I was being ridiculed for going to school... But, you see, I had looked hard at the other musicians and the whole show-business scene... They were doing with jazz musicians what they usually reserved for rock n' roll cats: making them overnight succe...
2012 has been an extraordinary year for our country. We cheered our Queen to the rafters with the Jubilee, showed the world what we're made of by staging the most spectacular Olympic and Paralympic Games ever and - let's not forget - punched way abov...
The only thing left that shows I was a heart patient is I have a scar down the middle of my chest where they went in three times to do open heart surgery. I have a brand new heart inside, and all the mechanical and electronic gear and so forth is all...
While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy, so agreeable to the natural vanity and curiosity of men; and thereby restored her ultimate secre...
I am saying that while popular culture usually portrays practitioners of magic as separate from ordinary people, often biologically different, many people have habits or customs or superstitions that show magic was once a whole lot more democratic.
Never be afraid to offer a smile; sure the risk is that a few foolish people may misinterpret your kindness as weakness, but the sweet reward is that as you make new friends and encourage others, the foolish will learn the error of their ways because...
My feeling is... when you show up to a movie set where there's, like, 50 people standing around and months of preparation gone into it, you want to be as prepared as possible, so you should make a million baguettes. That might not actually help in an...
The people I idolized I saw once a year on the Tony Awards. I would buy the cassette tapes of the various Broadway shows and scour the photos inside the recording package. That's how I exposed myself to the arts - New York and professional theater fe...
The problem with call-in shows is quite simple, if you only dare to admit it: Democracy is best when not everyone can be heard all the time. If we are constantly reminded of all the stupid things that people say and think, it becomes rather difficult...
I did about 10-12 national commercials and then got one line parts in things like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and the show 'The Unit.' Got a little part in the movie 'Redbelt' by David Mamet and kept slowly grinding up and then started getting bigger part...
Because of streaming, serialized television has become less of a dirty word when you're pitching shows. I had to fight for that for so long as someone who's always gravitated towards ongoing story lines with characters that evolved and changed and st...
America's Facebook generation shows a submission to standardization that I haven't seen before. The American adventure has always been about people forgetting their former selves - Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac went on the road. If t...
Policeman: You fellows all right? Ray: Now they show up. Where were you when we needed you? Irwin: Writing parking tickets, I suppose. Policeman: They're still alive!
In my real life, both my bosses are gay. On the 'Real Housewives of Atlanta,' Andy Cohen is gay, everybody at Bravo is gay - we call them the gay mafia. Over at 'Glee' and 'The New Normal,' my boss Ryan Murphy is gay. On the show, my boss, played by ...
It has taken me a long time to work out the function of ex-boyfriends, at least for me: how they can help you work out what you want from life and from a partner by showing you what you don't. If a man is your ex, it's better all round if he was not ...
When you live the life of a comedian, it's such a state of arrested development. I can't deal with anything very maturely. I'm still really bad at paying bills or doing anything that would be considered semi-adult. I'm really bad at it. It's weird I ...
There are days I like going out, and days I like to sit naked with the remote control on my thigh, watching 'Breaking Bad.' I'm in love with that TV show. And 'Louie' on FX. And 'The Newsroom' - well, I don't know if I like it, but I'm obsessed with ...
Jessica: If she's so nice go and make out with her. Elin: Okay, what do I get if I do? Jessica: If you do what? Elin: If I make out with her. Jessica: You'll get AIDS, probably.
When I was in high school I was a really huge 'SNL' fan. I remember the cast around the time I started watching it - Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon, Cheri O'Teri, Tracy Morgan. I did research to find out how people got on the show. Their b...
I grew up playing the saxophone. I joined the jazz band in high school, but somewhere along the way I realized the guys who strummed acoustic guitars at parties were the ones who got the attention. So I asked a friend to show me a few chords, and whe...
Having done a lot of magazines, I'm very curious how big magazines handle big stories, and I was very curious to see how 'Time' and 'Newsweek' would handle 9/11. And I was basically pretty disappointed to see that they had chosen to show the photo we...
