My Name is Gideon. — Pappy Always Said

It appears Gus is having a moment of spiritual connection and with me. Upon closer inspection you'll see he's just interested in the apple I was eating. Horse Tour video below!

Dear caballeros, friends, abandoned friends, mentors, audience members, hosts and luminaries,

I write to you from a bucolic wooden porch sitting at a faded sea foam green desk betwixt potted marigolds and a half diseased half blossoming gardenia bush. I can relate to this bush. I often feel both thriving with colorful pungent petals and riddled with mysterious larvae waiting to hatch and eat me alive. I'm looking at a verdant mountain ridge through a New York gummy morning haze. The birds are singing a dozen songs like competitive high school choirs, ants are reveling in the single drop of honey I spilled from my coffee routine and I'm doing my daily task of banging my head against the wall in hopes of something worthwhile emerging.

I have been desperately wanting to continue this newsletter since my latest note over a year ago. I could not break through the wall. The mind wall. Perhaps you know this wall? I wanted to do a glorious job and make you proud and excited for what I was working on and defend my decision of delaying The Horse Tour. I wanted to assure you the creative juices were still flowing and that all your support in me was carrying forward through this fungal winged barracuda of a year. I couldn't let go of an idea of myself. I'm about as good at letting go as I am at figure skating. My Pappy always said "Better to do a terrible dreadful uninspired job at something than perpetually postpone it in pursuit of excellence." Pappy also said "If you're feeling lethargic squeeze a grapefruit on your tits and run round in circles with your hands in the air shouting your own name in a French accent for 25 minutes!" So... hard to know when to take Pappy's advice. Today I'm busting through in the name of ONWARD and reaching back to my people.

Walking away from The Horse Tour has been spiritually excruciating in many ways. Cue the platitudes of awareness regarding others worse suffering in a year that has lasted forever and mountains of gratitude for health and family and safety. Yes, of course. I feel all that. We all had our woe and mine was peachy in comparison, but it was still my woe and time tended to its garden of loss, indecision and sadness. For much of the year I was trying to figure when I could be back out with Gus and Troubadour. With home shows out of the conversation I couldn't find a path forward and I had to start other projects during this long period of not knowing. It's been a hard pill to swallow. I was planning this journey and working toward it for 6 years. I was out with the boys for six months. It felt like we'd just started.

I sing the names of my mentors Breck, Becky, Aram, Trina, Jill, Dave, Jenny and the great Stephen McGrath from NZ who passed this last year, every day. Their friendship, knowledge and encouragement is a treasured piece of my life and I'll be thanking them till I'm dead. Good news is... I know I can go places on a horse! And not a doubt in my mind this project will continue - some day soonish. I tried to mostly keep my robot in my pocket during the trip, but occasionally I checked in and got a couple shots. Here's some special moments from the limited footage I took. This is a simple edit, but I wanted to share a bit of that world with you now. At the end you can see Gus and Troub with their new herd of 30 in Creede CO. Feel free to watch it in IMAX if you have access or in stages while on the toilet. Parental warning! There are one or two salty words, but you don't manage a long ride without an occasional tongue fumble.

Moments from The Horse Tour. Click on Gus to watch video.

It's been a massive blessing to have a good safe place for the horses to live and work for the time being. They are happy, well fed, well socialized and roaming freely on 400 of the prettiest acres you ever did see in Creede Colorado (where my brother lives). Grateful to my friends of Long Ridge Outfitters who are looking after my boys and keeping them trained up. In the summer they've been taking tourists out on dude rides and in the fall they've been doing hunting pack trips. The wranglers say they are two of the best horses they've got in the herd. I've checked in on em several times this past year and it feels like we pick up where we left off. I'm so happy they have room to roam and lots of other horses to interact with. Many horses live this kinda life....

A lot of horse folk love their horses sooooooooo much they protect them from the air, the sounds and the light! Gus and Troub say "No thank you."

This year I've had the absolute pleasure of bringing my friends and family out in the saddle. Not too long ago my big goal with horses was to not fall off. Now I find myself comfortable enough and trusting of the boys to take out newbies. My friend Johamy grew up always wanting to ride horses at her uncles ranch, but was never allowed as it was "men's work". Now in her 30s I got to take her out for the first time, into the mountains on Gus for hours. She was smiling and singing in Spanish and all felt right in the world. Gus appreciated the tunes as well. You can hear it in the video above towards the end.

With all the shifting plans I got a bit disorganized for a moment. I was planning on sending out some of the Kickstarter rewards in the second half of the tour and still plan to keep those commitments (albeit a bit late) in the coming months.

The new HorseTour tea towels designed by my pal Iris Gottlieb

This last year I had to dramatically switch gears. I'm working on one BIG show that's a secret and another big secret that's a show, but here's a sneak peek of the former (shh don't tell, it's a secret). These images are scenes from my new theater show painted by my friend Sludge Thunder. It's gonna be a bit different than what you've seen me do in the past. It's got a whole cast and it's gonna happen in a big theater, but it will be of the same spirit and in pursuit of wonder and the serious business of fun.

My creative process, since I began making home shows ten years ago, has always been a chaotic amalgam of hopeful experimentation. Two parts faith, one part patience, six parts delusion, a lot of tape. I couldn't tell you how I went about making shows and not knowing has always been exhausting. I would begin again in a clueless pupate state wondering "how did I do this before?" and "Can I do it again?" A lovely thing about the DIY world of home shows is you are living in a perpetual workshop. My shows were never "set" or "finished". I would try things night after night with an audience close enough I could see their faces. I took stock of what connected and what made people fall asleep or look at their phones. Slowly I'd assemble a new show. I thought that was my process forever. I didn't feel I had the tools or maturity to approach theater making any other way. Artists who knew what they wanted to say and how they wanted to say it were all very grownup and impressive, but I was something else. I was grateful that I somehow found my way and bewildered that I never quite knew how I got there. I spent years winging it with pretty good results. I had no grand scheme, just grinding out work on the next show, song, tour.

