Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Home Page

"Cosmic Consciousness with a Cosmic Giggle" featuring  60's L.A. Underground Radio  (rebop from beatniks to hipsters to hippies),  Mallard,  Zoot Horn Rollo,  Magic Band,  Neon Park,  Little Feat,  Theodore Sturgeon,  The Firesign Theatre,  Captain Beefheart,  Grateful Dead,  Jerry Garcia,  Paul Krassner,  Bruce Lee and  COSMOS TOPPER  (on the Web since September 1995)  and  "TOPPER" Films and TV Show

 

E-MAIL TED ALVY via tedalvy@aol.com

 

Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Cyberspace Access Philosophy: All My Web Pages are simple TEXT so most computers can handle the information on them easier. Los Angeles detective novelist Raymond Chandler wrote "Just don't get too complicated. When a guy gets too complicated, he's unhappy. And when he's unhappy, his luck runs out."

UNDERGROUND RADIO tributes to creative hipster Disc Jockeys:
B. MITCHEL REED and LES CARTER and TOM DONAHUE
HotLink: KPPC-FM Pasadena Riffs (several Hippie Radio Web Pages are under construction)

60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO Rebop
HotLink: Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Radio History

UNDERGROUND RADIOLAND MURDERS is a portion of my "Great American Cybernovel" that gives us one of several "true fiction" scenarios about the first FM Rock Underground Radio Station in Southern California: KPPC-FM 106.7 in Pasadena (originally located in the basement of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church and broadcasting hippie rebop from November 1, 1967 until the entire KPPC-FM airstaff was fired on October 24, 1971).
HotLink: "Underground Radioland Murders" Hippie Radio Cybernovel by Ted Alvy

RADIO UNDERGROUND Home Page: rebop from beatniks to hipsters to hippies
HotLink: RADIO UNDERGROUND Home Page

HotLink: COSMOS TOPPER 2000 FAVE RAVES FROM THE LAST YEAR OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Current Cosmos Topper projects are Hippie Radio Web Pages and "true fiction" cybernovels:
60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO "I Was A Teenage Disc Jockey" by Ted Alvy
WEST COAST UNDERGROUND RADIO "Songs & Sets & Segue-Ways" by Ted Alvy
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Theodore Bruce Alvy
(Book Titles are Trademarks of Ted Alvy)

Rocks Back Pages TED ALVY KPPC Interviews of Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd
HotLink: Rocks Back Pages

NEON PARK (Martin Muller), the man and the artist, whose surrealistic sense of humor and cosmic giggle will continue to light up the darkness. His artwork, including album covers of LITTLE FEAT, gives warmth to this often cold world.
HotLink: NEON PARK Web Pages

HotLinks: Featprints (more Neon Park) | Neon Prose (more Featprints) | Neon Park 5/21/71 L.A. Free Press Interview | Neon Park SEP '80 L.A. Magazine | Neon Art Director | Neon Park Tributes | Neon Guitar (Lowell George) | Duck Rush (Neon Mallard)

LITTLE FEAT, a Los Angeles band, had their debut album played on Underground Radio station KPPC-FM Pasadena, California in Fall 1970. Feat Heads continue to enjoy this eclectic American music band. Lowell George lives on in his music and unique humanity.
HotLink: LOWELL GEORGE 1975 Interview including a cosmic Little Feat history
HotLink: The Official Little Feat Website www.littlefeat.net

LITTLE FEAT 2000 Box Set 4 CD "HOTCAKES & OUTTAKES: 30 YEARS OF LITTLE FEAT" on Rhino Records
LOWELL GEORGE TRIBUTE ALBUM "Rock And Roll Doctor" on CMC International Records

MALLARD was formed by BILL HARKLEROAD (Zoot Horn Rollo) and MARK BOSTON (Rockette Morton) who were vital MAGIC BAND musicians playing with CAPTAIN BEEFHEART from 1968 through 1974, along with master percussionist ARTIE TRIPP (Ed Marimba). In 1974, that trio departed from Don Van Vliet to record an eponymous album in England. Ted Alvy had cosmic good fortune to write lyrics on four Mallard songs. The 1994 MALLARD CD contains their only two LPs (1975 & 1976).
HotLinks: MALLARD Web Pages | Lyrics by Ted Alvy ASCAP Member Lyricist

