''Were You Born So?'' DVD Case & disc
What does a successful 69 year-old businessman, also internationally recognized as an author, lecturer and abstract expressionist do when his peers have already plunged headlong into retirement, are travelling the country and spending time with grand children or even great grandchildren?
At least that’s what Dean F. V. Du Vall, Sr. has done, as he explains:
‘’It all started about two years ago whilst having lunch with my youngest daughter (now 39) in East Lansing. I was relating how my fraternal grandfather and his brother years ago got into an argument over which of them would be able to outdo the other if they were to decide to start a new career at their advanced ages (mid seventies).
‘’My Uncle Wally - a veteran of the Spanish American War, claimed that he was still in good enough shape to build a duplex from the ground up all by himself. My grandfather literally guffawed upon hearing that because, Uncle Wally had never so much as picked up a hammer to hang a picture.
‘’The back and forth cajoling continued during each monthly visit and finally, lo and behold, ol’ Uncle Wally actually started building the duplex - and would have finished it had he not dropped dead - HA!
‘’My daughter asked what I planned to do in my ‘old age’ and I said, that I thought I’d become a stand-up comedian only, like Mark Twain and Charles Dickens, I would refer to myself as a humorist and would write and perform only my own material.
‘’The daughter thought that, alone, was amusing: Her aging, arthritic father, shuffling onto a stage wielding a fancy, silver-handled cane and trying to entertain people of all ages.
‘’Nothing further was said of the subject - even after I decided to actually proceed with the career challenge. I diligently studied the subject of humor and two years later, after much work and a great deal of genuine ‘performance anxiety’ - my first professionally produced DVD has been released.
‘’I am billed as ‘The Elderly Dax’ (Funny Stuff For Grown-Ups). The Dax part emanates from one of my older companies, a publishing firm I’ve operated for the past half century or so. Many people call me Dax rather than by my own name.'’
Entitled, ‘’Were You Born So?'’ the DVD is produced from a two hour live performance at the stately Riviera Theatre in Three Rivers Michigan on May 9 of this year. The title piece was taken from a century-old funny tale often retold by Du Vall’s late mother, who was born in England. It is a cleverly constructed piece based on two gentlemen who meet for the first time on a London avenue. It concerns an encounter between the two, each of whom has a physical affliction:
One can speak only from the right side of his mouth - the other from his left. The ensuing agitated conversation is visually and audibly hilarious.
‘’With my mother being British whilst my father was French, for me, growing up was like living through a reenactment of the hundred years war between the Brits and the Frogs. Fortunately, each of my parents had a distinctly honed sense of humor which they passed along to me.'’
Much of the humor in The Elderly Dax act stems from certain unavoidable facts of life many oldsters face, and his piece on ‘’Why old people smell funny'’ may well become a humor classic.
The DVD, ‘’Were You Born So?'’ is available via AMAZON.com or directly from http://www.daxrich.com/
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Contact person: Holly J. Fields (email): TheElderlyDax@
