Firesign update: Message from David Ossman
firesigntheatre.com
TO ALL FIRESIGN FANS:
FRED WIEBEL HAS ONCE AGAIN VIOLATED HIS AGREEMENT WITH FIRESIGN NOT TO SELL
ANY PRODUCT WHATSOVER THAT CONTAINS OUR PERFORMANCES. THE FIRESIGN WORK IS
WHOLLY AND COMPLETLY OWNED BY THE FIRESIGN THEATRE AND OUR PRODUCT IS
AVAILABLE ONLY THROUGH LEGITIMATE SOURCES. OTHERWORLD MEDIA HAS ASSUMED
CONTROL OF THE EXISTING LODESTONE PRODUCT AND WILL MAKE THEM AND OTHER NEW
AND PREVIOUSLY UNAVAILABLE WORK AVAILABLE IN LIMITED, HIGH-CLASS EDITIONS IN
THE COMING YEAR. IF YOU WISH TO SUPPORT THE FIRESIGN THEATRE YOU WILL
BOYCOTT ANY AND ALL RIPPED-OFF PERFORMANCES FROM WIEBEL. HE IS A THIEF,
PURE AND SIMPLE.
DAVID OSSMAN
Holy Mudhead, mackerel! Morse Science High!
It's....disappeared!
-- Firesign Theatre
Freditor
wrote:
Well now, this is slander posted on the Internet and e-mailed out to
fans.
There was no agreement. I asked for one signed by all 4 and never got
it.
The Firesign Theatre and More Sugar stole my royalties from sales of
CDs that were manufactured from Firezine masters. We made thousands of
dollars for them and never got a full accounting or payments. That
ain't all either folks!
Ossman called the publisher of my Backwards Into the Future book
demanding it to be pulled off the market. I received an e-mail saying
it has been. If you want a copy you better get it from Amazon now! The
book was thouroughly pre-approved by Firesign.
'nough said,
Freditor
MartinX JohnLenOno
wrote:
> TO ALL FIRESIGN FANS:
> FRED WIEBEL HAS ONCE AGAIN VIOLATED HIS AGREEMENT WITH FIRESIGN ...HE IS A THIEF,
> PURE AND SIMPLE.
> DAVID OSSMAN
>
> Holy Mudhead, mackerel! Morse Science High!
> It's....disappeared!
> -- Firesign Theatre
Mr Ossman... you are shouting. Back when I listened to HCYBITPAOWYNAAA
daily and could recite it backwards... did I say that on the other
side?... I better check!.....sdrawkcab ti eticer dluoc......I also
consumed vast quantities of Chicago Transit Authority III... "I don't
want your money... I don't like that game!"-Terry Kath et al... Look
at what happened to them!... oops! they're RICH aren't they? I mean
what happened to their "art".
I have bought, or was about to buy, just about every Lodestone
offering that has anything with the Ossman name on it (Velveteen
Submission, etc)... although they were out of The G Tirebiter Coll.
#1 & 2... so the Otherworld News is good as long as they get offered.
I wear a 4-xlg Mark Time t-shirt whenever I go to events where I might
be photographed. I am a walking FST billboard!
But is Mr Weibel really cutting into your pie? I have bought
ARTIFACT from him available in no other form anywhere... all of which
has only increased the Four of Five's stature (severally and
collectively) in my worldview as cultural Big Guys!
Mr. Weibel... huffing and puffing "slander"... puh-lease! I can
just picture David Ossman crouched over a hand-pull calculator, with a
green visor shading his eyes from the single shade-less bulb, cranking
away alternate versions of the distribution report figures to invent
ways to disguise the staggering decimal points he's inventing... all
to swindle you because he wants to outdo Bill Gates. Puh-lease!
We fanatic fireheads should all be sending out vibes to make
another meeting-up of the Four or Five feasible. More Sugar! How much
longer, in all bracing reality-check mode, will we still have them!
