Oh yeah - for sure - hardly a week doesn't go by when I don't hear something wonderful that someone has made in some low-budget situation, primarily with a view to selling a few hundred copies at their concerts.

Now that I'm staring down the barrel of the last act of my life, I'm less excited about control and solo effort, and I resent the way the business aspects interfere with my space for creative writing.

Whatever the opposite of regret is best describes how I've always felt about that decision - it opened me up to a million creative opportunities I needed to experience away from the bull and distorting mirrors that fame engenders.

I work in the margins. The margins are where you'll find the nice people. You'll find real friends. You'll find honesty. You'll find integrity. You'll find relationships that will last you for a lifetime and will be there to support you in the bad times, which are the only relationships that matter anyway. Relationships that are all about power and money aren't worth having.

My faith, inasmuch as I have any, is more like a kind of Joseph Campbell thing, and even that frequently finds itself tested to oblivion in siren waters.

If you feel driven and compelled to make your work and to be fiercely original and have something unique to say, in a compelling way, then chances are the helpers will be there for you the doors will open some, the ice will crack.

I'd make a terrible practitioner of any religion in any formal setting.