Trying to set things Right 

This is an open letter to any ventriloquist who has ever lived or ever will; and everyone else I have offended lately:

I have a friend who's aunt died in an old folks home knitting the ski mask she planned on wearing when she assassinated Bob Hope.  No one knew what her beef was with Bob Hope or why she planned to kill him but it consumed every part of her senior years.  Everyone just thought she was crazy.

Just the other day I flashed ahead in time to an old man sitting in an old folks home  carving a puppet he would use to assassinate Jeff Dunham.  I then realized that old guy could be me in a decade or so. I didn't like the picture.

I am a ventriloquist and perhaps for a while I forgot that I am also a human being. I would hate to end a lifetime as the best ventriloquist I could be without also being the best human I could be. 

As a ventriloquist when I make a mistake I try my best to correct it to help make my performance better; now as a human being I have to correct a mistake I made to help make my life better.  

I will cut to the chase.

If you read this blog regularly you will know that in the past I  have written some things that were very hateful about Jeff Dunham. Don't bother looking, they have all been taken down now, but the fact that they were there at all is not something that makes me very proud of myself at this moment.  Each one was childish, presumptuous, mean spirited and unsolicited. At this point I can't imagine why I would have wasted the Ethernet on such pompous crap. I have hypocritically railed against such infantile postings from other blog writers. I needed to turn that observation to my own page. 

I have known Jeff Dunham for a very long time and our careers have even dovetailed in some esoteric way. We went to the same high school and our kids attended the same school in Los Angeles.  We shared Ventriloquist week on the Letterman show, and played the same Comedy Clubs early on. We even sit on the board of Advisors for Vent Haven together. I have an 8x10 black and white glossy of Jeff  accepting my "Vent of the Year" plaque when I was unable to accept it in person years ago. We even live on the same street in the same California suburb. I wouldn't say we were as close as Benny and Burns but I never questioned that we were friends. 

Then several years ago I bummed a ride home on his plane from Louisville to LA after a conVENTion. After a long ride and a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon, I thought our relationship had taken a huge step forward. I saw his arena show and finally "got" what he was doing out there. I had been so busy trying to make a Broadway show work that I hadn't noticed what was going on in his career. It was quite amazing. 

I didn't get to enjoy that place very long. Within a week all hell broke loose and we found ourselves on opposite sides of a legal issue. 

It is not important now and most everyone else involved moved on from that disaster, but I did not. In fact, it never went away for me.  It is not a problem that consumed me 24/7 but it never really went away. When something would trigger the feelings I went immediately into a very dark place.  Those feelings came out in my blog several times, and got progressively more odious and personal in the form of attacks on Jeff.  If I could knit, I might have started a ski mask.  

Don't know who I thought I was to call Jeff out on the Internet.  To his credit he never responded in kind, can't say that I took the same high road. I really can't undo it... even though it doesn't exist on this blog anymore... it is still out there somewhere. If nowhere else, it still stinks up my own consciousness. Feels pretty stupid and small for a guy my age to have done... I should have known better than to break my own professional credo. "What would Jimmy Nelson do?"

I would love to blame it on Bipolar disorder, but it is actually a case of asshole-ism. It is my own fault and there is no one responsible for the noxious bile but me.   But like I said,  all I can do is correct it and try to make the act of my life better. Unfortunately to do that I have to own the damage I have done and accept total responsibility. There is no such thing as ignoramus insurance. I probably couldn't get it anyway because of  pre-existing ignorance.

So... no more stupid personal rants about Jeff Dunham or anyone else.  I have reached out to Jeff personally to apologise but doubt he will return my call. Who could blame him? He doesn't owe me a thing.  And what I owe him now is just safe passage through my thoughts and my blog without the insulting gauntlet. 

I was told as a writer you have to be honest.  I've tried my best to do that here. However, I forgot for a couple of years that honesty is not the same as childish name calling. 

Sorry Jeff... you didn't deserve it, from me....especially me.

Over and done,

Jay