I reject criticism because the last thing I wanted was to sit there and look at people talking. I think people are conditioned to think of documentaries now as talking heads. This movie about Valentino is not about that at all. It's about watching people in action. To the critics who wanted more talking heads, I send a dozen dead roses.
I like to believe that science is becoming mainstream. It should have never been something that sort of geeky people do and no one else thinks about. Whether or not, it will always be what geeky people do. It should, as a minimum, be what everybody thinks about because science is all around us.
The radio is good for taking somebody else's experience and making you understand what it would be like. Because when you don't see someone, but you hear them talking - and, uh, that is what radio is all about - it's like when someone is talking from the heart. Everything about it conspires to take you into somebody else's world.
When I started the radio program in 1981, not many people were talking about sexuality. Not many people were talking about AIDS or HIV.
I remember when we were mixing our record and our manager was in there going, 'You guys need to sing more, so it can be on the radio.' And we were like 'What? We're never going to get played on the radio. Who cares? What are you talking about?'
I started putting together long-form projects, say, 22 minutes for a sitcom and 42 minutes or something like that for an hour-long show. I didn't feel like it was groundbreaking, nor would anyone think it was groundbreaking now, but at the time, people reacted like it was.
Will Bridges, who is the co-creator with me, when we were working on 'SuperBob,' we were just talking about how we like to write about relationships. And we were talking about what love is. We were in very different stages; he was married and was about to have his first child, and I was kind of dating the wrong people.
People make a big deal about podcasts but it's basically an online radio show with the sound effects and sidekicks, but because you can curse it's more like satellite radio. Most of the podcasters were morning guys who were fired when Clear Channel decimated the radio landscape.
There is something I like about talking to journalists that really goes beyond promotion because you aren't just talking to the journalist, but you are talking through them to people who presumably are fans of the Rolling Stones. The interviews give you a chance to say a few things and maybe clear up some of the things people read about the band.
I liked radio, or podcasting. I like talking minus the camera and the script part. All those mediums are different, and they are all different with their pluses and minuses. I would say the podcast is my favorite because I like the freedom of podcasting. With podcasting you can really mess around with the form and the format. The pace of radio is very fast. Boom, boom, with a little six minute segment, then on to the next thing. With podcasts you can talk about something for 25 minutes if you like - there is a lot of artistic freedom with it.
To be honest, the search for a label was really weird, because some of the labels that you wouldn't expect to care about stuff like radio formats were the ones that did care. They were like, 'Yeah, we love this record, but what are we going to play on the radio?' And I was like, 'You don't have bands on the radio.'
When I first started, in 2006, it was an exciting time. Independent, cool, weird artists were being successful, and magazines were writing about them, and people were getting played on radio that were, like, really good.
I'm talking about people who claim to love people. I'm talking about people who claim to love and represent the little guy. They're the people that tell us that if not for them, the little guy would be trampled on daily. Well, if they really cared about the little guy, if they really cared about the little guy, and want the little guy to have an improved life, more contentment, more happiness, then the United States is what you would emulate. You certainly wouldn't tear it down.
I listen to a lot of songs, and they aren't talking about anything. I don't connect with them. I'll listen to something like Musiq Soulchild's 'Just Friends,' and I'm like, 'Wow, I really feel what he's talking about.' That's how I want people to feel about my music.
How do you feel about a person when you're talking over the phone? If you know them, or if you don't know them, do you get something, do you put that into words of your own, from what they say, or from what you think? Or if it were music over the radio, have you ever tried to think how it would look?
What I feel the most confident about as a teacher, whatever my strengths and weaknesses are. The fact that I got to be around those people, I feel like that I have something to offer because of that blessing. Being around them a little bit... I'm not them. I'm certainly not trying to compare myself to them. But in lieu of them being able to impart something, the fact that I had so many people like that that were kind to me and talked to me was invaluable.