HALLOWEEN was always big around my apartment growing up. Dad was a professional make-up artist and when he'd come home from work on All Hallow's Eve, kids would be lined up out the door and down the stairs (we lived on the 6th floor) for Dad to make them up.
My favorite make-up for many years was EMMETT KELLY, the famous sad-faced hobo. One time the Community Center across from my building was having a Halloween Costume Party and my dad couldn't be home in time, so I went into his make-up kit (unleashing that gloriously pungent-fresh-from-vaudeville grease paint smell!) and did my first make-up. I won First Prize, too. I was 6. . .
I always liked portraying different people and things. That's why puppets and puppetry suit me like a glove. If I saw something or someone I liked, I had to be it or them. Guess I was an early Zelig-teer!Like, Steve McQueen as Josh Randall in "WANTED- DEAD OR ALIVE"
Who's cooler? Him or me?
Or CHUCK McCANN. Boy I wanted to be him. We even have the same initials!
SOUPY SALES was another fave wannabe. . .
I guess you never have to outgrow it. . .
My friend PAUL RUBIN and I used to dress like LAUREL AND HARDY and perform at schools and events as the duo (I was Chubby Ollie). We even made several TV appearances. . . 
The zombie in the middle is JOE FRANKLIN.
In (very) High School we put on attic shows as THE MARX BROTHERS
I'm GROUCHO (and the red-eyed fella in the red was (nay IS!) DUG COHEN - - soon to become my partner in the MARKO PUPPET THEATRE.
I carried this joi-de-make-believe into adulthood, and played the villianous ventriloquist BRACKISH SWAMPWATER on my FOX series DJ KAT.
Have a wonderful OctoBoo 31, 2009.
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