... if you cut and glued wolf-hearts, if you went fabric shopping with me, if you played bluegrass music, if you transformed into a baby, if you read poetry, if you told stories about your stepdad, if you sang psychedelic opera, if you drove a school bus, if you met up with us at an observatory and handed out blinking lights, if you dated me and were a good sport about the strange and embarrassing ways in which I aired our personal stories, thank you. If you let me take the show, sight unseen, from a backyard to a huge amazing, extremely popular space, if you handed out ID bracelets, if you took polaroids, if you kept your new ID and/or bracelet, if you’re a navajo dancer and story teller, if you constructed and painted an entire backyard made of cardboard, if you came early to help set up, if you told us about your space library, if you were willing to break world records, if you were my senior year prom date, if you’re a government official willing to do a ribbon cutting, if you were a back up band, thank you, thank you, thank you. If you knew it was my birthday and didn’t say anything, if you let me borrow 8 baby chicks (and took them back), if you repainted the whole cardboard backyard white, if you play amazing, heart-felt, electro-rock, if you destroyed a full on roasted chicken, if you are a hyper-inspirational, radical children’s book author who didn’t know me at all and handed out 80+ copies of your book for free, if you know the release date of every film since 1993, if you pet the chickens, let me say thank you. If you are an extremely busy, high functioning rocket laboratory that let us tour your facilities, if you’re a professional whistler, if you helped me transcribe “Life On Mars?” into handbell charts, if you hand drew the first ever photograph of mars from binary, if you contacted the man who drew the first ever photograph of mars and managed to convince him to come out, if you made a beautifully metaphoric short film, if you’re in the most high quality musical sketch group I know of, if you single handedly got google cardboard to donate 100 headsets previously unavailable to the public, from the depths of the depths of my heart, thank you. If you invented and built a giant bubble that can hold 50 people, then hid that bubble behind a plastic wall, if you’re in the most hauntingly beautiful chamber orchestra, if you dressed up like a masked bandit, if you performed magic, if you’re the ruler of you’re own country, you’ve given me the best gifts. If you allowed me to fulfill a dream of putting the show on at the L.A. River, if you play didgeridoo in a backup band, if you staged a scene from “Chinatown” without ever seeing the original film, if you’re a freestyle rapper and a freestyle beatboxer, if you recorded the show with your camera, if you played your heart with your guitar, if you helped make a paper-chain fishnet that didn’t even get used, if you told us the value of a slime heart, if you came down into the river, you are beautiful and I thank you. If you actually asked me to put together this ridiculousness as part of your wedding, wow, thank you. If you sparred with me, listened patiently through endless revisions, if you wouldn’t let me put on anything less than the strongest version of the show, if you took photos and if you showed up, I love you. Thank you. That’ll do it for the year, but I hope to put together a few one-offs here and there over the coming months. More details on that to follow.
