A Quote by John Buffalo Mailer

I think that Anderson Cooper does a great job of staying with stories and pushing them. New Orleans he really... He was there and he pushed it past the point where his producers were saying, "Listen, you've got to stop because people are tuning out now. You know, we're on to another disaster." You know, what do you worry about, Haiti, Chile, Turkey? What? You know where do you put your attention and your focus? So for one person to really be able to cover all that ground would be tough.
People who get implants, it's so depressing, you know... People - I don't know. The route of that, you know, maybe they want more love or attention, or what it is, but they always go for the most obvious place, you know? Here... Well if you really want more attention, why not get them in your eyes? And then move your eyes down to where your nipples used to be, put your breasts up on your head, everybody will pay attention!
It's funny because a lot of people that know me as a dancer, don't know that I'm a singer, and a lot of people that know I can sing don't know I can dance. And so, I feel like at some point I have to show them both and really be able to display it and showcase it, and put that out there.
Unless you listen, people are weazened in your presence; they become about a third of themselves. Unless you listen, you can't know anybody. Oh, you will know facts and what is in the newspapers and all of history, perhaps, but you will not know one single person. You know, I have come to think listening is love, that's what it really is.
One of the things that always drives any practitioner of journalism crazy is you'll run it people who say why doesn't the media cover this or that? Well of course the media covered it. Why didn't you read about it? And, you know, it's, you know, there you are, it's not the journalist's job to knock down your door, you know, punch the URL into your computer and force you to stop watching the Kardashians and to read, you know, a report on integrity in government instead, it's your job.
Your average person in Illinois doesn't really even know what workers' comp is. The average person doesn't know really what's going on in the pension system. They know their taxes are too high; they know we've got a deficit. But getting that message out and helping the people of Illinois really understand what's going on, that's hard.
Writing can be a tough gig. Whenever you do something in which you put yourself out there - if that becomes the focus of your life, you miss the point of living. You've really got to get the grounding of family and the things that are important in your life and make that your focus.
I feel very inspired right now because I know there are a lot of people out there who are really scared but I feel this great sense of togetherness and people coming together and saying, "I got your back."
But at a certain point, and I don't really know... people have asked me this. I don't know exactly what it was that pushed me towards directing, but I think it was a naive notion that if I directed I would be able to play all the roles. A kind of greed.
The point of my music? The point I just want to get across is I'm me and I exist. Just letting people know who I am. Ever since I was young, I was the little attention grabber; I always loved attention. I want to grab people's attention. I want them listen to me and know that this is really good music. Whether they like it or not, they're gonna listen.
I'm always amazed that anyone is paying attention to anything that I do, you know what I mean? I feel like I'm constantly having conversations with people where they're saying, "I didn't know that you could be serious," and then other people are saying, "Oh, I didn't know that you could do comedy." And so I don't know if it really helped too much with this. I like to think that it does.
There are people who can walk away from you... let them walk. I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you... Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left. And it doesn't mean that they are a bad person, it just means that their part in the story is over. And you've got to know when people's part in your story is over.
Not that anyone minds--no one's paying attention to the music. Most of them never really listen to music. Practically no one actually does. Even at concerts people pay good money for, instead of a three-dollar cover charge, they talk through the whole thing. I feel sorry for them, since none of them understand what it's like to have a song just get into your soul and become your whole world. They don't know what it's like when a song changes your life.
The American people are not expecting miracles. I think if you talk to the average person right now that they would say, 'Well, look, you know well, we're having a tough time right now. We've had tough times before.' 'And you know, we don't expect a new president can snap his fingers and suddenly everything is gonna be okay. But what we do expect is that the guy is gonna be straight with us. We do expect that he's gonna be working really hard for us.'
My job gives me the permission to ask really great questions, like, 'Are you sure you're not pissed at him?' or, 'Is the eating really about food, or does it have something to do with your mother?' or, 'How is your sex life? I mean, I know we're here talking about your job, but I can tell this has to do with your sex life.'
You know when you're hungry and excited and you feel humble about it? I like that. In the past, when things were not clear, I think I wasn't ... I didn't have my feet on the ground as much, maybe, 10 years ago. So I just feel like this is a good place to be now, to feel that you want to tell stories from this place and that you're excited to tell stories from this place because you know what you love. I know what I love right now.
Everywhere I go around the world, we have fans of New Orleans. Sometimes we go places, and people don't really know who we are, but they know New Orleans, and once we say we are from New Orleans, we have a lot of supporters.
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