Miller & Mike on stilts

Summer is almost over and with it goes the summer festival. We will all have to wait 9 long months before we again see the season of cream puffs, tractor pulls and fighting through huge crowds of people to see a Miller & Mike show. But don’t fret because with the lose of the summer festival comes the fall festival.

Coming up the last weekend in September is Appleton’s Octoberfest. Get ready to eat your way down College Ave. There are also lots of bands and of course Miller & Mike. The next weekend head to Mayville, WI for Audobon Days. There will be a big car show and this year Tom Pease, oh yeah, and Miller & Mike.

This is an old photo of Mike and I in a parade on Memorial Day. Look close and you can see Mike in the background wearing a red shirt and striped pants hitting spectators with a big hammer and of course, that’s a ukulele in my hands.

Miller

The Outagamie County Fair is already under way and Mike and I will be there all weekend. This always a lot of fun with lots of animals to see and smell, a great midway and lots of free Miller & Mike shows on the family stage. If that’s not enough Mike and I will be sharing the stage with Randy Peterson and Amenrah the mime.

Before the fair this weekend you can catch us at the Beaver Dam Library and the West Bend Library later today. You need to be on the ball to catch those shows because in about an hour I’m leaving to go do them.

See you there.

Miller

Our library tour for 2011 is halfway through and so far it’s going great. We were at the Ripon Library today and the librarian said her face hurt from smiling too much. What a great compliment. Tomorrow it’s the Omro Library with a Clown Transformation show at nearby Webster Manor to follow, super cool. Then it’s Fond du Lac, Berlin and Wild Rose all before the week is out. You can get all the details on the calendar page at MillerandMike.com.

If you have ever liked the sound of a ukulele, or thought it looked cool when you saw it, or smelled one and thought, “huh?” Then you should come to the next ukulele night at the New Moon in Oshkosh, WI. It’s coming up this Thursday at 7pm. The last one was a huge success with lots of talented ukes and lots of people to listen to them. You don’t want to miss this.

Miller

Mike and I are making our triumphant return to Chickenfest, that’s right Chickenfest. We were doing shows at Chickenfest when it was just a small festival that held chicken dance contests every hour and wing eating contests. You can still eat wings and do the chicken dance but this is far from the little event of yesteryear. This year features Cody Simpson and a host of others with the Undiscovered Live Tour.

Chickenfest is going on all weekend at the Darboy Community Park with Mike and I strolling around on Friday night before the fireworks. We will also be on the stage just after 5pm on Saturday. See you there.

Here is an old photo of us at Chickenfest. I think it’s from 2007.

Miller

It’s been brought to my attention that as much as some people enjoy my reviews of movies I haven’t seen there are people out there that want to know when and where they can see Mike and I perform. So here are the shows we have coming up.

The easiest way to see us is to turn on your TV this Saturday. We’ll be interviewed sometime after 8am on Fox 11 to talk about Celebrate De Pere, which is another place to see us. We’ll be doing a show at 6pm on Saturday and 4pm on Sunday but this great festival has food and fun all day long.

Mike and I are also coming back to the Small Theater in Green Bay on Memorial Day. If you want to come you have to E-mail me to get the super secret location of this gem of Green Bay.

Don’t live in the Green Bay area? me neither. Mike and I will be at the season opening farmer’s market in Oshkosh on Saturday morning June 4th. For people that live north of GB, I will be at the Y’s healthy kids day teaching a juggling class. That’s at the Marinette-Menominee YMCA on June 11th.

So now you know and you have no excuse to miss a single banana this summer. Can you hear me, Nancy?

Leave ’em Laughing,
Otis

Don’t worry this is not a spoiler! It’s not even a review because I haven’t seen it. I will tell you what I know which enough to make me want to see it.

If you know something about circus history or Wisconsin history you know that they entangle more than a plate of linguine. That holds true today as well as in the past with the Circus World Museum and the Clown Hall of Fame in Baraboo, WI. There was even talk about filming the movie in WI but it didn’t go through because of taxes but WI didn’t miss out completely. Baraboo is also home to the most impressive circus library in the world and a circus wagon restoration facility both of which played a key role in movie production. Baraboo loaned the movie producers photos and videos to help create the scenes as well as 15 circus wagons that were used in the film. Pretty cool.

