Tales of The Old Detective (hardback): And Other Big Fat Lies

by Phil Austin, Bruce Litz (Illustrator), Taylor Jessen (Editor)

"Some of the sharpest writing ever from a comic genius." -Kurt Luchs, Talking Book Review "Good sentence structure." -Chevy Chase Philip Austin, one of America's great comedy writer/performers and one quarter of the notorious Firesign Theatre, was the editor and main contributor of an alternative-universe 1930s-era New Yorker that never was. Influenced in equal parts by the noir of Hammett, the deeply personal short stories of Saroyan, and the barn-burning surrealism of the Marx Brothers, he wrote stories of The Old Detective, a shamus who hung out in a tatty pink-plaster bungalow telling tales of exotic babes shooting craps in a barrel; wood-peckers who solved mysteries; mountaineers who worked laterally across miles of urban city streets; and housewives of Fresno who abandoned their homes and dug tunnels below their neighborhood. The 18 stories in this collection cover all this territory and more, delving into Phil's love of dogs, the Pacific Northwest, state fairs, and school lunch menus. A must-have for anyone who's enjoyed his work in or out of the Firesign Theatre. PHILIP AUSTIN was born in Denver, Colorado in 1941 and grew up in Fresno, California. He attended Bowdoin College, Fresno State College, and UCLA. In the 1960s he was a member of the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles and was Program Director for Drama and Literature at KPFK-FM, where in 1966 he met his future collaborators in the Firesign Theatre-Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor. The Firesign Theatre went on to write and perform more than 23 albums over 40 years, several of which featuring Austin's best-known character, Nick Danger. The group's album Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers was inducted into the Library of Congress' Recording Registry in 2005. As a writer he published many short stories and wrote several screenplays, including the never-produced Grateful Dead movie Brokedown Palace and the novel Beaver Teeth . He died in 2015.

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Austin was born in Denver, Colorado and later grew up in Fresno, California, attending Fresno High School. His mother was a drama teacher which influenced his upbringing as an actor. He attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine because it was the most distant point in the continental United States from Fresno. He also attended Fresno State College and UCLA, but did not graduate from any of them. He was in the UCLA Drama Department at the same time as another dropout, The Doors' Ray Manzarek. In Los Angeles in the late 1960s, he was one of the first apprentices for the Center Theatre Group and worked on the staff of KPFK radio in Los Angeles. At KPFK he worked with other staffers David Ossman and Peter Bergman who hosted Radio Free Oz on that station. Along with Bergman's friend Phil Proctor, they formed The Firesign Theatre.

Starting as live radio actors, the group would go on to record a series of surrealistic comedy albums that were a hit amongst an underground audience. Austin played the group's best-known creation, private investigator Nick Danger. Other prominent roles were as (Happy) Harry Cox, the narrator of Everything You Know Is Wrong and Bebop Loco/Lobo on Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death. He had also served as the troupe's musician and record producer.

His collection of short stories, Tales of the Old Detective and Other Big Fat Lies, is published by Audio Editions. Two of his stories appear in the third volume of Mirth of a Nation.

Austin also wrote a solo work, Roller Maidens From Outer Space, and directed (and acted in) Eat Or Be Eaten.

Stage versions of Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers; The Further Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye; Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him; and Temporarily Humboldt County are published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc..

Austin died at his home in Fox Island, Washington on June 18, 2015 at the age of 74. The cause of death was originally given as cardiac arrest, but this was later changed to an aneurysm. He also had cancer.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Old Detective stories were fantastic, but the others were a bit dull. Love the Firesign humor