For me, Philadelphia was always kind of that city you traveled to as an independent wrestler. I traveled there once or twice a month, doing that seven-to-eight-hour drive from Cleveland to Philly just to try and make a name for myself.
When I was in Cleveland, Ohio, if you asked me what I'd be doing in 10 years, I'd probably say, 'I'll own my own Mr. Hero, living in Cleveland, married with three kids.' Now I can say I've literally traveled the world with WWE.
Who cares how many miles per hour the ball traveled once it left the bat, or how high the ball traveled in degrees, or how many seconds it took to leave the ballpark?
I saw David Bowie in 'Labyrinth' when I was seven or eight. I told my mom I wanted a Bowie record, so we traveled to the mainland, which was, like, a three-hour trip, and I bought 'Let's Dance' and 'Tonight.' 'Let's Dance' blew my little mind. I became obsessed with it.
A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead.
I grew up in a bus, traveled with various circuses and freak shows. I was a trapeze artist, and that was my dream. We just traveled the whole world, me and my mom and my little brothers and sisters. It was an adventure.
I lived in Italy for two months when I was in college. And I traveled to Paris. I traveled to Egypt. I traveled to Spain. I just would travel a lot. I remember going to Paris and saying, speaking French, 'I would like some chicken and some fries.' And just the chicken and fries was, oh my gosh, just so amazing. I became intrigued and inspired.
I was very fortunate to grow up with parents who love to travel, so I traveled from a young age. My dad's a heart surgeon and goes to conferences all over the world. By the time I was seven, I traveled outside the country for the first time. We went to Paris. The next year, we went to London, and then Brussels.
I have traveled to Florida, I have traveled to Georgia, I have traveled to California, you and I both know that there are millions of undocumented workers that work hard, sweat soil every day to put the food we eat on our table. That's not a myth, that's a reality. Why don't we let them come with visas to this country so that then we don't have people using that border.
My family traveled a lot. For a while we even lived in a trailer and traveled from campground to campground. If we got to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, it was the highlight of our whole year! But I don't miss having to share a bathroom with seven people or having powdered milk with my cereal. It was so nasty.
Jenna's traveled with me; they've both traveled with their dad. This is the only time they've been old enough in all of their dad's campaigns to really be involved in.
I traveled enormously during the 1960's, when you measured everything by where you traveled and what you did as travelers.
As I traveled the world over, I traveled everywhere, and I learned so much.
An eight-hour movie is definitely not a two-hour movie. An eight-hour movie is really like five independent films, if you think about it, because each is usually an hour and a half. In some ways, it is like making a movie. It's just a lot more information.
My city is not only losing jobs. We're losing people, and it's frightening. During my recent art curation at the City Club, I spent most of that time urging Cleveland residents and city officials to adopt a plan to merge East Cleveland with Cleveland so we can maintain our population, because doing nothing is no longer an option.
I just felt that if the team is doing seven hours, I'd want to do eight. I'd always need to do more. I knew that would make me better than everybody else.
I always traveled by myself on the airplane, stayed at hotels by myself. Even though I got some big campaign, I couldn't celebrate with someone else. I just stayed at the hotel, had a glass of wine and congratulated myself.