There are certain things that happen in New York that just don't happen anywhere else.

Sometimes I highjack memories. Sometimes I switch them around. Sometimes they're just in the background, like some little bass note. Those things have carried me through, especially when I first started writing. They're still there, but more in the distance these days.

If I'm in LA, I'm close to home, and that just brings up all these other things, good and bad. There is a reason why I am not there .

I just rode cross-country and the thing I noticed is just how afraid everyone is, and how nervous and scared and angry people are. From my point of view, I don't think it's all necessarily justified, but I think that's easy for me to say.

Why are the mainstream buzz things rarely contemporary? It doesn't happen very often. It's hard to feel culpable or implicated or even apathetic.

The thing is that it's always a constant reminder of how violent this country has been, always has been, you know. I'm still frustrated with these conversations: [Barack] Obama is black so that means this, that things are better, or it means that you voted for him because he's black.

I think there's nothing new going on. Except that, you're even more public than you've ever been.There's some good and some bad to that.