Kickstarter. If you’d peeked into my brain a bit over a decade ago you would have seen an idea very similar to that site, though only focused on funding my own film projects, not as a way for anyone to fund whatever project they want. Like my other great idea from those early days of the internet, breaking up a movie as a serial to release it on the internet since no one had the bandwidth or attention span to deal with a feature length movie, it slowly died from a lack of effort.

I’m not writing today to lament my own might-have-been’s. My words are here to tell you about a particular Kickstarter project to which you want to give money, especially if you live in New York. I have an awesome crazy friend (who I’m still calling a friend despite not having properly spoken to him in many years) living there who wants to buy a piano. Greedy? No. He needs the piano so he can give the people of Washington Square Park music.

He is, after all, The Crazy Piano Guy, who you may have heard tell of on MSNBC’s Photoblog, or in The New York Times, or in The New York Daily News. So, if you love New York or music or “the mad ones” or any combination thereof, go to Kickstarter and click on the big green button that says “Back This Project” and pledge your money to my friend.

Pointing all of you to this project is but one small step in paying him back for all of the artistic encouragement and inspiration he gave me so many years ago. While are you still reading these words, go, give, and feel good about yourself.