I remember looking at James Joyce’s journals. It was just amazing – it looked like ants had written on the page. So much writing on one page, every corner of the page was filled. Some of the lines were underlined in yellow or blue or red. A lot of color, intense writing.
Growing up, I had a terrible pudding-bowl haircut. I used to cut it myself, and I’d sew my own clothing, too. I looked a little strange compared to the other kids. But the thing was, I felt I looked amazing, so what other people thought never bothered me.
It’s hard for me to just say, ‘Wow, this is amazing – I’m famous. I’m living the dream.’ I sit there and think, ‘I’m scared – this can go away tomorrow.’ My dad always says that I’m a tortured soul because I’m never pleased; I never feel like I deserve what I’ve achieved.
In the mid-’60s, AM radio, pop radio, was just this incredible thing that played all kinds of music… You could hear Frank Sinatra right into the Yardbirds. The Beatles into Dean Martin. It was this amazing thing, and I miss it, in a way, because music has become so compartmentalized now, but in those days, it was all right in one spot.
My dad and I didn’t talk much. Our relationship was OK but not amazing. So there I was, dressed up in my sort of uniform, the clothes my band was wearing at the time. He could tell I was I getting serious. I guess he knew I was going to go for it. So he told me how to handle myself professionally, not to take what people write about me to heart.
I really like even numbers, and I like heavily divisible numbers. Twelve is my lucky number – I just love how divisible it is. I don’t like odd numbers, and I really don’t like primes. When I turned 37, I put on a strong face, but I was not looking forward to 37. But 37 turned out to be a pretty amazing year.
Learn computer science. It’s extraordinarily helpful. I like recommending learning economics as well so they think in terms of business, they have rational frameworks for looking at the world, but yeah, computer science is an amazing way to get into, even if you want to be CEO, having a tech background is helpful.
Urs Fischer specializes in making jaws drop. Cutting giant holes in gallery walls, digging a crater in Gavin Brown’s gallery floor in 2007, creating amazing hyperrealist wallpaper for a group show at Tony Shafrazi: It all percolates with uncanny destructiveness, operatic uncontrollability, and barbaric sculptural power.
It’s amazing to be nominated for two Brits, and I’m in great company. I’m not a politician out blagging votes, but if people like what I do and feel like giving me a vote for British Breakthrough, imagine how mint it would be if I actually won.
I’m definitely doing better. I never realized that I would get the support that I’ve gotten from everybody – from my fans, to people that I’ve idolized my whole life. So it’s overwhelming, it’s amazing and I believe that everything happens for a reason so I’m in a really good place right now.
And then ‘Wanderlust,’ Ken Marino and David Wain wrote the funniest – they’re amazing. That was one of my most favorite creative experiences; we’re all up at that commune, a small group of people. Everyone was funnier than the next. It was an amazing ensemble feeling. Everyone gave and took in the best way.
I think there’s this standard in our society that when we become a mother, we just become a mother, and that’s all you are. That’s an amazing thing, but I think you’re doing your child a disservice by not following your dreams either. I work really hard to make sure that I’m chasing all the things I always dreamed of.
If you play the same club every week of every month, it’s kind of boring. It’s great that you can play one night in Brazil and one night in Japan, one night in Europe, and see the world. It’s amazing what you see if you travel around the world.
I am definitely a Type A personality, always rushing around, trying to do too much, not good at just lying on the beach. But I’m so thankful for everything I have: wonderfully supportive parents and sisters, the best husband in the world, terrific students I love teaching and hanging out with, and above all, my two amazing daughters.
My mother encouraged it so much. She was so supportive. Even if as a kid, I would do the dumbest trick, which now that I look back on some things, she would love it, she would say that’s amazing, or if I’d make the ugliest drawing, she would hang it up. She was amazing.
When I was in architecture school, I became curious about the exact mathematics, physics, and construction of the great structures I had been studying. I wanted to know how these amazing things would work: the Pantheon, the dome of Michelangelo, the dome of Brunelleschi. So I decided to study civil engineering.
The journey of filmmaking is so amazing. You start off with great confidence, and develop insecurity at the time of release. When you are ready with the finished product, you are constantly wondering if you have been honest to the story you started out with, if you got what you wanted. One is too close to the project by then to be objective.
We spend a lot of time training and retraining. It’s heartbreaking because our education system has failed all of us. And again you go to China, even Mexico, Brazil the education systems are valued – ours are not in this country at K-12 level. It’s amazing how that change has transpired in my lifetime.
My first time on TV doing stand-up, I actually did this show in Holland called ‘The Comedy Factory’ hosted by Jorgen Raymann. It was in 2006 in Holland. It was amazing. I had only been doing stand-up for four years, and I booked that gig through the Just For Laughs Montreal festival, and they flew me out and put me up.
I’m so excited to be a part of ‘Falling Skies’ and to see people enjoying what we’ve been working on for almost two years. The fact that I get to represent part of my heritage within this amazing group of characters makes me that much more proud!
When you win a Grammy… you’re thinking about you winning. It is amazing. Your peers and folks in the record business are saying, ‘This is what we think of you.’ And that’s why the Grammy will always be, to me, the ultimate in what you get as far as a music trophy, because it is the one.
Anyone who has played the game professionally, you’re always taught that the ball is the most important, most precious thing, so when the ball hits the ground, it’s always a mad scramble. It’s amazing how many times there is a fumble, and the person who recovers it initially doesn’t walk away with the ball.
When you’re in elementary school, you get these amazing assignments, like to come up with your own animal, come up with your own city, come up with your own planet, what do the people look like; you’re very much encouraged to be as imaginative as possible.
My mom was an amazing singer and music was a big part of my life, so I grew up listening to Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini; I used to watch ‘The Andy Williams Show’ on TV. I was very musical, so I was watching stuff that most kids my age wouldn’t be interested in.
One my favorite things is to go to the provinces of Russia and see the 18th century wood churches with the onion dome architecture. These humble wonders of incredible imagination of architects that were obviously not living in places like Paris or London, but they’ve created these amazing churches.
