Nothing moves me more than the history of the United States.
— Henry Rollins
To anger female voters in America is to tread on the tiger's tail. Women turn out in huge numbers, and they are well aware of how their bodies work and what they need.
Literally thousands of lawsuits have been filed against the NFL by retired players, many of whom say that information on brain injury in football was withheld from them.
I am on until I am dead, like a light bulb.
I come from a town of great musicians: Washington, D.C. It's no joke, that history.
Early spring is the time for vigorous change, a preparation for the heat-driven oppression that is to come.
I am neither pro- nor anti-gun. I am gun-conscious.
Try driving the streets of Los Angeles without seeing a billboard depicting a film with a lead actor holding a gun. It's almost as if guns are harmless props used to bring out the cheekbones and jawline of the screen star.
Luckily for me, I genuinely like my audience. They really are a good bunch.
If people are being upstanding citizens of the Republic, then you have to widen the net to incarcerate them. This explains why America's prisons are full of nonviolent offenders - a perfect example of American exceptionalism.
No matter how rough things can be at times, many Americans are optimistic and on the move.
I have lived in public as a somewhat recognizable person since I was a teenager. Emails I answer end up posted on sites; pictures of me and someone I just met, taken by a cellphone, literally number in the thousands and are easily accessed.
Michele Bachmann is always a great person to go to for an opinion about anything. She has a very active and interesting mind.
Nelson Mandela will always be the face of South Africa. The traveler passing through the country will see Mandela's face almost everywhere he looks. Truly, the man is omnipresent.
George Zimmerman is a foot soldier in a rapidly privatizing country. He is a new centurion of 21st-century America. Law enforcement is tied down by the strictures of, well, the law. There is only 'so much they can do' to take care of the 'problem.'
Having an identity is one thing. Being born into an identity is quite a different matter.
Creating problems is easy. We do it all the time. Finding solutions, ones that last and produce good results, requires guts and care.
One of the odd enjoyments in life is to be alone in a room full of people. To have them there as unknowing human filler in your wide shot.
The GOP grows more and more unpopular with female voters seemingly every time one of its leaders gets in front of a microphone. Misogynist is as misogynist does. The GOP and its bloviating pundits don't like women and they are unable to hide it, nor do they seem to make much attempt to do so.
It is amazing to hear grown-up people rationalize homophobia and discrimination. The lengths they go to trying to prove their points take reason to its breaking point.
I believe that contentment or any sustained period of joy that doesn't inspire thought that leads to action almost immediately is useless.
With age, life becomes complex and difficult, often fraught with risk on several levels, from the practical to the fiscal.
If it's a man's world, as they say, then men, your world is a poorly run carnage fest.
You can pass all the gun legislation you want. None of it will make me feel any more or less safe than I do right at this moment.
In many ways, America is on the receiving end of a pendulum that has been swung with great force, and for a long time, outward into the world. The impact is a wake-up call on every level.
Pride is a thing that I have tried to abandon completely. Try as I might, pride still creeps into many of the things I do.
Could it be that violence is as much a part of the American identity as the Constitution, and a vital component to its economic stability?
The opportunity to write for the 'L.A. Weekly' has been one of the better breaks that has come my way in a long time.
My laptop seems to know where I am, even if I don't. My cellphone asks me if I want directions to anywhere from the spot I am standing in. I buy a record online and Amazon.com sends me letters, telling me that people who bought what I bought also bought these other records.
It has been hard to get my head around how Justice Antonin Scalia rationalizes his decisions. His body blow to the Voting Rights Act was a head scratcher, but at least he was calm when he attempted to justify his odd logic.
Airports in major cities, like LAX, are trippy environments. It is at once a national and international gathering of those in transition: The euphoric, emerging from planes, their journey at an end, and the determined, about to depart.
The fact is, in the minds of many, Trayvon Martin received the appropriate punishment for a true crime: He was black, male and dared to walk outside. In life, young Trayvon was just a teenager; in death, he has been transformed into a scary, lurking, suspicious, prone-to-violence spook.
I think Perry Ferrell put independent music on a very good path with Lollapalooza.
There is not one single police officer in America that I am not afraid of and not one that I would trust to tell the truth or obey the laws they are sworn to uphold. I do not believe they protect me in any way.
I try to get myself up and moving as early as possible. Optimum is to be on the treadmill while it is still dark outside.
It is instilled in thousands of American males from an early age that one of their requirements is to be able to both dish out and take a lot of pain. They are taught the rules of this road in gyms, rings, backyards and fields all over America.
I never had any interest in being involved with the Boy Scouts.
Those who seek to profit by division don't stand a chance.
In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move.
I think, to a great degree, we humans still divide ourselves into two species, even though we are monotypic. There are males and females. We see them as different and not equal.
Guns are part of the American identity.
I have to do things for myself, and if those standards are set high, then it's up to me to pass or fail.
I have come to the conclusion that it's a waste of time to have too much pride in anything. Perhaps it's good to have a sense of duty, a jealous zeal to protect or improve, but pride ultimately is only that which stands vulnerable to offense and degradation.
My mother, a very eclectic listener, had the first Doors album and gave it to me when I expressed interest in the band. It was one of the first records I ever had. As the years passed, the babysitters who used to look after me would bring their Doors albums to the apartment, and that's how I got to hear their later work.
Edward Snowden, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, professes to have had access to whatever he wanted to know about anyone's anything. If he's telling the truth, why does he have such permeability without any government oversight? Is that OK with you?
I don't hate the government. I don't think the Second Amendment is being infringed upon.
In my many trips to South Africa, I have met and spoken to a lot of people there, and they all seem to find apartheid as repellent as you would.
Trayvon Martin did not need to die.
If there is one set of laws, one Constitution for every citizen, its protections hopefully applied equally to all, then why do the results seem to differ so radically? What do you call that? Look around - you're living in it.
'Fox News' will one day come to an end. Led Zeppelin will not. It's as simple as that.
