When I used to sit in the office with Jay Z and L.A. Reid... we would negotiate back and forth and discuss music. You're sitting in front of someone for hours. It's all about being passionate. Everything begins with yourself.
That's the one issue can't discuss.You can discuss abortion back and forth, discuss gun control back and forth. But you can't have a dissenting opinion in America (politics) on Israel.
When I began to play Frisbee, I would play with my friends and we used to do difficult things. We would stand in front of lines of trees that were parallel. We would spend hours throwing frisbees back and forth between these tight spots.
I love sitting through long things. I mean, 'Gone With the Wind' I will sit through; I love sitting somewhere for four hours, for anything. I love being on a train. I love sitting down for four hours. I think it's the most wonderful thing to be able to sit somewhere and concentrate on something for more than two hours.
I think what qualitiy make for good directors is being able to articulate what you want; it can cause problems with a lack of communication. I'm not an actor who requires much talking to a director, I don't want to sit down and discuss a scene for hours and hours; that would bore me.
If you don't think of yourself as being someone who needs to go back to school, needs to reinvent yourself, then you're not able to do the thing you're passionate about. That's to create and invent and innovate.
At the risk of being a fuddy-duddy I don't have a computer; I don't have e-mail; and I really don't need something in my house that I would be sitting in front of for hours.
There's always this talk of the industry of music and about selling records and whatever, but that ignores probably the majority of music that isn't about trying to sell itself, that isn't about being connected to any industry. There's a huge amount of music where someone just happened to have a tape recorder and turned it on or hit the red button while they were in the back of church or recording something in their front room.
I've never been the guy to sit back and wait until someone approved something I was passionate about.
Mere physical sitting is not enough. You have to sit carefully and attentively. Let your body and breathing sit. Let your mind and emotions sit. Let your blood circulation sit. Let everything sit. Then your sitting becomes indestructible, immovable.
Being from a small farmers' town, going back and forth to Mexico, hours waiting in the line to cross back home and training for hours, that's why I represent Mexicali because it means a lot to me.
It's all about knowing that everybody that you see, everybody that you sit across from is a different aspect of yourself. So once you can accept yourself on every level, that's when everything opens up, that's when the party really begins.
Being a geek is a great thing. I think we're all geeks. Being a geek means you're passionate about something and that defines your uniqueness. I would rather be passionate about something than be apathetic about everything.
A jay hasnt got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise.
You almost have to step outside yourself and look at you as if you were someone else you really care about and really want to protect. Would you let someone take advantage of that person? Would you let someone use that person you really care about? Or would you speak up for them? If it was someone else you care about, you'd say something. I know you would. Okay, now put yourself back in that body. That person is you. Stand up and tell 'em, "Enough!
I bike around New York City for hours and write about everything I love, think about, or see. I also ride back and forth on the subway - that's where I get my best writing done.
When you write music that you are very passionate about, being able to bring the visual aspect of it alive with the music is what ties everything together.