…for people who really don’t ever get thanked enough; for people who should have every restaurant meal comp’d for the rest of their lives, But Don’t:
Look, if life was Fair they would… but if life was Fair, 2 Carnies would have dragged me out & beaten the living Hell out of me long before now.
I’d like to start:
Dear Robin Williams,
Thank You, you Magnificent Son-of-a-Bitch! Thank you for making me realize that thinking fast and trying to be funny, with a lot of practice, can sometimes work. Thank you for letting your passion loose with your thoughts
and for being brave enough to share that with us. Thank You for smiling even when your characters lose; it almost made me feel like I fit in inside.
Thank You for making movies that were funny & using that to make movies that were Serious and Amazing. Thank you for showing that even the smartest guy in the room can have his guts ripped out from the inside when
you think with your heart. And Thank You Most of All for showing the world the class of taking it all, all the crap people dump daily, in stride.
A fist-bump & a nod from the Anonymous Internet; I’m no one you will ever know, I’m nobody you will ever meet. Its just the only way I have of saying Thank You!
Thank you, Morgan Freeman, for your work on Electric Company which did so much to help me learn to read before my parents knew I even could, and for helping instill a life-long love of reading.
Dear Paul Simon,
Your music and lyrics have been a touchstone in my life since I was a little kid. As the years have passed, I mark the time with what songs in your catalogue I had discovered for the first time. I passed this legacy on to my sister, who knew all the words the the Boxer by the time she was five. Your music was played at my wedding and will be played (Many years from now, I hope) at my funeral. You have touched my life in ways you cannot begin to fathom.
Thank you.
J&Co
Thank you, Michael Schumacher, for being one of the great racing drivers of all time. I hope and pray you recover from your accident. I must admit I wasn’ t a big fan of yours, just because you so totally dominated auto racing, and I just don’t like dynasties in any sport. Still, I am grateful that I had the opportunity to watch three of the greatest at the peak of their powers: you, Ayrton Senna and Dale Earnhart. The difference is that Senna and Earnhart were assholes with great talent but no redeeming social graces, whereas you were always a gentleman, gracious in victory and defeat, and possessed of an unearthly driving talent. Thank you and God bless you.
After coming out on your sitcom, your career took a pretty hefty nose dive, but you didn’t give up.
Your current show, “Ellen”, is hugely popular, and you have become America’s Favorite Lesbian, whether you like that title or not. With you and Portia being one of the first major celebrity couples to get legally married, you put a face to the concept of Gay Marriage. Millions and millions of viewers watch your show and I don’t doubt for a minute that you have made a difference in people’s opinion about this issue. Furthermore, you don’t just gloss over it - you bring it up when appropriate, and speak about your “wife” as normally as anyone speaks about their spouse.
Yes, it helps that you are a funny comedian, with a knack for interviews and a love of current music - but you are also comfortable with being open and honest about who you are. For millions of viewers, from all demographics, you are simply a fun, funny person they tune in to regularly, who happens to be gay.
Just knowing there are Gay and Lesbian kids out there who are growing up watching your show with mom and grandma is pretty amazing. Trust me when I say I didn’t have anyone I could see who was happy, open and proud when I was growing up.
You have made a difference.
Oh, and if you want to invite me to the show and give me a free car, I will gladly accept!
Thank you, Terry Pratchett, for allowing reader a glimpse into the Discworld; thank you for Granny Weatherwax, for Vetinari, for Vimes, for Tiffany, for Angua, for Moist von Lipwig, and for so many many more. Thank you for crafting a world which will act as the same safe place of retreat for future generations as it does for your current readers. Thank you for, when you had lost the ability to read and write and you could have easily taken a well earned retirement, using a dictation machine to write more books. The fantasy you’ve created will live on in the mind and hearts of your fans, and your fans children, and their children, passing through the generations while retaining that magically funny, thoughtful tone. Thank you for being an all-round awesome person, fighting for the elderly and ill’s right to die peacefully. In short, thank you for being you. We all will someday die, but the Great A’tuin will swim on.
