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I actually had someone say to me, 'Lynn, you're going to have very good days, and you're going to have very bad days. But It's rare that things are as good as they look, and it's rare that things are as bad as they seem.' So having perspective, and challenging perspective, is important to making good decisions.
I play bass. I play a bit of guitar. I've never been to a lesson, so my theory of music is non-existent in any instrument, but we always had guitars around. My dad taught me to play drums for 'Love Actually,' and I still play drums now. But I'm not a 'drummer.' I'm not a 'guitarist.' I'm trying to be a bassist.
After I shower and put in all my products, I hang out with the diffuser with my head flipped over for five to seven minutes. But before I use a hair dryer, I'll towel-dry my hair. Actually, drying your hair with an old T-shirt is a great trick. It helps to get all the extra water out, without bringing on frizz.
Obviously, there are moments that you look back at and cringe - things in the past involving violence or disrespect to women or disrespect to other people that are so far away from what I want to put out there now. But it's actually a privilege to be able to change and be making records that reflect that change.
When we talk about the word 'socialism,' I think what it really means is just democratic participation in our economic dignity and our economic, social, and racial dignity. It is about direct representation and people actually having power and stake over their economic and social wellness, at the end of the day.
There's racist casting, and there is normal casting. Normal casting, to me, is a process that strives for representation and, in many cases, strives to simply portray the world as it actually is instead of as falsely non-inclusive. And sadly, sometimes that involves removing the whitewash that exists on history.
I love Carpenter, I love Craven - these are all the classics - the Romeros of the world, but I think the biggest influence on me as a storyteller and as a filmmaker is actually Steven Spielberg. I love that even though Steven isn't known for being a horror director, he started out his career making scary movies.
I have a large watch collection, and classic watches are especially important to me. I had a silver Rolex, and I actually gave it to my little brother. He wears it every day. He's an actor, so whenever he goes to an audition, he can look down, see it, and it gives him confidence. It was a great thing to pass on.
What's wrong with trying hard and showing up and being good at your job? We really need to look at ourselves and say we need to reevaluate this. We need to reevaluate that women who ask for a pay raise or ask for a promotion - it's actually an okay thing. It's okay to be ambitious; it's okay to be over-prepared.
In Silicon Valley, there are a lot of startups using computer vision for agriculture or shopping - there are a lot for clothes shopping. At Baidu, for example, if you find a picture of a movie star, we actually use facial recognition to identify that movie star and then tell you things like their age and hobbies.
I went to this arts high school in Greenville, S.C. In speech class, the teacher, a white man, would say, 'You're talking ghetto. Don't talk ghetto.' I'm not only offended, but I'm confused because while there's nothing wrong with people who come from the projects or the ghetto, that's actually not my experience.
When I get 13 or 14 years old, I get crazy with rock music, like, like, deeply crazy. And one of my favorite bands at that moment was, for example, like - bands like Metallica or Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd and Santana, you know? And then I start to play metal, actually, when I was - at the age of 15.
Today when I think about diversity, I actually think about the word 'inclusion.' And I think this is a time of great inclusion. It's not men, it's not women alone. Whether it's geographic, it's approach, it's your style, it's your way of learning, the way you want to contribute, it's your age - it is really broad.
I do sing in the car. I actually sing Britney Spears songs in the car - me and a close friend of mine. She lives in West Palm and I live in Miami, and when we're going back and forth to see each other, we sing: 'Oh, Baby Baby.' We sing all these 1990s songs. We're like two 14-year-old kids just having a good time.
I always go back to how people behave. If you watch how people actually behave in a situation, it's very simple and honest and contained. You don't need to use as much expression, as much feeling. Some characters will boil over, and that's another thing, but a lot of times I think you can just do very, very little.
China is a great manufacturing center, but it's actually mostly an assembly plant. So it assembles parts and components, high technology that comes from the surrounding industrial - more advanced industrial centers - Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, Europe - and it basically assembles them.
I wanted a song my 6-year-old niece could listen to in the car. 'Everyday is Christmas' sounds like a sweet sentiment, but in reality if every day were actually Christmas it would be a candy cane-riddled hellscape from which the human race could never awaken. So we're lucky it is just a lighthearted Christmas tune.
