tagged w/ Counter Culture
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The New York Times...
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March 9, 2012 - Friday
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Peter Bergman, Satirist With Firesign, Dies at 72
By PAUL VITELLO
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Peter Bergman, a founding member of the surrealist comedy troupe Firesign Theater, whose albums became cult favorites among college students in the late 1960s and ’70s for a brand of sly, multilayered satire so dense it seemed riddled with non sequiturs until the second, third or 30th listening, died on Friday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 72.
The cause was complications of leukemia, said Jeff Abraham, a spokesman for the group.
Mr. Bergman hosted an all-night radio call-in show on KPFK in Los Angeles beginning in 1966, “Radio Free Oz,” which served as the testing ground for the high-spirited Firesign sensibility. Phil Austin and David Ossman, two other founders of the four-man group, were the producer and director of the show; the fourth founder, Phil Proctor, was a frequent guest.
“We started out as four friends, up all night, taking calls from people on bad acid trips and having the time of our lives,” Mr. Austin said in a phone interview Friday. “And that’s what we always were: four friends talking.”
Mr. Bergman and his friends recorded their first album, “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” in 1968, followed the next year by “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?”
By 1970, their mordant humor and their mastery of stereophonic recording techniques had made them to their generation of 20-somethings what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are to today’s (if Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart had a weakness for literary wordplay, psychedelic references and jokes about the Counter-Reformation).
Their records employed sound effects in ways considered pioneering in audio comedy at the time. More generally, they were considered important forerunners of comedy shows like “Saturday Night Live.”
Ed Ward, writing in The New York Times in 1972, described the third Firesign album, “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers,” as “a mind-boggling sound drama” and a “work of almost Joycean complexity.”
“It’s almost impossible to summarize any Firesign album,” Mr. Ward wrote, because most of their albums were so filled with “intricate wordplay, stunning engineering and use of sound effects, breakneck pacing and, of course, a terribly complex story line.”
When the Library of Congress placed “Don’t Crush That Dwarf” in its National Recording Registry in 2005, The Los Angeles Times described Firesign Theater as “the Beatles of comedy.”
Mr. Bergman told people the ensemble’s albums, unlike most comedy records, were never made to be listened to just once or twice. “He said our records were made to be heard about 80 times,” Mr. Austin said.
While the ensemble continued making albums for three decades, Mr. Bergman also wrote and produced several one-man shows, including “Help Me Out of This Head,” a 1986 monologue-memoir that drew on his childhood in Cleveland. He also wrote interactive games, including a CD-ROM parody of the popular adventure video game MIST.
Mr. Bergman was born on Nov. 29, 1939, in Cleveland, one of two children of Oscar and Rita Bergman. His parents hosted a radio show in Cleveland when he was growing up, “Breakfast With the Bergmans.” His father also worked as a reporter for The Plain Dealer.
Mr. Bergman graduated from Yale and taught economics there as a Carnegie Fellow. He later attended the Yale School of Drama as a Eugene O’Neill playwriting fellow. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to pursue a writing career.
He is survived by a daughter, Lily Oscar Bergman, and his sister, Wendy Kleckner.
Mr. Bergman got a taste of radio work when he was in high school, according to a biography on Firesign Theater’s official Web site. But he lost his job as an announcer on the school radio system, it said, “after his unauthorized announcement that the Chinese Communists had taken over the school and that a ‘mandatory voluntary assembly was to take place immediately.’ Russell Rupp, the school principal, promptly relieved Peter of his announcing gig. Rupp was the inspiration for the Principal Poop character on ‘Don’t Crush That Dwarf.’ ”
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PHOTO:
Firesign Theatre/Columbia Records
Clockwise from far right, Peter Bergman, Phil Austin, Phil Proctor and Dave Ossman of the Firesign Theater in 1970.
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.The New York Times...
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March 9, 2012 - Friday
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Peter Bergman, Satirist... more
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Comix Collection Preview Page
......................browse at will. Try not to get live ashes on the pages,......these things are valuable now.
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http://lib.calpoly.edu/spec_coll/comix/searchform.htmlComix Collection Preview Page
......................browse at will. Try not to get... more
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Photo Series of a Wild 1960's Party
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neham
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added this
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1 year ago
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Concurrent with the book release of Dark House Publishing THE ART OF EMILY THE STRANGE, Gallery Extraña hosts a 'greatest hits' show of the graphic design and fine art of the world of this icon of Strange.
http://www.galleryextrana.blogspot.com/Concurrent with the book release of Dark House Publishing THE ART OF EMILY THE... more
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Margaret Flowers singing a song by David Swanson based on Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue." Protest John Yoo on March 19, 2010, in Charlottesville, VA
See http://hoosagainstyoo.orgMargaret Flowers singing a song by David Swanson based on Bob Dylan's... more
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Robert Dennis Crumb, better known as R. Crumb led a group of illustrators and cartoonists that began the Underground Comix movement of the late 60's and early 70s. During a time of 'protest' of the Viet Nam War along with the Hippy Movenment and the Drug Culture, R.Crumb became famous with characters like Mr. Natural, The Big Baby, and Shuman the Human.
Were these comics a lead into the drug culture of the time? What happened capsulated in iconoclastic cartoon heroes that gave us a snapshot into what Free Love, and Anti-War were all about in the 60's and into the 70's as well?
