"Well, the worst thing is you can't see anything."
Ray Charles on blindness by artist Gahan Wilson in Michael Simmons' L.A.Weekly article

FIRESIGN OF THE TIMES

Three-Fourths of The Firesign participated in the five and a half hour-long "Allen Ginsberg's America" Memorial Tribute and Celebration last Saturday at the Veterans Wadsworth Theatre to benefit a poetry scholarship for Naropa's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics where it was a treat indeed to see so many vets of the Beat Generation still un-beaten and unbowed, filling the sold-out auditorium.

We were very warmly received in spite of the air-conditioning and performed "Le Trente-huit Cunegonde" hippification of America piece at around 11:15, following a very amusing letter from Hunter Thompson read by the gracious Johnny Depp. So many friends were there: Paul Krassner, Art Kunkin, Roger Steffens, Haskell Wexler, Anton Green, Henry Diltz, Ed Sanders, Michael Simmons... and Ginsberg, to name a few. And I thought Top Waits threw out the best line of the evening when he said, "You can't get a bad cup of coffee in L.A. anymore!" (Steve Harvey, please note...)

It so inspired us that David O is flying down this Sunday for three days of writing on the new album, known to us "workers" as "The Mark of Bozo," although that may have nothing to do with the content...or...?

On the other hand, if you want to really see where we come from and where we're going, subscribe to editor Fred Wiebel's handsome, action-packed FIREZINE, issue three of which celebrates "Thirty Years of FT" and is packed with unique interviews, news, reviews, collectors items and original writings from us all. It only takes a $10 check or money order to PO Box 585, Hagerstown, MD 21741-0585 to keep the 'zine green!!!

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DEPARTMENT

I can be heard LIVE on KCSN Radio FM 88.5 this Saturday evening from 8 to 9 on Raechel Donahue's "Desert Island Disk" with ten songs I'd take to the isle "to which I will doubtless one day be banished." (Thanks, Raechel.) If you miss the broadcast, check out station2000 for a non-instant earplay. Just go to http://www.station2000.com, find Raechel and "proceedez vous."

You'll also hear me July 4th on NPR (locally on KUSC fm 91.5 at 1pm) on Norman Corwin's "Our Lady of the Freedoms -- and Some of Her Friends" described as a new look at our birthday and reflections on the still bubbling melting pot, starring Charles Kuralt.

And finally, two pieces of mine were recently published in The Yale Record "Back to the Future" alumni issue with a great "Bulldog in Space" cover by Bob "Crush That Dwarf" Grossman,'61. You can get it for $5.00 by contacting http://www.yale.edu/record/ with proceeds going to charity.

And if you want poetry by me, David Ossman, Edie McClurg and maaannnny others, snail another tenner to Sheiffield and Walker's "Saturday Afternoon Review" at 3090 Lake Hollywood Dr, LA, CA 90068.

Or just hire me directly and cut out the middleman entirely...

FROM THE OL' E-MAIL BAG

Mary "Mrs. America" Willard notes that "Trickadickaphopia" is the fear that Richard Nixon is back and running for president.

Nark "I'm not a cop" Markley announces that Broadway's longest running musical, CATS, has used up over 48,000 condoms... to cover their body mikes!

"Uncle" Steve Carlson writes that someone should tell the Russians "You break a Mir -- you get 7 years bad luck" He adds, "You also get bad jokes; is self-expression always healthy?"

Raechal "Top Ten" Donahue sez: "If you scuffed your feet long enough without touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about, unless you have carpeting."

Ironically, in my latest issue of The Skeptical Inquirer, the realistic Randi exposes famed Russian Alla Vinogradov's touted telekinetic powers as just that -- static electricity! In the same issue is more about what REALLY happened at Roswell with STARTLING FOTOS... of weather balloons -- or are they ALIEN CONDOMS!!!

CRASH TEST DUMMIES?

By now the Air Force's 231-page 50th anniversary report debunking the Roswell UFO story is old news, and we all know that the alien "bodies" were just dummies used in parachute tests. The title of the report tells it all: "The Roswell Report, Case Closed."

Yet, skeptics (not from the Skeptical Inquirer, we assume) immediately pointed out that those parachute tests occurred years after the Roswell incident; and Deon Crosby, director of the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, said that pictures of the dummies look like -- well, mannequins, and if that's what they were, "What does it say about the people in the military who can't tell the difference between mannequins and bodies?"

And ex-soldier Frank Kauffman, who the L.A. Times claims was part of the clean-up squad at the impact site, agrees: "They can say whatever they want. We were there and know what we saw and there were no dummies there -- I know what a dummy looks like. These beings were five-feet-five, small ears, small nose -- good-looking."

Good-looking? Oh well, don't ask, don't tell...

THOSE WITHOUT FORMS...

Harris Mike says this was on the back of Virginia Form DMHMR 562-11A-38revA: "In order to request a change to the forms management form change form, submit a forms change request form or the forms management form change form to the forms management supervisor. Do not use the request for forms change form, or the forms management form change form itself, as these will be forwarded to the forms management supervisor through the forms management form alteration process, resulting in additional paperwork."

