I was good at most subjects at school. Looking back, I was a proper boffin! Now, the thing I'm really good at is poker.
It's the weird thing Eton does - you're at school next to lords and earls and, in my case, Prince William, so you end up being used to dealing with those sorts of people.
For me, I actually come from an electronic dance music background: house music, electro house, trance music, even. When I was coming out of school, basically, I discovered Brain Fever, Flying Lotus, J Dilla and all that. That was when I got excited about hip-hop and when the Flume project started.
I went to high school in Columbia. I met my first wife, Richards, whom I married while I was working on a B.S. in chemistry at Georgia Tech. She bore Louise, and I studied. I learned most of the useful technical things - math, physics, chemistry - that I now use during those four years.
At night, I read. I read for two hours. I just finished a marvelous book by Louise Erdrich, 'The Round House.' But mostly I read 20th-century history and biography. I lived then. I was either a child or at school or at work.
I ran for president of the student council at my high school in Louisville. And ran against a guy who I thought was better known and little bit better student and managed to win.
When I was in high school, my uncle, who went to the races quite a bit, got me interested. Then when I went to college at Southern Illinois University, just a few hours from Louisville, we used to go to the Kentucky Derby, and I got to see Secretariat and Riva Ridge win.
I had a very nice life. I was a very good kid. I had nice friends. I played in the school yard. I was nice to my parents; they were nice to me. They were loving parents - they were always there.
As a young child, I loved the hugs and kisses, but I also remember getting to the age when they no longer felt OK. My parents would kiss me when they dropped me off at school, which was obviously embarrassing because having loving parents makes you a social pariah.
But in any case, I did poorly on the tests and so, in the first three years of school, I had teachers who thought I was stupid and when people think you're stupid, they have low expectations for you.
I grew up in a very small country town in Victoria. I had a very normal, low-key kind of upbringing. I went to school, I hung out with my friends, I fought with my younger sisters. It was all very normal.
The Kevin Abstract project kind of represents being socially awkward in high school, which I'm low-key kind of tired of.
I grew up poor, financially lower class. Worked in restaurants for 17 years while going to acting school and trying to become a working actor. Because I know what it's like to not have money, I turn down roles if I don't want to play them.
Amiri Baraka went to Howard. Lucille Clifton went to Howard. Ossie Davis went to Howard. And I was aware of that when I was there. Charles Drew went to Howard. Thurgood Marshall went to the law school. Being aware of that and having all of that brought to bear, again, it's one of those things that I can't really separate from my career as a writer.
I was the youngest girl among my siblings, a simple village girl, who perhaps was luckier than other siblings as I have the chance to go to school.
I used to collect hockey cards. It was like Vegas at my school. You'd go to school with your box of cards, and at recess and lunchtime there were all these games we'd play.
The Golden State has lost its luster. We've got to change our tax system and how we fund government. We're going to have to make it easier to create jobs in California, incentivize manufacturing, really put more in the way of investment in our public school system and our institutions of higher learning if we're going to stay the Golden State.
I'd actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet.
Pilot season can be maddening. You're basically putting yourself and your talent out there to be scrutinized several times a day for months by network executives who have probably never acted in anything since their junior high school production of 'The Wiz.'
We were five kids at home, and my mother and grandmother ensured that we all had a very grounded upbringing in Madras. Even in school, I never used to tell anyone that my dad was an actor.
