Planet Proctor 2005 Volume 13

 OVER THE POND

         The Firesign has been offered a gig with BBC4 to perform LIVE on the stage of the London Comedy Club on October 3rd for a radio show called "One Night Only" (although one of our aircraft will be missing because Phil Austin can't be there and will appear on tape.)  The show is free and many of our pals from the U.K. are coming, so if you're in London at the time, let me know and I'll get you the details.  And while in Europe, Melinda and I are going to visit Amsterdam (to get stoned, watch live sex shows and smell the flowers), take a train to the ancient city of Bruges in Bruxelles, and visit Edinburgh, before returning to work back here in the colonies. We also had an unusual celebration on Melinda's birthday at "Hollywood Forever" a local cemetery (featured in this week's New Yorker magazine) where they show films for picnickers during the summer. We saw "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" to celebrate another "notorious couple."

     "The path to retirement must confront the question of how it is possible to lead a meaningful life after work." ~ Yale Alumni magazine letter              

AND CLOSER TO HOME

        The enormously successful and critically acclaimed run of "Pera Palas" at the Theatre @ Boston Court has been extended one final week until September 4th so Melinda will be appearing on August 25th and 28th @ at 8, September 1st and 3rd @ 8,and finally on the 4th @ the 2 o'clock matinee. Just this week, one Turkish gentleman bought 88 tickets for one performance!  Cok Guzel!!      

        Also, my daughter Kristin will soon be playing the lead role in a new play called "In Vitro" by her friend Paula Christensen at the Meta Theatre, 7801 Melrose Avenue from September 9th to October 8th, Fridays and Saturdays ,with a Saturday matinee at 2 on September 24th and October 8th. Get tickets at THEATERMANIA.com or call (866) 811-4111

    "Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this." ~ John Cage

SIGNS YOU'RE GETTING TOO OLD TO DRIVE

        It takes more than four minutes to get out of your car.

        When backing into a parking spot, you just back up until you hear something.

        It scares you to drive the speed limit.

        The only thing you pass on the road anymore is the Amish.

        You use cruise control because your leg fell asleep.

        You inquired if the dealership could install magnifying glass for the windshield.

        Your turn signal has been on since 2003.

        Your bumper sticker endorses Eisenhower.

        When the police pull you over, they're surprised to find out you're sober.

    "Both Henry Ford and Rudolf Diesel ran their own cars on vegetable oil." ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts

OIL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL       

        My friends Michael Bell and Jordana Franzheim-Glick recently sent me some enlightening articles about the future of oil dependent vehicles.  Jordana's mom wrote for her local paper that biodiesel, like "BioWillie" marketed to truckers by Willie Nelson, is derived partly from oil feedstock plants and is 78% Co2 efficient (compared to my greenhouse-gas spitting Prius) and gets 37-40mpg on the highway.

        Today in the world, we suck up180 billion gallons of fossil fuel annually, which would cover the state of Road (sic) Island in a pool of oil one foot deep.

        Then Mr. Bell, currently running for the National board of SAG on the MembersFirst ticket, sent me an article about folks converting their hybrids by creating banks of additional batteries or adding a plug-in recharge device thatcan achieve hundreds of miles per gallon.

        But in the meantime, we'll soon get to drive our hybrids in the carpool lane, though we have to deface our vehicles with some oversized, gaudy yellow stickers; it's a small price to pay.

   "Condaleeza Rice was on the Board of Directors of Chevron for 9 years and had an oil tanker named after her." ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts

SO YOU WANT TO DO V.O.S?

Call your agent's voice mail and read this:

        "Mr. See and Mr. Soar were old friends. See owned a saw and Soar owned a seesaw. Now See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw before Soar saw See, which made Soar sore. Had Soar seen See's saw before See saw Soar's seesaw, then See's saw would not have sawed Soar's seesaw. But See saw Soar and Soar's seesaw before Soar saw See's saw, so See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw.

        "It was a shame to let See see Soar so sore just because See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw."  (Soon to be a major motion picture!)

  "Age is simply a question of mind over matter.  If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts

"LOST " ON JEWISH TV

        Abe and Esther are flying to Australia for a two week vacation to celebrate their 40th anniversary when suddenly, over the public address system, the Captain announces, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am afraid I have some very bad news. Our engines have ceased functioning and we will attempt an emergency landing.