MORE BUMMER STINGERS

Also from Mr. Mike, (and me...) "I Love My Boss; I Love My Job; I'm Self Employed!... Mean People Suck! Nice People Swallow!... Lottery: a tax on people who are bad at math... Eat the rich. The poor are tough and stringy... Raise your IQ: eat gifted children... Artificial intelligence usually beats real stupidity... Cream rises to the top; so do dead fish... Ask me about my vow of silence... What's all this about hell fire and dalmations?... I'm not a complete idiot - several parts are missing... Veni, vidi, velcro: I came, I saw, I stuck around... Every time my ship comes in there's a dock strike... What is the highest pyramid in the world? Amway... Excuse me, Chief, my shoe is ringing... You can fool some of the people and really piss them off... The four food groups: Fast, Frozen, Instant and Chocolate... What this country needs is a good 5-cent quarter... Neutrinos have mass? I didn't even know they're Catholic!... I wouldn't be caught dead with a necrophiliac... Don't be so open- minded that your brain falls out.. If reality wants to get in touch, it knows where I am... I have a grip on reality, just not this particular one... What goes around usually gets dizzy and falls over...."

A SIMPLER SAMPLER

How did the Old West travelers jolting along in wagon trains keep eggs from breaking? They packed them in lard. And if you order your delivered pizza uncut, it should get to your place about 10 degrees hotter.

A bank robber flees. A cop gives chase. After a turn or two, the escapee is out of sight. Which way did he go? The officer knows a fleeing suspect won't wait for cross-traffic to clear, so will turn right, almost always. That's routine police savvy.

This once-famous 16th century naturalist got the notion that spiders were not only beautiful but therapeutic. He turned a bunch of them loose in his house and when his little daughter got sick, he emptied a sackful of them on her head and body, thinking they would make her well. They didn't. She was terrified. The father was Thomas Muffet, the daughter the real life Little Miss Muffet.

First wife of England's King Richard II was Anna of Bohemia. She had some sort of hip problem that prevented her not from riding horses but from riding astride. So the king decreed all women likewise had to ride sidesaddle.

In Cerreto, Italy, lived a family of bunco artists named "Ciarlatano." From them we got the word "charlatan." The Spanish "charqui" means dried meat. That's where we got our word "jerky."

Owls outlive elephants. (sampler@lmboyd.com)

MEN AND WO-MEN IS THE SAME SEX

A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest:

It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Zurich hotel:

Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In a Bangkok temple:

It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:

Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

In a Tokyo bar:

Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

UNCHAIN MY HARD

This paper has been sent to you for good luck. The original has been worn out from having passed through the hands of so many people. You will experience great sex within four days, provided you send it on. It has traveled around the world 72 times, and just think what "around the world" can mean to you!! Send copies to people who need to get laid within 96 hours.

After he passed this letter on, a Montana Spinach Control Officer got his penis stuck in a cow-milking machine and had the longest series of orgasms of his life. John Elliot tried to pick up a prostitute, but, because he broke the chain, was picked up by the police instead. When they searched his home, they found magazines of little boys which they showed to his neighbors. In a suburb of Paris, Don Loray's trousers were ripped by an unsatisfied erection, 51 days after failing to circulate the letter. However, before this happened, a condom machine gave him three condoms for the price of one. Was this a consolation prize?

Do note the following: Hebert Pudstrom received the chain in 1953. He asked his secretary to make ten copies and send them out. A few days later he encountered her in a red-light district making more than he had every paid her at work. General George Patton, who sent the letter on, saw what he thought was a quarter in the street. When he bent down to pick it up, a beautiful woman in a miniskirt walked by, and he got a great view. Heywood Daddit, an unemployed chicken choker, received the letter and forgot that it had to leave his hands within 96 hours. His wife then went bowling with his best friend and never returned. Later, after finding the letter again, he mailed ten copies. A few days later he got a new wife and discovered that his old wife, who he thought was wonderful, had made love to him like a dead salmon for all these years!

Beware, however of the fate of the E-mail user at Trent University, Peterborough ON, that sent this letter to himself over five thousand times in one afternoon. Before leaving the computer lab a strange woman came up behind him, bit his ear and put her hand down his pants. The ensuing surprise caused him to stumble forward and cry out. As he attempted to arrest his fall by grabbing a nearby PC, a gob of spittle that had been flung from his mouth (as he cried out) landed deep into the inner recesses of the computer, all three (student, strange woman and computer) then experienced simultaneous Cyber-Orgasms of exponential intensity before exploding in a puff of smoking data.

So -- you must distribute at least ten copies within 96 hours of receiving this letter. Those who do will find their love lives more fulfilling. Those who do not will be doomed to one-night stands with mechanical devices. You have been warned. (Ed Pudtugger)

... ONTO THE MILLENIUM

Finally, I hereby officially dub the upcoming decade "The Oh-ohs!"

You heard it "hear" first... PP 6-27-97

 Published 6/27/97

PLANET PROCTOR
© 1996/2002 by Phil Proctor