Chapter 5 Chapter Four

The art of vaudeville has been popular in the United States since 1881, and it didn't come to an end until 1932 when the Palace Theater closed.The vaudeville show was once the starting point for all aspiring young burlesquers, and the place where they honed their talents against hostile audiences who loved to laugh at others.Accomplished comedians are famous and rich.Such as Eddie Cantel and WC Fields, Johnson and Benny, Albert and Stero, Jessel and Burns, as well as the Marx Brothers and dozens of others, all of them were extremely popular at that time. momentary character. Indeed, vaudeville was a very comfortable business in those days, and it made a lot of money.But then Juggling failed and fell behind.The comedians had to find another way.Famous ones are invited by the radio station to give personal performances or broadcasts; sometimes they also go to perform in big nightclubs all over the country.It's even worse for struggling young comedians like Toby.They also perform in nightclubs.But what kind of nightclub was that? They called it a "lavatory cycle."This is still a more polite and civilized name.They have performed in venues including the dirtiest salons in the country.In those places, low-class, vulgar lower-class audiences are packed.After these guys fill up their beer, they start belching the strippers, and then juggle and spoil the comedians.The powder room stinks of toilets, rotting food, spilled drinks, piss, cheap perfume, everything but worst of all the smell of sour sweat up.The toilets were so dirty, the actresses were urinating in the sink in the dressing room.Remuneration also varies.From a poor meal to five dollars, ten dollars, or sometimes as high as fifteen dollars.Each night, the rewards are determined primarily by how the audience reacts.

Toby Temple played in all these nightclubs, and these places became his school.The names of the towns vary, but the venues for the performances are all the same.Not only the smell is the same, but the reaction of the hostile audience is also the same.If the audience didn't like an actor's performance, they threw beer bottles at him, yelled at him during the performance, or simply whistled and booed him away.This is a tough school, and a harsh school, because it taught Toby the ability to survive.He learned how to deal with drunken sleepwalkers and how to deal with sober villains, and never confused the two.He learned how to recognize someone who was about to question him, and he would calm him down by toasting him with a glass of wine or wiping his brow with a napkin.

Toby found work at places like Lake Kaya Mesa, Shawanga Little Shop and Avon.In addition, he has performed in Wildwood, New Jersey, Canada, Italian Enclave and University Ballroom. He keeps learning. Toby's performances, including imitations of popular singers, imitations of big stars such as Gable, Grant, Bogart, Cagney, etc., and plagiarism of some famous comedians (these famous actors can pay writers high compensation) script.All the struggling comedians of the day stole scripts from famous actors and bragged about it: "I learned from Jerry Lester"—meaning, he adopted Jerry Lester's scripts and techniques ——"But I will play better than him." "I learned from Milton Burley", "You should all see how I play Ryder Skelton".

Since materials are key, they only steal the best ones. Toby would try everything.He befuddles the utterly disinterested, scowling audience with his talking blue eyes.He'd say, "Did you ever see an Eskimo pee?" and he'd put his hands on his front and the ice would melt and drip. He would wrap a turban and wrap himself in a sheet. "Abudul, the snake beauty," he would intone.Then play the flute and a cobra emerges from a wicker basket and dances rhythmically to Toby's music (the cobra is just a douche bag with a nozzle for its head).This made the audience laugh.

Toby also makes you feel funny and realistic when he imitates people of medium height, dumpy people and tall thin people. He can perform dozens of funny scenes.He is ready for anything.He's bound to transition from scene to scene before the beer bottles start flying. But no matter where he performed, when he performed, there was always the sound of running water in the urinal. Toby took a bus across the United States.When he arrived in a new town, he looked for the cheapest hotel or boarding house, and took stock of the nightclubs, bars, and racetracks.He put a piece of cardboard on the sole of his shoe and whitened his shirt collar with whitewash to save on laundry.The towns are generally remote and deserted, and the food is poor; but what makes him most unbearable is that he has no relatives.The world is so big, no one cares about his life or death.He often wrote to his father, but only out of a sense of duty, not out of love.Toby desperately needed someone to talk to, someone who understood him and shared his dreams.

