After decades spent in rewrite rooms surrounded by other shouting writers, I discovered that I work best alone. I like being in charge of my time, working out the problems according to my own rhythms and being able to nap. That's a big one, the napping on demand!
When I do have spare time to write, I'm tempted to spend it napping.
I do my best stuff midmorning and superlate at night, from 1 to 5 in the morning. Some people don't need sleep. I actually do need sleep. I just sleep all the time. I'll catch naps in the afternoon, or I'll take a 20-minute snooze in the office - just all the time. Our business is 24 hours. Our guys in Europe come online at midnight.
I'm not one who can get by on six hours sleep night after night. You can see it on my face and hear it in my voice. When working 14-hour days, I have to go home, go to sleep, and wake up in time for crew call. I hate naps. They throw me off the rest of the day.
If you have young kids, around 3 o'clock is a good time for a party because naps are over, and little ones can eat an early dinner.
It's a radical time for musicians, a really revolutionary time, and I believe revolutions like Napster are a lot more fun than cash, which by the way we don't have at major labels anyway, so we might as well get with it and get in the game.
I have a very difficult time getting the Napster world.
I was a young, new, hot star, and I had this unbelievable arrogance. As time went on, the strident narcissism and arrogance slowly diminished. But I was definitely there. I'm older now. And a big crybaby.
I was a solipsist and a narcissist and much too arrogant. I have a lot more compassion now, but it took a long time.
Everybody seems to be wasting their time online. There is such a narcissistic attitude. It's such a strange world.
The first time I ever recorded, which was into my boom-box, I was like, 'Wow, check that out.' It sounded great. The narcotic of it was so intense - it was pleasurable. I was like, 'You sound like a band.' Then I ended up spending the rest of my life trying to chase that initial high again.
I first read 'Lolita' when I was 16, which I think is a little bit young. But it was a thrilling and disturbing read because it was the first time I really sensed that you could have an unreliable narrator, that you didn't have to sort of tell the truth in a narrative, that there could be something deeper and richer and more complicated going on.
Having experienced everything you don't want in a partner over time, it starts to narrow down to what you actually do want.
Europe is kind of fragmented. Africa is nascent; we've made a few investments, including four in Egypt. I visit 50-60 cities and 20-25 countries a year. The intent is to be a global fund, which takes time and prioritization.
There was a time when I was - after my very first record from Nashville, I thought I might not be one of those who actually really makes it, and I may end up back in Canada, just playing clubs. And that might - this might have just been it.
I couldn't get away from the gramophone. It was the only thing that I ever really liked, and I was singing along by the time I was five years old - to the Modernaires and Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole.
In time it will become clear to everyone that support for the policies of pre-emptive war and interventionist nation-building will have much greater significance than the removal of Saddam Hussein itself.
Many of the ethnic and other parochial tensions that have tended to create insecurity and outright conflict, time and time again, are largely as a result of failure to deliberately undertake nation-building efforts.
All of the military services - land, sea, and air - spend a great deal of time awake. This is a direct result of the high tempo of operations we conduct while forward deployed well outside our national borders.
Seattle is very similar to Minneapolis. I like the culture; I like the people. I raced a bike and won a national championship on Lake Washington in 1977, so I've had a connection there for a long time.
