top of page
to no. 8
Experiential Learning
to no. 10
Horary Astrology
[9] Firesign Theater
ABSAdomain no.: 9
[Primary] Knowledge type: Entertainment
Role in ABSAprime's worldview: High
ABSAlink(s): TBA [via ABSAdomain interaction]
Degree of Difficulty: Moderate
"The Firesign Theatre was a huge influence on me. Their ability to blend satire with absurdity was unparalleled.” -- George Carlin
“Listening to Firesign Theatre was like taking a trip without leaving your seat. Their creativity and wit were boundless.” -- Robin Williams
“Firesign Theatre’s work was a masterclass in surreal comedy. They showed us that humor could be both intelligent and wildly imaginative.” -- Terry Gilliam
"I think we're all Bozos on this bus." -- Firesign Theater
FST: The "Beatles" of Sketch Comedy?
Firesign Theater was a very highly regarded experimental comedy troupe, first appearing in 1966 with a live radio broadcast (Radio Free Oz).
The group’s members—Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Phil Proctor—derived their name from the fact that all four were born under astrology’s three “fire signs” (Aries [Austin], Leo [Proctor], and Sagittarius [Bergman and Ossman]).
It’s also a play on the phrase "fireside chat," a form of discourse favored by Franklin Roosevelt, directly quoted in the setting up of Nick Danger as the go-to radio choice, even after the attack on Pearl Harbor: during a commercial break, FDR surrenders to the japanese on the radio, so he and his wife can return to the “thrilling conclusion” of Nick Danger, Third Eye...wild!
4 or 5 Crazy Guys! Caricature showing the Zodiacal signs of FST, from the album cover (remember those?) for the album Don't Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers
FST’s humor has been described as surreal, involving various modes of word play, like sketch comedy, puns, and other formats related to media (like “classic” radio) as well as conventional academic scholarship. [Patience! You're about to encounter an example from one of their best known characters, the infamous Ralph Spoilsport!] Their trenchant social observations are very often cast in playful, at first apparently nonsensical, terms. They cavorted through their performances with ad lib humor intermixed with “scripted” material.
Your Private Studio: Theater of the Mind
When one states the matter that way, though, it is very difficult to convey what the Firesign Theater does. Their performances (many live, but they are mostly known through their audio recordings) are some of the best examples of “theater of the mind,” resulting in their trademark style, which relied on sound to evoke images and narratives in the imaginations of the listening audience. the theater, its actors, props, costumes, music and so on are created by the audience on their own, and within their own consciousness...so you see why we like it!
If you listen closely to FST’s wordplay, it may become one of your greatest pleasures to repeat key phrases ("shoes for industry, shoes for the dead!" or "it's just this little chromium switch here" or “Hiya friends, Ralph Spoilsport here…”), saying them to yourself (or with others).
It’s been a half-century since ABSAprime (me) and my college friends, through repeated listening, absorbed Firesign turns of phrase to such a degree that we can—to this day—quote to each other lines and routines (word for word!) from albums that we probably haven't heard for decades. Why? Because FST discourse, though deep, is really fun to say! To figure out what Firesign language is saying not nearly as onerous as decrypting, say, Finnegan’s Wake, but it goes in that direction. It’s all about a seemingly absurd number of alternate meanings and the Firesigns stimulate that about as well as anyone we’ve encountered.
Example: Ralph Spoilsport
A fake (one hopes!) Cali license plate. Note the famous Firesign phrase from Don't Crush That Dwarf: "Head in any direction on the Freeway of Your Choice"
To show how all this works, let's take a look at one of FST's most famous routines (from the album, How Can You Be in Two Places at Once, When You're Not Anywhere at All? [love that album title!]), where a voice is heard on a car radio, advertising a used car dealer. It is the voice of Ralph Spoilsport, a fast-talking con man based on similar fast-talking California Ad guys like Cal Worthington or "Madman" Muntz. First, while it's informative to read about this, you really have to hear it to appreciate it (check here or here).
Then, you'll be in a position to appreciate the subtleties. Apart from mercilessly lampooning a very common form of communication (used car ads)—ads are one of FST's favorite targets—in addition, you'll see use of Malapropisms like "Here in the city of Emphysema...", which seems to be a play on "Endocino," a California city notoriously plagued with smog and other SoCal climatological infirmities (or at least that was rumored to be the case in the 1970s).
Now serving: Word Salad
Not to get political, but there is a metaphor now in politics called "word salad." A word salad is jumble of words or phrases that are incoherent, disconnected, or lack logical meaning. It's often used to describe speech or writing that is confusing, nonsensical, or appears to be random without a clear structure or purpose--yet in a superficial way, word salads sound comforting and soothing.
In current events, during the 2024 presidential campaign, the term "word salad" was routinely applied to the speech of Vice President Kamala Harris (democratic candidate for President), though, we have to say, almost all political speech sounds like "word salad" to us 😁 (as it probably will be for you the further you progress in ABSApundit).
From the excerpt below, the list of used car "features" Ralph offers is a word salad deluxe. Our personal favorite is "factory air-conditioned air from our fully factory-equipped air-conditioned factory."🤣
So, without further ado...Ralph Spoilsport!