It can sneak up on you, a point of view. This new theater piece snucked up on me real good! I'd been pushing the seed around my brain for years, but I never anticipated a full-vision clarity to come about in the writing process and I found an amazing companion and co-creator in my friend and long time collaborator Nick Cotz. We've been meeting on endless zooms between our other work and projects to bring this beast alive and now our first workshop is taking place at the end of this month! This is the first show I've made where I confidently know what it is. I see it. It's a new bold and inviting feeling with a touch to terror. There's not much to lose when you are flinging spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. I mean, you lose some spaghetti I guess. There is much to lose with a strong clear vision. I began writing this show in a make believe bubble of anything is possible. I let go of cost, reasonableness, time and even the laws of physics. I wrote imagining the show that I wish someone would make for me to watch. It was a generous exercise for the more playful parts of my mind. Writing unhindered by reason gave me this agrestal bush of magic and mayhem. I enjoyed combing through, picking out the budding rubies and gem stones and building from them. I had to let go of some gold in the process. Apparently genetically modified Woolly Mammoths are not to code in NYC theaters and you need some kind of special license for anti-gravity pyrotechnics with a hydrogen based catalyst, but what remained was indeed a show! A big SHOW. A show I love and cannot wait to share with you. Here's another scene from the show.

NEWS FLASH! My Hubble from another Bubble, Hubcap "Nate" Sloan, had this glorious baby Moses with his glorious wife Whitney. For those of you who know Hubcap from our two man shows I can hear you rejoicing. For those that don't know Hubcap - shame on you!! Moses is as delicioius as his parents and is serenaded by his pops newest obsession, the Irish whistle. Hubcap now lives in LA where he is professor of Jazz and Pop at USC. He co-hosts the tremendous podcast Switched On Pop and recently published a book of the same title about the making and meaning of pop music!

Of all the memes passed around during quarantine I found this one to be the most useful. Today I'm an eight. How about you? It feels good writing to you, or the seven of you who remember me and are still curious to peruse my bemusings in an amusement of tunings.

It's been a year of new discovery. Tired of holding hands? While visiting my dear old friend Marina we learned that with a few cocktails and a lot of patience you can hold feet!

Much more to say and share. I'm thrilled and delighted to be back in conversation with you. I'm trying to bust through all my communication walls in the coming months so If you're one of my 200 friends who I love and adore, but have sadly abandoned, you'll be hearing from me soonish. I've been plagued by sadness of losing touch with so many I love. Hoping to do better this year. New album and exciting news coming up in the next couple months. I'm back in this NEWSLETTER! Thanks for all the love and support during The Horse Tour. I look forward to dusting off the saddle with you a bit down the line.

Goodness,

Gideon
ps. Below are some recs in case you're interested and think I have good taste.

To Watch
- Pause with Sam Jay on HBO Max. Brilliant comedian provocateur new wave talk show wizard. I haven't heard conversations quite like this anywhere else on TV.
- Bo Burnham's Inside on Netflix. The less you know the better. The more hype you've heard the more endangered the experience is. So.... how to convey my ethusiasm here without hyping? It is a hopeless endeavor. I'll say this - I watched it five times. The details are exquisite.
- Caveh Zahedi's The Show About The Show. This won't be for everyone, but I really think it's for you. Yeah you! Zahedi is one of my favorite artists. He has sacrificed much for his art, for better and worse. This is my favorite show of all time. Every episode is about the making of the previous episode. It is, to say the least....provocative.
- Two Pink Doors on Hulu. This short series of shorts is some of my favorite clowning. Episodes are 6 minutes long so its worth a try.

To Listen
Caveh Zahedi's 365 stories I want to tell you before we both die. Found on all podcast platforms. Caveh remembers the most astonishing emotional minutia from his life. This podcast is exactly what it sounds like. A story released every day for a year. Episodes are 1-6 minutes long.

Bianca Giaever's Constellation Prize Found on all podcast platforms. An awesome collection of unexpected conversations and inquiries.

Danny Trejo on Marc Maron's WTF podcast. Danny Trejo is a legend with more film credits than any actor. Sucked into gang life and the streets as a kid he was discovered by hollywood after being in and out of prison. Sober for 50 years and doing amazing work in the community during that time he's a deeply introspective dude with an incredibly powerful story.

Rabbit Hole from NY Times. A deep dive into youtube algorithms, QAnon and how we ended up in this bizarre mess.

To Support
Movement Voter Project. MVP does incredible work supporting grassroots groups organizing their communities to build a stronger progressive movement. Me and my family worked with them this passed election and they are awesome in 194 ways.

Black Male Voter Project. Spearheaded by the brilliant W. Mondale Robinson they are building a movement that encourages Black men to regularly and actively engage in the voting and electoral process.

To Read
Police Abolition 101. I thought this was a great entry into the nuts and bolts of what the term "Police Abolition" actually means. I understand how "Defund The Police" and "Abolish The Police" are phrases and concepts that a lot of folks, liberals and conservatives alike, can take homage with. However, when you actually read the ideas behind the catch phrase I think the arguments are pretty darn compelling and rational. If you haven't read much about the vision of a police free future I'd recommend going to this link, downloading the PDF and going over some of the frequently asked questions and answers. At the very least it might provide a bit more nuance to the conversation.

To Eat
A sandwich? Maybe some noodles or fruit?

To Play
TAG which many are unaware stands for Touch And Go! This may seem like a child's game. The rules are fairly simple. If you have not played tag as an adult person you should try it. I think it's a really funny game to play.