I grew up around some people whose parents toured a lot: tough on the marriage, tough on the kids.

I'm kind of a hermit. Left to my own devices, I won't submerge myself in anything further afield than the driveway.

I'm not really a goal-oriented guy. I started doing the Mountain Goats just for the sheer hell of it.

I'm sort of a cavedweller: I miss my house, my yard, my kitchen, my wife. The trees. When I get home, I like to get down into my office neighborhood as soon as I can.

In wrestling, people just throw each other around, possibly actually bleed, and are still friends in the locker room afterwards. But there's a real glee - a feeling goes up in the arena, especially on non-TV days. If it's just people in a room and somebody starts to bleed, that's very exciting.

Back in the 90s, if you did mail order in music, you could make a good living doing it if you could hustle.

The reality of having a kid involves day-to-day practicality - not broader philosophical outlooks.