I guess it kind of stemmed from my father. He was a union guy working for the meat plant down in Kansas City. He was a union guy, and I guess it was just in my blood.
If you show up to work five days in a row, nobody's going to pat you on the back - everyone does that. Well, do that with your writing. Just show up. Be there for it. When you get an idea, write it down somewhere and then be a steward of that idea.
It was more that his career was going down again and he was tired of the songs. He was tired of the routine. And there was a point where he just kind of gave up. He couldn't face being 40. And he resorted to stimulants. There's a dark side there, a really dark side.
In college I started studying the stock market. I went down to the stock exchange, watched all the activity from the visitors' gallery, people running around, calling numbers, shouting, and all the paper flying and the bells ringing, and of course that was exciting, and it seemed to lend itself to my analytical skills.
He put a ring in the toe of a stocking. On Christmas Eve, we opened our stockings and it was there at the bottom of the toe. Then he got down on his knees and he was shaking.
As soon as I was given the opportunity at Stoke it was head down, this is what I want. This is where I want to be, this is my opportunity and I was fully confident about taking it.
I am well-nigh resolv'd to write no more tales but merely to dream when I have a mind to, not stopping to do anything so vulgar as to set down the dream for a boarish Publick.
When we reach reflexively for something to dull an ache inside of us, in that very moment of reaching, we are hiding from our pain. We're storing it away. Tamping it down.
The first thing I put down on paper is a storyboard, like a film director.
While scuba diving off the British Virgin Islands about 25 years ago, our boat's anchor got stuck. I dived down to release it, but I got separated from the boat and was stranded as it sped away. I had to swim for an hour to the nearest island with all my scuba kit on before I was rescued.
When you are in WWE, you're really strapped down by their rules and writing.
I saw the waterboarding device in Cambodia's notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh and did not see another until I was strapped down on an identical one at SERE. Waterboarding was administered as a 'stress demonstrator' to show that an enemy could make one say anything. And one does.
Art is for the elite because it has a very high price-point of entry. And when one is in that social strata, they look down at illustrators because they just draw things directly for a few hundred dollars, and that's seen as being a bit grubby. Galleries allow artists to stay relatively divorced from the financial aspects of their trade.
With streaming services, the walls have come down a bit on genres. So I never really set out to make a country record or a pop record. I just wanted to make it mine.
I certainly came up in an era where women were really making strides and making a point to beat down doors and find their place and crash through the glass ceiling.
It just doesn't get any more stripped down than going out totally alone and doing songs.
More people than not have seen me on television in swim shorts, so I don't have any problem stripping down.
Cannock is a friendly place. You can stroll down the road to a decent pub and have a good curry, and it is not too faceless.
Self-promotion is not my strong suit, for sure. I don't look down on it; I just don't understand how to do it.
Jose Aldo, he's a stud, and I would be honored to be in there to throw down with him.
