Gillilan, humorist

              Gillilan—Humorist
Chicago News Man
Formely The Baltimore American Man
Titles:
“Sunshine and Awkwardness”
“A Sample Case of Humor”
(And others always in the making)
Redpath Brockway
Being Honest with You
I don t know about these "lectures of mine. Naturally I am prejudiced in their favor. I have also found a whole legion of audiences that were even more enthusiastic ahout my work than I have ever been. Again, there are others—there are a few others. These "other' audiences have an opinion less enthusiastic, no doubt, hut I don't want anybody to find out for sure.    If there s anybody whose feelings I hate to hurt, I am that person.
Yet in general I m mightily encouraged and cheered over the -way people treat my platform efforts. So infinitely many more people seem to like it than dislike it. Then (it may be more of my prejudice, remember) I have never found a college audience or one accustomed to good lecture courses, that didn t act pleased -while I was visiting with them. In other words, it has seemed to me that my -work went better in proportion to the intelligence of the community. Hows your community on intelli¬gence, committeeman?
Some entertainers tell you they "always succeed. But my folks tried to break me of lying when I was a child. Yet I mostly always succeed. In other words, I can please all of most audiences and mostly all audiences. At least, that has been my experience in the past.
My humor is my own, done in my own cunning -way—I m the cutest thing! The stories, verses, etc., I give are my own make. Being primarily a -writer, please don t ask me who wrote the things I give, any more than you -would ask Nye or Burdette, or Riley, or Mark Twain, where they got their stuff. Mine is the same proposition so far as originality is concerned.
I give a few press notices here, but don t attach too much importance to them alone. The editor might have been prejudiced, or I might have bought space in his paper and written the notices myself. Not that I don't treasure these notices, for I do ; but some mighty poor sticks can show you some corking press-stuff, committeeman — yea, verily, let us -weep together.
Still, you'd better read these notices anyway. Though Id much prefer you got word direct, somehow, rn pay the postage if you just tell me what plan of investigation you prefer. I don't want anybody to buy me with their eyes shut. I don't want to fool anybody. That's why I give the names of a few of the places where I have been.
I m not much or an advertiser in the lyceum publications, not through prejudice, but because I see adver¬tising there by some rank amateurs -who say so much better things about themselves than I could say or me (having heard myself on several occasions), that I feel a bit discouraged about convincing anybody that way. And, maybe, when they've heard themselves oftener, they'll feel different about it.
And somehow — -well, did -what a man said in praise of himself ever get you excited about him? Is self-praise very convincing? I don t think so, and that negative opinion alone (not my modesty— perish the thought!) keeps me from saying a lot of kind things I have frequenlly thought about me.
Editors of the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Judge, Life, Woman's Home Com¬panion, Success, Chicago Daily News—people who don't care two hoots for me, personally, buy my stuff, so I think it must be tolerably nice stuff. Then ^^ho's Who in America and the National Cyclopedia of American Biography have looked me up and recorded me. That looks suspicious, too, doesn t it?
My entertainments are being constantly renewed, for I constantly create.
I believe honestly that the man who labels himself a platform "poet' or ""humorist'' ought to have made good in the current literature of his country.     Think this over.
I used to have five reasons for lecturing — a "wife, two children and two mortgages. Now I have only three reasons, and I haven't lost any
of my family.   Guess what happened.   Sol     STRICKLAND   W. GILLILAN,
am doing more literature and necessarily
choosing   among  the   best  dates.      Is yours                           Magazine, Newsftafar and Platform Humorist,
a best date?                                                                                     Poet and Philosopher.
Some Places I've Been
Appended is not a complete list of tke places I nave teen.     Tne list would be too bulky, and, besides, there are some towns tkat are sensitive about having it known.
NEW YORK STATE
Brooklyn, Troy, Binghamton, Elmira, Lima, West Winfield, etc.
PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster, Pittsburg (3 times). McKeesport, German-town, Montrose (2 times), Wilkesbarre, and 30 or 40 others.
NEW JERSEY
Perth Amboy, Upper Montclair, etc.
DELAWARE
Dover, and others.
MASSACHUSETTS
Boston (3 times), and elsewhere.
