As far as I have been able to understand, the Japanese seem to keep things close to the vest. Friendly but remote and polite to the point of being invisible. It is in the music, literature, film and art that the Japanese really seem to express themselves.

My whole access into culture was violent. Violence is something I understand. Don't like it, don't condone it, but I sure understand where it comes from.

The opportunity to write for the 'L.A. Weekly' has been one of the better breaks that has come my way in a long time.

I get tired of talking when I want to be silent.

I just work, to the exclusion of most other things. I rarely work in a frenzied manner, just kind of - if you take the beater that whips the icing or the eggs into shape - on the upper end of medium speed, that's kind of how I am about seven days a week.

Live music is the cure for what ails ya.

I wonder if the guy at the gun store would give me a discount on the bullets I'll need if I told him what I was up to.