It was a rainy Friday afternoon during my first week at MIT. Unbeknownst to me, that was the dullest time of the week in the office of The Tech. Normally, it would have been locked and empty. By coincidence, there was a single editor there, Michael Feirtag, the editor of the Arts Section. In my hand, I had my typed review of the brand-new Firesign Theater album Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers. I was a huge Firehead (devoted follower of the group).

“I’d like to write for The Tech,” I said.

Feirtag accepted my one-page review. He gave it a cursory glance. “This stuff is shit Schindler. Why don’t you write for some other paper?”

I ran the review in a different MIT newspaper on September 23, 1970

Don’t Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers
The Firesign Theater
 Columbia Records.

 This album is definitely not one for a newcomer to the Firesign Theater. The spoken word comedy group has two other albums out, Waiting for the Electrician or Someone like him and How can you be in Two Places at Once When You’re not Anywhere at All, both of which are tightly organized, hysterically funny adventures in the realm of the spoken word which has been unexplored since the Marx Brothers.

But as they put out each album, they seem to be less concerned with tight technical work and precise style editing. This third adventure is their loosest yet, with almost no pretense of comprehensive plot, and long stretches of rather dull technical effects, with minimal humor value.

It deals with the future world of “sectors”, and spoofs TV, as well as old movies of several tvpes, including Andy Hardy and War Epics. Everyone is named Tirebiter, and it tends to confuse the issue.

In spite of its weakness, it is still good Firesign, with a gold mine of material spoken in the background, and fancy footwork with the stereo speaker system. Definitely not an album to be listened to in Mono.

18 Months Later, Just Down The Hall
I wrote, produced and performed in a radio skit show that was utterly derivative. I estimate it was 30% recycled Firesign, you miserable toad. I recently tried to apologize to Phil Proctor, who told me, “We don’t use the “P” word. We call it an homage.” The New Eugene Oregon Show

Decades Later In Another Part Of Town
A review of the 50th anniversary concert from my teenage daughter: “If all of you already know the words, why come to the concert? I’ve never seen so much tie-dye and gray hair in a room filled with dope smoke.”