I went to an outdoor music-fest yesterday, and came across two life-enhancing acts.  Washboard Hank opened the concert at  noon, and Sam Baker closed it at midnight.  In between were some highly entertaining performances - but it was the first and the last that affected me most profoundly. 

Washboard Hank has to be seen AND heard to be beleived.  A mere description of his Stradovarious Washboard and Fallopian Tuba would not do either contraption justice, and without sound/motion, you'd never quite imagine the music he makes.  The man has licence plates and duck calls strapped to his chest, and a percussion hard hat on his head.  He plays the banjo and a plumbing-tuba (with a kitchen sink for a bell) at the same time.  He twangs about dinosaurs and sex-whips, asks if you've been "scrubbed on the washboard of the Lord," and somehow manages to meld Fulsom Prison Blues with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. 

Oh my gawd, I laughed and clapped and whistled with all my heart.

Washboard Hank works hard for his art - as he hit himself about the head & chest with metal-tipped gloves, creating a bizarre melody of scrapes, dings, boops, beeps and crashes, I felt like a was privy to a musical world where anything was possible and everything was magical.  If you're looking for the truth folks, that's where to find it - the truth is when you laugh out loud and you don't care why.