I should also say, in general, I just drank a lot. I shouldn't characterize it as "to get the courage to perform." It was just an in-general nighttime activity. It definitely made it easier when I started doing stand-up. It was just much simpler to do a couple of shots. It made my nerves go away, for the most part. It just was something I sort of relied on for about the first four years.

Not that I was ever an asshole but I used to be much more of a bulldozer.

If you don't recognize the racist element in the teabag movement, you're either dishonest, or you've never seen the teabag movement, or heard of it, or been acquainted with it in any way.

How is it that this debate has been twisted on its head, that somehow those that advocate peace and diplomacy are anti-American?

You know what is good about these Dixie Chicks burnings or bashings? It's a wonderful, wonderful way for really stupid people to hook up. They meet, they throw some things on the fire, they talk about Vin Diesel, they tell stories about who their favorite Fox anchor is, they exchange phone numbers and in some cases has led to marriages.

The right, like Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbauggh, use women and the black man and the Hispanic immigrant and the gay man as a scapgoat for society's ills. They pretend it's about traditional family values, but that's a bullshit phrase that means nothing to me. They like to use us all. They use pro-life as a way to hate women and slam women, dressed up in the nobility of saving unborn fetuses. I think it's just misogyny.

If you aren't overly effusive or really nicey-nice with the press, you get a reputation for being outspoken or difficult.