In the late '70s maybe just before I started there was still an attitude that if you did film you didn't do TV and vice versa but that's gone now.

There are a lot of movies I'd like to throw away. That's not to say that I went in with that attitude. Any film I ever started I went in with all the hope and best intentions in the world but some films just don't work.

On 'Van Halen ' I was a young punk and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town gunslinger attitude. But I'd say that at the time of 'Fair Warning ' I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people's minds I'm just a gunslinger.

Smiles come naturally to me but I started thinking of them as an art form at my command. I studied all the time. I looked at magazines I'd practice in front of the mirror and I'd ask photographers about the best angles. I can now pull out a smile at will.

My parents started with very little and were the only ones in their families to graduate from college. As parents they focused on education but did not stop at academics - they made sure that we knew music saw art and theatre and traveled - even though it meant budgeting like crazy.

I was doing these performance art pop music pieces in the city. And they were a bit on the eccentric side I suppose. So people started to call me Gaga after the Queen song 'Radio Gaga.'

At the University of Maryland my first year I started off planning to major in art because I was interested in theatre design stage design or television design.

I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and whilst abroad underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them.

Once I got out of architecture school I decided not to be an architect I just started my own little design studio.

In my early 20s I was so miserable doing construction I wanted something that paid money. I liked nice stuff. I liked cars and architecture and things that cost money. I wanted to not swing a hammer and make money... and not do stuff that was dirty. I attempted to get into comedy. I started to do stand-up but I wasn't very good at it.