How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All?

Amazon.com
This CD contains some of the addled Los Angeles-based troupe's finest work. The Firesign Theatre's layered, group approach to comedy resembles improvisation but on further examination proves itself to be carefully crafted and speckled with more high-low cultural allusions than you could ever count. The whole is delivered in a totally bonkers style that one might refer to as noir psychedelia--at least during the scenes that involve the beloved Nick Dangers character. How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All? is far funnier than any comedy record that quotes James Joyce's Ulysses has a right to be. --Mike McGonigal

How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All?,Firesign Theatre,Sony,Comedy,Pop,Spoken / Comedy / Radio Shows,Spoken Word

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Average customer rating: The commercial went on and on and on! another classic firesign theatre Masters of Their Universal Whatchamacallit ! I like this record as much as my dad did. Clever and intellegent.

How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All? Firesign Theatre Manufacturer: Sony ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music General | Comedy | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music Similar Items: Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers! Waiting for the Electrician Or Someone Like Him I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death The Bride of Firesign ASIN: B00005T7K4 Release Date: 2001-12-04

Tracks:

1. The Ralph Spoilsport Mantrum
2. Zeno's Evil
3. The Land Of The Pharoahs
4. Vacancy - No Vacancy
5. The Lonesome American Choo-Choo Don' Wan' Stop Here Any Mo'
6. Babes In Khaki
7. TV Or Not TV
8. The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger

Customer Reviews:

The commercial went on and on and on!.......2007-07-25

I first encountered the Firesign Theatre by accident late, very, very late, one winter's evening on the the legendary but sadly lamented KPPC-FM. Recently returned from an all-expenses-paid tour of South VietNam, courtesy of my favorite Uncle, I was well-acquainted with absurdity-in-reality, but I wasn't yet accustomed to the then-burgeoning FMradio scene. I had found KPPC quite by accident, spinning the dial to get away from the stations that were trying to treat FM as an adjunct to their powerful AM broadcast base. I loved the unprofessional approach by the DJ's and the programming fit my all-encompassing tastes, and the ads were definitely off the wall, at times bordering on not really achieving the goal of convincing the listener to actually purchase the products of the advertiser. It was all very loopy and spacey, with an appropriate sense of the absurd and irreverence, particularly since the station was broadcasting from the basement of a church! Just the antidote to a season in the insane asylum that was VIetNam in 1968, if not for the country itself, after a year in which Bobby and Martin Luther were murdered and a sinister character nicknamed Tricky had just been elevated from dog-to-be-kicked-around to president of the good old US of A!
One of the loonier ads on KPPC was for a local car dealer, well known in the LA area for his hard-sell approach (he was succeeded by an equally TV-zany type, still selling cars today). The commercials bordered on turning off buyers, with a nasally monotone voice delivering the "facts'" about various cars, along with glib references to financing and silly puns that made the whole presentation just wacky enough to keep the listener's attention. At times they ran on and on, and I was used to hearing them, then tuning them out. One night the commercial just ran on and on and on.....and on! I realized, finally, (I HAD been in VietNam for a year, after all!) that it wasn't a commercial. but was a recording by the very group of zanies who had done the commercials, now "recording artists" for Columbia Records. I was howling as the jokes, puns and pratfalls fell about my ears! I finally found out who was responsible for this madness, and ran out to buy their SECOND album (the one I was listening to, as it turned out), and the 1st a few days later. From that time on I followed their recording careers faithfully, devouring whole Don't Crush That Dwarf, the 3rd LP, and Dear Friends, a compilation of their early stuff, including the afore-described commercial and other zaniness. When they released Everything You Know Is Wrong, I terrorized my friends with lengthy recitations of parts of what I felt was their masterpiece (and still do!). If you haven't treated yourself to the wide dimensions the English language can be stretched to, you have done yourself an immense disservice! The Firesign Theatre's works require multiple listenings, and are not for the mentally challenged, nor for those whose vocabulary can be measured in 3-letter words or word-counts less than 4 digits! This is rich stuff, as fully challenging as Shakespeare, or Dylan, for that matter, and as rewarding, on repeated listenings. Run, do NOT walk, to your keyboard to order these CD's and dive in head-first. The word soup is invigorating!

another classic firesign theatre.......2007-07-09

If you are not familiar with these guys, they are a irrational comedy group that played on the radio in the late sixties(?) Therefore they lend themselves well to audio cd. You got to imagine these guys were smoking the good stuff when they wrote these albums. It takes a little concentration to catch all that is going on, but it absolutley hilarious and well written and performed. If you like this one,order the others...have an adult beverage or two or whatever and temporarily enter the world of firesign theatre. You'll want to share with your friends.

Masters of Their Universal Whatchamacallit !.......2007-04-25

Dear Friends, in the long time ago a quad of superior beings from the Dogstar left their humor, in the form of
insight, funny names, scatological jokes and drug references on vinyl in an abandoned auto in East LA. This is
not that collection.

This is a magical journey through American history, F Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Poetland and Raymond Chandler-
on acid. It is addictive, it is tobacco, it is powerful comedy that will infest your dreams, your speech patterns
and make your common-law family members consider you "weird!".

Beware but taste the rapture. This is Book 2, Sides 3 & 4 of the Book of Firesign-CONSUME !