RHODE ISLAND
Providence.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord.
MARYLAND
Baltimore (46 times), and other towns.
WEST VIRGINIA
Parkersburg.
OHIO
Cleveland (3 times),Toledo, Columbus, Lima(2 times), Ashland, Jackson (2 times), Portsmouth (2 times), Lebanon, Findlay, Lancaster, Bucyrus, and 50 others.
INDIANA
Richmond (25 times), Marion (10 times), Indianapolis (4 times), Madison (2 times). New Albany (2 times), Evansville (2 times), and countless others.
MICHIGAN
Hudson, Big Rapids, Benton Harbor, South Haven, Bay View (2 times), Howell, Marine City, Mount Clemens, Pontiac, and many others.
MINNESOTA
Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth (2 times), Rochester, and many more.
He had fun about as widely disseminated as could be man¬aged in one evening by one man. Every once in a while, just when the laughter was at its height, some¬thing in the speaker's voice and manner changed, and lo, a strain of pathos had caught the audience as Mr. Gillilan touched momentarily on the tenderness of some common experience. There were notably no stop¬ping places for laughter or applause. The speaker went lightly from one whimsical thing to another, seemingly unconscious that he was in any wise particularly funny, a condition that moved his hearers to still more laughter. The humorists" manner is essentially one of Mr. Gilli-lan's charming traits as a speaker. Mr. Gillilan is a humorist and his fun is all close to life, rippling with kindly   suggestion   and   allusion.     There  is   nothing
WISCONSIN
Wausau, Appleton, Oshkosh (2 times), Piattville, Eau Claire, Delavan Lake, Racine (2 times), Milwaukee (2 times), Madison, and a lot more.
NORTH DAKOTA
Grand Forks, Valley City.
SOUTH DAKOTA
Yankton, Madison, Wessington Springs, Miller, Sioux Falls, and many others.
IOWA
Ottumwa (2 times), Oskaloosa (2 times), Charles City (2 times), Centerville (2 times), Clarinda, Albia (2 times), Sigourney, Spencer (2 times), Cherokee, Mount Pleasant, Cedar Rapids, Marion, Osage, Algona, Audubon, Onawa, Sioux City, Marshalltown, Boone, Rockwell City, Sac City, Storm Lake, and 40 others.
ILLINOIS
Aurora, Macomb, Chicago (6 times). Champaign, Ur-bana, Shelby ville (2 times), Decatur (2 times), Oregon (2 times). Mount Morris, Mount Sterling, Monmouth, Joliet, Mount Vernon (2 times), Belvidere, ^Vheaton, and numerous others.
MISSOURI
Trenton, Maysville (2 times). Liberty, Carthage (2 times), Kansas City, Sedalia. Fayette, Smithville, St. Charles, Dexter (2 times), Neosbo, ond others.
KANSAS
Wichita (2 times), Girard, Winfield, Clay Center (2 times), Salina (2 times), Kingman, Fort Leaven¬worth, Anthony, and numerous more.
OKLAHOMA
Perry  Guymon, Stillwater and Alva.
NEBRASKA
David City (3 times), York (2 times), Lincoln, Crete, Pawnee City, Peru, Aurora, Holdredge (2 times), Hastings (2 times), Bellevue (2 times), Geneva, and more towns.
strained about it, nothing bitter or sarcastic. It leaves people who have laughed, better for it.—Terre Haute Gazette.
That Strickland W. Gillilan improves upon acquaintance was demonstrated last evening when an audience con¬siderably larger than the one which heard him last year, assembled into the Methodist Church to hear him. There was a strong bond of sympathy between him and his audience from the start.—Duluth News-Tribune.
Strickland W. Gillilan is making good in the whole uni¬verse, and it is a pleasure to know that his quaint lectures are as highly appreciated in Nebraska as in any other part of the country.—JBIX, in Nebraska State Journal
Also several towns in Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Arkansas, Ontario, Idaho, Utah and California.
Excerpts from Press Notices
Gillilanisms
on one of those "one-more-struggle-and-I-am-free dresses.''
That Jog jumped at conclusions too muck. He would jump at anytkmg's conclusion tkat went past kim—a cow or anything like  tkat.
