Almost all human who can form a sentence will eventually let you in on the fact that their lives are very difficult and sometimes very hard to manage.
From those who agonize that they may no longer be able to write off their private jet to someone who doesn't feel like making the three mile hike to the well to get water and carry it back, everyone struggles.
For me, music was an age/time/place thing. One day I woke up and realized I was done. That was many years ago.
The fact is that I am always thinking of something to build. A new book, radio show, plans for a trip somewhere. I am not a very happy person but I feel pretty even when I am working, so I guess that is how I am wired.
The talking shows are like free jazz. I'm just gonna go out there and blow with the idea of keeping it streamlined and not wasting time. It's wild. And it's a great thing when you see a performer really able to.
I don't wish to be anything more or less than what I am. If this is how it is, then so be it.
Can you imagine telling a woman she can't vote!? The women I hang out with would be going home with parts of your anatomy swinging from their rearview.
I'm not trying to amass people in the streets. I just want them to be more aware. So many Americans, for one reason or another, they watch the news and it doesn't really give them the idea of the world. Or they don't read or travel. They have no idea that America is part of the world and not the world itself. And so anything from the travel stories I tell, that's what I'm trying to get across.
There are other people, other economies, governments, cultures, religions, and destinies going on at the same time as yours. You have to widen the scope of your lens and start seeing more. Because Americans, it's easy to make us freak out. When the going gets rough, you have to get conservative. That's what's happened to America in the last eight years. I just try to point out that there's more going on than most people pay attention to.
The talking shows allow me to come out of my cave and that's why those shows go on for so long. I hate walking off stage. Sometimes I walk off and I miss them as I'm walking off the stage. I wonder if they'll let me go another hour. That's why I do it: to communicate, to get points across.
I've never been in a situation where I had to run for my life, but I've been bitten by a lot of poisonous snakes where it was fairly painful. Pythons of size have a lot of teeth in that mouth, it's a painful bite and those wounds get infected fairly easily. I've got snake wounds from these animals that have lasted quite a while where it'll ache for several days. Having said that, I've been lucky; it's not like I'm looking for trouble with these animals either. It's not an envelope I'm willing to push.
The government is a functionary of the corporations - and there's nothing new about that. You can find people in the 1930s talking about the army basically working for Wall Street in all of these countries [it invades].
Quite often governments are one way and the people are another.
An appreciation of animals is good for a human, it can lead to a better understanding and respect for all living things.
Bono actually gets a lot of substantial work done. The guy really does put a lot of things together and, while I'm not a fan of his music, I greatly applaud his humanitarian efforts.
Not that the writers weren't good. I believe in those books and those writers very much. It's just that in the climate it's really hard to keep the lights on and the doors open when you're selling poetry and literature that appeals to a fringe audience.
What I've found is that a lot of soldiers are surprisingly apolitical. Their reality is, "Today I'm going to leave the gate for twelve hours, and I'm going to make it back to the dining facility by sundown with the arms and legs of me and my buddies intact."
But can a song stop a war? If Bob Marley and Bob Dylan couldn't do it, it can't be done.
There's nothing new about the government protecting corporations and calling it the freeing of the world or bringing democracy to bereft nations.
Nowadays, the media have to be there to keep you from asking too many questions, from getting together with other people who might want to do the Jeffersonian thing and call out the government.
You can say, "Well, I have a question," and someone will say, "Oh, so you hate America." And it has nothing to do with the discussion at all.
I think hip-hop has definitely brought the black experience to white kids more than the civil rights movement did and more than any teacher's well-intentioned lecture on Martin Luther King did.
I always took quite seriously the things that Chuck D. of Public Enemy had to say. He's always been someone I've learned quite a bit from and someone I pay a great deal of attention to.
I never think of what it's going to be like later. I only think in the present tense. The only time I think backwards is when I have to reissue something.
My favorite species to study would be Cobras and King Cobras which are two different families. They're very intelligent, and they're beautiful looking animals. Where they come from are countries and regions which I spend a lot of time in - South East Asia and India, those are places I go to fairly often, and so the cobras are my main interest. It's not a snake I can maintain, but when I see them in zoos and what not, I find them interesting.