“[Ralph Spoilsport]: Hiya friends! Ralph Spoilsport here from Ralph Spoilsport Motors, the world's largest new used and used new automobile dealership: Ralph Spoilsport Motors here in the city of Emphysema. Let's just look at the extras on this fabulous car! Wire-wheel spoke fenders and two-way sneeze-through wind vents, star-studded mud guard, sponge-coated edible steering column, chrome fender dents--and factory air-conditioned air from our fully factory-equipped air-conditioned factory.
It's a beautiful car friends, with doors to match! Birch's Blacklist says this car was stolen but for you friends a complete price: only two-ninety-five hundred dollars in easy monthly payments of twenty dollars a week twice a week and never on Sunday!
And ABSApundits care about this...Why?
Oh, and one more thing. Once FST introduced a character, that individual often started popping up in subsequent performances, only in different guises. For example (and if nothing else confirms FST’s devotion to surrealism, this should do it), in Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death! (love these titles😂) Ralph Spoilsport is the same ol’ Ralph, except now he’s hustling used body parts…and no, we are not kidding. Check it out! ***LINK*** Tell us, are they "creating reality," with alternate worlds, or not?
Even with this unforgivably brief introduction to the Firesigns, you can see why their work became an important foundation for both my consciousness and others in our domains. Although this link between esoteric studies and what FST does has been in my mind for decades now, it is only now emerging in my Framework One, making this website, that we see the beginnings—only the beginnings—of a vast new realm (erm, make that plural, "realms"!) of knowledge coming into view.
We're excited to make this connection, but again: everything here is onset, and while (surprise!) we don’t know how it’s going do, we suspect it’s going to be huge. Gradually, you will become familiar with the reasons why we are so certain of this. It’s way easier than you think…
How they do it: "Found Stimulants"
But back to the “magic” in the approach of FST. In casting a spell through ceremonial magic, after establishing one’s intentions, expressed as a positive statement and in terms which suggest it has already happened (standard ritual practice), you are drawn into a multifaceted activity in which you will gather the necessary tools and ingredients that you will use: such “supplies” generally include candles, herbs, items of personal significance, and objects of magickal power (e.g., crystals, symbolic iconography, and so on).
Of course, this is exactly what FST is doing. I once spoke with a young man who’d had the opportunity to have dinner with Firesigns Proctor and Bergman (they were performing, on their own, as "Proctor and Bergman," with the truly priceless promo tag, "It Ain't Necessarily Soap!"). They did a gig in the campus theater and also visited the television station where I worked.
My student informant got an excellent inside look at how FST worked when they passed a traffic sign that said, “End State Maintenance.” During the car trip(!) they improvised a routine and riffed on it for quite a while. The guy told me he was sorry he hadn't recorded it...but also that it was clear that it was something FST does all the time.
Are FST media magicians? Are we all?
We call these “found stimulants," similar to “found art,” a form of art created from objects that are not typically considered art materials because they already have a non-art function. In this fashion, ritual magicians and Firesign Theater both work to bend reality by what they glean from their social context and how they use it.
Great Example: the "Law of Fives"
In several interviews, FST has revealed that the numerous references to pop culture, and the phrasing of same, often come from two common sources. First, according to insiders, FST includes nothing in the sketches unless all four members agree, and second, special attention is given to the references that none of them can explain by ordinary means. They encounter phrases like "Malmberg in Plano" (I Think We're all Bozos on this Bus!) and dive into finding out what that might mean, even if that involves, say, scouring the telephone book for Plano, Texas, searching (in vain) for a listing for anyone named "Malmberg." When conventional resources all failed, that meant it definitely got included in the presentation (do you love these guys, or what? 🥰). That forcing of the consciousness to encompass an emergent process is, as we will see repeatedly, replicated in all of the ABSAdomains.
But with the “found stimulants,” you have got to put in the work, so to speak, to make it make sense. A great example is to be found in one of the standard texts ABSApundit uses (it is the basis of all of Superdomain01 and the only text needed to study for the exams on that unit). It is called Principia Discordia, and it is the “bible” of the Erisian Movement (link to the book here (😁 click here) and to the study material at SuperDomain01 (😁 click here).
One of its foundational principles is the so-called “Law of Fives,” which states that "All things happen in fives, or are divisible by or are multiples of five, or are somehow directly or indirectly appropriate to 5."
You see, though, here's the thing. The "Law of Fives" doesn't just work for you: you have to make it work.
The Law of Fives is often interpreted in a humorous and absurdist way, reflecting the overall satirical nature of Discordianism. It suggests a mystical significance to the number five and is sometimes used to demonstrate the selective use of statistics or confirmation bias, where one might "find" connections or patterns where none actually exist.
In other words, the Law of Fives is, in the conventional sense, no law at all: to make it “legal” requires your extensive input (Starting to sense a pattern here 😏?). The way that you adapt the “Law” depends on you, on your energy, your creativity…just like the “found stimulants” in FST’s routines (ABSAdomain09); or the formulation of a valid horary question (ABSAdomain10); or the choice of which images from nature one uses to generate a predictive hexagram in Plum Blossom Numerology (ABSAdomain05); or…well, as we said, you probably get the idea! 🤭
As Below, So Above
bottom of page