Yeah, I was always made fun of and considered a weirdo. I have terrible memories of trying to fit in with the world. I was definitely sad a lot of the time but my best memory was when I bought the album GI by the Germs and it just hit me that the fact that I’d always felt alone and the fact that I’d always felt like people didn’t understand me- which manifested itself by people trying to ridicule me or teachers trying to humiliate me for saying anything that I had to say to do with my creativity- was a strength and that I could live my life being true to that world and not worrying about whether people accepted me or not. Just recognizing that I was a freak but knowing that was a cool place to be… The world, you see, will forever try to put you down, crush your creativity. The world tries to get creative people to build up this brick wall inside themselves but if you’re able to open up but do it in a surrealistic way you can be opened without being harmed. I told myself when I moved out of my mom’s house when I was 16 that I was never going to make a living doing anything but playing music and I didn’t give a shit if I had to live with a sugar daddy and get butt-fucked- whatever I had to do in order to still be able to just draw and paint and play guitar. Whatever my physical presence had to be doing just didn’t mean shit. I’ve never had a job. Thank God I had that attitude because if I had had the attitude of an ambitious yuppie I would never have been able to live the creative life that I do… I believe in just being open to everything and keeping my sensitivities at as high of a place as I can at all times. As long as the roots aren’t suffering then all is well and all will be well in the garden and if you can turn your life into that garden you’ll be just as much of a beautiful person as Chance Gardner.