When I was 18, I was moving to New York to start college at The New School. I had done a year of college in Toronto and wasn't happy there. I didn't have any friends in New York City, but I applied and got in. It was pretty overwhelming, but everyone in New York is so ambitious and creative.
Earlier I had been in New York, which was my first time to New York, and I got booked in the Baby Grand up in Harlem there. I was booked there for a week; they kept me there for about a month. That's where Doc Pomus and myself became very close friends and start running together around town and what not.
My dad was Republican his whole life until he turned 65 and became like a born-again Democrat. And now he's a progressive, fire-breathing Democrat, and the evolution makes us all laugh.
I changed to Republican when Reagan became president because I wanted to see a change to years of Democrat-run Senate. And I voted Republican until Obama. I think he's terrific.
At 19, I turned professional, and I moved to New York. Then I got the call to do 'Dancing With The Stars,' so I moved to L.A. when I was 20 and did it for 18 seasons - about two a year - until I was 30.
I've run as a Democrat, but I was not a Democrat. And when I ran as a Republican, I was not a Republican. I was just utilizing the New Hampshire primary as a vehicle to put forward my satirical critique of the system.
There seems to be less obvious corruption in city government and New York politicians, they aren't Republican or Democrat, they're New Yorkers.
I never wanted to or expected to make a film outside of New York. New York became very, very expensive. The same $18 million spent in Barcelona or Rome goes much further there.
I'm very liberal in some ways, and then I'm very conservative in others. I once asked my grandpa, "Are you a Republican or a Democrat?" He said, "I'm a Democrat, but I'm saving up to be a Republican."
Right when I turned 18, I moved to New York, originally for school, and then dropped out and just lived in New York.
If you want to live like a Republican, you've got to vote for a Democrat.
Receiving a reputable pro-Israel award isn't a bad idea for a Democrat or a Republican in a New York City congressional district.
I was brought up as a Republican. But when I realized that at the end of the day there wasn't much difference between a Democrat and Republican, I became a libertarian.
I went to grad school in San Francisco, and then left for New York City with my eye on Broadway. I had saved $5000, which seemed like a lot of money in my mind... until I realized it was going to take $2500 to get to New York and then the first and last month's rent.
New York was always more expensive than any other place in the United States, but you could live in New York - and by New York, I mean Manhattan. Brooklyn was the borough of grandparents. We didn't live well. We lived in these horrible places. But you could live in New York. And you didn't have to think about money every second.
When I started coming to do shows in New York, New York had a pretty electric energy then. It was the early-nineties, and there was a lot of really fun theatrical types that were designing, and so the runway kind of became this stage for all of these mega model personalities to flaunt their stuff.