“Art…”, Shepard remarked during a live broadcast interview on Barry’s Poetic Station, (a local cable show in Cincinnati, Ohio), “Art, my art, when I’m in my zone and I know it, my art has the ability to touch the heart and soul, and provoke the mind”. An expensive lesson that he learned the hard way. After investing nearly thirty-two hundred dollars of his own money for a weekend performance in Tallahassee, Florida, only 1 person showed up the first night. (and he just happened to be passing by the theatre). Instead of cancelling the show, Shepard invited the older man up on stage and performed his show, UnMasked, for the passerby as if he were a King.
Turns out, the guy was a homeless, war veteran who was wandering the streets. They talked after the show and the man’s remarks forever altered the way Shepard would see himself on stage. The vet said, with his right leg shaking, “You touched me. Thank you”. Shepard, always looking to learn a lesson from every experience concluded, “certain ‘gifts’ are not meant to be promoted nor ‘pimped’ for monetary profit. When money is the ultimate and primary end game, we grow more likely to prostitute our gifts and lose sight of our purpose.”