Where's My Fortune Cookie? by Phil ProctorMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
About 30 years ago, I loaned my small collection of Firesign Theater cassettes to a co-worker who was laid up after a surgery. I never got them back. I am still angry. I can still recall the voices though, announcing “High School Madness with Peorgie Tirebiter” and complaining “Hey man, you broke the president!”. Those were memorable bits from an outstandingly odd set of albums. Here, now is the autobiography of one of the leaders of the troupe. As he talks about his early schooling, he mentions that he began audio editing. On the audiobook version, which I listened to, from that point on, Proctor adds in sound effects and snippets of Firesign bits, some I was familiar with and some I wasn’t. I found the mix of audio made this a very good listen. Proctor comes across as, well, a professional, though not totally successful or popular actor. He told quite a few enjoyable stories, dropping names of people he worked with and knew, some popular but others not so much. (Proctor reminded me of the stories of actor Larry Block on many of Joe Frank's radio shows.) Along the way, he talks about the Firesign Theater and their various productions, as well as his work outside of the group. I found his stories entertaining, mostly. I found his personality a bit overbearing, but very much like I’d imagine many professional actors would talk about a long and varied resume of work. Enjoyable, and I believe much more so on audio because of the added sound effects and samples.
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