Mallard HotLinks: Duck Lust (more MALLARD) | Mojo Duck (Magic Band) | Duck Bill (Harkleroad Guitar) | Big Foot Duck (Mama Squeeze) | Duck Rush (Neon Mallard)

ZOOT HORN ROLLO
HotLink: ZOOT HORN ROLLO Home Page

"LUNAR NOTES: Zoot Horn Rollo's Captain Beefheart Experience"
by BILL HARKLEROAD (Zoot Horn Rollo) SAF Books 1998 ISBN 09467 19217

THEODORE STURGEON, the man and his science fiction and fantasy writing, who inspired the planet with his first internationally recognized 1953 novel *More Than Human* and left the planet with his statement about loving one another in his final novel *Godbody* published in 1986. He wrote two Original STAR TREK episodes. He was a 21st Century Man.
HotLink: THEODORE STURGEON Novels Master of Sci Fi and Fantasy

HotLink: Knowing THEODORE STURGEON

THE FIRESIGN THEATRE RADIO FREE OZ began in Summer 1966 hosted by Peter Bergman on KPFK-FM Los Angeles which gave birth to The Firesign Theatre (4 or 5 Crazee Guys): PHILIP AUSTIN, PETER BERGMAN, DAVID OSSMAN and PHILIP PROCTOR.
HotLink: Firesign Theatre Roots Brief FST History and 1969 L. A. Free Press FST Interview

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART aka DON VAN VLIET [Usenet Newsgroup alt.fan.capt-beefheart]
HotLink: CAPTAIN BEEFHEART Quotes "Woe-is-a-me-bop, Om-drop-a-re-bop-om"

DON VAN VLIET is a great poet lyricist who led some great musicians in The Magic Band as CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
HotLinks: Captain Beefheart Radar Station | Justin Sherrill Home Page Replica | Captain Beefheart Electricity

GRATEFUL DEAD, cosmic and spontaneous at any moment, they gave away their music once they played it.
JERRY GARCIA, the man and the musician, and a guru to many since the first Grateful Dead album (Spring, 1967).
HotLinks: Not For Dead Heads Only | Paul Krassner 1985 Interview of JERRY GARCIA

SEARCHING FOR THE SOUND: MY LIFE WITH THE GRATEFUL DEAD by PHIL LESH (Little, Brown April 2005)

PAUL KRASSNER, the editor of "The Realist" and a purveyor of Freethought, Criticism and Satire. His writings continue to remind us that ideas in America are usually "true fiction" and media saturated. He is a counterculture cosmic catalyst.
HotLink: Cat Simril interviews Paul Krassner plus an excerpt from "The Realist"

BRUCE LEE, the man and the martial artist, whose philosophy of JEET KUNE DO was a departure from the traditional "classical" technique in an effort to "simplify" movement through freedom of self-expression. His filmography is all too brief.
HotLink: BRUCE LEE Martial Artist

Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Home Page Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Theodore Bruce Alvy ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

COSMOS TOPPER (on the web since September 1995) is a Trademark of Ted Alvy and Copyright 1970 via KPPC-FM Pasadena, California

60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO Rebop
HotLink: Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Radio History

60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO is a Trademark of Ted Alvy

UNDERGROUND RADIO tributes to creative Disc Jockeys B. MITCHEL REED and LES CARTER and TOM DONAHUE
HotLink: KPPC-FM Pasadena Riffs (many more Hippie Radio Web Pages are under construction)
HotLink: "Underground Radioland Murders" Hippie Radio Cybernovel by Ted Alvy

RADIO UNDERGROUND and COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Raves
HotLink: RADIO UNDERGROUND Home Page

Current Cosmos Topper projects are Hippie Radio Web Pages and "true fiction" cybernovels:
60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO "I Was A Teenage Disc Jockey" by Ted Alvy
WEST COAST UNDERGROUND RADIO "Songs & Sets & Segue-Ways" by Ted Alvy
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Theodore Bruce Alvy
(Book Titles are Trademarks of Ted Alvy)

E-MAIL TED ALVY via tedalvy@aol.com

Return to the Top of Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Home Page

Cosmic Consciousness inspired by TOM ROBBINS and his 1994 novel Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas
(1994 is The Year of the Cosmic Los Angeles Earthquake)

On the wire is living, everything else is only waiting. KARL WALLENDA

A true writer should be an observer and not go around being observed. Observing - that's the duty and oath of a writer. JACK KEROUAC

