With every word, I drop knowledge. I'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal trying to reach my goal.

I loved musicals. I loved being in the school play and being lucky enough to get parts in the school play. But they always took place in some other time and place.

I got to holler just to be heard.

Ed Koch once said that New York City is where immigrants come to audition for America. That's what happened to my parents; that's what happened to me.

I 've got this weird day that changed my life. I woke up one Wednesday, and my wife's a lawyer, she was off to get on a plane, to go to a business meeting somewhere else, and she said, "I think you might be a father. I have to go to the airport." It was like, six in the morning, and I was like, "That's great - what?!" I called her at noon once her flight landed, to confirm that I hadn't dreamt the thing she told me.

I probably shouldn't brag, but dag I amaze and astonish.

I grew up in the time just when cassettes were waning and CDs were growing. And so mix tapes - and not mix CDs - mix tapes were an important part of the friendship and mating rituals of New York adolescents. If you were a girl and I wanted you - to show you I like you, I would make you a 90-minute cassette wherein I would show off my tastes. I would play you a musical theater song next to a hip-hop song next to an oldie next to some pop song you maybe never heard, also subliminally telling you how much I like you with all these songs.