You know how most kids have posters of sports heroes on their walls? They gave me reams of the old news copy, and I had those taped in my bedroom. And I would practice reading the news.
The only school that let me in was U.C. Santa Cruz, which is where I went. They didn't have a journalism program, so I took sociology, which is the closest thing to journalism.
When I was a little boy I used to borrow my father's hat, and make a press card to stick in the hat band. That was the way reporters were always portrayed in the movies.
If I'd had the chance, I'd like to have completed my degree before going full-time, and sports journalism was something that always interested me. Dad used to buy a paper, and I always turned straight to the sports pages.
I never intended to make a living from music. That's the funny thing. I wanted to be a journalist.
The reporter wrote with the hope that he would get a by-line in the Times, a testimony to his being alive on that day and all the tomorrows of microfilm.
I still have not given up the idea of becoming a journalist, but at 17 I decided to follow my heart and stay in Los Angeles with my girlfriend as opposed to going to Johns Hopkins.
'All the President's Men' is a movie that has a very personal place for me because it made me want to be a journalist, and then it made me want to be a filmmaker.
