Harry and me

Back in 1974-75, I was a street performer in San Francisco. I moved there from Ashland, Oregon where I had met a talented young magician named Harry Anderson. At Harry's urging, we packed up our props and moved to "Babylon by the Bay" to find our fortune.

We actually worked on a stage inside The Cannery courtyard, a large brick shopping attraction at Fisherman's Wharf. (That's me and Harry outside the Cannery in the photo). Each day, Harry performed three or four 30-minute magic shows to my guitar accompaniment.

Of all the street acts in San Francisco, Harry and I were able to extract more money from a crowd than any other performers of the time. And we did it with ventriloquism.

Now let me state for the record, Harry's magic show was terrific. It was mysterious, fun and hilarious. We'd start the show with maybe 4 or 5 spectators and finish the show with 200 people gathered around that small courtyard stage. As any street performer will tell you, the real trick is getting the folks to pay up before they get away at the end of the show.

Here's how we did it.

I would stand center stage while Harry stood next to me. He would do a long, blusterous introduction of me while I stood there straight and tall. He would pretend to hypnotize me and I would "fall into a deep, dark state of boogie-boogie". My eyes would bug out and I would stand absolutely still. And then the singing would start. And I STILL wouldn't move a muscle.

Harry would hold his hand behind my neck and pretend to be a bad ventriloquist. The folks would laugh. But then he would start speaking over my singing. And then they would realize that I was the one singing. Instead of the crowd moving away, one-by-one they would move closer and closer. As they got to the front of the stage, Harry would hold out the large brass church plate we used to collect money, and each and every audience member would feel obliged to drop a dollar, five, ten or twenty into the money pile.

We may have looked like street urchins, but we usually dined at very nice San Francisco restaurants.

Harry later went on to star in the NBC comedy "Night Court" and later "Dave's World" on CBS. And you know where I've ended up.

Making dummies.