I like this record as much as my dad did........2007-02-03

When I was a child, my father and his brother used to listen to this record all the time. I thought it was sort of amusing then, but he insisted that it would be much funnier when I got older, and that it got funnier to him every time he heard it.

I didn't understand that logic then. I get it now.

On the surface, "How Can You Be Two Places At Once" is genuinely funny comedy, but with every additional listen, it actually gets funnier. Their are subtle jokes laced within jokes throughout the record, my favorite of which is a pizza order attempt in one skit that is tied into the Nick Danger piece later on.

Also, "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger," the longest installment of this character on record, is over 12 minutes of absolute rediculousness, in the best possible way.

Although some bits are less funny for those such as myself, who weren't alive when it was recorded, it is an excellent buy. I recommend it.

Clever and intellegent........2006-07-17

This is one of the group's best efforts. The Nick Danger Skit IMHO is a classic. Also is Ralph's Spoiled Sport Motors.

Average customer rating: It's the album everybody quotes from! Video revival The right place at the right time! The right place at the right time! The President of the United States IS named Schickelgruber.

How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All? Firesign Theatre Manufacturer: Sony ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music General | Comedy | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music Spoken Word | Poetry, Spoken Word & Interviews | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music Similar Items: I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus Waiting for the Electrician Or Someone Like Him Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers! ASIN: B0000024UU Release Date: 1995-07-18

Tracks:

1. How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All
2. The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger

Amazon.com

This CD contains some of the addled Los Angeles-based troupe's finest work. The Firesign Theatre's layered, group approach to comedy resembles improvisation but on further examination proves itself to be carefully crafted and speckled with more high-low cultural allusions than you could ever count. The whole is delivered in a totally bonkers style that one might refer to as noir psychedelia--at least during the scenes that involve the beloved Nick Dangers character. How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All? is far funnier than any comedy record that quotes James Joyce's Ulysses has a right to be. --Mike McGonigal

Customer Reviews:

It's the album everybody quotes from!.......2001-12-12

You can always spot a fellow Firesign Theatre fan in a crowd--they'll react to some sudden happening with quotes like: "Oh, he's no fun, he fell right over!" Or "What's the bird's eye lowdown on this caper--whatever that means?"

Both of the above come from this bizarre but always entertaining album.

Side 1: A poke at early '70s Television and a poor guy who gets a little TOO excited with a car ad, and ends up buying more than he's bargained for (his new car has a switch for "Climate Control," with options like "Tropical Paradise" and "Land of the Pharaohs"). By the end of the side, we're channel surfing past all the garbage that is usually on at 3 in the morning. Hilarious.

Side 2: A parody of 1940s radio shows; play this sometime for people who remember listening to the real thing and watch them fall off their chair. Lots of "inside" jokes here, too--Dylan and Beatles references abound.

You'll never get tired of this album; I've owned it for 26 years and I still play it often.

Video revival.......2001-12-05

After seeing the PBS special the other day, I had to run out and buy both this CD and "Don't Crush That Dwarf.........". It was great to sit in the easy chair and watch FT performing their work live - even if they did leave out the old same place joke (here's the key - it's in the back) and shorten Nick Danger so that it really ended nowhere (hopefully this was an edit, and the performance did continue until the end).

BTW, an earlier review I read spoke of the "inappropriateness" of the newsflash that is inserted during the end of Nick Danger. The reviewer thought that it was put there to show that it was a 1940's show - but if you listen closely, you will understand the reasoning. Right before the interruption, Nick and Nancy were caught in a predicament with no escape. Right after the interruption, Bradshaw says that he doesn't know how Nick got out of it. Remember, the FDR character says that after we surrendered to the Japanese, he and his family were going to sit back and relax and enjoy the end of Nick Danger, 3rd eye.

As always, shoes for industry, compadre.

The right place at the right time!.......2001-04-11

This insane drama serves as an apt soundtrack to the manystupid, silly and sublime events one might experience any day. The Firesign Theatre's robust mannerisms and corny elan root them firmly in the trenchant polylalia of improbable Americans like a disembodied Ziegfield's follies of the coney island of the mind of the radio the dog is listening to.

The right place at the right time!.......2001-04-11

This insane drama serves as an apt soundtrack to the many stupid, silly and sublime events one might experience any day. I have noticed that their back catalog (or perhaps I should say forward catalog) is available: http://home.bluemarble.net/~lodeston/firesign.html is a page about firesign that has info. The Firesign Theatre's robust mannerisms and corny elan root them firmly in the trenchant polylalia of improbable Americans like a disembodied Ziegfield's follies of the coney island of the mind of the radio the dog is listening to.

The President of the United States IS named Schickelgruber........2001-03-11

Comedy on record presents a problem. You hear the jokes through once, and you know them, and they aren't funny anymore.

The Firesign Theatre solves this problem by putting so much material into the background, that every time you listen to any of their extraordinary recordings you pick up on something you didn't know was there before.

This record is probably the friendliest of their classic recordings from the early seventies for the Firesign neophyte. The beginning is classic Firesign: a bizarre skit about a used-car lot, that moves to ancient Egypt, into a hilarious patriotic musical pageant, and from there to James Joyce. The second part is rather unusual for the Firesigns: an extended parody of a 1940's detective radio show, complete with organ music and reverb effects, the famous "Nick Danger" sketch.

I consider -I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus- to be the -best- record they made, but this one is perhaps the best introduction. I'd like to see all of their classics reissued as well.

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