Tie a tie around an old oak tree?

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

Eleven New Tuxedos

Ten Steady Gigs,

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Fans Applauding,

Seven Monkey Puppets,

Six Hours Practice

Five Funny Jokes

(Ja)eff Dunham Tickets,

Three Good Springs,

Two Moving Eyebrows,

And a full-sized ventriloquist dummy.
***

Any ventriloquist worth his salt dreams of playing playing Vegas, and a tuxedo is pretty much mandatory equipment.  But rather than throw out pictures of Jeff Dunham or Terry Fator to prove the "Vegas-Ventriloquist-Tuxedo" triumvirate, I see more the classic tuxedo images, like the Rat Pack or Tony Orlando and Dawn. 

True enough, my lasting image of Tony Orlando might just be due to hair envy.

I myself have a "pre-owned" tuxedo. Owning a tuxedo is not a luxury. And owning one that was only $5 at an estate sale was the buy of the century.  For $5, you can wear it to cub scout potlucks without a lot of "investment worry."

The last time I wore it was to President Obama's Inaugural back in January, which I attended via teleconference. Or tele-something.

Hep Cats

As I work on different voices for characters, I get flashes of inspiration in the flavors of "a whole act."

For instance, singing along with Frank Sinatra's incredible The Lady is a Tramp,  I hear him us the term "broad" referring to the title female, And FLASH - why not create a cool Las Vegas night club singer-type who calls women "broads" and says "hey baby" a lot.

Then FLASH - a ventriloquist homage to the Rat Pack. (I'm flying now - weee!) A quick reality check (in terms of the voices):

• Frank Sinatra - Challenging; not actually that distinct. It's all about phrasing.
• Dean Martin - would actually play better in a Dean Martin/ Jerry Lewis schtick.
• Sammy Davis - I can just say "groovy" a lot; but that doesn't make my imitation that good.
• Peter Lawford - um.... who was he again?
• Joey Bishop - I perfected many years ago. The best of the bunch.

Then, my enthusiasm wanes. A spot-on Joey Bishop imitation just doesn't get a guy very far these days. And having seen videos of the "Summit at the Sands," the other reality is they weren't that funny. Their "cool" was way whack, but on the humorgrammeter? Not really.

Rats. Got to move on.

Maybe my old Perry Como albums will inspire something.

***

It's true. The Rat Pack wasn't actually very funny. However, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were actually very funny.

My "Jerry Lewis as a human ventriloquist dummy" fixation has still strong. And before you ask (because I know you are checking the sidebar list), he's not on the "faces" list because it's not just about his face. Kapeesh? (For all you spellers out there - Capisci?)