Panic is an incredibly catalyzing creative force. And almost out of sheer necessity, I found I had to talk about myself and my real life as it is effectively lived by me.

I've only ever been mistaken for myself. People draw a lot of comparisons to all of the round-faced, mustached men of entertainment that make me cringe and sick to my stomach about how the world really sees me and they're right.

We have all been empowered by the web: everyone with a keyboard can now effectively broadcast to a national audience. In a sense, it puts each of us on the same footing as the major media conglomerates, except for AOL, who now apparently own all our thoughts and teeth.

I don't know if you've ever been shoved into the bow of a nutshell pram, a boat that is very easily almost liftable with one hand, and quite tippy, and is being piloted by a 12-year-old, but it is the true feeling of having your life in someone else's hands, and it's very precarious.

The very idea that there is no truth, but only the filter of narrative through which truth is invented is something I learned at the feet of the most leftist professors at Yale and am learning again from Sarah Palin during the Vice Presidential debate, and I find that very disorienting.

The reality is that if you want to be in a reality-based community, you've got to respect reality and that means calling it bad when you see the past ahead and it doesn't look good and acknowledging when it's going to work.

Everything we make in life, eventually, is sold for a dollar or a penny or given away.