It's so interesting that humanity has to be defined by emotional strife or something. I don't buy into that.

The Corcoran show was actually almost a reportage. The exhibit was, in many ways, pretty unique. It was one of the first pieces about DC culture that doesn't include some marble building or the Kennedy Center.

There's also a lot of skateboard stuff, because I was a skateboarder. Somewhere around here I have one of my original boards.

I think that the idea of straight edge, the song that I wrote, and the way people have related it it, there's some people who have abused it, they've allowed their fundamentalism to interfere with the real message, which in my mind, was that people should be allowed to live their lives the way they want to.

I work at a record label where I have archives. These things [memorabilia] occurred and are important to somebody, and they're important to me. I find the record industry largely repellent. This music, the Teen Idles, all of that stuff, is important to me. I don't have lawyers, an agent or a manager. However I find the music industry largely repellent. I just make records because that's what I love to do. So I think that era, those pieces of media, I keep in my collection.

Every song I ever wrote, I wrote to be heard. So, if I was given a choice that 50 years from now I could either have a dollar or knowing that some kid was listening to my song, I'd go with the kid listening to my song.

The amount of money that people spend on saving stuff, they try to feed you this idea that it's more important.