Acting has given me a way to channel my angst. I feel like an overweight pimply faced kid a lot of the time - and finding a way to access that insecurity and put it toward something creative is incredibly rewarding. I feel very lucky.

I'm in prison. But my heart and mind is free. Gangsta haters on the streets are doing more time than me. They need 30 police escorts with them every time they walk down the street.

I think I'm also more open to other writers being present and listening to other opinions whereas before I was going through my angsty teen years while making records.

I had teen angst for a while but I think every teenager has the angst.

When I started out as a music journalist at the end of the 1980s it was generally assumed that we were living through the lamest music era the world would ever see. But those were also the years when hip-hop exploded beatbox disco soared indie rock took off and new wave invented a language of teen angst.

I was a quiet teenager introverted full of angst.

We cannot escape that Hollywood is in the middle of a wave of technological change. The current angst over all the implications of new entertainment technology is nothing new.

I would suggest that teachers show their students concrete examples of the negative effects of the actions that gangsta rappers glorify.

It's much easier to write when you're sad. But you can end up isolated and depressed because you almost need to put yourself in that situation to have that angst to write from.

A lot of my friends are gangsters. Not like gangsters - well yeah all sorts of levels of criminality - but not the types that are preying on innocent people. I have no interest in the type of criminality that has no respect for collateral damage.