I have no problem with bands using participant financing schemes like Kickstarter and such. I’ve said many times that I think they’re part of the new way bands and their audience interact and they can be a fantastic resource, enabling bands to do things essentially in cooperation with their audience. It’s pretty amazing, actually.
It had always been a dream of mine to come to New York to work. Coming to New York and looking for work is one thing, but coming to New York and already having a job and feeling like you are already part of the city has been an amazing experience for me.
Wal-Mart is an amazing success story. What I particularly admire very much about the late Sam Walton was his policy of valuing his employees. Giving value to employees is very rare in the retail industry. I also admire the strategies Walton used to build up his discount store concept.
I’ve had the chance to watch Metallica’s James Hetfield from the side of the stage night after night, listening to his monitors, and his playing is so perfect. Slash is an amazing lead guitarist, but when you listen to his rhythm playing, you can hear how he pulls everything together with such a great feel, which is the most important thing.
Cooking, to me, it’s kind of therapeutic. It’s completely different from music as well. I’m not amazing at it, but I can cook myself a good meal. And I’m not just saying this, but anytime I’m on the bus or at home, I’m watching Food Network or cooking on TV just ‘cause it’s interesting to me.
This might disappoint you somewhat, but I have to say my interest in Tolkien has faded dramatically over the years. His language skills are amazing, his story good and fascinating, but… he has a very Judeo-Christian perspective, and his use of mythical creatures is very… ignorant.
I think my biggest learning experience is that it’s okay to be who you are – you don’t have to exactly fit the mold of what people think a certain kind of career is. I think that discovery – of really knowing who I am and being okay with that and loving myself – was amazing.
One of the things I’ve pledged is in my first hundred days, only to do bipartisan proposals. Wouldn’t it be amazing if a president looked at the American people at the inauguration and said, ‘I represent every one of you, whether you voted for me or not and this is how I’m going to prove it.’
I think one of the traps of theater – what makes it so amazing is that it’s not able to be mass-produced, but it also makes it hard to get work seen by people because if you’re a creator, you do a cabaret or something, and maybe 100 people will see it and then it ends the night that you close it.
The fact that ‘Small Island’ is ‘period’ is amazing for me because it’s something that I’ve never been involved with before. Also, half my family is Jamaican and this story is essentially a story about Jamaican people, and it’s portraying a part of history that I was not that familiar with myself.
I never imagined as a kid that anybody could beat up ‘Mr. Wonderful’ Paul Orndorff because Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan convinced me he was the toughest guy, that Andre The Giant was bigger than life, that Hulk Hogan was amazing and dug down deep.
I find that the most special thing to me is if you’ve connected to people in some way: If someone comes up to you on the street and says something to you, and you know it’s meant something to them, and it’s connected to some project. That, I find, is amazing.
For me, boxing’s like checkers, and MMA’s like chess – there are so many ways to win the match. It’s not barbaric; it’s boxing, kickboxing, Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, cardio and it’s all reached such an amazing level. As fans learn more about the sport, they just fall in love with it.
To be able to transform societies and economies to low-carbon ones was an amazing challenge. To influence and to facilitate such an important transformation in the world would be like witnessing something of industrial revolution proportions.
When ‘Red Tails’ came along, all I knew was that they were the first African-American fighter pilots in the U.S. Air Force. I had no idea how deep the story went or about all their amazing achievements. There were a few Tuskegee Airmen on the set to make sure everything was as authentic as possible.
I’ve read a hundred fantastic scripts that didn’t pan out as films, and I completely put that on the directors. I’ve also read some mediocre scripts that have ended up being amazing, and I credit that to the directors. They’re the storytellers. If you don’t have a good storyteller, you really have nothing.
Being on a television show and having so many fans is something that I’ve never experienced before, and it’s really neat when they come up to you and are like, ‘That storyline is amazing and really spoke to me in my life,’ and it’s really cool. I really enjoy it.
I’m just gonna keep growing as an artist, and I’m excited to work with different people and learn from all these other talented, creative people that I’ve been around. It’s so inspiring to be around other people who have ideas you haven’t thought of, and all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Wow! That’s so amazing!’
I love being around my friends and my family and spending time with my husband. I like being normal and recharging my batteries, and I feel like I have the coolest job in the world where I get to get on stage and perform and get to do a lot of really amazing things.
I was offered seven deals from seven different major labels between 2009-2011, and to be quite honest… nowadays, you need a hit record, a great radio team, an amazing PR firm, social media, a big budget, a team that is ready to work extremely hard, and the drive and passion to win!
It was a great time in my career, playing for Barcelona with the best players in the world, in the best team in the world at that moment. It was amazing for me. I can always say to anyone that I played at Barcelona with Messi, with Xavi, with Iniesta, with Pedro, with Pique. And we won a lot of trophies.
I always find it amazing that people get mad because they can’t figure out my gender. Even though my only job here is to create art, I think being a genderless figure… it shakes people. And when that happens, it makes me feel like I’m doing my job.
To combat the confusion and depression that assault me when I come off the road in the middle of a tour, I seek the most oblivionated music possible. When it’s the ‘way out there’ that I seek, I go right to my stash of amazing music from Japan.
We had this unbelievable faith that no business has done, quite frankly, and we tripped along the way doing it, but within two years, we were in 40-plus countries. So we ran at an amazing pace, and this is where venture capitalists play a role. Making Groupon into what it is today, we had no role in it; the entrepreneurs did it.
‘The Shining’ is operatic and sensational and… really shocking. It has this amazing meld of classical music and modern interpretations of classical music, and incredible imagery. From the set design to the costumes, there’s so much to unpack.
