We were lucky that when we were making the transition from children's to prime time a lot of other presenters our age shied away from that arena.
Sometimes you have to wonder if there isn't an ejector seat built into having a popular-music career. We were lucky when we started. We were already old when we started - you could have described our first album as "aging Brooklyn guys." We were in our late 20s. We weren't octogenarians, but a lot of bands were already younger than us. Fortunately, we've held on to our manly good looks.
We were fortunate at that time we were working with Virgin, and with Flood, probably more well-known as Brian Eno's engineer now and U2's producer, etc. Even though we weren't working in a strictly popular music area, which was great, we were lucky enough to work with people who were on the cusp of those sort of things.
The arts were a big part of my childhood. We went to the theatre and opera a lot as a family. We were not at all wealthy, but it was at a time when the arts were publicly funded and there were free tickets available. For someone like myself who wasn't that academically inclined, it was a great escape.
As a kid, there [on TV] were things I wasn't aware of - insecurities while transition from teen to adult. When I was around 17 and 18, I started seeing the benefits of this world.
I was a good novice teacher, but I did the things that were obvious. I stayed for lunch for extra tutoring, gave kids my cell phone, and was available. In my first year of teaching, I ended up doubling the math time that a conventional school would have. But I don't think any of these things were path-breaking or unusual.
The things I had were mine and some of them were broken, but they were real. They were so very far from nothing.
Beauty is the moment of transition, as if the form were just ready to flow into other forms.
To be very fair, it was Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware who started The Human League. They brought Philip Oakey in to sing, primarily because Philip was very tall. So it started out as their vision. I don't think anyone ever thought it would be as big as it became. Music evolves and people were looking for something different. We came out at the right time and were just very lucky.
Going from The Shield to singles competition, it wasn't a really big transition for me. Before we were The Shield, we were all singles wrestlers. And we were wrestling a bunch of guys all the time down in developmental.
We thought that the odds of things working OK were up in the upper 90 percent or we wouldn't have gone. But the - there were some problems cropped up on the flight but was able to take care of those OK and - although they were things that we hadn't really trained that much for. But it was the time of the Cold War and so there were was a lot of pressure on the - to get going and the Russians were claiming that they were - Soviets were claiming they were ahead of us in technology.
I was fortunate. And I hate using the word lucky, but I was very, very lucky. Because, all of those things were around me man. The violence, the drugs, the abuse of women. All these things were present in my life. And I take a step back and I try to reflect on my journey and what helped me out.
When I first started, in 2006, it was an exciting time. Independent, cool, weird artists were being successful, and magazines were writing about them, and people were getting played on radio that were, like, really good.
I was a woman and younger. I started spending a lot of time in the mall doing a lot of qualitative research and really watching what consumers were doing. Were they gravitating towards the sales racks, or were they looking at the new fashions? Were they there to shop, or were they there to socialize?
My hat goes off to anybody who can sit down and put their heads together. I am ready for something like that because I am free and I am happy and I have time. There were a lot of things in the way before. I have nothing but time, and I love getting older.
Just as soaps were very pivotal in the transition from radio to television, they will be right in the thick of things again in the transition from television to the Internet. Exciting news.