For myself, I can’t understand a life without a job. I don’t know what I would do without employment. Retirement is out of the question for me.
Think about it: No matter who you are, the past plays a large part in your life. I am all about living in the present as best as I can. Try as I might, there is only so much I am able to achieve on this front.
To get a human through a life, lives of broken bones, knock-me-over-with-a-feather susceptibility to myriad viruses, and whatever else might befall someone will cost money.
To see change in your own area code is very powerful. There’s a little orphanage down the street from my company, and we donate $1 from the sale of each CD we sell to the orphanage.
When I see the hatred exacted at Mr. Obama – you know, he lowered your taxes, killed your number one bad guy and got your guys out of Iraq – I don’t understand why he seems to inflame people so much. You know, unless, unless there’s a race problem.
As you do with any band you’re in, you get to know everyone too well all too soon. When you’re crammed into a small space, proximity leads to familiarity.
Like a lot of inwardly drawn young people, I spent a lot of time in libraries. At my high school, I often spent my lunch breaks there.
The Internet, the camera cellphone and the like have not only sped up the world’s information uptake, but they have cheapened that which they capture.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was vigorously and vociferously opposed by the Southern states. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law nonetheless.
I was in Pakistan in Islamabad when Bhutto was assassinated, and the next day, you know, there’s just plumes of smoke everywhere. I mean, Islamabad is on fire.
If people are being upstanding citizens of the Republic, then you have to widen the net to incarcerate them. This explains why America’s prisons are full of nonviolent offenders – a perfect example of American exceptionalism.
In the late summer of 1986, the band I had been in for five years stopped playing. Suddenly, I was on my own. This new state of bandlessness was, at first, traumatic. When your group breaks up, a lot of broken parts hit the ground.
It is amazing to hear grown-up people rationalize homophobia and discrimination. The lengths they go to trying to prove their points take reason to its breaking point.
Lou Reed’s music has been in the lives of millions of people all over the world for decades. He had a truly universal presence and was respected by musicians across all genres.
Nelson Mandela will always be the face of South Africa. The traveler passing through the country will see Mandela’s face almost everywhere he looks. Truly, the man is omnipresent.
Rarely do I do film press because I’m so low on the food chain of the movie, and for me it’s just this thing I did for four weeks before the next tour started.
Someone like Ashlee Simpson, she lip-synchs on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ gets totally called out la Milli Vanilli, and no one really cares that much. It doesn’t make me hate Ashlee; she’s just taking instructions.
Songs sung under duress are often very powerful.
I see violence in myself; I’ve done some pretty violent things in my lifetime and I’ve been around some pretty severe violence all the way up to homicide.
Seasonal change in Los Angeles is often a very subtle thing. It’s not as if we finally stop having to shovel the snow out of our driveways and can put our parkas back in the closet.