Every city in the world always has a gang, a street gang, or the so-called outcasts.
I've been in the newspapers since I was about 15 - not for rapping, but for real substantive stuff I was doing in the community, organizing around gang violence in the schools. So I had already made my grandma proud before I was on TV. I've always been who I am.
I never really considered myself attractive. I was always kind of gangly in school.
Being tall when I was youngerl I was always a bit awkward. As a teenager, I was very, very thin, so I was very gangly and limby, and would sweep things off the table without realising how big my wingspan was - just out of control. A lot of women write to me and say, 'I'm six foot and exactly the same happens' - that's been lovely therapy.
I was born tall. I was awkward and gangly. Before that, I was a really chubby elementary school kid. I've always been sort of a physical abnormality.
I always thought I was sort of awkward and goofy-looking. I'm still kind of gangly.
I always saw two sides of life. I saw the dudes who would be the gangsta, big-time guys on the block, but would also be dedicated fathers. It was kind of weird to see that dual story that everybody has.
I have always been against the gangster as hero.
As a child, I was always drawn to heroic characters. I decided I wanted to act when I realised that Superman and all those gangsters and Indians were just real people in costume.
I've been into clothes since I was a kid, going to garage raves and seeing all the Tottenham gangsters wearing Moschino and Versace; I just always had a passion for it.
Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow.
I always felt that I was born in the wrong era. I wanted to be friends with John Garfield, for instance.
My mother was a phoenix who always expected to rise from the ashes of her latest disaster. She loved being Judy Garland.
I always loved to sing and was very, very loud. I wanted to be a movie star, like Judy Garland.
Garlic is an essential, and so is this thing called Bragg's Liquid Aminos. It's like a soy sauce, but it's gluten-free and healthier. It's a great condiment and something I always keep in my pantry.
A lot of my friends were mostly working in black-and-white - people like Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and others. We would exchange prints with each other, and they were always very supportive of what I was doing.
If I wasn't serving in Congress, I've always wanted to be a high school teacher. Specifically, I want to teach a course on modern American history and use Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury as a primary text.
I've always liked and appreciated storytellers like Garry Shandling and Bill Cosby - more long-form comedy. So starting in San Francisco, watching all these great comics - Patton Oswalt, Dave Chappelle - you get to see them a bunch, and you go, 'Wow, this is where I need to be.'
I've had this song in a drawer for a long time, maybe seven or eight years. Every time I'd do an album, I'd take it out and listen to it, and always liked what it had to say. Plus when Garth came in and sang on it, that made it really special.
I was shaped by the heroes in the films I saw, which you always want to emulate and be like. I wanted to be like Alan Ladd, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart.
