I am a passionate opponent of fox hunting because the fox runs in fear of its life over a prolonged period, hearing the hounds getting closer and closer. Barbarous does not even begin to describe such a sport.
I'm kind of a gossip hound, but watching the media whip the small fires into giant forest fires so that they can cover the result is infuriating.
I am a data hound and so I usually end up working on whatever things I can find good data on. The rise of Internet commerce completely altered the amount of information you could gather on company behavior so I naturally drifted toward it.
Elvis came along when I was 10. My father gave me a bass ukulele. I taught myself how to play from a book to play some chords, so I was laying down 'Hound Dog' and things like that when I was 10 years old in 1955. That's the way I was. My ear was glued to the radio. I knew right then what I wanted to do.
In my ideal world, my next novel would have a first printing of, say, 2,500 hardcovers for reviewers, libraries, collectors, and autograph hounds. The publisher could print more copies if they get low. And simultaneously, or six weeks later, the book would be available in paperback.
I started playing bluegrass with my family, so there were the G, C and D chords. I was playing a Martin acoustic because that's what Carter Stanley of the Stanley Brothers played. Then I got into the really raw blues of Hound Dog Taylor and started on electric guitar.
'Hound Dog' is a really short record, and most singles didn't last three minutes.
Most theatre people and composers are like research hounds.
I think I'd want Tommen'to fight the Hound! And the Mountain! The Hound and the Mountain on one side, and Tommen on the other side. That would be so sick. Tommen would smash it!
Between Alan Freed in Cleveland and Bob Horn and Lee Stewart in Philadelphia and George 'Hound Dog' Lorenz in Buffalo, they began to find out that white kids liked black music. It was a very significant period of time before I got there.
