those dpkg-deb commands explode my assembled deb into the directory structure I list in my post. Now that I have everything all unpacked, I want to know:

1. Do I need a Makefile? If so, what should it contain?
2. Should "dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -sa -S" in this directory build the proper tar.gz?

I would prefer to hack this out in the forums, so other people can use these posts to do this themselves...