I was too restless as a boy to sit through an entire mass. It was akin to aversion training. I looked at it like a puppet show with a totally predictable story line. The only aspect I really liked was the music.
So many boys and girls talk the same way, listen to the same music, look the same. If I'm out, I'll notice the person who looks different before I notice the person who's, 'really hot.'
I studied communications, only because I could get my own show on the campus radio station. I never thought of it as a career. Music was always a really passionate hobby - it was like collecting DVDs or stamps.
Music leaves such a big impression. I always wondered, 'Man, if I grew up in Nashville, would I be making Country records now?' I honestly feel like Chicago had such a big impact on me.
When I graduated college, I had a fairly successful weekly club gig and was buying more studio equipment and writing my own music. I realized I didn't want to work.
I'd refer to myself as a feminist. I don't think my music is overtly rooted in feminism. I'm a teenager, and 95 percent of my friends are boys, and that's just the way I've always been.
The music I have created, along with the other Beach Boys, has taken me all over the world. For these past 50 years, I guess you could say, 'I get around.'
I grew up in Synagogue in the boys' choir. We didn't listen to music in the house; only at temple. Then I went to a mostly African American high school on the South Side of Chicago and joined a gospel choir.
I make the music my ears want to hear, I wear the clothes my body wants to wear and the ones boys call me back for, and I generally make the songs that my feet dance to.
When I was a little boy, I was reading Dante and I was saying to myself 'Bravo, Dante, Bravo.' It's so beautiful, the music, the sound, the meaning. I felt like calling him by phone, like a friend.
The old boy network is still very strong and very true. Just look at the stock exchange and how many men and women are there. It is still very much run by men.
I hate those men who would send into war youth to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.
If you look at movies with Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart and all the rest of it, none of them looks like a boy. They always looked like mature men. The audience didn't want to go and see kids.
Women have the same privileges and opportunities as men, given the New Testament.
If I go on dates, my mom is always with me. She's always there making sure I'm all right. Like if I go to see a movie with a boy, she'll go to dinner next door.
There is nothing worse that a thirteen-year-old boy. You're embarrassed by your parents, and you're trying to find your independance because, deep inside, you are so dependent on your mom.
My mom was very strict when I was growing up. I could not talk to boys until I was 18. I had to study and work hard.
My label is to play bad guys of Latin origin in American movies. I'm happy with that label. I prefer to play that than to play a city boy. The bad guy is always something very tempting for the audience.
As a boy, my favorite show was 'Superman' and my favorite movie was 'Star Wars' - along with other science fiction shows and movies. And I always wanted to fly.
I think it is important for girls to see movies where it is not all just about 'the boy' or it's simply being about 'the relationship' or 'Am I pretty enough?' or 'Am I cute enough?'.
Ben Wade: Just you left, Dan. Just you and your boy.
