Death Of A Salesman,' 'Streetcar Named Desire,' these are the things that, when I was growing up, made me want to be an artist.

I never ran away, but I was very unhappy as a teenager. I felt like a complete nonentity, and I very tangibly have memories of not wanting to be here - in my body.

Las Vegas is a great place to be from, not to live in.

My grandfather was a pawnbroker, and when I was in first or second grade, my parents opened their own store. I probably learned to count by putting pawn tickets in numerical order in the back room of the shop.

Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist.

You have a generation that is saying we are tapping out of religion in many ways. But what they are not saying is that we are tapping out of a serious search for meaning in life.

Dance has been a driving force in my life for 25 years. From music videos and hip hop, to jazz and musical theater, to ballet and classic modern dance, I have had extensive exposure to a variety of techniques that inspire my own electric style.

I did spend a lot of time as a child very confused about whether I had a devil in me, or whether I was in a state of grace. I mean, these ideas are so potent to anybody with half an imagination.