No, I had not read any other comedian's book. Not that I don't enjoy other comedians; I'm just not a reader.
My grandfather was a really, really tough no-nonsense factory worker who emigrated from Ireland in about 1900 to Bridgeport, Conn. He had a big effect on me. Those guys who took a great leap out into what they knew not were the ones who were the real stars, the real heroes.
I started acting pretty young, so I haven't had too many odd jobs. But I used to sell candy out of my locker in middle school.
There's not a part of me, apart from the soles of my feet, which has not had work done.
My mother loaned me $1000. The first issue came out at the end of 1953. I knew I needed something original. I had a photographer shoot a 3D feature for the first issue and learned it would cost too much money. When the 3D thing turned out to be too expensive, at that same moment I came across the photos of Marilyn Monroe.
I'm a classically trained painter, and I was an illustrator in New York working with Fortune 500s companies as well as the NBA and the Olympics. I first got into sculpting when I created a sculpture based on a painting I had done for the 1984 Olympics.
Trying to get the talk show, looking back on it, we had to beg a lot of station managers to pick up the show because people thought no one would watch it because I'm openly gay.
How many people have had starter marriages? For some reason, mine really offends people.
Before I did comedy, I'd freestyle with all of my friends. In high school and into college, I recorded songs with my friends, not to perform but just to play for them. So I've had interest in music for a while. Early on, I'd host a lot of music open nights or hip-hop nights, so a lot of my early experience performing was around music.
I was on 'Gilmore Girls' for seven years and had a couple decent years after that. Then, two years of almost nothing. I had jobs here and there, but I got very, very scared.
I have done my duty by the laws of my people and I am sorry my people were led this time by men who were not soldiers and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge.
They came down on us because we had a grass-roots, real people's revolution, complete with the programs, complete with the unity, complete with the working coalitions, where we crossed racial lines.
In grammar school some of the girls had problems with me. My face was too light. My hair was too long. It was the black-consciousness period, and I felt really bad.
We ended up New Year's Eve playin' a show. My date had stood me up, and I remember walkin' back to my friends with, like, two minutes before midnight and thinkin', 'I'm not gonna have anybody to kiss on New Year's.' And there she was, standin' right there, and I remember kissin' her, and then that was game over.
One of the greatest experiences I ever had was listening to a conversation with Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter. Just to hear them talking, my mouth was open. They understand each other perfectly, and they make these leaps and jumps because they don't have to explain anything.
No matter what, your parents are going to worry about you. I had a tour bus, and my mother still thought I was broke. Remember: It's your life, not theirs. Just because your parents sent you to college doesn't mean they bought the rest of your life.
My mother's brother became the undersecretary of the interior for Nixon, which did cause a little drama in my family because I was going to riots and everything, but he turned out great and gave us a nice cheque for an AIDS benefit we had for the 'Serial Mom' premiere.
On Hillary's side, I don't think it gets more establishment than Hillary Clinton. If I had one word to describe Hillary, it would be 'beholden.' Nothing's gonna really change. Government's gonna have the answer to everything, and that's gonna mean taxes are gonna go up.
I come from an acting family, my father was an actor, and I had to fight my way and just create my own identity.
I think there's a certain level of trust that I have with women. I've always been honest, even when I haven't had good times in my life or my movie bombed or I've had great success. I've owned up to all of it.
It was a high-class problem burden, but it was still a burden on 'The Vampire Diaries,' in which we had this group of characters that we loved writing for so much and who had so much available story to tell.
If the United States had maintained its spending under Ronald Reagan, it is possible that the attacks of 9/11 - presaged by Islamic terror attacks on multiple American targets beginning with the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 - would have been stopped.
The universe is almost 14 billion years old, and, wow! Life had no problem starting here on Earth! I think it would be inexcusably egocentric of us to suggest that we're alone in the universe.
I had a wonderful childhood, coming from Cincinnati, and I think that it was great going into the life that I was going to have, where you have to start young as a dancer.
I have always been very good at being able to structure my time. My mother had a huge influence on me. My dad was my coach. He was a hugely influential figure.
I had a job at a movie theater for like a year and a half and then a job at a health food store for, like, two years. Those were the only two jobs I ever had.
The biggest and most interesting challenge is to bring Elsa Schiaparelli's legacy to the present and the future. She had an exceptional, incredible, and intelligent approach; she was ahead of her times.
My mother had an incredibly strong accent - although I couldn't hear it - and she was the main person there, so I'll have learnt to speak English from her.
It was the point where things became much more abstract and less literal than in the bulk of the film, which was hardcore rockets and space and planets - all a fairly straightforward evolution from what I had been doing before.
We weren't your mainstream '50s family. Both my parents had wonderful, eccentric, artistic friends who treated us as friends as well. How your mind worked was considered important.
I tried for a short time to be something I wasn't, and had no success with it. It's a practical solution to just be yourself.
I had two DVDs my junior year. One was 'Fletch' and one was 'Goodfellas,' and I watched those movies so much. I just remember eating Ramen noodles and watching 'Goodfellas.'
I spent a lot of my teenage years experimenting with who I was as a person and not really getting it right. And then, I think, I realized that I just had to chill out in life.
I've never contended that I had a really horrible life.
I may have had a lot of luck in my life, but I still need to find a challenge in the game.
I have had the same friends since college, although as time has gone on, the daily nature of those relationships has changed, such that it is not daily at all.
