''How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All'' is the second
comedy album recorded by
the Firesign Theatre. It was originally released in July 1969 by
Columbia Records.
Track listing
Side one
This side of the vinyl
LP was not divided into separate tracks, but the
liner notes
Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes.
Origin
Liner notes are descen ...
list the following titles and tracks:
#"How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All" – 28:27:
##"Drink to Me Only with Thine Fox" (Mr. Catherwood and Ensemble)
D retitle: "The Ralph Spoilsport Mantrum"– 4:21
##"The Policemen's Brawl" (Officers Bradshaw and Henderson)
D retitle: "Zeno's Evil"– 4:34
##"Yankee Doodle Came to Terms" (All Fecal People's Chorus)
D retitle: "The Land of the Pharaohs"– 2:47
##"Über Dubbing Over Alice" ('Arry 'N' Friends)
D Track retitle: "VACANCY-NO VACANCY"– 1:34
##"You Ain't Got No Friends on the Left" (Babe and the Unknown Soldiers)
D retitle: "The Lonesome American Choo-Choo Don' Wan' Stop Here Any Mo– 7:34
##""We're Bringing the War Back Home!" From Babes in Khaki" (Lilly Lamont*) (*Miss Lamont Courtesy of Paranoid Pictures) – 7:31
plit into 2 tracks on the CD, track titles below
###"Babes in Khaki" – 3:53
###"TV or Not TV" – 3:38
Side two
#The Further Adventures of Nick Danger – 28:11
:"From the Archives of the Original Firesign Theatre Radio Hour. As First Broadcast December 6, 1941. Rebroadcast Courtesy of Loostners Bros. Soap Co."
Synopsis
The album consists of two 28-minute pieces, each taking up one side of the original vinyl release.
"How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All"
This opens with a late-night TV commercial by car salesman Ralph Spoilsport (
Philip Proctor), a spoof of
Southern California Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
dealer Ralph Williams. As he extols the virtues of a featured new car, the main character Babe (
Peter Bergman
Peter Michael Bergman (born June 11, 1953) is an American actor best known for his portrayals on soap operas, such as Cliff Warner on ''All My Children'' (1979–89) on ABC as well as Jack Abbott on ''The Young and the Restless'' (1989–pres ...
), runs across traffic onto the lot and interrupts Ralph's spiel with an immediate desire to buy the car in question. Ralph enthusiastically invites Babe to take a look inside his "beautiful new home". The impossibly luxurious car contains a "home entertainment system", with AM and FM radio and television. Spoilsport turns on each component in turn, creating a cacophonous din.
Babe buys the car and, as he drives it, the text of road signs and billboards along the road is spoken as he passes them. He decides to take the
Antelope Freeway, and the distance signs to it progress per
Zeno's paradox (one mile, 1/2 mile, 1/4 mile, etc.) The infinite series is broken only when he decides to try the "all-weather
climate control
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HV ...
", and selects "tropical paradise" from a list of options. At the push of a button, this transforms the interior of his car into a
tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equatori ...
, complete with sounds of exotic birds, thunder, and rainfall.
A troupe of wise-cracking explorers emerge from the trees, including someone who sounds like
W. C. Fields
William Claude Dukenfield (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler, and writer. Fields's comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathet ...
, on a half-hearted expedition. Babe tries to escape the interlopers by changing the climate control to "Land of the Pharaohs" and is transported to
ancient Egypt, but to no avail; the explorers have come with him. Increasingly annoyed, he complains that the sun is setting and it will be night soon. They reply he's confused, the horizon is moving up; so they stand him on his head to convince him that it is morning. Babe loses his balance and falls to the ground, causing one to remark, "He's no fun! He fell right over!". A loud rumbling is heard, and the group realizes that a
pyramid is opening.
The pyramid is actually a motel, with a vacancy. Babe enters the lobby and encounters a pair of partiers. They gradually morph into panoply of characters who launch a satirical celebration of America which parodies
Norman Corwin's 1941 patriotic radio pageant ''
We Hold These Truths''. This includes sardonic references to
slavery and the conquest of the
American Indians. At one point, each member of the group rhythmically repeats the names of the candidates in the
1968 presidential election mimicking a
steam locomotive: "
''Rock''efeller,
''Nix''on,
''Hum''phrey, and
''Ken''nedy."
Eventually, Babe is
drafted into the army, and the play morphs again into the closing scene of a
World War II musical film "Babes In Khaki", starring Lillie Lamont (Proctor). The movie is broadcast on
television, and after it ends,
channel surfing reveals snippets of random commercials and program segments. At one point we hear a crime drama, with tough guys saying they hate cops. One named Nick declares he's "gonna get even with every rotten cop in this city", by turning in his badge and burning his uniform.
Finally, Spoilsport returns as "Ralph Icebag", selling
marijuana instead of cars. His spiel morphs into a close paraphrase of
Molly Bloom's Soliloquy
Molly Bloom is a fictional character in the 1922 novel '' Ulysses'' by James Joyce. The wife of main character Leopold Bloom, she roughly corresponds to Penelope in the '' Odyssey''. The major difference between Molly and Penelope is that while ...
which closes
James Joyce's novel ''
Ulysses''.
"The Further Adventures of Nick Danger"
This is presented as an episode (titled "Cut 'Em Off at the Past") of a fictional 1940s
radio drama, ''Nick Danger, Third Eye'', broadcast on December 7, 1941. Nick Danger (
Phil Austin
Philip Baine Austin (April 6, 1941 – June 18, 2015) was an American comedian and writer, best known as a member of the Firesign Theatre.
