“On the other hand, I can get all the Metallica songs I want for FREE! WOW!”

Not any specific one, but I was a huge fan of Frank Jacobs, I guess he wrote the plurality of the song parodies for MAD, Sam Hart, a few others, but that was also where I was first exposed to the art form of song parodies.

People that were a little nerdy in high school would look up to me and know it gets better.

About four or five months ago, at a dinner in New York, John made the very nice offer of my being guest editor for an issue of MAD and I thought about it for about half a nanosecond and decided that was a pretty good idea.

Now with internet culture it seems like everyone is doing music parodies. And they’re not all good!

My brothers and sisters hated me because I was an only child.

Not only are they just great, nice guys; they’re some of the best musicians you’re likely to find.

So then why get upset if somebody like me Tries to look at the world just a bit differently?

What kind of morons do you have working at newspapers in Austin that would base an entire review of an artist’s performance on whether or not they had a good seat?

In fact, when I come up with an idea for a parody I try to resist the urge to Google the idea to see if someone has done it already because the answer is almost always, “Yes, of course they have, they’ve thought of it!”

People say releasing an album is like giving birth, but it’s more like having a gallbladder operation.

I’m very analytical, I’m very precise.

I think that was the genesis of my polka medleys, because every rock song I played on the accordion just sounded like a polka and my friends thought it was funny.

Midget wrestling on channel 3, it costs me 50 bucks a month.

I like the guitar-driven music of Nirvana at its peak. At that point, I thought there was a lot of really exciting music coming out.

And then I’ll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.

I’m a music fan, and I can listen to the radio, or music, without thinking, “How am I going to screw this up?” [Laughs] If I’m really actively trying to think of a parody, then I’ll have my antenna out, and be a little more proactive about it.

More and more do I see that only a successful revolution in India can break England’s back forever and free Europe itself.

I was free always. I could work without the money, to film this and that. But this is another point, because now I’m alone, and I can just use it when I want.

There is something fearfully strengthening about cutting free even if the ties bandage the heart itself.

The more his character, by rising above material contingencies, widen, become free and independent.

You have to be free to play around with the notion that day might be night, love might be hate; nothing can be too sacred for the imagination to turn into its opposite or to call experimentally by another name. For writing is re-naming.

Same is true of liking a boy. If you cut off the thoughts, if you stop pinning, you’re free to find a boy who is attainable.

You are free to choose but you are not free to choose the consequences of that choice.

You are free to choose. You are not free not to choose. No choice is a choice.