I was asleep on my feet, and yawningly asked tke sleeping-car conductor, at 2 a.m., wkat ke could give me. He actually asked me wkat I wanted. I told kim I wanted a dime's wortk of crankerries and a kucket of lard.
Tke floorwalker looked like a United States Senator, kut ke wasn't—ke was a perfect gentleman. He told me M Back up tkat stair¬way and turn over two aisles." I told kim I wouldn't do it.
Tkat farmer wko came to me wken my arm -was kroken in a railroad wreck asked me if I was kurt in tke coack. I told kim "No, I was kurt in tke elkow, kut I came migkty near kemg kit in tke vestibule.
Tkere's no way to stop some people trying to sing, unless you kill em. And its just as muck a violation of tke law to kill anykody like tkat as to kill a person.
All tke stupidity in tke world isn't across tke Atlantic. I can find wkole clusters of tke pure American krand.
When you see one woman carrying a poodle and anotker carrying a kaky, you can figure tkat God put tkat kaky into tkat woman s arms, kut He kad notking to do witk locating tkat pup.
Some people sauntered into my audience at 9:15
one   mgkt   in   Kansas,    and   I   said   to   em:
.   "^XTiat's tke matter?    Couldn't you sleep?"
—Excerpts from Gil ft Jan J^Ionologues,
Life ain't long—I'll go myself.
Some o' these days or other. Then we'll have good times agin—
Me an' pap an' mother. Purtier hills we'll have t* climb.
Saunterin' along, old-fashioned— Hear th' wild birds singin' 'round.
See th' river splashin'— If God 'd only let us three
Be 'lone, like we'd ruther. Heaven d be a great ol' place
F'r me an' pap an' mother.
—Extract from Me an *Pa£ an' Mother
Program
POEMS—Old Ash-Hopper; Me an" Pap an' Mother; Sleepy Time; Sleep, Little Sweetheart; That Little Chum of Mine; The Old Cabinet Organ; When Our Gal Spoke a Piece; Egotism; The Girl-Child; When Papa Holds My Hand; She Felt of Her Belt; Finnigin; Phrenology; Git Mad; Fidgets; Dress in by th' Fire; The Cry of the Alien; A Baby the Size of Mine; Finest of All; Believe; The Old Family Group; Successful Operations; Etc.
MONOLOGUES—Days on the Farm; Dawn of Literature; Beginning of Humor; Brother Ernest and the Buttons: Musical Experience; First Clothing Store Experience; In a Sleeping-Car; On Egotism; Women in Car; Lecturette on Chickens; Jumping at Conclusions; Experience in Hospital; Etc.
STORIES—Impersonations of Bob Burdette in Bull and Bear Story; At the Crossing; Mongoose Story; New Hostler; The New Station Agent; Woodpeckers and Swine; At the Telephone; The Wrong Henry; Cat on Tombstone; and a constant supply of newly-created ones.
My programs are always ckangmg and taking on new material, kecause I am always creating new material in my large newspaper and magazine work. At the same time I cling to wkatever is most effective in my earlier work, witk constant improvements and additions to it.
Xkere, now, I've keen konest witk you. If you want tkis kind of a kumorist, you want me; otker--wise, you don't.     People are migkty foolisk to kuy wkat tkey don't want.
More Excerpts from the Press
Monteaglans have been permitted to listen to a genuine humorist, a gentleman fast making his impress on the literature of the day—Strickland "W. Gillilan. He was caught with the goods on him, and he turned it over to the audience. His sketches and poems are full of sweetness and pathos, while his appearance, attitude and poses are the perfection of art—if they are studied.    He is really not as crooked as he stands
nor as queer as he looks. His heart's in the right place and it's sunny all the way through. He's just the sort of a fellow you want to know. God bless him. —Memphis Commercial-Aftfieah
His ia the sure, intangible touch, the art hidden by art. Mr. Gillilan is a genuine humorist.—Daily Student, Indiana University.
Tkat's tke way ninety-nine out of one kundred of my press notices read. If committees want more, for advertising purposes, I'll supply tkem. Some of tkem talk differently, kut tkose wouldn t ke good advertising.
Tkis Bureau claims to kave the kest.     Certainly.     Ain't I witk tkem?