Early life and education
Austin was born in Denver, Colorado and later grew up in Fresno, California, att ...
) is a '40s-style
hardboiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence ...
private investigator in the
Raymond Chandler mold. In live performances and photographs, he wears the stereotypical
fedora
A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...
and
trench coat. He has the obligatory nemesis on the police force, Lieutenant Bradshaw (Bergman), who questions Danger's every move. His "mark" is Rocky Rococo (Proctor), a
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre (; born László Löwenstein, ; June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964) was a Hungarian and American actor, first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before movi ...
parody. True to the
cliché
A cliché ( or ) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was consi ...
s of the genre, there is a suspicious butler, Catherwood (
David Ossman
David Ossman (born December 6, 1936 in Santa Monica) is an American writer and comedian, best known as a member of the Firesign Theatre and screenwriter of such films as '' Zachariah''.
Early life
Ossman attended Pomona College, where he starre ...
), and a ''
femme fatale'': Danger's old college flame Betty Jo Bialosky (Proctor, or Bergman in scenes with Rocky Rococo), with aliases Melanie Haber, Audrey Farber, and Susan Underhill, whom "everyone knew as Nancy" (parodying a line from
the Beatles' song "Rocky Raccoon").
This sketch is not as
surreal
Surreal may refer to:
*Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art
* "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki
* ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze
*Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor
* ...
or
Kafkaesque as most other Firesign Theatre material, though it is intermixed and loaded with references to the Beatles, the ''
I Ching'', and other
counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...
topics. The basic plot involves the attempt by Rococo to sell Danger a stolen ring, that belonged to Nancy; Danger is thus drawn into a trap and framed when Nancy and Catherwood kill Rococo because he found out about
time travel experiments by Catherwood, leading Danger to a violent confrontation with all of them and forcing a confession from Catherwood at gunpoint. It also parodies characteristics of old-time radio drama production, e.g. referring to a fireplace fire as "the
cellophane
Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose. Its low permeability to air, oils, greases, bacteria, and liquid water makes it useful for food packaging. Cellophane is highly permeable to water vapour, but may be coat ...
" and "coming in out of the cornstarch" (used to create the
sound effect
A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...
s); actors reading the wrong lines, or dropping their scripts; actors stepping out of character to read commercials; and referring to the use of voice
fade-outs and
organ cues to signal transitions between
flashbacks.
At one point, Nancy faints and falls over, causing Danger to say, "She's no fun, she fell right over." He remembers he (Austin) said this same line on side 1 of the record, and asks, "Where am I? I'd better check." The side 1 track is then heard playing backwards, and Danger says, "It's OK, they're speaking Chinese" and continues with the play.
The climax is reached as Catherwood's return from a flashback is bungled, resulting in the duplication of every character except Lieutenant Bradshaw. Just as Danger is about to try something daring to solve this problem and extricate himself from his trap, the action is abruptly interrupted by a special news bulletin, in which President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Bergman) wearily tells the American people of the
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, ju ...
. He declares our "rendezvous with destiny" demands the United States "unconditionally surrender" to the
Empire of Japan. The bulletin ends, but it is too late to find out what Danger did; Bradshaw is congratulating him for solving the case.
The closing organ theme chord segues into Austin laughing and singing "ta-da!", and the Firesign Theatre talk to the producer, announcing their intent to "go back to the other side of the record". The producer then announces, "Scene 3, take 600".
Issues and reissues
This album was originally released on both LP and
8-track tape
The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, wh ...
, and was later released on cassette.
*LP – Columbia CS-9884
*8 Track – Columbia 18C-09884
*Cassette – PCT-09884
It has been reissued on CD at least 5 times:
*In 1988 by
Mobile Fidelity
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL or MoFi) is a record label specializing in the production of audiophile issues. The company produces reissued vinyl LP records, compact discs, and Super Audio CDs and other formats.
History
Recording engineer Br ...
– MFCD-834
*In 1995 by
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
/Legacy – CK-9884
*In 2001 by
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
/Legacy – CK-85774, purchasable from Laugh.com – Order #LGH1070
Artwork
The front cover of the album features photographs of
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit an ...
and
John Lennon framed by
faux Cyrillic lettering, "ДLL НДІL МДЯЖ LЄИИФИ". Because of this, the album is sometimes erroneously referred to as ''All Hail Мarx and Lennon''.
The back cover is an overhead shot of the four members looking up at the camera, with Proctor standing on Austin's foot.
Inside the gatefold of the album there are eight posed photos representing various scenes from "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger."
In popular culture
There are several bars in the United States named "Nick Danger's". There is a clothing line called "Nick Danger", as well as a garage band, a
porn star
A pornographic film actor or actress, pornographic performer, adult entertainer, or porn star is a person who performs sex acts in video that is usually characterized as a pornographic movie. Such videos tend to be made in a number of di ...
, a site about board games (now defunct), and a radio
DJ all using the name. "Rocky Rococo" is the name of a pizza-and-pasta
restaurant chain
A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, Management, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, ...
based in Wisconsin, and there is a "Betty Jo Byoloski's" (sic) bar and grill in downtown
Winona, Minnesota.
The line "He's no fun, he fell right over" is used as a quip in the ''
Mystery Science Theater 3000'' episode "Hercules Unchained" for the film ''
Hercules Unchained''.
References
External links
Official Firesign Theatre web siteFirezine fan site, FAQ
{{DEFAULTSORT:How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All
1969 albums
The Firesign Theatre albums
Columbia Records albums
Sony Records albums
Legacy Recordings albums
1960s comedy albums