Funny (and perhaps sad), but true

From David Nickell

When I embarked on this journey, I went to a couple of local bookstores in search of books on ventriloquism. At two of them -- Barnes & Noble and Borders -- the clerks didn't even know what "ventriloquism" was. I had the same experience yesterday when I went to the local Guitar Center. A young clerk, whose arms were covered with intricate Japanese tattoos and who said he played drums in a local band, had no clue what a ventriloquist was. I asked him if he'd ever heard of Jeff Dunham and he said, "no". Then I said that Dunham was a comedian who used a dummy -- one of 'em an old, cranky guy named Walter -- to tell jokes, and I struck the pose as if I were holding a figure in my arms. The kid then acknowledged that he not only knew who Jeff Dunham was but that Dunham is, in fact, coming to town and that he had asked his girlfriend to go see him. So sometimes you just have to be a little patient and try to guide people to what they know but didn't know they knew.