When you write from your gut and let the stuff stay flawed and don't let anybody tell you to make it better, it can end up looking like nothing else.
Luckily, I was raised by people who'd already seen all the yuck stuff, which is why they originally didn't want me to act. I understood the difference between getting a part at a Hollywood party and getting a job.
I just thought it made sense to call a book 'Not Garbage,' even though the majority of it was going to be the scraps from people's studios; like newspaper clippings, weird drawings and stuff they might not necessarily show as artists.
You see I have to be in the clinic every Thursday and it's in Phoenix so I have to fly down or drive down. It has to be every Thursday for this damn stuff they're giving me.
I've had offers to sign a record deal, but the people I've talked to have wanted to package me and have me meet with songwriters who've written stuff for Whitney Houston, that sort of thing. That's not at all my style.
If you think that there are actually covers that we haven't done on 'Glee' that I could then put on an album... We've done everything! Pretty soon we're just going to have to start doing opera and stuff on the show.
When Paul was arrested in Japan for having hash in his luggage, I thought he'd be out that night. But it became really serious stuff when he was kept in a cell. I became more fearful as the days went by.
I'm more prone to his '70s material, which is what I was around for and watched a lot. I listen to a lot of that stuff. It probably influenced me quite a bit. I'm more drawn to the darker, sadder songs.
Like, I kind of developed my musical style in a vacuum. Even though I listen to a lot of stuff, the way I wrote was in my bedroom, really privately. It's still the way I write, actually.
When I was a kid, I just devoured TV 24 hours a day. Now that it's actually available 24 hours a day, I'm usually busy doing other stuff. But I do watch TV when I can.
Singing with Aaron Neville, he pulled stuff out of my voice I never could have gotten, because if he's providing XYZ, I have to put in ABC, and usually I don't have to put in ABC.
Everyone assumes that novelists are smarter and more interesting. They're generally smarter and more interesting, but they're often very short. So it kind of cancels all the smart and interesting stuff out.
Humor relieves the tension between what we see or desire but repress in order to sustain a survivable illusion about the world we live in. As such it's always potent stuff, and dangerous.
I like all kinds of comedy. I like comedy that doesn't talk about real beliefs or serious thoughts, but then I also like the stuff that does. I think it just depends. It's a completely personal choice.
I was signed to A&M, I was signed to Lou Adler, who had a company within a company, which was A&M Records, and everything - James Taylor, Rita Coolidge, Carole King - I worked on all of that stuff.
I think I could look back through the past few years at missed opportunities and stuff, but one thing I have learned is not to dwell on missed chances or times where you have failed.
I believe in all of these Irish myths, like leprechauns. Not the pot of gold, not the Lucky Charms leprechauns. But maybe was there something in the traditional sense? I believe that this stuff came from somewhere other than people's imaginations.
Most of the people I write about I'm still in touch with, so I would be loath to make up stuff about them.
I don't do stuff to be a star. I do it because I feel it's important for kids, African American kids, to see an African American face that plays baseball.
I've been in L.A., but I wasn't acting. I didn't know that I wanted to act, so I was in L.A. but working at a restaurant seven days a week and trying to figure out what I wanted to do and all that kind of stuff.
If everyone waited to become an expert before starting, no one would become an expert. To become an EXPERT, you must have EXPERIENCE. To get EXPERIENCE, you must EXPERIMENT! Stop waiting. Start stuff.
