My brother was always in bands and on the road when I was a kid and he was my inspiration. He never made it with a big band, in fact he never made a record. Here he is fifty-something years old.
When you've toured for about 10 years like me, you end up feeling like you're always waiting for somebody or something. The whole day is a drag
When you've toured for about 10 years like me, you end up feeling like you're always waiting for somebody or something. The whole day is a drag.
I always did what I thought was interesting. I always just did what caught my fantasy. Looking like a woman, that was never the criteria for me. It was always to do drag. And drag is not gender-specific. Drag is just drag. It's exaggeration.
Being part of a team helped me so much. I know the fact that there was a man in the room with me all those years made the medicine go down. I had made the companies money. I didn't have to start, like a lot of women, from ground zero. My path was not the same as a woman starting out by herself.
I've always said that if I could have made a living someway in gospel music, I would have loved to had that break, but it never was offered to me, a job in that field, so naturally, I got lost on that other road.
C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it.
Yeah, back in 2003, I went to 'Australian Idol' the first day as a boy, and I got knocked out. So I went back the next day in drag and made it into the Top 12 and got a record deal and toured around Australia.
In terms of what happened to Amy [Schumer], if that happened to me I would be like, "Yes, please leave." But I toured a lot. I started as an opening feature act touring a lot during the [George W.] Bush years, like around 2007. I was touring during the [Barack] Obama election - the first one with [Sarah] Palin and [John] McCain - and I talked to crowds about that and they were always split down the middle.
I'm afraid a lot of people have lost a lot of money over the years betting on me.
I've never made any horrible, horrible movies. If you don't ruin your reputation, you can always get work.
I was smart or lucky or both. I saved my money. I was on TV for 10 years, and then I spent eight more years on the road. Working on the road is where you really can save money if you put your mind to it.
The key to investment success is emotional discipline. Making money has nothing to do with intelligence. To be a successful investor, you have to be able to admit mistakes. I trained a guy to trade who had a 188 IQ. He was on "Jeopardy" once and answered every question correctly. That same person never made a dime in trading during 5 years!
In each genre, I've been around the biggest. In pop I toured with Justin Timberlake, with reggae it was Sean Paul; I toured with Jay-Z and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's all an education for me, to see how they do it.
My mom and dad passed away from cancer. Within nine months, I lost both of my folks. Immediately after that, I had a horrible betrayal where my brother, who worked for me, stole a lot of my money. He's in jail now.
Because of an off-hand funny comment I made backstage at a concert years ago, a story circulated that the song has been a burden and even that I didn?t sing it for a while. That?s completely false. I am very proud of ?American Pie? and the many satellites that grow from it and revolve around it. For many years I carried my songs around and now they carry me around. I have always sung ?American Pie? for my audience and would never think of disappointing them since it is they who have given me a wonderful life and untold affection for almost 30 years.