My dad, he was a construction worker. He was a butcher. He was a deep sea fisherman.
I really appreciate the many neighbourhoods of Berkeley. There is still the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. And it has the University of California, which is the greatest gift, to my mind, to be close to it. It keeps the place alive.
The building in the Bronx where I grew up was filled with mostly Holocaust survivors. My two best friends' parents both survived the camps. Everyone in my grandparents' building had tattoos. I'd go shopping with my grandparents, and the butcher, the baker, everybody in the whole neighborhood had tattoos.
I come from - I came from Wales, and it's a strong, butch society. We were in the war and all that. People didn't waste time feeling sorry for themselves. You had to get on with it. So my credo is get on with it. I don't waste time being soft. I'm not cold, but I don't like being, wasting my time with - life's too short.
I am a big fan of movies that don't take themselves too seriously. You know you won't change the world, but have fun. Movies like 'Butch Cassidy' I enjoyed tremendously, but it didn't alter my opinion of the world.
I was so beat down as a young person - being black, being gay, being unable to assimilate because I could never, ever pull off being butch.
My dad was a master butcher and I trained to be a butcher when I left school. I didn't enjoy it at the time but I love cooking now, so perhaps I would have been a chef.
A good butcher is important to have. It's like a shrink.
George Murphy tagged that name 'Butch' on me years ago. We were all at a party and he went around tagging names on people that didn't fit them.
When I was a kid, I was always drawing things. I'd get butcher paper or grocery bags and draw on them.
