I remember in high school thinking that I wanted to be a lawyer, and now I realize I saw that movie 'And Justice for All' when I was a kid and thought, 'That's what lawyers do, and I want to get up and yell and scream in the middle of a courtroom.'
Some guys, first pitch of the at-bat gets called a strike - maybe it's a ball off or below their knees, and it gets called a strike - and then the next two pitches, they swing at balls in the dirt, and all of a sudden, they're yelling at the umpire about that first pitch. You just swung at two balls in the dirt, buddy.
'Yellow Moon' was a poem. My wife at the time, Joel - she's dead now - it was our 25th anniversary. She had the chance to go on a cruise with her sister. And I'm home with the kids and looking up, and I saw the big moon, and I just started writing.
Between yellow ribbon magnets, patriotic anthems at sports games and corporate marketing campaigns, the rhetoric that those in uniform are protecting freedom is hammered into the psyche of Americans at every turn.
I've heard pro-lifers yell at abortion clinic workers that they should 'Repent!' Repent of what? They don't see what they are doing as something that needs to be repented of. Why? Because they are blinded. Do you think yelling at them will remove that blindness? Not likely.
I have seen women literally run into the abortion facility because someone was yelling Bible verses at them or pushing a graphic image in their faces.
I have no problem yelling at anybody's kid - free of charge!
Once I even took the train to Utrecht, forty miles from Amsterdam, with my yellow star, this star which I still have. Why did I go? I just wanted to visit some friends. I was a little bit crazy, a little bit insane.
I would love to be in an action movie. I've always wanted to play the hacker guy - like, the Jewy hacker guy who just gets yelled at.
You should feel good about yourself because of your accomplishments. Not because somebody yelled at you to feel good about yourself.
