Obit: Peter Bergman (Firesign Theater) 1939-2012

Subject: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: GUEST,Mary Katherine, sans cookie
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 02:40 PM

Sorry to learn of the passing of the uproariously talented Peter Bergman, founding member of the Firesign Theater troupe, from complications of leukemia on March 8th, 2012.

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 03:09 PM

Here's his bio from the Firesign Media Page:


Peter Bergman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the day after Russia invaded Finland and the day before Winston Churchill (Peter's hero) turned 65. Peter's comic career began in the sixth grade, writing comic poems with his mother for library class - a penchant that developed into co-authoring the ninth grade humor column "The High Hatters," and his own creation "Look and See With Peter B." for his high school newspaper.
Peter's audio career was launched in high school as an announcer oh the school radio system, from which he was banished 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 primciple, promptly relieved Peter of his announcing gig. Rupp was the inspiration for the Principle Poop character on "Don't Crush That Dwarf".
While attending high school, Peter formed his first recording group called "The Four Candidates," turning out a comedy cut-up single titled "Attention Convention," parodying the 1956 democratic convention. Released on Buddy records, it received air play in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
At college, Peter was managing editor of the Yale comedy magazine. He wrote the lyrics for two musical collaborations with Austin Pendleton, both of which starred Phil Proctor. He graduated as a scholar of the house in economics, and played point guard for the liberal basketball league whose members have since lost their dribble but not their politics.
Peter spent two graduate years at Yale as a Carnegie teaching fellow in economics, and as the Eugene O'Neill playwriting fellow at the drama school. After a six-month stint as a grunt in the U.S. Army's 349th general hospital unit, he went to Berlin on a Ford foundation fellowship where he joined Tom Stoppard, Derek Marlow and Piers Paul Read at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin. There he wrote and directed his first film, "Flowers," and connected with the Living Theatre - a major influence on his art.
Peter worked briefly in London with Spike Milligan and the BBC before returning to America in 1966. Back in the U.S., he secured a nightly radio show on Pacifica's KPFK in Los Angeles: "Radio Free Oz," around which the Firesign Theatre coalesced and gestated.
Peter coined the term "Love-In" in 1967, and threw the first such event in April of that same year in Los Angeles. That event ultimately drew a crowd of some 65,000 people, blocking freeways for miles. This so impressed Gary Usher, a Columbia Records staff producer, that he offered the Firesign Theatre their first record contract.
In the 1970's, Peter diversified his comic career as the president of a film equipment company. He also helped produce a machine for viewing angio cardiograms and measuring the blockage of the arteries of the heart.
In the 80's Peter turned to film and tape, producing the comic feature "J-Men Forever" with Phil Proctor, as well as producing television shows that featured various members of Firesign.
Starting in 1995, Peter began touring the country as a "high tech comedian", delivering lectures and keynote speeches to computer oriented companies and conventions. He worked on publishing the web site for one of the candidates for Mayor of Los Angeles.
His latest venture, in association with David Ossman, started in the summer of 2010: the podcast revival of Radio Free OZ.

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: sciencegeek
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 03:53 PM

so sad.... but running through my warped little mind is, "What's all this bruhaha.... bruhahahaha"

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: saulgoldie
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 05:11 PM

Antelope Freeway, one mile...More Science High, regnaD kciN, etc...Now, where did I put that record?

Saul

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: open mike
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 08:37 PM

(David Ossman, Peter Bergman, Phil Proctor, Phil Austin) made 22 albums
http://firesigntheatre.com/index.php
http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/aug/firesign/
I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus, How Can You Be Two Places at Once If You're Not Anywhere At All?
Here is "Don't crush that dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers" these guys were comic geniuses!

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 08:44 PM

Don't eat with your hands; use your entrenching tool.

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: EBarnacle
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 11:59 PM

Don't go into that ever widening hole in the pyramid, son, it's dark in there!

