In 1975 I decided that there was no future in flying (airline jobs were impossible to get, and who wants a job where you are judged only by seniority?) and headed off to grad school.
I was just a goofy little funny kid, who was always getting sent to the principal. It wasn't serious because I was smart. I wasn't like a true troublemaker, just rambunctious - like, talkative and trying to be funny. That was me in middle-school.
It's quite funny in that I once won Rear of the Year at my school! I was about 17 in the sixth form and we used to have an end of year celebration and give out different awards. I even got a little trophy!
I really like 'Gladiator.' I like 'The Dark Knight.' I really liked, when I was a kid, 'U.S. Marshalls.' I like funny movies, too. 'Old School' and 'The Hangover.' 'The Hangover' was up there; I liked it.
Why don't we have enough teachers of math and science in the public schools? One answer is well, if they knew the subject well, they'd also know enough to work for Google or Goldman Sachs or God knows where.
The public schools tend to teach little kids from when they are very young about the whole universe without God and that God cannot be in science. They are indoctrinating children in an atheistic religious view of things.
Almost every college playwright or sketch or improv comedian was sort of aware of Christopher Durang - even kids in high school. His short plays were so accessible to younger people and I think that was inspirational to me.
I was raised in Arizona, and I went to public school, and the extent of my knowledge of the civil-rights movement was the story of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. I wonder how much my generation knows.
Basically I was a rebel growing up. I got kicked out of six schools. But I don't think that it makes you less of an intellect. You know, if you ever crave knowledge, there's always a library.
Just because someone has gone to an elite school and college does not make him smarter than the person who has grown up on street knowledge.
I live a very normal life. I have friends, and I've always gone to school. The part that's not normal is that I've been working since I was 9 months old, but at the same time, it's completely normal to me.
I had a very simple life growing up in the farm country outside of Perugia, and biscotti and warm milk with a tiny bit of coffee were a big part of my morning ritual before walking to school.
That's my advice to all homosexuals, whether they're in the Boy Scouts, or in the Army or in high school: Shut up, don't tell anybody what you do, your life will be a lot easier.
There was a small point in my life in law school, right before I moved to Newark, when I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I felt so lost.
I've studied various schools of thought... I acknowledge that some Muslims consider music prohibited, but I've found a lot of evidence from the life of the Prophet to show that he allowed certainly, but even encouraged, music at certain times.
I went back to graduate school with the clear intention that what I wanted to do with my life was to improve societies, and the way to do that was to find out what made economies work the way they did or fail to work.
I spent my whole teenage life trying to get to London and go to dance school, but when I got there, I couldn't wait to get to the clubs on weekends. I knew I wanted to make music.
I was 'gay-bashed' when I was in school even though, you know, I'm not... I'm a straight guy that just happens to be what I do. So, it's easily relatable to me. It was awful. It's a hard time in a kid's life.
The only jobs kids have are to do well in school, to be charming and polite, and be thankful. That's it. I'll house you, protect you, I'll even give my life for you, and in return, you will behave.
J.J. Watt is larger than life and Houston's newest sports hero, in every sense of the word. He is a guy who spends NFL Fridays at high school football games and actively seeks out those in need of his kindness.
Exeter was, I suspect, more crucial in my life than in the lives of most members of my class, and conceivably, than in the lives of almost anyone else who ever attended the school.
