As a kid, I'd get up at 3 in the morning during school vacations to help my father on his bakery-truck route. He didn't get a vacation from that schedule.

I wish all high schools could offer students the outside activities that were available at the old Harrison High on Chicago's West Side in the late '20s. They enabled me to become part of a school newspaper, drama group, football team and student government.

By the time I got to Northwestern University in 1930, I was a football bum more interested in being an All-Star player and signing on with a pro team than going after a newspaper job.

My father, a bakery-truck driver, was the epitome of the work ethic that probably kept me knocking out columns six days a week for a rough total of 12,600 over 50 years.

My mother and I will continue on some level that I haven't determined yet. I think my mother's a great character, and I have to say that giving my mother to the world has to be the biggest thrill of my writing career.

Dick Clark was a really great influence in my career; he helped me a lot with his whole organization, and they were awesome to me at all different points - but one thing that I really disagreed with him on was when he said that what I do, pop music, is a disposable art form.

The Indian television industry has catapulted into a huge business. Films, however, have not lost one shred of charisma or commercial lucrativity.

In a healthy way, I'm super competitive. I want to do everything to the best of my ability. If I'm not giving 110 percent, then it's not worth doing. That's really been the whole thing of my career so far, even down in NXT. I want to be the best I can physically be.