I've done everything. I've been ring crew, I've been driver for a blind promoter, I've been a valet, I've been a referee, I've been a ring announcer, I've been a corporate officer, play-by-play man, blah, blah, blah. No one has been on my journey.
There's so many R&B songs where guys are talking about a clingy girl, like, 'I don't want a girlfriend, and this girl's so clingy, and blah blah blah.' But I'm a woman, and I've been in situations that have been the reverse of that, so I wanted to tell that story.
I love doing improv, and I swear by it, and I encourage people to take classes, and blah blah blah. But it's always been interesting how it doesn't necessarily translate to television.
All men hear is blah, blah, blah, blah, SEX, blah, blah, blah, FOOD, blah, blah, blah, BEER.
I remember when in the early days of rock'n'roll, when everything sounded totally different, all amazing and blah blah blah blah blah. Now you can play me one second of any record from that time, and I'll say "1959" or "1961." I can hear precisely. It's like it has a huge date stamp on it.
MacPherson told me that my theorem can be viewed as blah blah blah Grothendieck blah blah blah, which makes it much more respectable.
Some people just use beautiful things to just shop or to have a tribal feeling - 'Oh, blah, blah, blah, I'm wearing Hermes; blah, blah, blah, I'm wearing Saint Laurent; blah-blah blah' - because it's like a need, a tribe, recognition: 'Ahh, my Rolex.' But I run away from anything which is too recognizable - it's my nature.
My personal trainer, she's been reading the textbooks, she doesn't want me to do too much, she says: 'Don't overheat, don't over-stretch, blah blah blah.'
There's a lot of pressure on Broadway. There's this feeling that the show has to be a commercial success and the producers have to make their money back and Tonys and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
My whole freshman year at Duke, it was drilled into me that nothing was given to you, and you have to earn it, and this is a dog-eat-dog world, and blah blah blah, and blah blah blah. And you buy into it, 100 percent. You end up loving it. That's the way it should be, right?
People don't understand: I've always been busy. They think that, "Oh, he's too busy, blah blah blah...," but for me, this is how it's always been. I took 18 credits every semester of college, graduated in three years, took graduate school courses, played football and baseball my whole college career. I've never stopped, and that's where that phrase "No Time 2 Sleep" is always true. I get motivated by success, by winning, by being around great people.
I don't even look at resumes anymore. I think they're misguided. I talk to them, ask them where they've been, "What's your favorite experience in a restaurant?" Where do they like to eat? Blah blah blah. All that stuff, but I can only really describe my journey with another person if I can connect with them and their passion. Otherwise, I don't care where they've worked. It doesn't matter to me. Really I have to feel it, and then I can teach them anything.
When 'American Slang' came out, everyone was like, 'This is the next big band in the world, and this is blah blah blah Bruce Springsteen Junior and blah blah blah,' and I was just like, 'I don't know what that means. I don't know. We'll see.'
A very sad moment for me was when my parents separated - a lot of crying, 'It's tragic, we're now a broken family, blah blah blah blah blah' - although my psychological problems stopped. I actually felt healthier.
I think as we get older, as we get more mature and more experienced, we do realize it's like, 'blah, blah, blah,' oh there's the information I need, and then 'blah, blah, blah,' right? So we do this triage, I feel like, of what people say to us.
Producers are looking to me to concept full worlds for subjects to compete, play a game show in, win an award, blah blah blah.
I want to figure out what kind of artist I want to be, because with the 'American Idol' process, it just works really fast. The night of the finale, they said, 'OK, here are all the label people that you're gonna work with, this is the album you're gonna make and blah, blah, blah.' So it was a pretty fast process, but it's been cool.