Make your next speech the best one ever! Let Reveal...It compose one for you.  Email John Bernstein today!

John Bernstein in a group photo of members from the
CCSD'S PAYBAC program at Hyde Park Middle School in April 2010.



John Bernstein winning the highest award in Las Vegas for
Toastmasters Tall Tale Speech Contest in May 2009.

Here's a few samples of speeches:

"Around the World"

One evening many, many years ago, it was dinner time as I found myself trudging through a wintry Saturday night on the dark streets of mid-town Manhattan! Here I was, an out- of-work actor, somehow finding my way to the very place I was waiting on tables to make ends meet: Sammy’s Roumanian Restaurant on 34th between Madison and Park. I knew what it was like to schlep gargantuan pastrami sandwiches during the day but I had never seen what Sammy’s Restaurant was like at night. As I stared into the window it looked so warm, so inviting and it looked like food was abundant, so I stepped in. The door behind me shut with the ring of a tiny bell and a whoosh of hot air nudged me forward. The place was jam packed with festive New Yorkers stuffing their faces with mountains of food as a young mid-eastern looking man was banging away on an electric keyboard: “Around the World” he bellowed while he launched into a chorus that sounded like this: (di di di di de di, di di di di de do). That’s when I tumbled down the rabbit hole and was transported around the world.....

"The Bernsteins Shoe Shine Boys"

Shine em up, shoe shine 25cents, shoe shine 25 cents, shine em up. You know the old expression: I’ve got a smile on my face and a shine on my shoes? There’s a reason for that saying. We know about the smile part but why the shine on the shoes part? What’s the intrinsic meaning of that? I came to understand that meaning at an early age and it was something that came to me as my dad gave me a shoe shine kit. One spring day when I was ten years old and living in Brooklyn, I got the industrious idea to paint 25 cents on both sides of this little shoe shine kit and go out into the Brooklyn of 1960 and shine shoes to earn money. I still, to this day, can’t believe that I was ten years old when the shoeshine light bulb came on. Where was I to go to shine shoes? Coney Island was a big attraction to me at the time with the beach, boardwalk, Nathan’s, Movie theatres, and custard and that’s where I decided to start my shoeshine career.....

"Chinatown Chicken Redux"

Remember as a child, when your Parents would admonish you with: “Uh, Uh, Ah!  Look, but don’t touch” and you ignored them? The eight year old boy was holding fast to his forefinger in astonishment for he could not believe that the “Chinatown” Chicken he had cajoled, teased, loved and adored for months had actually bitten his forefinger. It “hoits”, it hoits, it hoits.”  “I shoulda listened” he cried. This white feathered “Chinatown” chicken that was kept in a large glass and wood cage, would stare intently at any human approaching the cage, because it knew that this human was its next meal ticket! The chicken would watch people put a quarter in at the bottom of the cage, causing a pellet of meal to pop up that the chicken would eat while also pecking a lever that released a paper Chinese fortune down a chute and into their waiting hands. The chicken fascinated the little boy because it seemed to him as if the chicken was wise in an other worldly way!  “How did it know to peck the lever,” the boy wondered? The boy, however.....

"The Cobbler"

Set the Scene: Every one of you, I’m sure, has been asked the question-where are you from? While all of us can say that we are either from Las Vegas or somewhere else; we all share in coming from one place: the past. That past makes you and I the sum total of our ancestors. Have you thought about your ancestors lately? I had not really thought about my ancestors until the day that I was unwittingly reminded of one. It was the day that I stood by my computer, cradling in my hands, the ship’s manifest my wife had just printed, staring at the signature of Louis Bernstein. Introduce the Characters: I never knew my paternal Grandfather but was nevertheless mesmerized by the historical document, seeing that his Russian freighter had landed in New York in 1906.  It also came as a surprise to me that on the manifest, he had listed his occupation as “boot maker.” His description of himself as a boot maker touched a chord in me. Boot maker! It seemed more elevated than my parents’ label of him as a “shoemaker.” Because he was labeled a “shoemaker”, I used to visualize him in a small storefront on the lower east side of Manhattan with dirty shoe nails in his mouth.....

"Expectations!"