        "Luckily, I see an uncharted island below us and we should be able to land on the beach. However, the odds are that we will may never be rescued and will have to live on the island for the rest of our lives!"

        Thanks to the skill of the flight crew, the plane lands safely on the island.

        An hour later Abe turns to his wife and asks, "Esther, did we pay our charity pledge check to Beth Shalom Synagogue yet?"

        "No, sweetheart," she responds. Abe, still shaken from the crash landing, then asks, "Esther, did we pay our United Jewish Appeal pledge?"

        "Oy, no! I'm sorry. I forgot to send the check," she says.

        "One last thing, Esther! Did you remember to send a check for the Synagogue Building Fund this month," he asks?

        "Oy, forgive me, Abie," begged Esther. "I didn't send that one, either." Abe grabs her and gives her the biggest kiss in 40 years.

        Esther pulls away and asks him, " So, why did you kiss me?" Abe answers, "They'll find us."

    "God, I know we are your chosen people, but couldn't you choose somebody else for a change? --Shalom Aleichem

THE 'EVOLUTIONARY WAR

        "President Bush recently suggested that public schools should teach Intelligent Design alongside the Theory of Evolution because, after all, evolution is, quote, 'just a theory.' Then the president renewed his vow to drive the terrorists straight over the edge of the earth.

        "I'm sorry, folks, but it may very well be that life is just a series of random events and that there is no master plan. But enough about Iraq. Let me instead restate my thesis. There aren't necessarily two sides to every issue. If there were, the Republicans would have an opposition party. And an opposition party would point out that even though there is a debate in schools and government about this, there is no debate among scientists.

        "Evolution is supported by the entire scientific community; Intelligent Design is supported by guys on line to see The Dukes of Hazzard.  No. Stupidity isn't a form of knowing things…'Babies come from storks' is not a competing school of thought in medical school. We shouldn't teach both [and] if Thomas Jefferson knew we were blurring the line this much between church and state, he would turn over in his slave.

        "Now as for me, I believe in Evolution and Intelligent Design. I think God designed us in his image, but I also think God is a monkey."

        So said firebrand Bill Maher last week on his intelligently designed HBO show.

      "My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. " ~ Benjamin Disraeli

AND IF YOU CAN'T GET TO LONDON…

        …You can read all about us in a chapter of Gene Santoro's provocative new book, "Highway 61 Revisited: The Tangled Roots of American Jazz, Blues, Rock & Country Music" in which he says:

        "The Firesign Theatre records were, like good musical recordings, palimpsests* that demanded and repaid study; it was as if all of American popular culture and history had been sliced and diced, tossed into a blender, and spewed back via a recording studio in high-speed dissolves, a Rorschach test for your soul. Knowing the lines and routines meant you had a glimmer, at least, of the machinery framing the pictures most people thoughtlessly accepted as reality."

        Thanks, Gene! To read more, get a copy of this amazing Oxford University Press book at <www.oup.com>

(And by the way, a "palimpsest" is an ancient parchment that has been overwritten many times, but "imperfectly erased" and thus allowing for the recovery of ancient information. Yes, I had to look it up.)

Also, an online podcasting site notes that "The grand old sultans of radio satire" have made many hours of their archives available for downloading @ http://firesigntheater.com/podcasting/list.php

"Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it." ~ Winston Churchill

THANKS ARE DUE, TOO

        Gary Margolis, George Cratcha, Lennie Weinrib, Robert Lloyd, The Antaeus Company and well, everybody else. During this summer I've amassed so much material, I hope I can get a few more orbits spinning before we take off for Europe.  Thanks to you all for sending me so much fascinating material, (even if I have seen some of it before.)  I love you all.

   "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."~ Abraham Lincoln

GO ON…

BOWL ME OVER: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8417691

HILLARIOUS: http://www.michaelhodges.com/stuff/funny/2008cc1.swf

GO TO HELL: http://www.amightywind.com/hell/hellindex.htm

PLAYTIME: http://1url.org/go/1aol-beta

WAAAH:  http://ipodmybaby.com

BOOT BUSH: http://www.bushflash.com/blues.html

"The trick to getting what you want in life, my dear, is not wanting it until after you get it."  ~ Katherine Hepburn

PLANET PROCTOR
© 2005 by Phil Proctor
Published August 28, 2005