Lessons Learned...

Lessons Learned in a Year Spent Humiliating Myself as an Act on the
Rural Bar Circuit


When I was younger, I never really thought that I would grow up to spend a year of my life traveling the rural bar circuit as half of a ventriloquism/banjo act. Truthfully, I had always thought I was bound for greater things. My biggest dream was to reinvent the ballpoint pen (or, I guess, if that wasn’t possible, something of equal significance.) I dabbled in this and that, waiting for my divine moment of inspiration. However, it seemed that my best friend had hers first. One day she came to me, elated about her undiscovered ventriloquism “talent”, and rambling on about her plan for this fantastic double act. I had my doubts, but in her innocent and unassuming way she persisted to the point of madness.
“This is going to make us legendary! A banjo and a ventriloquist! Maybe it’s weird, but it’s going to work! It’s just like a magical formula, that until now was undiscovered, and we’ve suddenly hit on it—like we’ve had a² and b² all along, staring us in our faces, and all we had to do was add them together. And what do you get when you add a² and b²? You get c²! Don’t you see? We could be c²!” She paused then, making the most earnest and excited face I have seen on anyone in the complete social history of my life. I’m still not sure what came over me that caused me to even consider this proposition, taking into account that my banjo and I were being compared to a side of a triangle. Maybe it was shock of finding out that she knew the Pythagorean Theorem. Anyway, whatever the reason might have been, the idea passed through my mind without stopping for judgment.
“Will you do it?” she asked me. And yes, I said yes.
“I will, yes.”
The next morning I awoke with a horrible foreboding feeling. There was no way I could go through with the plan; I couldn’t stand to see her embarrassed the way she was going to be, and, for that matter, I wasn’t even sure I was confident in my own banjo playing abilities. My mind was made up to quit the act. Instead of telling her right away, however, I let rehearsals begin. As time went on, I inadvertently began to try harder to mask my true feelings. Her passion was inspiring and something deep inside me didn’t want to stifle it. Even though she insisted on wearing coordinating costumes and ending the show with a rendition of The Rainbow Connection, complete with a ventriloquistic impersonation of Kermit the Frog, I kept my mouth shut.
Many eventful weeks passed, and somehow my darling friend was able to find us gigs every weekend, keeping us traveling around the Midwest and upper-South, playing and attempting to make jokes. We did have a few good shows, like the Beanblossom Bluegrass Festival and the University of Chicago Folk Festival. For the most part, though, our audience was composed of tired, boozed up country folk who didn’t appreciate the humor of ventriloquism nor my attempted banjo playing. At the beginning, we mostly faded into obscurity as the bar patrons swam in their brews; but it wasn’t long before someone noticed us and our act became somewhat of a widespread joke. A few months in, we were attracting more crowds, and they were vicious. From the time we got on stage people would shout and throw whatever they could find at us. Countless beer bottles smashed on the stage mere feet away from me and one creative spectator even launched a flaming paper airplane in our direction. I hated it.
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After fifty-two grueling weeks, the day of my dreams arrived. It was our last show, a year to the day after our first gig, and as I waited backstage to go on I was already relishing the joy of my impending freedom from that heinous lifestyle. We could hear the boos and chants coming from the audience in front of the curtain. This was the second time we had played there, and they were ready for us. Before we even started to perform, we were surrounded in obnoxious yells and dangerous flying objects. All I wanted to do was cut to the ending and get out of there, but throughout it all my intrepid friend wouldn’t let us stop. We were still on stage as she started into the finale song, “Why are there so many songs about rainbows, and what’s on the other side?*…”
WHACK!
At that moment someone’s brown, metal-toed shoe nearly decapitated the poor dummy. We ran off stage and my friend frantically tried to connect his neck back to his body. As tears and sweat ran down her face, I began to pull off my finger picks and place my banjo in its case.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked, ready to console her and attempt to conceal the happiness that I felt upon my realization that this was the end of our career. She didn’t answer me right away. Instead, she looked me straight in the eyes and was silent for a few moments before she squeaked,
“This is the last show, and we still have no respect.” To me it seemed like she was absolutely distraught over one of the basic truths of the universe, but I couldn’t help but be touched at that moment. She really took this seriously. She had dedicated so much time and effort to doing something she loved, despite adversity, hardships, and lack of talent. There I had been, strumming along unenthusiastically all year, only thinking about my own discomfort while she was trying to make this the best year of her life. I felt a huge amount of guilt about not fully supporting her, not working to make this the greatest experience that either of us had ever had. As my brain was bombarded with all these feelings, my friend continued to say things I never expected.
“You must be dreading going back out there…” The truth was, I thought we were already finished. It would take someone completely insane to return to an audience that was liable to kill you. I was stunned. However, not recognizing the look of shock and disbelief on my face, she continued, “you don’t have to. I don’t know why I bothered to put you through all of this. Just leave, if you want. Really. Thanks for everything.” At that moment I could hear the audience growing restless. I knew the remainder of the night would be horrible, and I had two options, that is, two doors I could have walked through; I could have gone to the exit and rid myself of the humiliation that I had been experiencing, or stepped through the door backstage into one more night of harassment. “I…umm…” the words stumbled out of my mouth as I tried to make up my mind. My first instinct was to get the heck out of there as fast as I could, hitch a ride home to Indianapolis and never look back. But at that particular moment my psyche underwent a temporary transformation, and thirty seconds later I found myself back on
that tiny, filthy stage, choking in second-hand smoke and inhaling the yeasty smell of cheap beer. We started right where we had left off. “Rainbows are visions, but only
illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide*…” In a few minutes, the show that had been my entire year was over.
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So this wasn’t my ballpoint pen, but I guess my friend’s passion to follow her dream was rather inspirational. She says that she learned a lot about herself that year, and even though I did too, I didn’t head out with her as she began her second tour on the continued quest to prove her talent. I’m pretty sure I can find a safer way to let out my creativity, and since that year I’ve found a new drive to work on achieving my own dreams. I don’t know exactly how to do it yet, but I’m willing to follow the path and find out.

“So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.*”





* lyrics from “The Rainbow Connection” by Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams. ©1979, Henson Associates, Inc.