1 Craig Stroupe Writing in Layers Critical Memoir
How Can You Be in Two Places at Once 28 When You’re Not Any Where at All
FROM THE FIRESIGN THEATER ALBUM DON’T CRUSH THAT DRAWF, HAND ME THE PLIERS: (Opening 8 seconds of album to establish the unconventional nature and tone of the Firesign Theater experience)
Off-mic voice: “We’re rolling….” SFX: Coughing, chairs scraping, indistinct voices, then one complaining voice emerges among the hubbub, approaching: Janitor: “You people got troubles here? I don’t know why you people seem to think this is magic. It’s just this little chromium switch here. Ah, you people are so superstitious….” Churchy organ music begins, then under and out:
MUSIC: Fade up opening few instrumental bars of Steely Dan’s “FM” as the Firesign Theatre clip continues under. Music continues under narration, but too low to hear lyrics.
(After the cold open featuring the Firesign Theater clip, the clip of the song “FM” provides an aura bridge to the narrative layer. The song also suggests the 1970s historical context and also the fact that the Firesign Theater originated in early FM radio programming, which offered a more opened, long-form alternative to the highly commercialized AM radio format.)
NARRATOR In the late 1960s and early '70s, The Firesign Theatre recorded on CBS Records a string of experimental comedy albums¾long, strange, surreal sagas¾that became touchstones of the counterculture. The Library of Congress called them "the Beatles of Comedy."
In 1971, in the quiet suburban world of Titusville, Florida, I discovered The Firesign Theatre on a home-recorded cassette in the audio collection of the local public library. It was a mystery how such a cassette came to be there. But how the album itself was written and performed was even more mysterious—46 minutes of comedy that felt more like a coded message full of secrets that I had accidently intercepted.
Decades later, I wonder how that discovery affected me. Beyond the jokes and the stories of the albums, I am only now beginning to see how the techniques of The Firesign Theater—born of late-60s innovations like FM radio and multi-track recording studios—were a message from a future that none of us could have imagined.
MUSIC: fade up end of “FM.”
SILENCE: one beat
FROM DON’T CRUSH… (from 2:20 to 2:50 on the album to establish album’s satire of hammy broadcast preacher and religious service)
Voice of Reverend E.L. Mouse: “…icrophone working? Is it going to be all right?” Audience: “It gonna be aaaal right.” Reverend Mouse: “Ha, ha, ho! You bet, Dear Friends, it is going to be all right. It going to be all right tonight here at the Powerhouse Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of the Blinding Light.” Organ music swelling 2 Solo, amateur singer backed by organ: “Oh blinding light, Oh light that blinds, I cannot see, Look out for me” Sound: Singer falling over.
NARRATOR How can I describe the quiet, sun-bleached, middle-class enclave of Titusville, Florida, in the early ‘70s
MUSIC: Jethro Tull’s 1971 song “Locomotive Breath” (fade up under as narration continues then fades out toward end)
—a bedroom community populated by people who worked at the Kennedy Space Center across the Indian River, visited the Winn Dixie grocery store, and went to church?
During high school, Titusville represented for me everything that was small-minded, conventional, literal, and tediously commercial.
MUSIC: fade in under NARRATOR and continues, slowly up to make audible the line from the “FM” lyric: “…nothing but blues and Elvis, and somebody else’s favorite song…”.
That part of Florida seemed as unrelentingly uncreative in spirit as it was mercilessly hot.
I listened to WORJ in Orlando, about 40 miles away—a progressive rock station that might as well have been broadcasting from London.
I remember I would go to the low-slung, newly built public library to soak up the air conditioning and write short stories and song lyrics. One day I found in the library’s small collection of cassettes a mysterious home- recorded tape in a plastic case with a handwritten label, “The Firesign Theatre.” No track titles, no pictures, no explanation. It was the only unfamiliar or non-commercially recorded tape in the collection, and I checked it out and took it home to listen to on the single speaker of my little cassette tape recorder.
FROM DON’T CRUSH… (from 7:19 to 7:40 on the album, obliquely continuing Reverend Mouse’s service, which then fades under the sound of George Tirebiter talking to himself as he’s watching the service on television, and soon switches the channel to a commercial. This clip demonstrates the kind of audio editing and layering that the Firesign Theater pioneered for dramatic, comic purposes):
SXF on album: Airplane crash lands. Flash: “I’m down! Thank you, Dear Friends, I’m down, I’m grounded safe and sound, trailing clouds of glory, I’m down. And I’m marching! Yes, Dear Friends, I’m marching to dinner! ‘Cause Godamighty, I’m hungry! Yes! I’m hungry! Safe and sound and hungry!”
NARRATOR The dialogue on the album was almost poetic in its rhythm, in its intentionality. But who could imagine its intention? Like the weird shift of the church service which apparently made eating the sole focus of worship.
FROM DON’T CRUSH… Audience at Service (answering Flash’s last line above): “We’re hungry!” Flash: Of course you’re hungry! I’m hungry! We’re all hungry! So let’s eat! 3 Audience: “Let’s eat!” Flash: “And he said the word!” Voice: “What was it?” Flash: “And we ate it! Hot dog! And what was the word?” Audience: “Hot Dog!” Flash: “Hot Dog! Yes, Dear Friends, a mighty hot dog is our Lord. I’m not talking about hate. I’m talking about Ate! Dinner at Eight! Let’s eat!” Voice: “More sugar!” Flash: [continues on the TV in the background]: Ah, the glories of food, the communication of communion. Ethyl and Rosenburg are passing among you with the plates….” George [yawns and wakes from nap]: Must be four o’clock in the morning. I sure am hungry.” Flash [under]: I want you to pick of those plates and eat of the condiments, then I want you to fill your bodies and your mouths and your minds with the thoughts and realities of food…”.
