A Quote by Ezekiel Emanuel
Where I came from, just nodding and smiling when someone expressed views was the ultimate insult. If people weren't yelling about politics in our house then they were arguing about music, or movies, or food.
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In high school, some of the guys were really into music. When I first joined the team as a sophomore, I was blown away when we came out for our first home match?I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it. The seniors would bring their whole stereo system. We started by yelling and stuff inside this little room just off the gym; then the coaches said, "Ready. Go!" We threw open the door and came running out. Even when I hear the songs now I get all jacked up.
Government and politics isn't like a reality TV show. It's not about voting the bad guys out of the house. You know, it's about what do we need to take our country or our state or our city forward? And people, frankly, would be well advised to really get back into understanding politics.
The only newspaper in our house when I was growing up was the Daily Mail, and we would never have dreamt of discussing politics around the dinner table. So my involvement in politics came about through activism.
I toured for about 2 1/2 years on twentythree and then I took about a year off. I really just spent some good quality time by myself at my house, cooking, watching movies, hanging with my friends, and family. I just really needed a chance to get away from the music for a minute and decompress.
Look, I get it. Whether it's school, work, family, we've all got a lot on our minds. People say to me, "I'm just too busy to think about politics." But here's the thing: You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.
My idea of what was going on in politics was driven by activism. I came out when I was 17, and right away I started working in the AIDS activist movement. For me, politics was about getting drugs approved and getting prisoners access to the same kind of drugs that you could get on the outside. It was about getting needle exchanges approved. That was politics. These were policy problems that were killing people, and we were trying to get them changed.
Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.
I think if I heard someone else talking about their life, describing all the problems I've had, they'd look like they were through. Done. But there's something about me - I'm smiling. Those things are really not bad enough to put me in a slump. I'm smiling with the opportunity to wake up every morning.
people in New Orleans really care about food, care about it passionately, can spend hours arguing over whether Antoine's is better than Galatoire's or the other way around ... in New Orleans, there is basically nothing to do but eat and then argue about it.
I remember being in India one time where I saw people who were struggling to find food at the bottom of a trash can, and then I walked into my hotel and saw people arguing over how the quality of food at the buffet wasn't good enough.
Economics drive the creative, and for a long time, movies about men were just considered 'movies,' whereas movies about women were considered niche and only appealing to women. This is to an extent still true, and what it does is represent movies about women as less profitable.
My mother, father and brothers (I was the youngest of three boys), were all very sarcastic and we were a complete Irish-Catholic family. We didn't talk about our feelings ever, and if we did, we were yelling about them - there was no in-between. That's just carried over so many ways in my life and sabotaged relationships, sabotaged creative stuff.
In our house we repeated the pattern of thousands of other homes. There were a few books and a lot of music. Our food and our furniture were no different from our neighbors'.
I came from an Italian house. The refrigerator was always full. I never knew you had to buy food. I thought there were food fairies that came at night.
Nature is full of drama. I know nothing about biology, about birds, about insects, about the details of politics. I just make movies about human interest stories.
Arguing, after all, is less about seeking truth than about overcoming opposing views.
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