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: mrdux
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 01:20 AM

david ossman posted the following:

Dear Friends - Your thoughts and blessings will help us and Peter get through this passing. This was completely unexpected. I spoke to Peter on Tuesday morning when he told me he had leukemia - others knew before us, but he'd kept it quiet for 6 months. When I spoke with him he said he was tired and very low. He went into the hospital Tuesday night and died at 7am this morning. I just got off the phone with the LATimes obit writer. I told her that Peter changed the world - at least for all of us. Fortunately Judith and I are in LA and will see the family this evening. We love you all and promise to keep you laughing as long as we can, after the tears. David

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 02:47 AM

I think I must have cassette recordings of an album or two around here. They were big when I was in college. Before Monty Python. . .

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 05:52 AM

No longer waiting for the electrician, nor someone like him.

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 07:12 AM

RIP? (Surely he is being better entertained than that!)

~S~

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 09:30 AM

It has been so long since I last listened I'd forgotten where I got the line "We're all Bozos on this bus." Not that is depressing. I'll definitely dig out those albums or tapes.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 12:50 PM

Radio Free Oz revived in 2010 as podcasts.

They were a bit before my time, but I was introduced to them by my brother-in-law, whose speech is about 30% Firesign, it seems sometimes. And now my husband, too.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: pdq
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 01:28 PM

...for those who remember the Golden Dragon Massacre:

"...Proctor and I were at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. We'd performed our show and we were doing quite well. They loved us. We weren't sure who we were or where we were going but we were moving. There was momentum. We worked hard and nobody came away ever feeling like we'd given them any less but 100%.
   
We went to the Golden Dragon restaurant late that night for a snack with a friend of ours and became victims of the greatest massacre in the history of San Francisco, the Golden Dragon Massacre. A Chinese gang came in with sub-machine guns, shotguns and pistols, killed 5, wounded 12. We were in the midst of it. Someone at our table, our friend got a slug in the leg. I jumped up because I'd been in the Army, I knew the ordinance was empty. I could tell from being on a lot of Army rifle ranges, I jumped and caught a good solid 45 degree angle of the guy going out, and testified and sent him away for life. There were pools of blood, bodies. I ordered the fried prawns and we became scared prones.

What it basically did, was it stopped us dead on the road. Even though we did perform the next day in Boulder. And no one would believe when we told them what had happened the night before."

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 01:54 PM

"You'll be flying high up in the sky where no one can find you, with the Free Mexican Airforce!"
Peter Rowan even got a song out of that one. RIP, Mr Bergman. Thanks for the belly laughs.

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater RIP
From: GUEST,folkstory
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 10:10 PM

Will somebody think of the children?

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman (Firesign Theater) 1939-2012
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 11 Mar 12 - 03:23 PM

Peter Bergman, Satirist With Firesign, Dies at 72, NY Times obituary

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman (Firesign Theater) 1939-2012
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 12 Mar 12 - 09:21 PM

I still remember the intro to Nick Danger, Third Eye (clearly a take-off on the Maltese Falcon) even after mumblety years
(after being introduced to FT by friends in my suburban, Detroit-area high school):

He walks again by night --
Out of the fog and into the smog [sound of coughing]
Ruthlessly, [sound of man muttering: "I wonder where Ruth is..."]
Doggedly, [sound of dog(s) barking]
At the corner of Drucker and Fourth, he turns right.
At the corner of Fourth and Drucker, he turns left.
Then, he walks into a brown sandstone building. [smacking sound, then man muttering, "Ouch, (m)by (n)dose!]"

It was great fun to recite this, trying to sound as much like the recording as possible -- including a clap of the hands representing the collision with the aforementioned "sandstone building", followed immediately by the exclamation...

The other line I remember really enjoying was from later in the same programme, where a car
"...stopped on a dime. Unfortunately, the dime was in someone's pocket."

Thanks for the links, folks -- I had no idea what a brilliant polymath Mr Bergman was!

Upon listening to this link*, I find I misremembered a few bits, but wasn't too far off...

*~9 minutes, but well worth a listen (if you don't have ~9 min to spare, listen to at least the first minute or two) -- enjoy!

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman (Firesign Theater) 1939-2012
From: clueless don
Date: 13 Mar 12 - 08:58 AM

The dime was in Mr. Rococo's pocket.

Can it, Danger!

RIP, Mr. Bergman

Subject: RE: Obit: Peter Bergman (Firesign Theater) 1939-2012
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 13 Mar 12 - 02:16 PM

Right you are Don! I shoulda remembered that...