I'm still very interested in the things that happened in the '80s and the '70s because I think that they were very important years for Nigeria. In the '80s, we were under a military dictatorship for quite a while, and I think that the way we engage with our country as citizens was shaped in many ways by the events that took place in that time.
You make a mistake, you better hope I wasn't paying attention and didn't see it, but if I catch you doing it and you think I'm not paying attention, then that's when you get in trouble.
You think everybody's paying attention to what you're doing. No, they're paying attention to what's interesting to them.
In certain ways, we, many of us, stopped paying attention to the world. I have to think we would have moved on the whole climate issue in a different way if we'd been paying better attention.
I think anyone that grew up in the '70s and '80s grew up with Bob Barker and Wink Martindale and I think that was just always... when you were a game show host, you were the man of the hour.
With how huge Yes was, especially in the '70s and '80s, as a touring band and actually playing at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia to 130,000 people, which is the biggest-paying show ever in rock history, you would think we'd done enough for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Really, the '70s and '80s were a blur.
I remember, when I was a kid in the '70s and '80s, the '50s were really cool. And then the '60s were really cool. And then the '70s.
Perhaps we wouldn't eat so much, or smoke, or drink so much if we were paying attention to ourselves. Perhaps we wouldn't talk so much if we were paying attention to each other. All these oral activities are trying to meet a need, and perhaps the greatest need is to be seen and heard.
We can think about how we reduce the pain in paying. So, for example, credit cards are wonderful mechanisms to reduce the pain of paying. If you go to a restaurant and you are paying cash, you would feel much worse than if you were paying with credit card. Why? You know the price, there's no surprise, but if you're paying cash, you feel a bit more guilt.
Sometimes during the day, I consciously focus on some ordinary object and allow myself a momentary "paying-attention." This paying-attention gives meaning to my life. I don't know who it was, but someone said that careful attention paid to anything is a window into the universe. Pausing to think this way, even for a brief moment, is very important. It gives quality to my day.
The '80s seem a real positive force. The '70s were deadening, in a lot of ways.
The 80s and 90s were the beginning of the hollowing out of the American little democracy. It started with Reagan and went to Bill NAFTA Clinton! Hey, but who's paying attention to history!? What's stunning is how many people think Trump is the beginning of fascism. He's the result of many, many years of corporate plunder and spineless Democrats and greedy, racist Republicans. The concentration of wealth, the monopolized media, basically a march toward a fractured Republic. We are broken!
I think it was wrong to take the decision to slow F1 down. It was much better in my day, when it was already a lot safer than it had been in the '70s and '80s, but you could still drive crazy fast.
When I look at women, older than I am, in their 50s, 60, 70s, 80s, and I see women that I admire, I think, 'Oh, I get it; that's how I'm going to be.' I'm not scared. I want to be that.
The '70s and '80s were just the period during which the best soul music was created and the best records were done.