I've worked so hard to eliminate the inner geek from my life. I suddenly realize I have no patience for those people who still have their geeks showing. Now I see why being 'normal' has been so important to me.
When I first encountered the 'Sigma Force' novels - long before I became friends with Jim Rollins - a bookseller told me that these stories were about 'geeks with guns.' While not entirely accurate, that's pretty close to the mark, and that really speaks to me.
I'm not geeky but I have my geeky, corky moments, and then I've got some aspects of cool in me, I guess.
I was kind of a nerdy, geeky type. And I loved math. People teased me about it. I felt pretty much like an outcast.
I loved school, I loved putting on my uniform and doing homework every day. I was one of those good students that the teachers liked. I guess that's got to be a pretty nerdy, geeky part of me.
I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school, and afterward went to work in Tokyo, where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha. He and I never discussed his parentage, which was an open secret, but it fascinated me.
I will always find my light. No question. And if I don't, I'll know, because my dad will be the first person to call me and say, like, 'You need to have him bring another 2K in,' and 'Why aren't you using this sort of lighting gel?' The crew guys know that it's where I grew up.
For a long time, my dad was always on me about cutting my hair. 'Get a haircut. Gel your hair. You've got to do something to get your hair to stay down. It's too big; get it down! It's too crazy.'
I never think about a shoot before I do it. Because there's no formula for people. What I try to do is to strip everything away rather than go in with preconceived notions. If I do that, I might miss a gem or a jewel that the person is offering me.
There is genuine healing in a beautifully crafted musical theatre song, like Stephen Sondheim's 'Losing My Mind,' or a pop music gem like Joni Mitchell's 'Help Me.'
One movie I think is just terrific is 'Bernie,' with Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine. That was a great surprise to me - so witty, so entertaining, a true story, and I'm not a great Jack Black fan, but he's great in it. I think it's a gem.
What I like most: Reading well-written sources that take me to another world for hours at a time - and being able to call that 'work!' Also, of course, finding a gem of information that is either exactly what I was looking for, or else fits perfectly into the story in some way.
I was watching Monster's Ball, which is a fabulous movie. It's just a little gem: beautifully shot, and shot in a way I never would have done. It made me feel very old, really, because it wasn't eccentric for its own sake, it was just very original.
We found out the Gemini spacesuit was, well, oxygen was flowing to keep me cool as well as to breathe, and it wasn't good enough. My visor got fogged.
I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the 1960s, and I think there was a synchronicity of events that inspired me to be an astronaut, and, of course, the backdrop is nothing less than Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. That was a time in our nation where we aspired to great things, and we achieved them.
It is a privilege that women fancy me, but I cannot sustain the chocolate boy image forever. I don't want to end up being known, like the late veteran Tamil actor Gemini Ganesan was, as the king of romance.
Gen Y is really quite distinct from Gen X; it's really self-involved and very narcissistic - their cameras are filled with pictures of themselves; Facebook, it's about me. It's a generation that's been pampered by their parents and their schools, given prizes for just taking part.
I have never had feeling in my toes. My uncle, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, once told me in confidence he had the same syndrome, leading me to believe it is genetic.
I'm on the younger end of Gen X, and for me, growing up gay was not cool.
It's a Gen X thing to be okay with going unnoticed or unrated or untouched. To be free from strangers' expectations, or anger. People got angry at me when I stopped making music because it seemed I was devaluing everything.
