"I found out about them from a friend in high school between my junior and senior year. He didn't know how to describe them except it sort of sounded like The Rolling Stones. I listened and I didn't hear that. It had that rootsiness to it maybe and that slight psychedelicness to it. I've listened to this album thousands of times but I don't have all of their records and I don't know what came before or after, but I do love this one. It's just a vibe the entire time. I remember being with that guy who told me about them on our way to high school one day. We were supposed to be at school at 8:30 in the morning and we met at 7:30 in the morning under some bridge to drink beer before we went to school. This is what we were listening to. I only did that once and it wasn't as fun as it sounded. But it was definitely a moment and it always stuck with me. It was a sunny day, cool out, probably a Thursday or Friday, long day of school ahead of us and we're kicking back drinking stolen beer in someone's car under bridge listing to The Perfect Prescription."

"[It] would have to be up there for sheer enthusiasm. I love it for a million reasons. It’s just such a celebration. But I think I also — god not to sound like too much of a shrink — I grew up in a family with lots of divorces and things. Growing up, the first couple I knew that were really, truly like Disney movie in love and devoted to each other was a gay couple. And then one of them died — of AIDS — and I remember I was so young; I was in junior high when it happened. It was still at a time when gay culture was so judged and so reviled in so many places. The movie was such a celebration of song and dance, but also of a gay lifestyle, and it was a beautiful thing to see at that point in my life. For there to be something out there in pop culture that was celebrating and not apologizing [for] all of that — I just thought it was brilliant."

"Let’s tall about Kurosawa‘s Dreams. When Bravo first came on television, they were figuring out who they were as a cable network and would just play random foreign films. This was before the travesty of reality television permeated their station. I was at home alone in high school, I think I was a junior in high school and Dreams comes on by Kurosawa. I could not separate myself from it. I didn’t know who Kurosawa was — I didn’t care. I was just a kid absorbing things that flashed on the screen in front of him. I was immediately captivated by this thing that was at once beautiful — obviously surreal — but at the same time palpable enough to actually hit home emotionally. I think not many people would probably describe scenes in my movies as surreal, but there are some. Kind of this magical realism that exists in that film. Also it feels ancient; it feels like when this boy comes home having witnessed the wedding of foxes and his mother’s there and says he can’t enter the home because he spied on the foxes and then presents a dagger to him and says, “They want you to kill yourself. Run. Run and ask for forgiveness.” It feels like an ancient story, it feels like something — I’m not sure what. It feels like something that kind of bubbled up from our beginning. I was fascinated by that. Just go watch it. It’s all skits, it’s basically short films strewn together. Get’s real weird by the end, but the first three are three of the greatest films I’ve ever seen."

"When I was in Junior High, I met this guy and he had a cassette with Minor Threat on one side and The Exploited on the other. He left it at my house, and I had a Walkman, so I popped it in as I was walking to school. I heard the first chord of “Filler” and then I stopped and turned around. I didn’t go to school that day. I listened to that cassette and I was ‘What is this? This is awesome, this is what I need right now. These people are speaking my language, and they’re young like me as well.’ That’s when I thought I could maybe write a song, record it and put it on a record. That’s all I thought. I didn’t want to be a famous rock star but maybe I could do that DIY stuff. Not like the rock stars who were bigger than life - it was hard to aspire to that - but this other stuff? Yeah, I could do this. Plus, I thought that girls would think it was pretty cool if I played the guitar and I was in a band. So I started a band and this song and the first Minor Threat record was a game changer for me. It also started my record collecting phase. After I got into Minor Threat, I got into Dischord Records - I wanted everything on that label, so I spent years collecting that stuff. I still have all the singles; I might still have it all of it. That band had a huge effect on me that led me to want to write and play music, but also it was a club I could belong to. I was part of something with it – I could put on a leather jacket and help my teenage angst."

"If I had to do my top 100 movies I think 15 to 20 of them would be Woody Allen movies. This is the toughest one for me to do because the instinct is to say Annie Hall, because it’s undeniably, I think, perfect — in terms of comedy, romantic comedy specifically. It’s one that, the older I get, I feel like I continue to grow with, and I check in with it every once in a while. Depending on where I am in my life and the relationships I’ve had, I can always glean something different from it or recognize some truth in it that I’ve experienced or yet to experience. It changes every time. If I were like an evangelical, crazy born-again it would be my Bible. It’s like having an old sage friend who you don’t see very often, who’s tremendously neurotic. I also relate to him so much just as a neurotic and an over-analyzer. I fell in love with him in junior high school when, you know, you’re going through your formative years and you’re realizing certain qualities about yourself. So when I was introduced to Woody Allen it was such a relief. He made me feel like it was okay; not only could I function with neuroses but I could thrive. And certainly with women you go through so many relationship questions and struggles and it’s just nice to know someone can take all of that and create entertainment and mine those life transitions for such comedy. There’s a lot of solace in that. But I also love him on a simple comedy level — I almost love his physical comedy and his slapstick as much. So if I had to pick just one, I would say “Every movie he made in the ’70s.” [laughs]"