Thank you Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush for enriching my life musically (not just with your music, but also all the music I discovered downstream from you), and mainly for causing me to meet my fellow fan husband, who opened up a whole new world to this bumpkin Kansas farm girl. Besides giving me a kind, generous, loving and affectionate soul mate for 32 years, he took me to England twice and brought me to Chicago, giving me access to myriad things including seeing live musicians and movies I never dreamed I’d see. As a technology geek, an audio/video and computer expert, he gave me access to the Internet, a home theater, and all that comes with both things. And he’s cute. Thanks for keeping me from a no-Internet access, much deprived, unhappy, unloved, trailer-trash life.
Thank you Dave Brubeck, for pulling together one of the best quartets in jazz history right at the time in my life when I was able to really listen to it and be influenced by its time signatures and artistic brilliance. Thanks to Stan Getz for deciding to collaborate with Joao and Astrud Gilberto. The popularized Bossa Nova rhythms changed my perception of music, and even though you were an asshole to almost everybody, your music was genius.
Thanks to all those backup singers who labor in the shadows. Without their harmonies and do-wops, a lot of great singers would never have had a hit record and we all would have missed out on their brilliance.
Thank you to my sister, who taught me a love of reading even before I started school. It’s saved my sanity more times than I can count. Yeah, she wasn’t famous, but she should have been.
Thank you Stephen King. You are my touchstone author. If I could write, I would write like you.
I discovered you with ‘The Shining’ and have read just about everything you’ve written in the 30+ years since. I’m sorry that your best books were allegedly written when you were ‘under the influence’ but it seems to be true. I think your best works were Carrie through Pet Sematary. However, I will always and forever read anything that you write even though I will sometimes be disappointed.
You are definitely the author that I re-read the most. I’m currently re-into ‘Needful Things’ and even though I know that it deteriorates to a melodrama I’m in love with your characters.
Thank you Jerry Riopelle. You are an amazing musician, showman.
I’ve lived in Arizona most of my adult life and was turned on to you in 1979. KDKB used to play the album sides in toto and it was great. A friend of mine gave me a cassette to listen to prior to Riopelle opening Compton Terrace (he was the opening act with Stevie Nicks) and I fell in love.
He seems to be a strictly local guy…but he’s worked in LA for years with Phil Spector among the Illuminati.
I’ve seen you well over 20 times and you never, ever disappoint. I love you, love your fans and most of all, love your music.
Say, am I allowed a two-fer? Even if not, I’m grabbing a cookie out of the bowl before I get tossed out…
Dear John Cusack,
I used to joke to people that I wanted to be John Cusack when I grew up, but he was already taken. You were funny as hell back when I was trouble (you still are, btw) and you’re still bringing me to school from time-to-time to this very day on Twitter.
Of Course, Snowden should have been Man of the Year. But you knew that (and said that) at the beginning of LAST year.
I’m a miserable bastard whose posting here has likely never Ever made you smile, inspired you, or dissuaded you from thinking that I’m Anything but a bat-shit-crazy-son-of-a-bitch.
Still, thank you for making me smile every time I think of a never-been-used Obscenely Huge 25-lb dust covered boom box in the corner of my office.
PS- JVC says I’m lying… the “Kaboom” series is only 15 lbs…
Thank you, Penn Jillette, for reminding me not to believe everything I see–or that everything I think I’ve seen isn’t real. Thanks for challenging me to question authority religious, political, and social. Thank you for introducing me to James Randi, the great skeptic of our times. Thank you for being such a surprisingly good writer of both fiction and non-fiction, even if you lay it on a bit too thick sometimes. Thanks for spending your years not by resting on your laurels, but by perfecting your craft. Thanks for admitting that you took up residency in Vegas mainly to be closer to showgirls–like so much of what you say, funny if it’s a joke, brutally honest if it’s serious.
And most of all, thanks for putting on a great show with your longtime partner in crime Teller, and for being there to greet your fans after every show. More celebrities ought to do that.
Thank you, Amitabh Bacchan, and everyone who was involved with the making of Lawaaris, about unwanted, illegitimate children, making me aware perhaps for the first time in my life that it wasn’t my fault. The child of such relations comes into this world innocent, and it is so not fair that children get punished for their parents everyday.
