I've driven people mad on films that I've made - I want more takes; I want to try new lines. Then I want to interfere in the editing process, and I want to interfere in the advertising process - everything, everything. Pretty much Barbra Streisand in trousers, I am!
In 2003, I wrote a New York Times best-seller called 'Shut Up & Sing,' in which I criticized celebrities like the Dixie Chicks & Barbra Streisand who were trashing then-President George W. Bush. I have used a variation of that title for more than 15 years to respond to performers who sound off on politics.
Here in London, you can go for picnics and have a barbecue; you can go to a park and wear bare feet, much like New Zealand. But there's just so much buzz going on; you can be inspired by anything and everything. There's always something to do. Always.
As someone who's been covering presidential campaigns since the 1950s, I have no delusions about political reporting. Candidates bargaining access to get the kind of news coverage they want is nothing new.
As I learn more and more about the six-year extension of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, it's obvious to me that NFL owners understood that they were going to get a new deal done at all costs.
When I was younger, I'd go to the Museum of Television and Radio in New York and watch this beautiful clip of Billie Holiday playing with a bassist, a pianist and Gerry Mulligan, who was a friend of mine, on baritone sax. At one point, she looks over at Gerry, and they just smile. When those moments happen, it's just lovely.
I have no way of knowing how people really feel, but the vast majority of those I meet couldn't be nicer. Every once in a while someone barks at me. My New Year's resolution is not to bark back.
Lionel Essrog, the twitching, barking, gabbling narrator of Jonathan Lethem's new novel, 'Motherless Brooklyn,' is no movie-of-the-week novelty grafted onto a noir mystery. Maybe his Tourette's is a gimmick, but it's a gimmick with depth, with soul.
When you are new at sheep-raising and your ewe has a lamb, your impulse is to stay there and help it nurse and see to it and all. After a while, you know that the best thing you can do is walk out of the barn.
My favourite thing is to do crossword puzzles. I do the 'New York Times' one every morning. Then I go to the barn to see my horse.
If you take a Baroque commode and put a Baroque clock on top of it, maybe it is not so interesting as when you put a computer on top of it. Then you see both items in a new way.
New England has a harsh climate, a barren soil, a rough and stormy coast, and yet we love it, even with a love passing that of dwellers in more favored regions.
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
I'm the go-to guy for Mexican priests. I'm the new Barry Fitzgerald, except with a Mexican accent.
Since September 11, security has been increased everywhere, and we have new IDs to get on to the Fox lot. I drove to the security gate, but realized I'd left my ID in my other car. I just broke into that voice - 'Hey, man, I'm Bart Simpson. Who else sounds like this?' The guard waved me through.
I was a good bartender. I wouldn't say I was the best bartender in New York, but I could hold my own.
I got Neil Walker now as my new second baseman. He's great. He looks comfortable there. He knows what he's doing. That's the second baseman you want to play with.
I believe it is possible to bring an end to mass incarceration and birth a new moral consensus about how we ought to be responding to poor folks of color and a consensus in support of basic human rights for all. But it is going to take some work.
We also intend to deal with the issue of incorporating basic human rights into our new constitution.
The secret's out: New York's Labor Law provides the power to help low-wage workers earn enough to meet their basic needs.
