I've had a lot of typewriters that I've had relationships with; one still has a piece of masking tape that says "$8" on it. I love working on them. I can't fix a computer or a car, but I can fix a typewriter. I like them because you can write on them late at night, depending on what you're fortifying yourself with, and the next morning you can still figure what you wrote.

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how to say things. I'm a little exhausted by the process.

If there was anything that I learned with my own writing process, maybe there's too many choices what to write about. Just the amount of subject matter in the world these days; maybe that feels chaotic for me.

It's important to have a life and spend time outside of those things [music and politics], in order to appreciate what you've achieved as far as just spending time with people you love, and doing things like painting.

I've stepped back a few times and had these crazy epiphanies that we are blessed by having Barack Obama as a candidate at this time in our history. If we were ever to have a man of color become president - and it shouldn't be about that, and it doesn't need to be, because he's qualified on all levels - but if you do think about it, just in terms of that idea of unifying people, it's a huge positive.

So my one kid's 4, my other kid's 4 months, I'm 44, Barack Obama is the 44th president - it's all lining up nicely here.

You know, punk bands now sell with one record - their first or second record - sell 10 times the amount of records than the Ramones did throughout their career with 20-something records. That's why I go over to Johnny Ramone's house and do yard work three times a week, just to absolve some of the guilt.