Skip James, for me, is the meaning of the blues.
When I was a child, there was an old man who toured the villages with just a guitar. The first time I heard him singing Skip James songs, I thought he was singing in an African language.
I am from the Bantu people, and Skip James's music sounded like Bantu music and really talked to me.
Let's face it: grandparents are very important to family systems. You're babysitters, but you also instill values in children that sometimes skip a generation.
You can't skip a step and assume you're going to get to where you want to be.
I drink a ton of water a day and try to get as much sleep as possible. Sleep is the best way to restore your health. Never skip on sleep; it's crazy important.
You know, it's a different world now, but to skip ahead and really answer your question, only in the last five years did I find what I call holy maturity, finding the balance, finding the right person in my life so that I could live a normal life.
I've now been doing this for ten years, and I actually got to skip a stage of going to casting directors, and now I meet with the directors, either for lunch or an audition room, and I still read sides; you're never going to get around that, but I'm not the best person to go on an audition.
I'm a fan of records. I'm a fan of listening to something cover to cover and not wanting to skip over anything.
For rave-worthy soups, skip the store-bought stock. You can extract a cleaner, stronger broth from a combination of water and several pantry ingredients. It's all about layering powerful flavor-enhancers that you probably already have on hand - bacon, tomato paste, herbs, peppercorns, a Parm rind, and, of course, kosher salt.
