It took me until my teenage years to realize that I was medicating with music. I was pushing back against my stupid school uniform, instructors who called me by my last name and my classmates, who, while friendly enough, were not at all inspiring.

I have a lot of compact discs. I need them for radio play and convenience. Many bands and artists I am a fan of don't always release their work on vinyl, so I take what they feel like giving me.

Probably over half of America does not have a passport. If young people could spend two weeks of their life in India or pick an African country to go to for 2-3 weeks and really see how life can be. That might be a real good thing because I think they would see things even if the trip was a nightmare. I think they might understand more of the mechanics of the world.

People who keep a large snake in their apartment building, which happens quite a bit, all of a sudden, within two summers, have a 14-foot animal that's eating adult rabbits, and needs quite a bit of room and quite a bit of heat. That's the animal that gets put in the back of a pick-up truck and dumped into the Florida Everglades or the city lake, or just left on a doorstep - again, it's quite often the animal that suffers.

In many ways, America is on the receiving end of a pendulum that has been swung with great force, and for a long time, outward into the world. The impact is a wake-up call on every level.

I lack the skill to hold a story line for the length required for a novel or even a short story. I have never had an idea that could withstand a hundred thousand words, or even ten thousand words of rubber meeting the road.

The public library system of the United States is worth preserving.