Famous isn't good for a writer. You don't observe well when you're being observed. KEN KESEY

If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. WILLIAM BLAKE

The Doors Of Perception [1954] by ALDOUS HUXLEY:

 

That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises seems very unlikely. Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul…And for private, for everyday use there have always been chemical intoxicants. All the vegetable sedatives and narcotics, all the euphorics that grow on trees, the hallucinogens that ripen in berries or can be squeezed from roots - all, without exception, have been known and systematically used by human beings from time immemorial...Most of these modifiers of consciousness cannot now be taken except under doctor's orders, or else illegally and at considerable risk. For unrestricted use the West has permitted only alcohol and tobacco. All the other chemical Doors in the Wall are labeled Dope, and their unauthorized takers are Fiends. We now spend a good deal more on drink and smoke than we spend on education. This, of course, is not surprising. The urge to escape from selfhood and the environment is in almost everyone almost all the time.

 

The Natural Mind [1972] by DR. ANDREW WEIL (from Chapter Seven, A Trip To Stonesville):

 

STONED THINKING is the mirror image of straight thinking. When we step into nonordinary reality even for a moment, we experience things directly, see inner contents rather than external forms, and suddenly find ourselves able to participate in changing things for the better. This other way of interpreting perceptions comes first as episodic flashes, unpredictable, discontinuous. But the more flashes of it one has, the easier it becomes to maintain. And stoned thinking is not something foreign to be learned; it develops spontaneously as we unlearn habitual ways of using the mind.

 

The First Rule Of The Con is You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man:
find someone who wants something for nothing, then give him nothing for something
[from the BBC drama HUSTLE seen on AMC]

 

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 FAVE RAVES FROM THE LAST YEAR OF THE 20TH CENTURY

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Music Group Of The Century:
THE BEATLES

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Songwriter Of The Century:
BOB DYLAN

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Guitar Master Of The Century:
JIMI HENDRIX

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Musician Of The Century:
CHARLES LLOYD Tenor Saxophone

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Composer Of The Century:
BERNARD HERRMANN Film Soundtracks

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Visual Artist Of The Century:
NEON PARK

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Martial Artist Of The Century:
BRUCE LEE

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Novel Of The Year:
FIERCE INVALIDS HOME FROM HOT CLIMATES by TOM ROBBINS

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Album Of The Year:
LITTLE FEAT "CHINESE WORK SONGS" on CMC International Records

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Box Set Of The Year:
"HOTCAKES & OUTTAKES: 30 YEARS OF LITTLE FEAT" on Rhino Records

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Reissues Of The Year:
THE BAND "Music From Big Pink" [1968] (Capitol Records) with 9 Bonus Tracks
THE BAND "The Band" [1969] (Capitol Records) with 7 Bonus Tracks
THE BAND "Stage Freight" [1970] (Capitol Records) with 4 Bonus Tracks
THE BAND "Cahoots" [1971] (Capitol Records) with 5 Bonus Tracks

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Reissues Of The Decade:
SPIRIT "Spirit" [1968] (Ode/Epic/Legacy) with 4 Bonus Tracks
SPIRIT "The Family That Plays Together" [1968] (Ode/Epic/ Legacy) with 5 Bonus Tracks
SPIRIT "Clear" [1969] (Ode/Epic/ Legacy) with 4 Bonus Tracks
SPIRIT "Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus" [1970] (Epic/ Legacy) with 4 Bonus Tracks
(Liner Notes by the legendary Guitarist RANDY CALIFORNIA)

COSMOS TOPPER 2000 Fave Rave Comedy Group Of The Decade:
THE FIRESIGN THEATRE 1998 CD "Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death" on Rhino Records
THE FIRESIGN THEATRE 1999 CD "Boom Dot Bust" on Rhino Records

 

COSMOS TOPPER 2001 Fave Rave Instrumental Album Of The Year:
ZOOT HORN ROLLO We Saw A Bozo Under The Sea (www.zoothornrollo.com)

 

COSMOS TOPPER 2001 Fave Rave Songwriter Album Of The Year
BOB DYLAN Love And Theft on Columbia Records

 

COSMOS TOPPER 2001 Fave Rave Artist Retrospective Album Of The Year
MIMI & RICHARD FARINA The Complete Vanguard Recordings

 

COSMOS TOPPER
Composers And Authors
Cosmic Hall Of Fame:

