My Puppets Have Last Names

Comedy is a lonely business. At the bottom there are bringer and barker folks eager to get stage time by busting their asses. In the middle, there are career bringer producers and barker overseers who make your dream feel obscured. On the next rung are those who have TV credits but can't pay their rent, thus stabbing everyone and anyone in the back to be on the upside of the middle. On top of them are the regulars on the TV shows, and then there are the stars. Somewhere in this mix you have the bookers, the club owners, and everyone else. People give you all sorts of advice and it is tough to know who is friend and who is foe.

In the comedy business, there is also a lot of trash talk from comedians when it comes to our more eccentric peers. When I was nineteen, I was chatting with a bunch of fellow vents. Many of these folks had done Vegas. Some were smaller time, club dates and corporate. Then Otto and George came up. They were this X Rated ventriloquist duo. There were stories about them offending people at the porn awards. These guys kept saying there was no way a prop act could follow a good standup. But somehow Otto could. He broke all the rules and defied all the odds. That's why they were so eager to talk shit.

I met Otto for the first time when I was twenty.  Still green, I was new to comedy. That summer, I had spent a lot of time at Pips. In Sheepshead Bay, it felt like a New York outside of the city. One evening, I was invited to see Otto and told to bring May. It was a wild night. The whole place was trashed. I was coming out of the fog of the first year of comedy. Yes, the fog where I thought I would be on HBO tomorrow. However, then I realized I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

Otto asked me if May had a last name. I said no, puppets didn't need last names. As I sat getting tanked like everyone in the place, Otto informed me they did. A puppet needed a last name because that gave the character more depth and made them more real. Otto informed me George's last name was Dudley. It was after an uncle of his. For May, I chose Wilson. The reasoning being that as a kid, my family didn't have cable, and Dennis the Menace was one of the few cartoons we watched. Mr. Wilson was my inspiration, and Wilson was easier to say than Brucker. So thus it began, and this was advice that wasn't total bullshit. This man knew what he was talking about. Plus he wanted to help another young comedian.

I met Otto again several years later. Now I had started getting time on national television. While the exposure had been cool, I was also being introduced to a cruel reality of the business, jealousy. I had done open mics with some people back in the day, and then all of a sudden they stopped speaking to me. Or when they did it was one, mean, nasty back handed jab after another. I began to grow a chip on my shoulder than became a cinderblock. Comedy became about fame and ego, not about punchlines.

I was invited to do The Pig Roast by the Wild Cherryz Burlesque. They were the house dance team. Otto and George were doing a late night talk show, and I was flattered I was asked. The experience was awesome, not only to work with someone so amazing but also someone who loved comedy. Everyone there just loved comedy. I also didn't feel so alone, and the cinderblock melted. The Pig Roast introduced me to a new group of comedians who may have teased each other on the air and when the camera was on, but in real time they were supportive as hell of each other.

Otto did my webshow, and called in. I remember him calling me a hack several times. Otto also denied the legendary Apollo incident as well as being the inspiration for the movie Magic. But these are still cool stories nonetheless. He could kill it in the Aristocrats, work his charm on Letterman, and still murder a crowd. At the same time, he remained humble and respected other ventriloquists such as Terry Fator and Jeff Dunham. While he bowed in some ways because he never had their commercial success, he was better in so many ways. Otto never censored his act, he didn't care, and he wasn't afraid to give a young comedian a pointer. He wasn't afraid of you being funny because he shined no matter what.

There is a famous story about Otto. He was street performing in Washington Square, and John Lennon saw him. After he was done, he handed Otto a dollar and fifty cents. He told Otto the dollar was for him, and the fifty cents was for George.

I think right about now Otto is doing a show for all of them.

As my type A personality keeps driving and readies for her DVD taping, I will think of Otto. I will think of chasing the punchline. In my heart and in my mind, no matter how much or how little commercial success I get, I can only dream of being as extraordinary as he was.

Love
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
www.aprilbrucker.com


Come see me April 22nd @ 7pm
Metropolitan Room
34 W. 22nd st.

Old Movie Star Angel

I am a pale imitation

Growing up as a kid you always look for idols. Someone who is like you. Someone who you can relate to. I remember the first time I met mine. It was a Saturday night in my basement. My family was blessed and cursed without cable. The attitude of my parents was, "We are readers and thinkers." It wasn't about the world being evil, although at times it could have been and this helped shield us away from the traps kids fall into.

