so ventriloquism – have you eliminated every other possibility of employment?

Dear reader,

the headline for today's blog is what a journalist asked the ventriloquist (or short "vent") Jeff Dunham about his job decision. I read an interview with Jeff Dunham on the internet today, in which he said, "When somebody who is 9 years old comes to me and says they want to be a ventriloquist, I think that's great because it's a great hobby. ... When somebody who's 28 years old comes to me and says they want to be a ventriloquist, I think, have you eliminated every other possibility of a hobby? And I just think that it's kind of sad because really, your life's gotten to the point that you're going to pick up a doll and make it talk for other people? That's really sad dude." Jeff Dunham, you're playing with dolls yourself. And you're wrong.

My interest in ventriloquism started with Jeff Dunham. In 2008 or so I saw something with him on youtube and thought it was quite entertaining. Back then I watched it purely for entertainment. What he did there or the question of "how" never came to my mind at that time.

In spring this year I found our two therapy puppets to work with and ventriloquism was interesting for me now. I watched Jeff Dunham again. This time not for entertainment. The therapy puppet girl was the one I worked with first. It became obvious to me very fast that those kind of puppets are not quite good for the use I had in mind. You can stick one of each of your hands in either of her arms and use her hands that way. And you can stick a hand in her head to move the mouth. You can even stick a finger in her tongue to make it work: for example stick out the tongue at someone. So you really need three hands to work the puppet. I borrowed Lucy for about a week to take her home with me. At least I'd have someone to work with. Every other hand puppet of sorts I found at home didn't have a moving mouth. Where's the fun in ventriloquism with a puppet with no moving mouth? Soon after that I took the boy, Fritzchen home with me. He was somewhat different, although he works the same way Lucy does. I used him even still at work with my colleague and the intern that worked with us at that time. Both reacted to him instantly. I thought to myself, "I almost don't need to learn to talk without moving my lips! They don't look at me, they look at him!" I thought of a word used in magic: misdirection. The magician makes you look somewhere, for example using one of his hands and with the other he secretly does whatever makes the trick work. Ventriloquism is nothing else. When you're not moving your lips and next to you is a puppet moving his or her lips, the whole attention goes to the puppet.

The more I thought about it, the more things I found in common for magic, hypnosis and ventriloquism. In hypnotherapy there's a method called "my friend John technique". This method is great when you don't know how the other person will react to what you want to say, but you want to say it anyway. You tell it as a story, like something that happened to your friend "John" or someone. You can use quotes that way, too. Mark Twain once said, "Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live." Even if you don't agree with what Mark Twain said, you won't be angry with me. I didn't say it, Mark Twain did. I directed the possible disagreement of this statement away from me. A ventriloquist figure (that's the professional term they use for the puppets, although most people don't know that term) works just that way. Jeff Dunham can let Achmed the dead terrorist say, "Silence! I keel you!" and the audience will cheer. Let a real terrorist do that once. The figures can be nasty like nothing else and get away with it. They can say things a normal human can't say that easily, if at all.

The vent Ronn Lucas remembers a situation where a heckler was really annoying. So he let his figure heckle him back. This got to a point where the heckler stood up and lifted his fist to beat... no, not Ronn. The guy went after the figure! After all the figure had heckled him! What a nice compliment to give the vent, isn't it? For the guy the figure was real and alive.

Jay Johnson is a vent, who became famous in america in the late 1970's with the tv series "Soap". As you may have guessed, he played a vent, with his figure, Bob. The thing with Chuck and Bob was treated as a real person by almost everybody, who had something to do with him. Just from the way Bob behaved there wasn't any other way of reacting.

Jay Johnson also was in an episode (A Riddle for Puppets) of the series "Mrs. Columbo". There, too, he played a vent. In that episode he went to a children hospital to entertain the kids. As we learn over the course of this episode he was a kid when he learned about ventriloquism. Back then he was a very sad kid and had heard noises from a building. So he went in to find a puppet maker at work. He taught the boy all he knew about ventriloquism and also made the boy his own figure. The boy naturally couldn't pay with money. The man told his student to find another kid, who was just as sad as he was back then and make the child happy. That would be his way of paying him back.

Surely, a fictional story. But a very beautiful motivation for your work, I think. P. T. Barnum was a guy, who created a circus with a little bit of everything. He wanted the visitors to have fun, because they'd find at least one thing they'd really enjoy. Barnum once said, "The noblest art is that of making others happy."

That's what I want to do. I don't want to do inclusive education. For many of us it means "repairing" or "fixing" and not respecting the people for who they are the way they are. There are already clowns going into children hospitals to entertain the kids. I also heard of a group of old people doing magic for old people. I think I want to learn ventriloquism really to make other people happy. That's my plan. When I use the my friend John technique, I don't even need a qualification in hypnotherapy to tell stories with my vent figures. The positive effect to help and heal will be like magic. :-)

Until next blog,

sarah