I have an immigrant story. Most people come here for economic reasons, or religious reasons, or racial reasons, or gender reasons, or one of those things. I had a good job in Paris, but America was, and still is, the golden fleece. And I've done very well!
And they just saw me on that and - from the time I was 11 until I was 12, I guess. And then when I had just turned 13, they asked me if I wanted to tour with Johnny Cash back East.
Last Friday night, I Twitted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle. Once I realized I posted to Twitter I panicked, I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story, to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake.
I had that stubborn streak, the Irish in me I guess.
I was around computers from birth; we had one of the first Macs, which came out shortly before I was born, and my dad ran a company that wrote computer operating systems. I don't think I have any particular technical skills; I just got a really large head start.
I was taking a nose dive somewhere between eleven and twelve because my sister had died and I was practicing something that siblings do which is follow in their footsteps and die as well.
'Boneless,' even though we were thinking about servicing it to radio, it made more sense putting a vocal on there. This was actually the first time that I really looked at doing a song for radio and kind of let go of some control and listened to a lot of different radio pluggers and had Ultra come in and help out with ideas.
What can I say: I got started on the whole wife-and-kids thing at a young age. I had my kids while I was in utero.
I knew, however, that the next morning after the fight I would have to get away, and I did just in time, for a full company came early to look for me and were furious because I had escaped them.
I grew up in poverty on the edge of a golf course. I saw how people lived on the other side of the tracks, the upper crust and the WASPs at the country club. We had chickens and pigs in our yards. We butchered every year. I'll never forget those things.
I really am glad that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has had the courage to stand up and say that children should not be hit under any circumstances. I am a committed supporter of this campaigning charity for children.
The first song that I had that went platinum was 'Keep Your Head Up,' which was a long time ago. Then, you get 'one-hit wonder' with that.
That's when I hit the ground. So in the instant that that round landed and blew me in the air, I had those separate and distinct thoughts. The guy who was standing right next to where I had been standing had a hole in his back I could put my fist into.
My parents came from Russia and suddenly they wound up in Boston, Massachusetts, Brookline, Massachusetts and they felt the sun rose and set on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's backside because he meant so much to them. This was freedom. This was something totally different from the Russia they had left.
For years, I had no time for exploratory travel.
With the Chiefs, you can't live in Kansas City and not like the Chiefs. To go catch a game at Arrowhead is a pretty great experience. I haven't had the chance to go to games anywhere else, but, from what I'm told, I don't really need to.
I know I am extraordinarily lucky to be doing what I am doing. I have worked hard along the way and I have been blessed too. I have had a great life.
If two of your films don't do well, people say you're out in the cold and your career is over. One film does well, and you've had the best year of your life! I don't believe in all that's written.
History does not record in its annals any lasting domination exercised by one people over another, of different race, of diverse usages and customs, of opposite and divergent ideals. One of the two had to yield and succumb.
I've always had God, but now I want to go back to church for the sense of community and that feeling of positive thinking, a place where I can think about being a better person.
I had a remarkably happy childhood; whatever scars I have are self-inflicted.
What I always knew about my parents was that they were in love, and this love had a fizz. It was exciting to be their child, to be around them. There was a dynamism between them, a charge.
The worst moment was when I was performing and I was about to sing, but I choked. I had a tickle in my throat and I started coughing, and I couldn't get the words out. It lasted for like thirty seconds, but I got over it, and luckily the crowd didn't seem to care.
I have to confess that a strong contributing factor was that I had just taken what was probably the first acid ever made, given to me by a guy called Johnny Fellows, who had just returned from America.
There are good days and there are bad days, and I've had my share of both.
That result at the French was a big break for me. I had been playing quite well up until that point but nobody really expected me to do well on clay - it was my worst surface. I had had some success on the clay but I was a set and a break up in the semi-final against Jausovec and maybe the enormity of the occasion got to me.
I had a ninth grade teacher who told me I was much smarter and much better than I was allowing myself to be.
The Roman legions were formed in the first instance of citizen soldiers, who yet had been made to submit to a rigid discipline, and to feel that in that submission lay their strength.
The Israeli accent wasn't one that I was overly familiar with so had to learn from scratch but I was very fortunate I had the right amount of time.
The thing is, I have never been that confident, and, um, I have a lot of self-doubt, and I had never - I don't think I ever would have consciously chosen to be a television presenter.
I have been a part of the teams which had the original great man - Sachin Tendulkar. I remember in 2007-08 tour of Australia, Sachin paaji would get all the attention from the locals.
The first time I went to Abbey Road and put those headphones on, I discovered I had two voices. I no longer had to shout in the studio, but I can't knock the Cavern or the other clubs because they gave me my strong voice.
When we started training with WWE, coaches were impressed and asked if we had had boxing training. I said no, it was all soccer. As a defender, I had to learn to stay on my feet, track backwards, and I feel all the movement I do in the ring was helped by my soccer background.
As far as I was concerned, the Depression was an ill wind that blew some good. If it hadn't occurred, my parents would have given me my college education. As it was, I had to scrabble for it.
My best friend Rosemarie and I had a very involved secret life when we were in elementary school. After we saw 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' on TV, we invented a whole secret life in which we were twins from the planet Venus, and we were in charge of the entire solar system as well as Earth.
The principle that certain sins should not receive the Church's testimony of forgiveness was probably no novelty at all, but had been applied in various churches; perhaps, however, with no strict consistency.
