When I was a kid it was like, who could be the coolest? Who could do the stupidest thing? And you knew it was a stupid thing to do, but you would do it just so you could be the coolest guy. And then you end up doing really cruel crap.
I'm a pretty low-stress guy. I take what the golf course gives me. Some days, when I'm in full control, I'm able to fire at pins with 5-irons. Other days, I'm looking more toward the middle of the green.
I was the girl in the black leather jacket with the black fingernails, picked up after school by guys with loud cars and motorcycles. I carried straight-A grades, but I had a little trouble with rules. I tended to have a bit of an authority problem.
At the Superdome, a young man came up to me holding a baby. He'd run out of diapers. He'd run out of medicine. His baby was sick. The guy's saying, 'Help me! Take my baby.' What could I do? That's the definition of helpless.
I wanted to play piano in restaurants in the south of France. I went there on holiday once and I saw this guy playing in an old tuxedo. He was all disheveled, with a whisky glass on the piano. I thought that was the coolest thing. So what's happened ...
I've always been an outsider. When I did magic, I was the only kid. When I worked with Johnny Cash, I was completely out of place in Nashville. And when I started Def Jam, I was the only white guy in the hip-hop world.
And the big issue here, I think, is that the publisher took over the editorial pages, a guy named Jeff Johnson. He's an accountant from Chicago, doesn't know anything about what newspapers are supposed to be about, and he made a decision to get rid o...
I'm a creative guy. And I only do businesses as a result of like I've - I'm try to find what my gifts are and give them immediately. As soon as I get them and I understand, I give them back.
There's like ten minutes when it's like, 'Okay, wait, who is this guy again?' And then, you know, I just put on the calculator watch and the glasses, and just be all, you know, inappropriate. And then it just works out fine.
I was also very lucky to be a teammate of two of the greatest players to have ever played the game. I learned very early on by playing for Frank Robinson and with Henry Aaron that even the greatest players in the game were just one of the guys.
GN'R was five guys who were all into different things. I liked pop and disco, Izzy was into New York rock, Slash loved Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, Axl was into Genesis and Elton John, and Duff was a punk rocker. We all blended that stuff together.
You write who you are somehow. Even if you try to not to. You can't help but write who you are. I'm just not a very cynical person. I believe in the humanity of people, whether it is just the guys in 'The Full Monty' or Aron Ralston.
When I'm practicing, I think I'm pretty focused, and I spend a lot of energy on making sure I get better, but once I'm outside the rink, I think, like anyone else, I like to enjoy everything that everyone else does.
I'm generally a very happy guy because I'm doing what I want. I'm willing to tell you that there are people who are much better than I am in writing. I don't have to be the fastest gun in the West.
The goal is to have to do the shot again because the camera guy shook a little bit as he was laughing. Without that happening, I'm not happy because there's nothing better for me than a world that everybody's just trying to make each other laugh.
A lot of acting requires you to be a charming version of yourself. A lot of what happens in the industry is that you are cast based on other things that people have seen you do, or how you are perceived to look or sound. If everyone thinks you're biz...
I was listening to the guy that represented me in the state Senate, and I just got really frustrated. I called my wife and said, 'I've always wanted to do something that makes a difference.' So I ended up running and won.
I read a lot of books about psychopaths. I read a wonderful book Amy Hempel gave me about the guy who created criminal profiling - a fascinating book, 'Mind Hunter.'
In the '50s and '60s, journalism wasn't a profession. It wasn't something you went to college for - it was really more of a trade. You had a lot of guys who came up working in newspapers at the copy desk, or delivery boys, and then they would somehow...
I remember as a young man seeing these bigger-than-life, strong images of black manhood in the form of Jim Brown and Fred Williamson, Jim Kelly, Billy Dee Williams. All these guys were these alpha males who were smart, attractive. I said, 'Wow, I wan...
When you look at a corporation, just like when you look at a slave owner, you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual. So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous. The individuals participating ...
