I think what grows the economy is when you get that tax credit that we put in place for your kids going to college. I think that grows the economy. I think what grows the economy is when we make sure small businesses are getting a tax credit for hiring veterans who fought for our country. That grows our economy.
I look at some of the kids that I interact with, and they were born with so many disadvantages. And you could start off in your first interaction with them saying, "Unless they get a lot of compensatory help, they're not going to be able to compete; they're just so far behind, and they're wounded and they're hurt."
As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol.
If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we've got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship.
Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.
When you live from freelance check to freelance check, your mind is always on "What's the next piece I'm going to write, or draw, that'll pay this month's rent?" And so going out to play ball with my kids was a low priority.
Any gay person understands at some point that he or she has to disappear, to become invisible. That's very difficult. You somehow have to kill yourself. This is asked of people who haven't got the tools to understand that it's all a social construction, and that they shouldn't inferiorize themselves. This is asked of little kids. But I still live in the same outcome.
The American people recognize that their careers or their kids' careers are going to have to be more dynamic. That they might not be working at a single plant for 30 years. That they might have to change careers. They might have to get more education. They might have to retool or retrain. And I think the American people are game for that.
The day after the president Trump election, I remember feeling like it was 1984 again. It was in the air somehow. That ownership of bigotry. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid. It made me want to change the kinds of poems I was writing, but I'm terrible at writing overtly political poems.
We all know people who have worse fates. What do I have to complain about for Christ's sake? I have a beautiful wife and kids, and all this music, kids are paying my bills.