PBS was showing My Little Chickadee. Mae West flounced onto the screen. She had blonde hair, a massive grin, green eyes, and a smart assed drawl. I was a quiet kid. Encyclopedias were my friends. Even though she was considered "lame" by modern standards, then she broke all the rules. My dad said, "I know she looks young but she is almost fifty years old right here." My mouth dropped open. It made me like her even more. This was awesome. She was awesome. Apparently she was only five feet tall. The girls in that era, the one she started in, were bone thin flapper types. It was not the shake I was given. In a world where one in put in a box and you are or aren't, she made her own rules and said fuck it. For the first time, as I was a bookish kid who struggled with my weight and myself, I felt a ray of hope.

For as much as I tried to fight it, the stage always beckoned me. I always found the most success when I did my own thing. So did my hero, Ms. West. Even as a young, starving artist in the Big Apple, at the times I have gotten attention are for being myself. When I made my own puppet videos, wrote my own music, staged my own one woman shows, wrote my own book. Although I have yet to go to jail for my artistic expression I know I would be in good company if I did. There have been times I have been called the bad girl of ventriloquism. Why? For telling the truth. I have alienated some of the Christian Ventriloquists. Some of them have issues with the fact my puppets like to party. I think their main issue is the gay puppet. Of course the black puppet doesn't help any. But Mae West liked blacks and gays, so I say screw em.

There have been times I have been guilty of emulating my hero a little too much. In college I had an acting teacher who got upset because I could impersonate her so well. She claimed I was "losing myself as a person." In reality, I think she was always angry she didn't have a career, and was incensed when she found a student that knew themselves so well. Still, Richard Pryor tried to be Bill Cosby before growing into his own skin, and once Pryor found his own skin Cosby was happy for him. I suppose you need to start somewhere great to go somewhere great. But I knew who I was, tough, fast talking, and yes I liked bad boys. So did my hero. So what? Take us to the back and shoot us.

Several years ago I was down on my luck. I had just seen the departure of a roommate who was like my sister. I was also having a conflict of faith because I had a falling out with a friend who would not stop using drugs. A month later, he would die as a result of the disease of addiction. It was a huge storm and I was set to travel to do a gig in Queens. A tornado hit, and the J line was delayed. I somehow got there, and was the only comedian to show up. The place was called Nier's Tavern. I ended up not only performing, but getting all the money in the bucket. After I was done the host explained, "This place is legendary. It's where Mae West used to perform."

My mouth dropped open. What are the odds I would be in the spot where my hero used to do her thing? I remember getting a ride home from the son of a murdered Mexican Rodeo Star, don't ask. As I stepped over the power lines that were down and the trees that were struck, I felt alright. Yes I felt down and out. But I had just performed where my hero had more than eighty years earlier. This was not a mere coincidence. One month later my puppet children and I would appear on national television. My life would never be the same again.

I am different am like my old movie star angel in many ways. For one, we both did burlesque and vaudeville. While hers was more the real thing, I have done the neo version. We both have to create our own work in order to stand out, and have received a plethora of positive and negative attention for it. Not to mention it took her a while to see success, and it has taken me longer than the cookie cutter folks. But when we get it, we get it in bigger and better doses. We are both our own people, and no one censors us. We both aren't afraid to stand up to sexist men or jealous women. She doesn't come with puppets and I do. That's fine. I think we can both live with that.

Either way, I just got news I made my hometown paper. I am working on a one woman show version of my book and a full Broadway musical. I am producing my own content. Life is good. Maybe my boobs aren't as big and maybe I don't speak with a complete drawl, but I sound like a redneck chipmunk when I get fired up. My career is and isn't like hers. However, this morning I saw her picture front and center on my bathroom door. It was a nice reminder that while I am enough without completely copying my hero, I had a good person who gave me a good path to follow. I had a woman who let me know I could be myself, create my own work, and for the unique beings success doesn't always come easy. I had a person who let me know it was okay. I had Mae West, my old movie star angel.

"I'm no angel but I've spread my wings a bit."

Love

April

I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl

www.aprilbrucker.com