It’s not all good news. Water for Elephants stars America’s favorite vampire, Robert Patterson. The character name in this movie is Jacob, read the twilight books to find the irony. Reviews are mixed but just like every movie that was a hit book first everyone agrees that the movie cut a bunch of stuff out. I say that after every movie I see to make people think I read a lot more than I do.

I’m going to see it because I like circus and that’s good enough for me. I’ll take my wife because Edward is the sexiest vampire since Angel and that’s good enough for her.

Miller

A friend of mine, let’s call him Mike, reminded me today that I will coming to Madison soon and I should tell somebody about it. I know that some of you out there are from the Madison area and might like to see me do a show. Okay, I’m guessing you want to see me do a show and I’m guessing you’re from Madison but if not then pass this along because there must be somebody somewhere that wants something a little entertaining.

Lots of Clown Transformation Shows are coming up in Sun Prairie, Mount Horeb and yes, Madison. Check out the calendar for details, they are all open to the public and will be lots of fun. Send me an E-mail if you want more info or to find out more about the show go to,

www.millerandmike.com/?page_id=1045

Miller

I know it was a few weeks ago already but I was reminded of this story recently and had to share.

It was in Charleston, WV when Mike and I were in the circus. This was right before a 2 week break in the tour so everyone was gearing up for a vacation and when you work with a bunch of clowns, no really, things get weird as people get punchy.

I walked into clown alley, our dressing room, and the two main trouble makers come up to me and tell me that I need to run an obstacle course they made. It was a slow day so I asked cautiously, “What do I have to do?” They showed me a red cane and said, “It’s easy, take this, put it on the floor and put your forehead on it so you’re hunched over and turn in circles until you get really dizzy. When you’re dizzy enough we’ll say go and you run around the chair, jump over the basket and come back here.”

That was the stupidest obstacle course I’d ever heard of and I told them so. They insisted that I couldn’t do it and said if I wasn’t up to it they could get Richard to do it who was probably a better a clown than me anyway. I said, “Give me that stupid cane.” So I put one end on the floor and my forehead to the other end and turned in circles until they said go and I ran around the chair and over the basket and came back to where I started without a problem. According to them I just wasn’t dizzy enough so to really show them I did it all again and I was even faster than the first time.

Right after I sat down at my trunk, feeling very proud of myself, Richard walks into the alley and they explain the whole thing to him and he agrees to do it. So he bends over with his head on the cane and spins in a circle. When he gets up and goes for the chair I see that he has huge red smudge on his forehead where the cane use to be. My jaw hit the floor. I grabbed my mirror to look at my forehead and sure enough, I had a big red smudge on my face. Those lousy clowns put red clown make-up on the end of that cane. I quickly fixed my make-up before Richard could see me.

The only thing that makes you feel better after getting a joke played on you is to play it on someone else. I want to thank Richard, he was always there for me.

Miller

Mike and I are teaming up with the Jackson Street Polecats. Who are they you ask? There are a classic jug band which means lots of strings and lots of other things you would never expect to make music, like jugs and other various kitchen devices.  They describe themselves as having the subtlety of an over-caffeinated rhinoceros.

It will be the same great Miller & Mike show but set to live music. Right now it looks like you will find this great show at the Outagamie county fair this summer. Stay tuned for upcoming details.

Here is a sample of some of their great jug band music, enjoy.

No, it’s not a big weekend for Mike and I to perform in shows, we have the weekend off. But it is a big weekend to go and see some good shows and that’s what I’m doing with my time off.

The shrine circus will be at the Brown County Arena in Green Bay on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This is always fun and I try to go every year, especially this year. I hear that they have a very talented Russian clown named Olex Kartukov who used to tour with the Ringling Circus, just like me.

There’s more fun in Oshkosh. The Grand Opera House is hosting a show called An Afternoon with Groucho. Frank Ferrante puts on a one-man show as one of my biggest comedy heroes, Groucho. Discovered by Groucho’s son, Arthur, the New York Times called Frank, “the greatest living interpreter of Groucho Marx’s material.” The show starts at 2pm on Sunday and tickets are still available. Go to grandoperahouse.org.

As if that wasn’t enough, Frank will be at the gallery walk in Oshkosh on Saturday night showing off his collection of Marx Brothers memorabilia and The Grand will do a showing of Duck Soup that night, free of charge.

Oh, Yes! It’s going to be good weekend.

Miller