Brian Westley
>On Jul 31, 9:10?am, fires...@firesigntheatre.com (firesigntheatre.com)
>wrote:
>> TO ALL FIRESIGN FANS:
>> FRED WIEBEL HAS ONCE AGAIN VIOLATED HIS AGREEMENT WITH FIRESIGN NOT TO SELL
>> ANY PRODUCT WHATSOVER THAT CONTAINS OUR PERFORMANCES. THE FIRESIGN WORK IS
>> WHOLLY AND COMPLETLY OWNED BY THE FIRESIGN THEATRE AND OUR PRODUCT IS
>> AVAILABLE ONLY THROUGH LEGITIMATE SOURCES. OTHERWORLD MEDIA HAS ASSUMED
>> CONTROL OF THE EXISTING LODESTONE PRODUCT AND WILL MAKE THEM AND OTHER NEW
>> AND PREVIOUSLY UNAVAILABLE WORK AVAILABLE IN LIMITED, HIGH-CLASS EDITIONS IN
>> THE COMING YEAR. IF YOU WISH TO SUPPORT THE FIRESIGN THEATRE YOU WILL
>> BOYCOTT ANY AND ALL RIPPED-OFF PERFORMANCES FROM WIEBEL. HE IS A THIEF,
>> PURE AND SIMPLE.
>> DAVID OSSMAN
>>
>> Holy Mudhead, mackerel! Morse Science High!
>> It's....disappeared!
>> -- Firesign Theatre
>Well now, this is slander posted on the Internet and e-mailed out to
>fans.
>There was no agreement. I asked for one signed by all 4 and never got
>it.
If there was no agreement, you still have no rights to sell
Firesign material. You need an agreement with all 4 TO sell
Firesign material, and it doesn't sound like you've got one.
>The Firesign Theatre and More Sugar stole my royalties from sales of
>CDs that were manufactured from Firezine masters. We made thousands of
>dollars for them and never got a full accounting or payments. That
>ain't all either folks!
Even if accurate, this does not grant you permission to
continue to sell Firesign material. David mentioned that
you were offering a CD that included Barnstormer material
from the website, and I know I didn't give you permission
to sell the ones that I wrote.
>Ossman called the publisher of my Backwards Into the Future book
>demanding it to be pulled off the market. I received an e-mail saying
>it has been. If you want a copy you better get it from Amazon now! The
>book was thouroughly pre-approved by Firesign.
If it was "thouroughly pre-approved by Firesign," why did the
publisher pull it off the market?
>'nough said,
>Freditor
---
Merlyn LeRoy
Freditor
on the web to a few of my friends for $5 apiece who can't get at the
material. I can't, and had someone make CDs for me of downloads. By
the way he charged me $3 a disc. Has anyone else down this?
My e-mail list is what's left of the old Firezine subscribers and
collector friends and those are the only people that get the offer. We
usually get about 1 - 10 sales, tops. I haven't offered anything up
for over a year. Most of that money goes back into the collection
buying items on e-bay and such.
I didn't know that Brian was ghost writing material for Ossman. Those
Barnstormer sermonettes are hilarious. Also the posts were very poorly
edited with mistakes and retakes mixed together. I did clean them up.
Also we offered scans of material and scripts that were sent to
Firezine by the members, including Ossman. I assumed that all items
sent to Firezine were to be available to the subscribers and fans.
We've been scanning all the documents in the Firezine Archive and
putting them together along with items downloaded off the net. Many of
the items were on the F Files discs that came with the book. We
certainly spent a lot of time on this project and deserve some support
from the fans who want access to the material. Everyone seems happy
about it except Ossman who feels we're robbing him every time some
wants some Firesign that is otherwise not available. All on the list
support Firesign and buy everything they offer. I offered to send to
Firesign every recording that we have in the collection. THEY WERE'NT
INTERESTED!!!!!! I offered to put up every Firezine CD for free as
downloadable mpegs on the Firezine website but was turned down by
Ossman!
Yes, I have received permission to sell the Firesign CDs we produced
and have never received any legal piece of paper stating otherwise.
Firesign members have sent people to me looking for the audio material
and still do.
The Backwards book was approved by Phil Proctor speaking for the
Firesign, he got to read the book before it was published and so, I
believe did Ossman as he got 3 book deals from my publisher. I sent
all the files scanned up to that point and was thanked and encouraged
to do so. Both Proctor and Ossman have been selling and autographing
my book at shows. I have never received any accounting or royalties
from those sales.
Ossman has been slandering me on the net and direct mailing. Everytime
I've tried to set up a deal with a company to carry the Firezine CDs
that More Sugar released, he's queered the deal. Laugh.com was
interested until the great Oss had spoken, I assume. Now he has
extorted my publisher from distributing my book. That certainly has
nothing to do with any actions I may have taken. That IS illegal.
I've been exchanging Firesign material with other fans for 40 years.
It was always encouraged by the group. We used to have fun going over
the material. All that is now gone.
This is the last time I hope to post in this group. I prefer to
exchange comments with people who are more interested in the Firesign
Theatre work.
Fred