I love Santa Monica and Venice because I like the beach. I have a lot of friends in that area.

When I was doing standup, I always wanted to get out of the standup world and take it back into the theatrical world, like with "No Cure For Cancer."

My cousin Jerry Lucey and five other firefighters died in a warehouse fire in Worcester, Mass. - my hometown - right in the middle of our old neighborhood downtown when a homeless couple started a fire to keep warm and the entire building went up. My cousin died trying to save homeless people who had already left the building.

I spent a long time working in the movies to figure out that kind of acting and also how to write and produce for the screen.

The best pitch I ever heard about cocaine was back in the early eighties when a street dealer followed me down the sidewalk going: I got some great blow man. I got the stuff that killed Belushi.

Did you ever notice they never take any fat hostages? You never see a guy coming out of Lebanon going: "I was held hostage for seven months and I lost 175 pounds, I feel good and I look good and I learned self-discipline. That's the important thing."

It became sort of a snowball effect, with guys trying to deal in their own way with 9/11, whether it was drinking or whatever.