Abbott and Costello were huge for me as a very young person.
At 5 years old, I saw 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,' and I was so scared when Costello sat himself down in the lap of the monster, not realizing where he was. My friends teased me. They were older, 8 years old. And my goal was to become a mad scientist and get back at them. And here I am, mad as hell!
For me, growing up in New York, it started with Elvis Costello and the Clash and then got into louder things like Bad Brains and Stimulators, because those were, like, the local bands. Then I started getting into bands from England like the Slits. I remember seeing Gang of Four at Irving Plaza; that was a really big show for me.
If it's independent, it's because I love it... 'cause they usually end up costing me money to do.
Kevin Costner told me that 'True' was his and his wife's song. I'm not sure if that's a good thing because they split up soon after.
It's still a trip for me to see somebody that I've only seen on television or in a movie. When they are there in real life, it's very different. When we played Detroit, Kevin Costner played before us.
Directors, writers, and actors are interested in making movies with me. Producers and movie studio people are not interested in me as they are in Kevin Costner or Tom Cruise. That's just the fact of the matter.
I guess, for me, I've always thought that there was humor everywhere. And as a kid, I just, you know, I grew up an only child, and I - sort of nothing made me happier than to make my parents laugh. I remember I had costumes and things laying around the house that I was, you know, anything that I could do to make my parents laugh.
Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
People called me 'cottage cheese thighs' all through school.
I was influenced a lot by those around me - there was a lot of singing that went on in the cotton fields.
I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress.
I was a little boy singing sad songs, about 9 or 10 years old in the woods. I listened to my voice coming back to me. It was as high as you could go. I dreamed of being famous as a singer when I was on those cotton fields. I wanted to see the world and meet people.
The South is full of memories and ghosts of the past. For me, it is the most inspiring place to write, from William Faulkner's haunted antebellum home to the banks of the Mississippi to the wind that whispers through the cotton fields.
I was never meant to, like, work and then turn it off and sit on the couch. I just have a vision, and I'm inspired by it. It's sort of what makes me tick.
It was my mother who got me involved in gymnastics, sending me to classes when I was six just to stop me doing back flips on the couch and destroying the furniture.
I grabbed my mom and I went to the couch and I said, 'Mom I want to ask Jesus to come into my heart.' And I got on my knee and I asked Jesus to come into my heart, forgive me of my sins, and make me a child of God.
I never get sick - not a cold, not a cough or sore throat. Everyone around me can be hacking up a lung, and I'm fine.
Non-resident Indians love me and cough up huge sums of money to watch me fight in the ring.
When you hear extraneous noise, they are bored in some way, so it makes me upset. Even coughing, I find, is passive-aggressive, usually.
