For 25 years it has been my privilege to represent the city of San Francisco and the great state of California to work to strengthen our vibrant middle class to secure opportunity and equality.

The value of an arts education is widely accepted especially in California.

With my ministry of light part of what I do is work on the California Alliance For Arts Education.

I'm on Governor Gray Davis' California Alliance Towards Education to bring the arts back to high schools.

Because if you don't have a great workforce a great higher education system you're not going to have the next eBay the next AmGen the next you know Miasole and not only California but America is going to fall behind a whole new competitive context which is obviously China India and other countries.

It's not like I had big dreams to go to California and become an actor. I loved doing my shows at school and community theater and I probably would have settled in New York because it was closer. I was going to go to NYU.

Well my thoughts about California are kind of mythological. To me as well as being a real place it's a place where people go to find something - to find happiness or to realize their dreams. So it has that kind of quality of heroism and heartache and Australia has that as well.

I always wanted to be a Californian. In my wildest dreams I always liked California - it's the place where oranges grows on trees! Fruit just falls off the trees.

I came at age in the '60s and initially my hopes and dreams were invested in politics and the movements of the time - the anti-war movement the civil rights movement. I worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign for president as a teenager in California and the night he was killed.

If you're the type of person who has to fulfill your dreams you've gotta be resourceful to make sure you can do it. I came out to California when I was 21 thinking my New York credentials would take me all the way. I came back home a year later all dejected and a failure.