The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-02-11

and drown his troubles in the maelstrom
of "reminiscences? Let him drop into
the business office of the Orpheum the
alter Of an afternoon when the count
satisfactory. Then will he be RECALLED
by one who has seen much of the more
strenuous side of life and is gifted with
the ability to remember the funny side.
Propped against the radiator. it the
day be cold, with his hat on the back OF
feet on the desk, Manager Jack Ray
mond seeks relief from the cares Of the
day and allows his mind to ramble over
the past in the following fashion:
81 am reminded by the person who
just retired, after making application
to go on of the divers and sundry
vaudeville via the Empire in cleveland,
when that was vaudeville house and
yours truly had the pleasure Of manag-
! ing it. In those days Cleveland was
vaudeville-crazy and a goodly portion
of it's population aspired to the vaude-
vile stage. s-.s'--s. ... ----
heavily toward magic acts the aver
age of applications from those who
would out-Hermann Hermann, being
about one week. Some of them were
good, too. I recall a jeweler there who
had invested some $4,000 in apparatus
and who could, upon occasion, go on
and do a creditable magic act. OF
course, the bad ones were greatly in the
majority. ...
The Farmers Funny Falls.
arThere- were all kinds of acts, too
4 There was the horny-handed farmer lad
from Hudson: who could do more funny
falls than anyone in the business. A
funny fall, as you may know, is a
yielding to the law Of gravitation, the
result being a. severe and apparently
violent contact with the stage floor, cal
culated to amuse the thoughtless. The
funny fall belongs to the slap-stick
school of art. E..... 49,
"This misguided youth showed w
with his application to do funny falls,
so / babe the orchestra wait after the
matinee performance, and we had the
falls. First, my misguided youth, die
a backward fall. By the way his heae
stay there. But he got up.
g How was that7' he inquired.
i - Great!' I said. But I didn't SET
all of that. Please do it again AND
he did. He also did front fall and {
side fall and few others, and every
time he struck the floor the orchestra
teen minutes and then calmly asked mi
when he could go on the circuit. =
''The boy Is back on the farm a
Hudson, for all [ know. At any rate
, the public has been spared an exhibition
Of human endurance, the like Of whicl
! T have never seen before or since.
Just shows how foolish some people ge
about the show business ~. .
The Horse Starter Who Sang.
: "And then there was my friend, tn
I, OF ri II On f1r,,nv hot h
3 profession was at the time, but had seel
!, him around the theater a good deal, an
;, was impressed by his appearance. 81
S was a finely proportional man about 81
: feet three and good to look upon. On
e day he came to me and said he coul
d sing; had, in fact, been doing consider
d able singing at clubs and had his song
/; orchestraed. He wanted to be tried GU
2 and, in a weak moment, l consented.
The first song. was positively tn
/. worst ever heard. He had an enol
q nous voice and he cared not what b
t did with it. He just stepped down
the footlights with his hands behind hi
back and launched that voice at til
: gallery as if he didn It care whether tn
: heavens fell or not.
i "We asked him to sing a second SOM
a And now comes the funny part Of m
i story. T.. -.... -. -
a a con the second song, the orchestr
y took a hand. When he had fairl
i started each player took up differer
!. tune, and the result was something al
!. palling. They made such an awfl
!. racket that the boxoffice men and til
= scrubwomen working in the lobby can
:, . in to see what the matter might be.
II "Did he cares Not he. He san
h serenely to the finish of the third vers
= and offered to sing another song. tt
), man was absolutely tone-deaf, and, Tri
T by-like, didn't know it. For weel
after that he used to telephone in an
q ask if / had found an opening for hi
q yet, and it was two months before
= found out what the orchestra had bee
ia doing to him. The following summer
!. saw him starting horses at the Erie RAJ
+ track, and starting them well, too. Al
: yet that man wanted to abandon goo
+ job, and enter the precarious vaud
:. vile field!
a Good Amateurs Who Fail.
G. HBut-even the good amateur perforl
ers some times fall by the wayside VIII
brought to the test of appearance
or fore vaudeville audience, for yaud
.: vile audiences are a mighty fnicky Il
:; ! am minded of one James Ambrose
e. Cleveland.
D: I" James Ambrose. was the town CT
IS up of Cleveland. He was the villa
comic. Whenever there was big ba
quet or star session, there was j
Ambrose with his little jokes and /
he he little stories, and wherever he went u
al al roarious laughter followed. He was
er- instantaneous hit.
1.-THE world whirled round in t
- lathe of time, and the White Rat
an strike was on-and there was no tale