I wanted to be Bob Hope or Red Skelton from the time I was 8 years old.
I was on 'Murder She Wrote' with Angela Lansbury. She was fantastic... she was lovely to everyone, she was always on time, prepared. Whereas when I worked with Bob Hope, he didn't know his lines. He had to have these huge big cards... he hardly said two words to me all day.
I've been a big Bob Marley fan forever. Forever. Like big, huge. Bob Marley and the Beatles, that's my big, giant music influence. I can listen to them all the time.
From the first time I heard Bob Marley or even Sublime, I wanted to move out to California and be near the ocean, start surfing, start being a part of that whole thing.
Songs like 'One Love' by Bob Marley - they stand the test of time - it doesn't matter - so anytime I write music, I try to write in tune with an emotion, and I hope there are more times like that for everyone.
I had eight brothers and sisters. Every Christmas my younger brother Bobby would wake up extra early and open everybody's presents - everybody's - so by the time the rest of us got up, all the gifts were shredded, ribbons off, torn open and thrown aside.
I remember the day Richard Nixon won in 1968. That was a time that seemed certain to bring about long awaited seismic change in America. But events of tragic proportion took us on a turn. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were suddenly dead.
Time is a gift and a threat because we are bodily creatures. We only come into existence through the bodies of others, but that very body destines us to death. We must be born and we must die.
The actual getting into the gym and working out process was easier, but the eating was harder. I had to eat every two hours. At one point, my trainer said, 'Put anything in your mouth. Go to McDonald's, get the biggest shake possible. I just need to get calories in you.' Because my body fat at the time was only, like, 7.5%.
I used to weigh myself every day at a certain time of day. Then I would write down the number and measure my body fat. It wasn't a healthy way to live.
Every time I rap about being a big girl in a small world, it's doing a couple things: it's empowering my self-awareness, my body image, and it's also making the statement that we are all bigger than this; we're a part of something bigger than this, and we should live in each moment knowing that.
The next time you need to win someone over to your way of thinking, try nodding your head as you speak. People unconsciously mirror the body language of those around them in order to better understand what other people are feeling.
I get up at 6 A.M. after sleeping for six hours, as I feel that is the ideal time that my body needs. I start my workout at 7 in the morning, with 10-15 minutes of warming up.
I think, over the time that you're in the league, you learn what your body needs: you learn the amount of soft tissue work you need, the amount of dry needling, or the amount of sleep or your nutrition. You also understand that you have to pull back.
I didn't leave bodybuilding until I felt that I had gone as far as I could go. It will be the same with my film career. When I feel the time is right, I will then consider public service. I feel that the highest honor comes from serving people and your country.
Bodybuilding gave me a healthy way to gain weight and learn to balance my life. Earning my pro card within a year, I got to do something I enjoyed and be healthy at the same time.
I have protection. I have police protection. I have personal bodyguards. I have three sets of them. But believe me, this is really psychological for the family. If they want to get me, they can get me. And every time that I have been saved, it's been by coincidence.
The Capone era. That was my time. Capone was a big baseball fan. He'd walk into the ballpark like the president walking in today, with bodyguards all around him.
All the time, I've felt that life is a wager and that I probably was getting more out of leading a bohemian existence as a writer than I would have if I didn't.
I was always with a single mom, and we never had schedules or anything. We were just Bohemian, us against the world, which was kind of great, but it certainly didn't breed security. I've gotten hyper-sensitive to schedules and bath time and eating at the dinner table. We don't just 'Bohemian' go out at nine o'clock and go get Chinese food.
