I wouldn't call myself a geek, but I do sometimes teach Mommy and Daddy stuff about computers. And I do watch TV, but only informative programmes like the news and documentaries.
I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my parents are really right wingers. My dad watches, like, five or six hours of 'Fox News' every day and stuff like that.
I've been gearing up for this future of writing a lot of new music by digging into my favorite old stuff, and twisting it around and highlighting the things I really love.
I take in a lot of stuff from real life, movies, television, news and it all gets mixed in my head and somehow turns into a story idea.
People would be surprised at how much of an electronic dude I am, and I like new wave, post-punk and proto-punk stuff.
The most frustrating thing for musicians who want to play stuff from the new album is when everyone goes out to buy a beer.
I just feel like there hasn't been enough time away from all this other stuff and into this new world or sort of big world that it hasn't worn off yet.
Yes, we're trying some new stuff. Some of it might work. Some of it might not. This, of course, is the nature of episodic television. They can't all be gems.
As a DJ, it's my job to break new music. And instead of it just being the stuff that's coming from the major labels or the big pop records, I've always gravitated to something that's just different, you know?
Absolute 80's is three hours of mainstream 80's music. I also do New Wave Nation that is more cutting edge. It is more punk stuff from the 70's to the 90's.
I learn stuff from making music every time I go in the studio. I'm continuing to try to find new ways to play in a song or be in a song and have a positive impact on a song.
I started in the club route. I did the alternative scene later on. When I lived in New York, I did the Luna Lounge and stuff, where Janeane Garofalo and David Cross and all those guys worked out of, but I came from a comedy club background. I'm proud...
When I was in New York, I got to see Joan Rivers do an hour of material, and it blew my mind. I don't remember how old she was at the time, but she just had this edgy hour that had so much funny stuff in it, and she was so fearless. If you only watch...
Luxury as beauty" has nothing to do with a particular place or an object's price tag. It is seeing with eyes for beauty. Once we cut the automatic but learned connection between buying stuff and pleasure, we can actively cultivate new connections - a...
Mason: So what's the point? Dad: Of what? Mason: I don't know, any of this. Everything. Dad: Everything? What's the point? I mean, I sure as shit don't know. Neither does anybody else, okay? We're all just winging it, you know? The good news is you'r...
Don't sweat the small stuff.
It's hard to write new stuff when the songs you have written before are still changing and evolving. It would be like building something when the foundations there are not really solid.
With the rise of software patents, engineers coding new stuff - whether within a large software company or as kids writing smartphone apps - are exposed to a claim that somewhere a prior patent is being infringed.
The one thing that I've learned is that people don't change. Each new generation has the same stuff that the last one did. It's one of those things where jazz kind of works in five-year cycles.
One question about a joke is, how well is the strangeness of the situation resolved? At 'The New Yorker', we retain a lot of incongruity, tapping the playful part of the mind - Monty Python-type stuff. We also try to use humor as a vehicle for commun...
Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.