NARRATOR I’m trying to recover who I was when first heard Don’t Crush That Drawf, Hand Me the Pliers and what I thought of it. The tape was, first, a mystery in a life that seemed short on mystery. Somebody in town had copied this from somewhere: I didn’t know who, or, where or when¾a message in a bottle. There was no internet to look it up. I just knew that what I was hearing was chaotic and strange but also somehow purposeful.
It took three listenings over a couple of evenings just to grasp the basic structure of the album¾a former child movie star, George Tirebiter, watching TV all night: a religious service, assorted fragments of commercials and shows, and pieces of several of his own old movies.
FROM DON’T CRUSH (7:19):
Flash: “Dear Friends, Jesus said, ‘Let us be as children.’ And what do children do? They stuff themselves from day to night. They eat. They fill themselves with the reality of existence, my friends…. (Sermon continues on television until George speaks again to himself): George [looking]: “No cookies left… glass of green maraschino cheeries…. Half a jar of mayonnaise….no, that’s my mescaline. Laughing Cow Cheese… Jeezus! Boy is my mouth dry! [Walking back and turning up TV] Flash [under]: We must eat of our friends the birds, of our friends the cows, of our friend the pig. Yes, it’s good to eat a friend, my friend. And when the duck comes down with the magic word, what is the word?” George [yawns]: “I’m so hungry…. There’s nothing to eat here!” Flash [under]: The word is ‘Food!” And we ate him. Eat! Eat! SFX on album: TV click Arnie Bohunk: [on TV] “…urrounded by a thin, thin 16-milimeter shell, and inside it’s delicious!” George [aside]: “I’ll bet.” Arnie: “That’s Arnie’s Whole Beef Halves—We Deliever. Thirsty? George: “That’s me!” Arnie: “Wouldn’t you like some of this Old Filipino Creemy, comin’ in shorts and quarts?” George: “Yeah!” Arnie: “And tubs of slaw.” George: “Gimme two.” 4 Arnie: “Sorry, only one Tub per family. That’s Whole Beef Halves—We Deliver. Everywhere.” Local Announcer: “Offer not good after curfew in Sectors R or N.” George: “They never come up into the hills, those guys.” SFX on album: News teletype on TV. News Announcer: “This is the Hour of the Wolf News. Big Light in Skies to Appear in East. Sonic Booms Scare Minority Groups in Sector B. And there’s Hamburger all over the Highway in Mystic, Connecticut.”
FROM “Q AND A” (42:56, Phil Austin): “The secret messages were being passed by people as commercial as the Beatles and Rolling Stones…
NARRATOR: Phil Austin of the Firesign Theater, speaking in 2010
FROM “Q AND A” (42:63, Phil Austin): …and all these people—all, like you, were playing, in our minds at least, trying to look for connections. We were all desperately trying to look for connections. As I mentioned before, we were scared shitless.” NARRATOR: The Vietnam war, the draft: these terrors belonged to those a few years older than me. But even in Titusville, Florida, in 1971, we knew that the ‘60s weren’t over, and that the vision of whatever would come next lay in all the loose ends of things, the unmade connections. ———————————————————————————————— Sources
Firesign Theatre. Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLZOXm3zY1w
Firesign Theatre. “Q&A” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y7FjypYcnI
Jethro Tull. “Locomotive Breath.” Aqualung.
Steely Dan. “FM.” Greatest Hits.
Addendum: Highlights of the Script Format for New Media Writing Students
5 1. Naming Your Purpose (Genre) This is a very brief but crucial element of the script.
By choosing to name the genre you’re working in, you’re letting the readers of your script know up front just what your purpose is—what tone and shape you’re looking for. In fact, you’re letting yourself know! Are you writing horror fiction? a persuasive argument? a movie review? a personal essay? In the example above, you see the mingling of two genres: criticism and memoir. Whatever your genre, you should have examples in mind (or find them to look at).
If you put the name of a genre at random here, or use a genre without really knowing what it is, your readers will be expecting something different from what you’re offering them.
2. Direction or Comments Notice that you can (and should) include commentary or direction to give the script readers¾including actors, directors, and technical people—an idea of what effects and meanings you’re intending.
3. Words from Clips If the words in a clip (a song lyric or a dramatic scene) add or suggest meaning to your script, be sure to transcribe those words into your script. This is an important aspect of Writing in Layers: words happening in this layer speak to words happening in that layer—all because you’ve edited them together in this script.
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4. Clips vs. Original Dialogue/Monologue Notice that some passages in the script are justified left and some are indented an inch.
Words from “clips” (already recorded by someone else or by you at an earlier time) are justified all the way to the left.
Words that you write and need to record are indented 1 inch.
What if you write and record fictional clips, like the dramatizations of actors performing the words spoken by someone who wasn’t or can never be recorded? If your script requires that the words be recorded by you, those passages should be indented. You can include an italicized direction or comment in parenthesis to make clear that this passage should sound like a clip and why that suits your purposes.