Gore Vidal, Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky, all these guys talk about how the United States became a national security state after World War II. I agree with that thesis. Essentially there's this bipartisan foreign policy elite who've been calling the shots for the last few decades and they're clearly still in control regardless of how clownish or absurd or stupid they demonstrate themselves to be. There's no shaking their orthodoxy.
Even on just the career level for your average officer, there's no incentive to end the wars. There's not even an incentive for these think-tank guys to end the wars. They would never admit it and say, "Oh, how could we at the Center for a New American Security not want the wars to end?" Well then, why the hell are you continuing to promote strategies that will keep us fighting for years?
A soldier in Iraq said that he wanted to "punch Donald Rumsfeld in the gut, then in the face" or something like that. He wanted me to use his name, but I knew he'd get in trouble, so I didn't. However, I felt it was a great quote because it summed up the frustration of those guys at that moment.
I made this bad joke on Twitter saying, "I want to put in my first no-bid contract to train the Libyan army and police force." These counter-insurgency guys like to say, "We don't do the big F-16 or big boondoggle projects, we're not pulling this stuff because it's good business." But in fact it turns out there are tons of business opportunities involving counter-insurgency operations - and it's not like we're getting rid of the boondoggle programs either, we're just doing more of everything.
The guys on the ground are the guys I care about. I've had the most satisfaction telling their stories. But when you're in combat with somebody, yes, a bond does grow.
I did an embed in Afghanistan on the Pakistan border in 2008. One of the things you realize when you're talking to low-ranking enlisted men is that no one listens to them. So when I showed up they loved having someone to talk to. That's a real privilege for me. The guys on the ground are the guys I care about. I've had the most satisfaction telling their stories. There is trust and there is stuff that you learn to hold back, especially when you're dealing with younger guys or lower ranking officers. That's different from the top brass who are basically just politicians anyway.
A lot of women will be sort of 'competitive like a guy' in the workplace, but then when they go home, they realize that's not fully authentic for them. They would like to have a more expansive or more authentic relationship in the workplace around competition.
Making fun of guys to get them to perform and prove themselves, that's always going to exist. But we have to equally celebrate them and empower them.
When you look at a guy like a Jay-Z or look at a guy like a Nas, you don't necessarily qualify them as conscious rap purely, although they are extremely conscious of the social inequities that prevail.
I would never sign on to a project that was male-bashing, because first and foremost I'm a man... what guy would sign on for that?
Ron Moore. He was the guy that on our show and Deep Space Nine wrote the best Klingon episodes. He wrote great episodes in general but he wrote the best Klingon episodes. I always could tell when he was going to write a Klingon episode because he was able to grow a beard really quick and I’d see him with the beard, like a Worf-beard, and I go "Ah, Klingon episode coming up!" and he goes "Oh yeah."
This is a tried and true genre directed by a guy who's famous for character work. This could take a genre picture and lift it and elevate it. That was my thinking.
As a guy comedian, your special is probably the closest thing to the excitement of a wedding day. It's your first one, and you want it to be perfect, and you want it to mean something. You want it to look good.
You can write shorthand and still look at the guy you're talking to.
The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years.
I think I was annoyed going through the '90s just as a guy who loves music. There wasn't a lot of music for me. Everything was groove driven. We lost the plot with the melody. There's no more melody.
Look at Neil Diamond. Was he the cool guy? No, he was the housewives' guy. He didn't try to be what he wasn't. He just did what he did - made great music, was a good entertainer, nice-enough guy.
Who I am is a dad and a family guy. When I look in the mirror and talk to myself, that's what I want to reflect.
I think a reason why TV is exciting and getting so much better is because we [authors] get to play off of an actor's strengths and challenge them on their weaknesses. On a feature [film], you don't necessarily get to do that. You hope that they cast the right guy, who comes in and plays your part.
Jeb Bush is very good on immigration, he's very good on education. He's a smart guy.
The main claim to fame, I think, of Bernie Sanders - who I've never met; I'm sure he's a pleasant guy - [is that] he's certainly not stupid.
There are things that I invented - the creaky geriatric robot that is always grumpy, for example, or the little wheelie guy, he's not in the Hasbro lore. But kids love that stuff - this little guy as a pet on a chain. They gravitate towards it.
Playing a bad guy would be fun, I'm not going to lie. I'd definitely do that in a heartbeat, because it's so out of my nature.
What I was interested in [Fruitvale Station ] was one guy and his life and how that related to all of our lives and the fact that it ended unnecessarily and what the fallout from that was.
The douchiest thing a guy could do on a date is to make a girl pay. If you invite her out and then make her pay.
