But nobody predicted anything of this magnitude in terms of resistance. And in part, the magnitude of the resistance was spurred by our failures in reconstruction.

I throw dignity out the window, and just become a creature of the moment on the stage. I act like I'd never act in real life.

I'm neurotic in the sense that I can have a crowd of 300 people cheering you, applauding you, standing O, but one guy come out of the audience and go, "Hey man, you should have cut 20 minutes. That wasn't so good." And I'll just obsess on that one guy. After all this love, I'll obsess on him and want to smash his face in and strangle him and kick him down the stairs and I'll be pouting about that one guy all night.

When I perform I'm very extroverted and I wear my heart on my sleeve and some people don't like that. They're embarrassed for me.

You're free because you don't have to expose yourself, and you can go wild, and let your id completely out of its box, and nobody will see you because you're operating through a surrogate. It's an opportunity to crack open your shell, to melt down yourself, and just let yourself go. It's a form of catharsis for me.

It's about communication, no matter how impossibly hard your art is to understand and how much of an ivory tower or high horse you get on, it's still basically communication or why are you doing it?

I've been very lucky. I've had three separate careers: freelance illustrator, then set designer, puppetteer and animator, and now fine artist. I just bluffed my way into every one of 'em!