I go down to Princeton a lot, and I’ll go down and walk around the town. It’s an amazing town. It’s absolutely beautiful. The campus is amazing. I’ll just walk around. I’m looking at this school, and it’s like, “Why didn’t I go here?” It haunts me.
There are times I’ll go down there and be like, “It’s a really great place for me to get my head straight and take in the beautiful campus and everything.” There are times where I walk around it and I’m just furious. It’s in my backyard. Bill Bradley was my hero as a kid. He went here. If I’m writing my story out, this is like a lock in terms of what my arc should have been. I walk around and it just haunts me. This school that should have been. This should have been my life.
Then I just start to think, “Man, if I went here, I probably would not be where I’m at now.” I wouldn’t trade that. I’m happy I’m where I’m at now, and I’m happy that I’ve got the skill set to stick up for myself in whatever weird version of sticking up for myself I do. I still do it in terms of a career. You navigate through things and you take punches. You get back. I don’t know if I would have that if I had gone to an Ivy League school and had the normal, ideal experience. I don’t know if I would have the skill set I’ve got now that is helping me get to do exciting things.
ANDY RICHTER—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
The only thing I really believe in is some form of yin and yang. Just in some sort of equalizer. Just the fact that if something’s really good and something’s really awesome, there’s a price for it. It’s going to suck. It’s got to suck somehow. It’s got to be awful in many, many ways.
RUPAUL CHARLES
Coming down here on the 101, there was an accident across the freeway. But everyone on my side was slowing down to look. It’s like, “You know what? Govern your ass. Handle your shit, ladykins, because you’re the problem.” Everybody wants to look. It’s like, “It’s an accident.” Part of the rebel or the whatever in me is like, “I will not look. I will not be part of the problem. I won’t look. I won’t look.”
PAULA POUNDSTONE—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
I went backpacking with my daughter on Mount San Jacinto about two years ago now. In fact, it was February. We were in twelve feet of snow. We had the experience of getting dehydrated. I think because of the altitude and stuff. We weren’t gone long. It wasn’t long enough to risk life, but it did take us days to recover after we got home.
One thing that I noticed as we were hiking. We’d planned for this trip for a long time. It was a good thing to be doing. It was spectacular scenery, of course. We’re hiking along, and I’m noticing myself sort of sinking like a rock emotionally. I couldn’t figure out why. I’m like, “Wait. I’m where I want to be, doing what I want to be doing, with whom I want to be doing it. What’s the matter?”
Later, when I realized that we didn’t drink enough water, it actually was one of the most eye-opening things of my entire life. Do you know it’s really important to drink water? As it turns out. I drink a lot of diet soda. That does not help. I still drink a lot of diet soda. I know it’s not good for me, but I do enjoy it. I drink a lot of water now because it actually is connected to your emotional well-being, which is why, when you go to a therapist, they never say, “Would you like a glass of water?”
I realized that lives are complicated and all, but to some degree, some elements of happiness and balance are so much easier than I ever thought them to be. Drink some water and get a decent night’s sleep, and it’s the darnedest. All those years, all the therapy, all the angst, all the journaling, all the miserable phone calls. I look back on it now just with deep humiliation. It’s like, “Okay. Drink some water and go to bed.”
PENN JILLETTE—COMEDIAN, MAGICIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
My parents never had a drink of alcohol, never had any drugs. I’ve never had a sip of alcohol or any drug. They would never talk about it. They would never say, “So-and-so shouldn’t be drinking.” That never came up. Never a discussion of someone being a drunk. Every time someone says, “Why don’t you do drugs or drink?” they always want to make my father and mother into alcoholics, and see this horror of when I was a child. No one wants to accept the opposite. They want to have some traumatic moment. They want to have me be AA or something. I think because it’s just the story that’s told most, especially in the U.S. It’s not the international story, but kind of the American story, like that atheists are bitter.
One of the first questions you’ll get, if you’re an out-of-the-closet atheist, is, “I guess you were really fucked over by Christians, and they treated you badly.” “You went to Catholic school,” or they’ll go the other way and say, “Something really bad must have happened in your life.” In my experience with hardcore atheists, it tends to be if your family was so perfect that it made Leave It to Beaver look dysfunctional, that puts you on that road more. Because it’s the absolute truth. If your love from your parents is unconditional and constant, and they just nurture you properly, then you become twelve feet tall and bulletproof.
When people talk to me about the eternal love of Jesus Christ, I just go, “Jesus Christ going one-on-one with my mom, my mom wins.” My mom’s love was so unconditional, so pure, and provable, provable with apple pie, provable with smiles, provable with being there for me every single time I needed her. There’s proof.
LORNE MICHAELS—PRODUCER, WRITER, COMEDIAN, ACTOR
I have a family, which is really, as cliché as it sounds, the most important thing in my life. You sort of realize that you don’t have your work in lieu of a family. You just have this and a family. It’s a different feeling. One feeds the other. If you cannot care about the people you work with, you probably are going to have a hard time caring about the people you live with.
I think the reason I watch Yankee games is because there’s something about when you follow baseball, you understand why you need a third baseman. If somebody hits it in that area, and you don’t have anyone, you’re going to be very embarrassed.
There’s something about knowing you need others in order to be remarkable, that’s a big deal.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
You’ve got to prepare yourself for good things to come into your life, and also the bad things that come when you open yourself up to the world at large. That was the biggest change that happened in my thirties, that I had to make. It was like going back to learn my first chord on the guitar. I had to learn the first chord on myself and build it just the same way I built the craft of playing and singing. Slowly, step by step, angry, sometimes joyful, until finally I was able to put together a me that other people, once they got to know me, would be able to stand. Once I was able to do that, then kids come along and a wife and a relationship and you do your best to try and not fuck those things up as you go, which is not easy to do. But suddenly, you wake up one morning and there’s a life there.