their collaboration — or as fragments thereof.
The collection includes the widely known (“Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers,” “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” “I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus”) and the less so (“Everything You Know Is Wrong,” “In the Next World You’re On Your Own,” and “The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra”). I got ’em all, on vinyl, CD and occasionally both.
Some friends and I had the good fortune to catch their act in Denver once, Back In the Day™. You can keep your Beatles, Stones, and Dead, thanks. I got my Firesign, and that’s better than a pile of groatcakes soaked in 30-weight with an entrenching tool within easy reach.
Fellow Firesign Peter Bergman beat Austin out the door in 2012. Or maybe he’s on the other side of the album! I’d better check. …
• Late update: Any Firesign fans out there packing iPhones? Tell Siri, “This is Worker speaking,” or ask her, “Why does the porridge-bird lay its eggs in the air?” I’d forgotten that Austin did some voiceover work for Apple commercials, and it seems that “Bozos” may have struck a chord with the Black Turtleneck Mob.
In 1973 I was a 19-year-old college dropout with a part-time job and no car, riding a bicycle everywhere.
But I went back to school, got that diploma, and today I’m a 61-year-old man with three part-time jobs and no car, riding a bicycle everywhere.
Stay in school, kids.
I was somewhere near Grants, New Mexico, riding a touring bike for fun and profit, when the word came that Joe Cocker had passed on.
It’s a wonder Joe made it to 70, given the way he lived his early years. John Belushi, who mocked him so well, didn’t last half as long.
And man: “A Little Help From My Friends.” “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window.” Dude out-Beatled the Beatles, is what. “The Letter.” “Delta Lady.” Hoo-lawd, he left it all out there on the stage.
“You Are So Beautiful.” “You Can Leave Your Hat On.” And “Feelin’ Alright.”
“I’m not feeling too good myself,” Joe sang, and he wasn’t kidding. But he had too much to do before he died, and thank whatever gods there are that we got to watch, and listen.
As Pat noted in comments, give our best to Frank, Joe.
