When the 'godfather of punk' thing started floatin' around, it was, I was really, really embarrassed. I thought I should have a great, big rig and a cape and everything, and it was very embarrassing. And then after a while, you learn that if people call you anything, this is a great gift.

Well, after Zombie Birdhouse came out, I toured behind it in the fall of 1982, into the spring, and in the summer in the Far East. At that time, I found my work self-referential; it was getting to be rock songs about a rock singer who lived a rock life on the rock road, and I was starting to wonder what I would be like to rent my own apartment, what it would be like to have a checkbook.

Miami's not anybody's poor cousin. It's an aspiration to live in this town, not something you have to do to promote yourself like some of the larger cities.

The problem being: for years I was struggling - first to prove that I had any talent, then to create some skills and finally to fulfil it reasonably. But then once I got there it was, "OK. I did that, but I want to be happy." And that's a whole different deal. It's kind of like a dance. Being active seems to help. I'm 70, so sometimes a little voice is going, "Just take it easy".

I have a hot memory, but I know I've forgotten many things, too, just squashed things in favor of survival.

I spent most of the eighties, most of my life, riding around in somebody else's car, in possession of, or ingested of, something illegal, on my way from something illegal to something illegal with many illegal things happening all around me

Musical types tend to combine the burden of the author with the burden of the actor.