Toby saw successful entertainers leaving big clubs speeding away in limousines with their many entourages, including their beautiful, fashionable girls.He envied them.one day... The worst moments were when he was frustrated, when he was yelled at in the middle of a show, when he was kicked out of the stage before he had even won the show.Whenever this happens, Toby hates the audience; he wants to kill them.Not just because he failed, but because he failed so badly.He often feels that there is no way to go, and the feeling of being at the end of the mountain.At this time, he would hide in the shop and cry bitterly.He begged God to leave him alone, he begged God to clear his mind of all distractions and not let him stand in front of the audience again.Because his desire to please the audience has never been fulfilled.

He will pray: God!Let me be a shoe seller or a butcher!I can do anything, just don't do this industry anymore!My mother was all wrong.Oh, God!You didn't intend to make me superior.I'm not going to rock the world either.Tomorrow, I will look for another job, be a small white-collar worker, and live my life like an ordinary person. However, the next day, Toby performed on stage again.He imitates, he tells jokes, he tries to win over his audience before they attack him. He would smile innocently and say to the audience, "A man fell in love with his duck. One night he took his duck to the movies. The ticket collector said, 'No ducks in!' and the man walked to a corner. , stuffed the duck in the front of his crotch. Then bought a ticket and walked in. The duck was squeezed and started to move around. The man unbuttoned the crotch and let the duck's head come out Next to this man was a woman and her husband. The woman turned to her husband and said, 'Ralph, this man next to me got that dick out of him.' Ralph said : 'Have you messed with it?' 'No,' she replied. 'Well, forget about it and just watch the movie.' After a few more minutes, the lady gave her another gentle nudge with her arm. Husband: 'Ralph, his--' said her husband, 'Didn't I tell you, leave it alone.' So she said, 'I can't leave it alone - it's eating my popcorn!' "

He did all-night shows by himself at Three, Six, Five in San Francisco, Rudy's Riel in New York, and Kinwalo in Toledo.Sometimes they also perform at church rallies, at churches or at handouts. He learned a lot. He performed four or five performances a day in a small theater.These little theaters are like Jem, Odion, Empire, and Star. He learned a lot. If it hadn't been for a major event breaking out at this moment, thus destroying the traditional life order of the people, Toby Temple would probably have resigned to his fate.He thought that he would spend his whole life doing this kind of reincarnation in the bathroom in obscurity.

On a cold Sunday afternoon in early December 1941, Toby performed at the Dewey Theater on Fourteenth Street in New York at a salary of five dollars a day.A total of eight plays are listed on the program list.In addition to his own play, Toby also works as an "outsider".He has to introduce a few words for each scene.The first show went well; during the second show, the audience booed when Toby introduced the Kanazawa family, a family of Japanese acrobats.Toby stepped backstage. "What the hell! What's going on out there?" he asked. "My Jesus, haven't you heard? The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor a few hours ago," the stage manager told him.

"What's the matter?" Toby asked. "Look at those people, they seem to be really big!" In the next game, it's time for the Japanese troupe to play.Toby went to the front desk and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce the Philippine trapeze show to you! This show is newly staged here after the success in Manila." The audience saw that it was still a Japanese troupe. The people and horses immediately became a hustle and bustle.In other scenes of the day, Toby described the Japanese theater troupe as jovial Hawaiians, talented Mongols, and Eskimos all over the place.But he couldn't save them; and, it turned out, he couldn't save himself either.

When he called his father that night, Toby found out that there was a letter at home waiting for him to open.The letter began with "Hello!" and was signed by the President.Six weeks later, Toby enlisted in the Army.On the day he enlisted in the army, his headache was so bad that he could barely hold his oath. Little Josephine often suffers from headaches.As soon as her head hurt, it was as if two big palms were squeezing her temples on both sides.In order not to disturb her mother, she always suppressed crying.Mrs. Zinski was superstitious.She had always secretly believed that she and her youngest daughter were in some way responsible for her husband's death.One afternoon she wandered into a revival meeting where the pastor was shouting, "You are all sinful people. God hates you and puts you on the pit of hell like a loathsome worm. Put it on the fire. Your sins are deep, and your lives are hanging by a thread. If you don't repent, you will be burned to ashes by the flames of God's wrath." Mrs. Zinski felt relieved immediately after hearing this.Because she thought, she heard the word of God. "This is a punishment from God for killing your father," her mother would tell Josephine.But at this time Josephine was too young to understand what her mother was saying.But she knew she must have done something wrong.But she wanted to know what she had done wrong so she could tell her mother she was sorry.

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