We just got a tour bus. I didn't know tour buses could be this nice. It's just me, Brian Haner the guitar guy, the tour manager and a writer. We laugh ourselves silly. Apparently we're going to have a road dog, a miniature pincher. It's the smallest they've ever seen. How masculine am I going to look, working with dolls and a miniature dog?

I started in a business background, but then it was like, 'you know, I can't do math,' so I changed it to a liberal arts degree and got my Bachelor of Arts in Communications and it made sense.

But the mechanics of learning to 'throw your voice' are pretty simple. Anyone with a tongue, an upper palate, teeth, and a normal speaking voice can learn ventriloquism.

In 1980, when I graduated from high school, my goal was to be on 'The Tonight Show' with Johnny Carson at least once before our ten-year class reunion. Our class reunion was in June of 1990, and I was on 'The Tonight Show' in April 1990, so I made it by a few months.

I had a happy, dramafree youth, growing up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Dallas, Texas. The only thing that was slightly unusual compared to most of my friends was that I was an only child... I don't think that's why my parents gave me a dummy, at least they've never copped to it.

I was not one of the popular kids, I was not great at sports, girls didn't pay attention to me.I was just pretty much an average kid, no stand-out abilities, nothing note-worthy.

I used to pick Priuses out of the grill of my Hummer.