Mesa Musings:

Have you ever known a ventriloquist? I have. They’re a different breed.

A ventriloquist is a performer who projects his voice into a wooden dummy without moving his own lips. I say “his” with all due respect to Sherry Lewis.

My only friendship with a guy who could “throw” his voice across a room — and even small canyons — occurred in 1962 when I was a student at Orange Coast College. Walter, my ventriloquist friend, and I were enrolled in an acting class together.

He kept his alter ego in a box. To him, that puppet was a living being. Walter himself was rather awkward and insecure, but his wooden pal was a regular cut-up — and garnered Walter access to adoring women. Walter was no dummy.

I don’t remember the puppet’s name. It was something like Chester or Lester or Mikey. Chester/Lester/Mikey was a confident, clever, witty sort who had an eye for the ladies. And they him.

Walter would take out the dummy — yes, folks, he’d actually bring the dummy in a box to social events — and the girls would swoon. They’d arm-wrestle one another to sit next to Walter. I thought it was a pathetic ploy, but it seemed to work.

Walter stood at 5 feet, 4 inches — not much taller than his dummy — and weighed 110 pounds soaking wet. I’ll be darned if the girls didn’t think he was cute. Elfin-like. At a strapping 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 125 pounds, I was never mistaken for “cute.” Scrawny, maybe.

I couldn’t throw my voice, just as I couldn’t throw a football.

And Chester/Lester/Mikey told the lamest jokes, like: “Why is a wedding ring like a tourniquet? Because it cuts off the circulation.”

Are you kidding me?

Girls would giggle at lines like that, and Chester/Lester/Mikey would sit on Walter’s lap and give a cocky little nod of the head and let fly with a demented chortle.

Walter would sit there, smug, looking like the cat that had swallowed the canary. The other guys in the room, myself included, would squirm uncomfortably.

In drama class we frequently had to act out short scenes from great literature. Walter wasn’t allowed to perform with “Mr. Cool” at his side — or on his lap. Nope, his emotional crutch was wrenched from him, and the pressure was on to perform on his own. No hiding behind contrivances. He was completely vulnerable. He had to rely on words that emanated from his mouth, not from some birch or cedar doppelganger’s.

Let’s see what you’ve got, Walter!

He was a less-than-spectacular actor. Walter might be able to make a voice come out of his back pocket or from a fruit basket, but when it came to delivering lines for a conflicted Tennessee Williams character, well, he wasn’t up to it.

His characterizations were, shall we say, wooden.

My verbal skills may have lacked something when I put a sock over my hand, immobilized my lips over clinched teeth and made like Señor Wences, but, baby, I could emote like crazy, reciting lines written by Messieurs Williams, Chekhov or Ibsen.

That’s my wheelhouse, Walter!

Still, there’s something about a splinter-laden dummy perched on a guy’s knee that makes girls giddy. Walter — via that blasted mannequin — was regularly transformed into a charismatic, smooth-talking chick magnet.

I might pour my heart into roles like Tom Wingfield (“The Glass Menagerie”), or Trofimov (“The Cherry Orchard”) or Jorgen Tesman (“Hedda Gabler”), but they generated nary a hand-squeeze from a doting female.

But, grasping his puppet, Walter would assume that frozen “it must be gas” expression — and deliver some dumb line — and he was “The Man.”

I’m just ruminating here, but were life to grant me a “do-over,” I might consider taking up ventriloquism. I know, repetitive drills can be a drag — try saying, “Banjo playing is fabulous in Mississippi” a hundred times without moving your lips — but the payoff could be worth it.

And, while we’re at it, I might choose to be born Scottish. Gaelic, I hear, flows more easily on the tongue than English.

Hmm. Say hello to my little friend.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.