We were fortunate to have the Russians as our childhood enemies. We practiced hiding under our desks in case they had the temerity to drop a nuclear weapon.
A lot of my friends were mostly working in black-and-white - people like Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and others. We would exchange prints with each other, and they were always very supportive of what I was doing.
If I see my films described as 'quirky' or, even worse, 'snarky' one more time, I'm going to probably seriously consider an early retirement. All these years, I've labored under the conceit that they were "darkly humorous.'
When I look at great works of art or listen to inspired music, I sense intimate portraits of the specific times in which they were created.
Perhaps the old monks were right when they tried to root love out; perhaps the poets are right when they try to water it. It is a blood-red flower, with the color of sin; but there is always the scent of a god about it.
Before I thought there was a common denominator between my films - as if all my characters were sisters - but I'm not so sure now.
But you know the second month I was here I put out a healthy lifestyles directive. The pundits will say it was because we were sued. Well that's what they say. It was never about that.
They were of many types of seals, all bearing the insignia of the King.
So without that Canadian invention we were grounded. And so that was a really important and key part of the mission and Canadians should take real pride in it.
Soccer and cricket were my main sports growing up. I had trials as a soccer player with a few clubs interested, Crystal Palace being one, but it was cricket which became my chosen profession.
My coaches were great. My mom and dad. My dad never missed a wrestling meet.
My memories of Las Vegas were all with my father when I was, like, a teenager. He was best friends with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and we'd come up and see the shows and go backstage afterwards and have dinner together. It was one of my first educations about stars and how they really are back stage.
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more.
We took the whole thing far too seriously. After all, those were early days in television.
No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.
If my life were a song the title would be 'The Comeback Kid.'
My parents were extreme left so everything was against the system. I was walking barefoot in the streets of Paris when I was eight. When I started to DJ they hated it, because for them, nightclubs, and all of this life, was terrible and fake.
I knew what my times were and how my practices were progressing and how close I was to the goals I had set for the year. I swam hard. I always swam hard. If I didn't, I knew I would pay for it either the next day or the next meet.
What we learned quite early on is what was really important to early British pop that we produced-and this is where we were distinct from almost everybody else in this respect-is that it had to reflect exactly what the audience wanted us to say.
They're so generous, the American fans. They send money to the various charities I support. I tried to raise a little bit of money to send to Nepal, and they were straight in with thousands of dollars.
I got all my work done to graduate in two months and then they were like, I'm sorry, you have to take driver's ed. I just kind of went, Oh, forget it.
The myth that theater isn't for everybody is total nonsense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, everybody in America used to go to the theater all the time. The shows they went to see were big, crazy melodramas that had careening storylines and houses burning down and pretty girls in danger and comedy and death and destruction.
At the height of the McCarthy period, writers were being hounded.
When I came to DreamWorks, I was in bad trouble. They were in bad trouble. They were millions of dollars in the hole and a few days from closing their doors. I was on my last leg.
I used to write songs that were deeply personal, but since I am becoming so passionate about the world around me, that passion and drive is starting to come into my work.
They wanted me to play more sports because they were acutely sensitive to their children being one hundred percent American, and they believed that all Americans played sports and loved sports.
There was once a time when art history and film were basically the same medium, but art history is frozen in late-19th-century technology that has survived into the early 21st century.
My mother birthed three children and she adopted myself and another African-American son. My adoptive parents were Finnish. I grew up in a white picket neighborhood.
It's been difficult for me to get my head around Diana's death or talk about it. After she died, things were difficult, very difficult. We all have our own traumas and get on with it. But when it's there in your face year in, year out, it's hard.
Women are always complaining about men's fascination with breasts. But what if men were absolutely indifferent to breasts? What would women do then with these things that serve one function once or twice in a lifetime, and the rest of the time are just in the way?
I'm married to Kevin, a photographer whose career has put him on the campaign trail with presidential candidates and sent him on assignment to far-flung places for long periods of time. It was sometimes rough when our children were small, and I was beginning to write in earnest.
No one hit home runs the way Babe did. They were something special. They were like homing pigeons. The ball would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain its bearings, then take off for the stands.
Men wholly bent on wordly treasures were the dupes of their own passions, rather than deceived by the writings or pretenses of those who claimed to be Alchemists.
I first started actually playing guitar when I was eleven years old. I had some neighborhood friends who told me they were starting a band and needed a guitarist. I told my folks, and by the next day I had a guitar lesson set up with a local teacher.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. The older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
It's horrible to think that a small cadre of people would manipulate that information. I mean, for God's sake, we've admitted that we were experimenting on our veterans with mustard gas. So there is no security question. It can't possibly be the reason.