I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn't going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I've ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn't want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications.
'Unbreakable Smile' was based off one of the songs I wrote for the album - it was actually the first song I wrote for the album without realizing it yet. I think I wanted to name the album that because it seemed like that was just the theme of that chapter in my life and just the theme of all the songs put together.
Pleasure without God, without the sacred boundaries, will actually leave you emptier than before. And this is biblical truth, this is experiential truth. The loneliest people in the world are amongst the wealthiest and most famous who found no boundaries within which to live. That is a fact I've seen again and again.
I cannot save the world; that's not what I'm trying to do. I guess I'm just trying to walk the walk and be an example to those that want it. Not everybody does, but if Mary J. Blige can come out of that same hole you were in, then you can do it, too - that's my goal: to do that without saying it, but actually live it.
I have a younger brother and sister who actually play in my band, and we were always into Disney music, big time. The first time I heard myself sing was when I recorded myself singing a Disney song. I remember it because it was awful, and I didn't expect to hear that. I think it was 'A Whole New World' from 'Aladdin.'
'Boyz-n-the-Hood' was actually supposed to be written for Eazy's group. He had a group out in New York called Home Boys Only, called HBO. One of them looked like LL Cool J. Eazy wanted to write a song for them, a street song, like what we were doing on the mix tapes. So when I wrote it, it was too West Coast for them.
Believe it or not, I loved my Jheri curl and thought it was beautiful on me. It actually made my hair grow like crazy. What they didn't tell you back then was that once you get the Jheri curl, there's no way of getting rid of it, so when I was over it, I ended up having to cut off all my hair and start all over again.
I actually did a project with my puppet one time in fourth grade. I made up a song that went with the rhythm to a song I do now. And I had to make up a song about a penguin and research and put information in the song about a penguin. And I sang it with my duck, because I didn't have a penguin puppet, but close enough.
A properly balanced story provides an equal representation of the negative and positive attributes of, I could say the world, but it's actually a being. 'Harry Potter''s a good example. So Harry's the hero, right. But he's tainted with evil. There's a dark and a light in every bit of that narrative. It's well balanced.
My first time on TV doing stand-up, I actually did this show in Holland called 'The Comedy Factory' hosted by Jorgen Raymann. It was in 2006 in Holland. It was amazing. I had only been doing stand-up for four years, and I booked that gig through the Just For Laughs Montreal festival, and they flew me out and put me up.
We did wanna change the name. We were actually putting names in a hat. It was the people making an income off Motley Crue that talked us out of it. The booking agent was getting them between a half a million and a million dollars a show as Motley Crue. Then there was the manager who got 10 to 15 percent off Motley Crue.
I listen to a lot of Chicago blues, I suppose. It reminds me of growing up, I guess. But I'm also obsessed by close-harmony groups. Actually, I'm fascinated particularly by brother duos, how they blend together. The Everly Brothers, the Stanley Brothers, The McQuarrys. There's something inherently magical about harmony.
It's a marathon, not a sprint. I actually feel like I come to work stronger when I've had a little time on the weekend to step away from it and enjoy my family and other things. I come back energized. If people think they're going to work 24/7, week in and week out, they're not bringing their full strength to the table.
I hate going out for lunch during a workday because it slows down my pace and ruins my rhythm. I prefer to eat at my desk. Actually, I wander around the design studio with a plate in my hand as I dine on, for example, salmon sashimi and a salad of tomatoes and mozzarella. I often have a bit of dark chocolate after lunch.
It's kind of shocking to me, actually, that I've almost been stereotyped, in a way - physically - because, I didn't get good grades in school; I got in a lot of fights. I wear glasses because I don't want something tugging my eyeball, but I wouldn't consider myself a 'nerd.' I don't know what really makes someone a nerd.
One day, I got so disgusted that I sat down and wrote a list called 'Justin's list of things to do before he kicks the bucket.' I wrote it for myself and shortened it to 'Justin's Bucket List.' It was there on the wall, not as a story idea but as a motivational tool for myself, which actually ended up working pretty well.
