Sure, my childhood was unusual. All these eccentric, wild people frequented our home: rock stars, drag queens, models, bikers, freaks. But I was not this little rich girl. My mom and I lived in an apartment.
At first, I did stories on people who were maybe just eccentric. Omar was a natural progression from that.
I surround myself with bizarre people. They're more fun to write about.
I like it when people make an effort to wear things that you wouldn't normally put together - I like eccentrics.
Big Sur is at the end of the continent. It attracts really crazy people.
You know those people in life who are a bit eccentric and larger than life or a bit odd? That their realm of possibility around them is larger than somebody who's called normal? What's normal for an oddball? They could start screaming in public. That's fun to play.
I tend to play rather odd men. People that are slightly odd or eccentric, or have a more particular attitude to life.
I enjoy doing complicated or peculiar people.
But I do believe that in all my shows, I really enjoy the quirky, the eccentric characters, the ones you don't meet every day.
I had gone to New York with no plan at all. I did a lot of jobs - barman, teacher, security guard, postman and construction worker - and I was meeting many eccentric characters, and they were saying funny things, which I always wrote down.
My music has a high irritation factor. I've always tried to say something. Eccentric lyrics about eccentric people. Often it was a joke. But I would plead guilty on the grounds that I prefer eccentricity to the bland.
It's always nice when the eccentrics show up.
Now about those ghosts. I'm sure they're here and I'm not half so alarmed at meeting up with any of them as I am at having to meet the live nuts I have to see every day.
I've met every freak in the business.
I very much adore people who are outcasts, and I've always loved to be around interesting, circus-type people.
