I started out in the Chabad movement, and I started pretty closed up, with the idea of there being that 'this is it.' I bought into that fully. I really explored in depth the Chabad ideology.
As a traditional Jew, I have benefited personally from the hospitality of Chabad Hasidim on many occasions, and I marvel at how many Jews Chabad has brought back to their primordial home.
An awful lot of successful technology companies ended up being in a slightly different market than they started out in. Microsoft started with programming tools, but came out with an operating system. Oracle started doing contracts for the CIA. AOL started out as an online video gaming network.
Chabad is very important because without Jewish education, Diaspora Jewry would disappear.
I bought my first dirt bike when I was 12, and I started racing motocross when I was 15 and started getting pretty successful. Then I started racing snowmobiles at 17 and decided I wanted to focus on that and see if I can make a career at it.
Eventually, my dad bought me a guitar for Christmas, and then I just went from there, man. I bought a drum kit a few years later and bought a bass, started producing, started singing.
It wasn't until I started to do 'Poison River' that the readership started falling. 'Poison River' started out very slowly and simply, but then it got really dense and complicated. I don't know, I think the readers just got fed up or burned out. They started dropping off.
In 1989 at Greater Saint Steven Full Gospel Church, I gave my life to Christ. That's pretty much where it all started for me. I was 23 years old at the time, right after my first year in the NBA. The pastor preached a message about being fully committed. That pretty much was me. I wasn't fully committed. I was kind of in and out all of the time. So I just wanted to make a commitment.
Tak Fujimoto and I, when we started getting enough of a budget where we could afford the right lenses - 'cause we started out doing low-budget pictures together - we started experimenting with this subjective camera thing. And we kind of fell in love with the idea of using that as our close-up.
I bought singles until I started working properly and then I started buying albums, so this brings back a lot of teenage memories from being in London before I got work
When my YouTube videos started to get really big, I was like, 'Man, this is pretty sweet.' It started as my hobby, and then I started traveling and learning how to play different instruments, and then it just kind of became my life.
I started out in stand-up when I was 18, which is really masochistic, and I did it really till I started going in movies. I did it for about three years out in LA.
I started writing when I was around 6. I say 'writing,' but it was really just making up stuff! I started writing and doing my own thing. I didn't really know what a demo was or anything like that, so I started getting interested in studio gear and started learning about one instrument at a time. My first instrument was an accordion.
Once I started reinventing for myself what being an artist was - not going into a studio, but making things on my own terms in response to being out in the world - I started to really enjoy it... I realized that everything else for me was hell.
You know, I started out really hot out of the box. Then I've definitely had and up-and-down career. And when things started cooling off again, it frustrated me.
I pretty much started out writing full time. I was an at-home mom and when my youngest entered kindergarten, I started writing. I was 35, and before that I really hadn't written at all. Which means, I guess, that a) it's never too late to start a writing career (or any career you really want) and b) it's OK to get to your mid-30s and still not know what you want to be when you grow up.
I'm a really private person. I just love my work. I feel like celebrity has changed so much, in this culture. Ever since they started with those reality shows and people that aren't actors but they're really famous, it's gotten very different from when I started out. So, the idea of ever becoming more than what I had is not really what I want.