Day one through three of the radio tour, I actually went by Camaron Ochs. I went to my first set of radio remotes, and everybody was just like 'What's your last name?' It's not easy to pronounce. The first two minutes I got with people, that's what they wanted to talk about, and sometimes those two minutes is all you get.
In the rush to become all things to all people, the federal government has lost sight of its core responsibilities. As a result we're stuck in this frustrating paradox where Washington actually neglects things it's clearly supposed to be doing, while interfering in other areas where they are neither welcome nor authorized.
Stem cells are being used for anti-aging, and the University of Miami is doing a study about that to prove that it is true. They are looking at me, and my markers have shown exactly that I have been actually reversing my aging and getting younger. I am taking perhaps more stem-cell treatment than anybody else in the world.
Whereas a lot of Buddhism concerns itself with stages of enlightenment, various precepts and moral codes, and even power structures and hierarchies, Zen is just like, 'Shut up, sit down, and observe your thoughts - oh, and by the way, what you perceive as you' doesn't actually exist.' I loved the minimalist approach of it.
I know that everyone has their own ideas about what the good life is, and hip hop has especially strong ideas about it. It's been the same old thing for years and years: a bunch of females around you, nice cars and money. I wanted people to know what the good life actually is and challenge a lot of the lies that we're told.
The Medicaid money that right-wingers want to snatch away from Planned Parenthood actually goes toward critical preventative care and treatments for the disadvantaged. So if pro-life activists are genuine in wanting to preserve human lives, waging a war against clinics that help low-income men and women isn't the way to go.
You can't just have slogans, you can't just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda. And I think what the Republican Party has to do, if it's going to incorporate the tea party efforts in it, is to come up with an agenda that the American people can see, touch, and actually believe in, and something they believe in.
The objects you decide to keep, the ones that gave you the spark of joy? Treasure them from now on. When you put things away, you can actually audibly say, 'Hey, thank you for the good work today...' By doing so, it becomes easier for you to put the objects away and treasure them, which prolongs the spark of joy environment.
I felt cheated by the way grown-ups told me that the future of the world was bleak when I became a teenager in the 1970s. The pollution explosion was unstoppable. Global famine was inevitable. I genuinely want the next generation, my own kids, to know that actually it's possible that the future might be better than the past.
If you're comfortable with yourself, then you'll look beautiful. If you're not feeling comfortable with yourself, than that kind of shows. I think that as cheesy as the pageant industry can be seen at times, it actually does help women - boosting their confidence and growing into their own. I have to give it credit for that.
We're saved somewhat by Google. You can - when you're all sitting around the table desperately snapping your fingers in the hopes of remembering the name of that movie that you can't remember the name of - you can make people think that you are not as old as you actually are because you have the technology to find the answer.
I think as a Canadian hockey player, you go through it in your mind so many times, being able to stand on that blue line and hear your national anthem play and being a gold medal champion, you dream of that. And then to be able to accomplish that and actually win a gold medal and represent your country its an amazing feeling.
I was a gymnast when I was younger. My parents put me in gymnastics, and I was actually only good at the floor. I was terrible at everything else, especially beam. Unfortunately, you can't be a gymnast unless you're good at all of the apparatuses, so I became a competitive cheerleader. I was just the main tumbler for my squad.
Mental strength is really important because you either win or lose in your mind. And I'm not solely talking about sporting matches, boxing events - anything you do, you do it first with your mental strength. And you can actually train and develop it, and I am responsible for what I'm saying because I have experience with that.
My parents have been very supportive, in fact, it was my mother who identified that what I was going through was actually depression. My family and friends never let me feel as if something was wrong with me. They made me feel that what I was going through was okay. They supported my decision to take medication for depression.
When I was 12, I was living in Iowa, and I emailed so many wrestling schools, and one of them was actually in Boston. I joined it at 18 - the New England Pro Wrestling Academy. They were doing a fantasy camp. I was 17 about to turn 18. I told my mom, 'I'm 18 now. I just signed these papers by myself, and I'm going to do this.'
During the Great Depression, levels of crime actually dropped. During the 1920s, when life was free and easy, so was crime. During the 1930s, when the entire American economy fell into a government-owned alligator moat, crime was nearly non-existent. During the 1950s and 1960s, when the economy was excellent, crime rose again.