Well, 'aerospace' was really not a name in my young life. Flying airplanes was. And I got my first try at flying - just pure flying - by flying my 'Superman' cape off my daddy's barn when I was about 5 years old.
When I was five-years-old I was jumping off two-story buildings.
I don't remember the first picture I took, but I actually found a picture of myself on a trip back to my old family home in Malaysia. I'm five years old, sitting on the floor with the family camera in my hand. It was a film camera - not a DSLR - with a fixed lens and a nice manual zoom.
I was in art school since I was five years old. I've always been to art school. Everything that's happened to me, nothing's been planned. I've never had a business plan. I just kind of fell into it, and I liked it, and I took a chance. I took a lot of chances in my life.
My thing is every generation of Americans has to answer what we call the 'Superman Question.' Superman comes, lands in America. He's illegal. He's one of these kids. He's wrapped up in a red bullfighter's cape. And you've got to decide what we're gonna do with Superman.
I shoplifted. I was about five years old, and I took a candy from a store. We paid for three of them, but I took four, and I went home and cried. My mom took me back, and I paid for the missing piece.
Nine years old, I became the victim of war. I didn't like that picture at all. I felt like, why he took my picture, when I was agony, naked, so ugly? I wished that picture wasn't taken.
When I was six years old, my parents took me to this farmers' market with a petting zoo. They put me on a pony and, for some reason, it took off at a run and they had to chase it down. They tell me it was kind of traumatic.
I almost always remember a picture I took with someone. If they said, 'Hey, here's a picture of us from five years ago,' and if I look at the picture, I almost always remember that specific time.
I took photos from 1976 to when I left in 1993, primarily for Interview and a column I had called "Bob Colacello's Out" which Andy had conceived of. I've never taken a picture since, not even with my phone! It just felt too Andy Warhol to keep going around town taking photographs. And I never really thought of doing anything with them after I left the magazine until this great Art Director Sam Shahid about for or five years ago asked where all of the old photos were.
Well, you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind. You don't pull on the mask of old Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with Jim.
It took me five years to realize what I could do with my voice. No Auto-Tune - cut all that off.
There was an old acoustic in the house that my mother had given me for my fifth birthday. I took it off the wall and started jamming. I was seven years old at the time.
I've taken magic lessons since I was five-years-old. When I was little I would wear a top hat and cape, and I'd get relentlessly beat up by jocks. That's why I don't care for sports.
Around 16 years old, when I was in Formula 3 and looking at potential options for the future, that's when I realized that Formula One was in the picture. But to be honest, I really just took it year by year throughout my karting years and stuff.
I basically took six or seven years off, but then I had another five or four of me not working at all because I was in school. It was really 13 years of me not working at all... I really couldn't even think about it.