Or was it all just a drug induced haze that guided these illustrators into a 'trip' of their own choosing? These comics came at a time of The Beatles, LSD, Hippy Counter Culture, and led down a road to Charles Manson flowered along the way by Timothy Leary!
Like Mini-skirts, motor cycles, surf-boards, and flower children... the art of R. Crumb and his follwers were a sign of the times.Robert Dennis Crumb, better known as R. Crumb led a group of illustrators and... more
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104.1 WBCN was Boston. It was the edgy lifestyle that many Bostonians adhered to. At 12:05AM on August 12th, the station signed off. In the morning it became a top 40 station, with another CBS station, Mix, taking its place. WBCN began in 1968. My mother started listening then as a child so she, as well as many other baby boomers, can remember how the station used to be, with major personalities like Charles Laquidara and J.J. Jackson as well as acid rock songs. Many times the hosts would go on completely stoned. Later it became New Wave and punk, advertising Boston clubs like The Rat (The Rathskeller). I was born in 1993 so I grew up to alternative and grunge songs and can remember the days when Oedipus and Howard Stern were on. After Stern and a short stint by David Lee Roth, Opie and Anthony had a talk show in the morning. They were replaced in 2008 by Toucher and Rich.The last song played before the station signed off was Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" which was followed by various sound bytes from the station's past. The Station was moved to 98.5, Mix's old station, but now it will be primarily sports, only taking a few WBCN personalities, including Toucher and Rich. Also, WBCN is streaming online but for anybody who has grown up listening to the rock songs of this station, nothing will be quite the same. Without it, a new generation will have to learn how to be "really rockin' in Boston" on their own. So come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
For the record, the video is not mine. I just found it and knew I had to use it.104.1 WBCN was Boston. It was the edgy lifestyle that many Bostonians adhered to. At... more
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Reporting from secret farms and not-so-secret grow houses of marijuana cultivators, Lisa Ling goes into their world -- where marijuana is not just a drug but a way of life.
"If a stranger walked up to you and poured pebble like seeds into your hand and then said, 'plant them and your harvest can be made into rope, cloth or paper. It could help the sick or intoxicate.' What would you say? Would you keep the seeds or chuck them away?"
I highly recommend this Explorer. Although it isn't perfect, it has its insightful moments and Lisa Ling shines, as always! :)Reporting from secret farms and not-so-secret grow houses of marijuana cultivators,... more
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Protests will be taking place this weekend in the quirky seaside town of Brighton to protest against the opening of yet another Starbucks, despite the company being refused planning permission to trade. Starbucks just moved in and started trading anyway!
Anti-homogenisation campaigners say, "When you think of Brighton, what springs to mind: the Pavilion, the Palace Pier, the Lanes? Visitors to our lovely city seek out our famous independent businesses; the locally owned restaurants, cafes and unique boutiques, which make our city such a great place to live and desirable destination to visit.
St James Street in Kemp Town plays an important role in our city with a collection of popular and renowned coffee bars, restaurants, shops and pubs as well as an annual carnival and a genuine ‘village’ feeling with a strong sense of community.
While the area isn’t perfect and has its problems (drug use, homelessness and occasional alcohol-fuelled violence) the solution to those issues lies in the Council and the community working together to resolve them, not in bland gentrification. If you look at the areas of Brighton where we have most alcohol-related issues, you’ll find most of them are close to large supermarkets (London Road) or big chain pubs (West Street).
Some claim that because St James Street already has some chain stores that one more won’t make a difference. Well, Western Road, at one point, was full of locally owned businesses all putting money back into the local community. Slowly, the chain supermarkets, cafes and stores took over, raising rents and making it virtually impossible for anyone other than more chains to open. We mustn’t let that happen on St James Street.
Starbucks have been refused planning permission by the Council. However, they have decided to open and start trading anyway, exploiting the lax enforcement policy of the Council when it comes to large companies with big pockets. Although according to some of the local independent businesses, it does seem to be one rule for Starbucks and another for the rest of us.
The principal legal issue is that yet another coffee shop on St James Street would be against the Local Plan, which explicitly says that the area needs to have a predominance of A1 stores ie retail rather than A3 which are cafes and restaurants.
Nearly five hundred letters of objection to their application were sent to the Planning Department, and a Facebook group called ‘Stop Starbucks Opening on St James Street’ now has over 1,700 members including local residents and business owners, all joined in the effort to prevent Starbucks’ invasion of our neighbourhood.
For those that just have to have a ‘Frappucino’ we already have six branches of the chain in Brighton & Hove. This is not about denying consumers’ choice, but about protecting our high streets and not losing that which makes our lovely city unique. The council have spoken and so have the local community. Starbucks should listen."
Join the Facebook group, tell all your friends or, even better, turn up for the protest on St James' Street, Brighton, BN2 on Saturday at 11am.
Will the protestors' campaign have any effect, if Starbucks have just been able to sweep in unhindered up to now? Will Brighton be a lesser city if chain businesses take over from local companies? Are we all sick of the anti-Starbucks brigade, or are we sick of Starbucks itself?
Protests will be taking place this weekend in the quirky seaside town of Brighton to... more
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POP LEVI's following of avant garde and eccentric counter culture hipsters, hooligans and rock idols will be well pleased with this latest offering. It shows how much Pop Levi has evolved from his earlier stuff.
Released in UK Today 3/21 and not available in the US until May 5.
You can watch it online.
If you find out where to buy it early post a comment here please.
Thanks!!!
POP LEVI's following of avant garde and eccentric counter culture hipsters,... more
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