Can you imagine yourself having lunch with the Pope? Just you and the Pope alone! What would your expectations be? If you’re a mime...lunching with Marcel Marceau, considered the twentieth century’s greatest living Mime, is akin to breaking bread with the Pope. I had the honor of meeting the singular Marcel Marceau in my younger days in NY, when my mime school had a contest, the winner of which got to meet and have lunch with the venerable Marcel Marceau! I thought I was the lucky one when I drew the winning ticket to have the pleasure of dinning alone with the infamous French clown...any mime’s dream come true. However, with my excitement at such a fever pitch; I was unwittingly setting myself up for some very high expectations of the Great Mime. What did I expect from the wordless guru, anyway? I can’t really tell you. The close encounter of the “silent kind”.....

"Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!"

While watching TV the other night. I was nervously twiddling with my left ear and found it very pliable and bendable, like so (do it to audience). I meandered over to the right ear and found that it would not bend. Some of you might say that my right ear contained a piece of cartilage that my left ear didn’t or I could just be neurotic and paranoid. As I was fiddling with my right ear; I pressed on what felt like a little bump on the tip of my ear! It caused me to do this: “She was a one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people-eater.” (Press twice). This discovery sent me into a spiral of apprehension! I ran to have it x-rayed and was further baffled when the doctor asked if I had been implanted with an identity chip. The doctor said that there was no doubt that it was a microchip-like object. Wait a minute! Had I somehow been surgically implanted with a computer chip without my knowledge? Could I have been ID’d like a dog? What’s even more bizarre.....

"I Was A Teenage Werewolf"

I was a teenage werewolf...and at every stage of my life...there I was...hovering in the shadows...an ugly, howling menace (howl) It all began when I was seven years old, living an idyllic life in the lower Manhattan of the 1950's, as my Mother innocently took me to see  Michael Landon’s debut film: “I was a teenage werewolf”. All I can say is that it scared the living daylights out of me. I’m ascared of the werewoof, Mommy! This wasn’t the Little Joe of Bonanza or Pa Engels from Little House on the Prairie. This was a horrible monster I couldn’t bear to look at. Oh, why couldn’t my mother have taken me to see a Jerry Lewis Movie: (Hey, Lady, ha, ha!!) Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the film while I was watching it and was scared to death like all the other kids. But it was to leave a mental scar on me my whole life. I will never forget the part in the gymnasium as the school bell rings and he transforms into a werewolf. The terror that was inflicted upon me as the werewolf grew hairier and hairier.....

"Mime As A Metaphor For Life or The Mime Metaphor"

Intro: I’d like to welcome you into the world of the planet’s only talking mime...because I have something to say. Background: Raised by deaf mother and brought into deaf world. Ten years as professional mime. 25 Years as media salesman. Four years in toastmasters. Ten years in PAYBAC. Body Language: Not body language. It’s nonverbal communication. The power of nonverbal communication. Becoming empowered by realizing that nonverbal communication is natural to humans and that we become empowered by becoming aware of the cues and signals we and others send out. Mime: Not talking about mime as we currently perceive it in the mass consciousness as street mimes or mimes in TV commercials with berets, stripped shirts, suspenders and white face. I am talking about mime as human nonverbal communication. All humans are Mimes: All humans are hardwired for mime. We are all nonverbal communicators and we evince up to about 60% of silent cues and signals in our daily communication with others.....

"The Not So Silent Eulogy"

With the passing of one of the world’s greatest pantomime mime artists; I felt that it was apropos to share the impact his life made on me. While his death saddened me; I would rather remember him as the single mime who inspired me to become a professional mime. How does one give a eulogy for Marcel Marceau?  One gives a not so silent talk.....

"The Planet of the Fish "

This is possibly the truest tall tale you’ll hear but I’ll leave its veracity up to you. It all began when I volunteered to join PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) as they embarked on a mission to stop fishing vessels from mistreating fish. See, PETA had just mandated that fish were now to be recognized as “sea kittens” because fish had high IQ’s as evidenced by their swimming in “schools”. Truth is sometimes stranger than fishin’. While I enthusiastically joined PETA’S expedition; I was not equipped to interrupt a Japanese whaling ship in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. “Haven’t you heard the Sturgeon General’s warning? Fishing is addictive,” was the invective I hurled at the Japanese whalers. I got so agitated; I lost my balance, and fell right into the frigid waters. This is when I discovered that I had splash landed on what I can only call “The Planet of the Fish.” As I tumbled deeper and deeper.....