Being in New York, a lot of people I knew were top-notch copy editors or photo retouchers, so I had a good community around me that knew how to do the specialized stuff.
I knew Tim Pastoor. I knew Sherry Ford. I knew many of the individuals who would follow me around. I knew who they were. I knew they had access to my email.
Stanley Kubrick knew we had good graphics around MIT and came to my lab to find out how to do it. We had some really good stuff. I was very impressed with Kubrick; he knew all the graphics work I had ever heard of, and probably more.
I knew that I wanted to live in a city, but had never really been to New York. But I was begging my parents as a kid to move to New York, so it was just something that I sort of knew from a young age.
I got into DJ'ing because I started to listen to New York radio a lot. Obviously, I knew the stuff everybody knew, like Beastie Boys and Public Enemy, but I heard "Who Got the Props" by Black Moon, and I went up to this kid in my school with the Walkman on and was like, "What is this? You must tell me how I can get this now." Because there was no Shazam or googling lyrics.
I knew that the Mets had never had a no-hitter. I never had one. This is very special. I knew this means a lot to New York.
I was in New York when Clinton was elected the first time, and everyone I knew was in a state of mad euphoria. I wondered what had happened to my hard-headed friends? Almost everyone I knew was drunk on this great white hope. The next time I was in New York, no one had a good word to say about Clinton, but everyone was in love with Hillary. She was the last word. It's all so unreal. Of course, it's no different in England. Here everyone was besotted with Tony Blair. He was a new face. Do people never learn?
I think I knew how frightened people were [when Donald Trump was elected], and I think I knew that people were worried about their future. I don't think I realized that they would be willing to risk kind of a 1920s Germany in order to blow it all up, not realizing that we've accomplished a lot as Americans, and we want to keep the good things and revolutionize the new things.
When I was in high school in the early 1970s, we knew we were running out of oil; we knew that easy sources were being capped; we knew that diversifying would be much better; we knew that there were terrible dictators and horrible governments that we were enriching who hated us. We knew all that and we did really nothing.
I knew that I was not doing anything wrong, and I knew in my mind I was doing the right thing. I knew that the people who were going against me were not going against me for a good purpose. I knew that they were trying to justify their corruption and misgovernance.
Even when disco went out, I could still make hits. Once I had so much success, every idea became concentrated. I had so much confidence. I knew how the bass should sound, what rhythms would work. The tempos I knew: 110 to 120 BPM. I knew they would dance in the clubs in New York or anywhere.
I hope they remember the good stuff, when I was a baby, a toddler, when they still had hopes and dreams for their little girl, their miracle child. In truth they were good to me. They were only doing what they knew how to do; what they thought was best.
I went to New York out of college, and in my day, we were told that was the way you became a good actor. You don't go to Hollywood, you go straight to New York and work in the theater. So that's what most of the people I knew did.
Because I knew how hard I worked, I knew the pain, I knew the sacrifice, I knew the tears, I knew everything. Despite everything, I stuck to it. I toughed it out, and I kept my head in the game, even when the odds were against me.
I knew there were going to be boos if the Knicks drafted me. That's how New York fans are.
A lot of the reason I left New York, in addition to being so broke, was that I just felt I was becoming provincial in that way that only New Yorkers are. My points of reference were really insular. They were insular in that fantastic New York way, but they didn't go much beyond that. I didn't have any sense of class and geography, because the economy of New York is so specific. So I definitely had access and exposure to a huge variety of people that I wouldn't have had if I'd stayed in New York - much more so in Nebraska even than in L.A.
I always knew that there were huge opportunities for me, and that I had a lot of potential to do a lot of different things, but I also knew it was about my execution and my application of skills.