BOB DYLAN
JOHN LENNON
PAUL MCCARTNEY
GEORGE HARRISON
JIMI HENDRIX
MILES DAVIS
JOHN COLTRANE
CHARLES LLOYD
BERNARD HERRMANN
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
HUMPHREY BOGART
PAUL NEWMAN
JAMES DEAN
LENNY BRUCE
GROUCHO MARX
WOODY ALLEN
JACK NICHOLSON
RICHARD PRYOR
GEORGE CARLIN
B. MITCHEL REED
FRED NEIL
WILLIE NELSON
NEIL YOUNG
PAUL SIMON
RICHARD FARINA
THEODORE STURGEON
KURT VONNEGUT
TOM ROBBINS
SANDY KOUFAX
KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR
BRUCE LEE
NEON PARK
LOWELL GEORGE
FRANK ZAPPA
RY COODER
BILL HARKLEROAD zoot horn rollo
RANDY CALIFORNIA
MICHAEL BLOOMFIELD
DAVID BROMBERG
CARLOS SANTANA
JERRY GARCIA
JACK KEROUAC
ALLEN GINSBERG
PAUL KRASSNER
HARRY SHEARER
PETER BERGMAN
DAVID OSSMAN
PHILIP PROCTOR
PHILIP AUSTIN
JERRY LEIBER
MIKE STOLLER
JUDY COLLINS
JONI MITCHELL
BONNIE RAITT
CHICK STRAND
CATHERINE DENEUVE
LAUREN BACALL
BETTE MIDLER

PLEASE NOTE: this is the home page for COSMOS TOPPER; a different character is in films and on television spelled "Cosmo" Topper, just as on Seinfeld it is spelled "Cosmo" Kramer.

TOPPER
First Telecast: Oct 9, 1953
Last Telecast: Oct 14, 1956
Oct 1953-Sep 1955 CBS Fri 8:30-9:00
Oct 1955-Mar 1956 ABC Mon 7:30-8:00 [reruns from two CBS seasons]
Jun 1956-Oct 1956 NBC Sun 7:00-7:30 [reruns from two CBS seasons]
Marion Kerby (Anne Jeffreys)
George Kerby (Robert Sterling)
Cosmo Topper (Leo G. Carroll) [City Bank Vice President]
Henrietta Topper (Lee Patrick)
Neil the St. Bernard (Buck)
Katie The Maid (Kathleen Freeman)
Mr. A. Schuyler (Thurston Hall) [City Bank President]
Maggie The Cook (Edna Skinner)
Based on the characters originally created by Thorne Smith from his novel Topper (1926).

"Anne Jeffreys as Marion Kerby, the ghostess with the mostess; Robert Sterling as George Kerby, that most sporting spirit; and Leo G. Carroll, host to said ghosts as Topper."

From 1953 TOPPER TV episode about The Astrologer, Madame Caza (Dorothy Adams)
Marion: No, no, she is talking about the stars, the universe, the cosmos.
George: I did not know there were any other COSMOS besides TOPPER.

TOPPER (1937)
Director: Norman Z. McLeod; B&W 97 Minutes
Starring: Constance Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young, Billie Burke

TOPPER TAKES A TRIP (1939)
Director: Norman Z. McLeod; B&W 85 Minutes
Starring: Constance Bennett, Roland Young, Billie Burke

TOPPER RETURNS (1941)
Director: Roy Del Ruth; B&W 88 Minutes
Starring: Joan Blondell, Roland Young, Carole Landis, Billie Burke

COSMOS TOPPER is a Trademark of Ted Alvy (Copyright 1970 via KPPC-FM Pasadena, California)

Current Cosmos Topper projects are Hippie Radio Web Pages and "true fiction" cybernovels:

60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO "I Was A Teenage Disc Jockey" by Ted Alvy

WEST COAST UNDERGROUND RADIO "Songs & Sets & Segue-Ways" by Ted Alvy

© 1995 © 1996 © 1997 © 1998 © 1999 © 2000 © 2001 © 2002 © 2003 © 2004 © 2005 © 2006 © 2007 © 2008 © 2009 © 2010 © 2011 © 2012 © 2013 © 2014 © 2015 Theodore Bruce Alvy
(Book Titles are Trademarks of Ted Alvy)

60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO is a Trademark of Ted Alvy

[cosmic ideas are constantly evolving]

E-MAIL TED ALVY via tedalvy@aol.com

Return to the Top of Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Home Page