It's a cliché to state that one should think like a child, but it's clear that kids know something that the world tries to make you unlearn later in life.

Take dance music: I like enough of it and its history to be able to say a word or two about this or that record, but I'm nobody's authority.

Gender relations are a sad story of men talking trash about women all over the world.

My son, who sees me almost every day of his life, will look at me and go, "I know that dude! I like that dude!" It's incredibly affirming.

Over the past 40 years, the tradition of Southern progressivism has been somewhat successfully erased by right-wing revisionist historians.

People always talk about good time rock and roll, Chuck Berry or whatever, like this liberating force for feeling good. But what I need in my life is to be liberated into feeling bad. Not sad. I have plenty of sad. What I need is a place where I can spray anger in sparks like a gnarled piece of electrical cable. Just be mad at stuff and soak in the helplessness.

I am a person of high energy. That, and I sit down and I write when I get an idea - I put other things aside.