Dictators have an old trick to assess the strength of their opposition: they say something patently untrue, and then look to see who mindlessly repeats it. Those who do, they recognise as their true supporters.
I first went to Barcelona in 1975 after university, and I stayed for three years. I learnt Catalan because that’s what everyone speaks in the mountains. They speak English to foreigners, but what people say to each other is much more important than what they say to you.
I mean, the people who run Guantanamo, the military, pretty much dismiss complaints by the detainees because they say that they’re all created as part of a political process to sort of fake complaints and get public support.
Hopefully everybody in the audience thinks, ‘That’s cool. I could do that.’ I don’t like the thought that they say, ‘I saw the Beastie Boys last night, and they’re mega-stars.’ I’m a lot happier when the kids who come backstage or to the hotel try to give us tapes of what they’ve done instead of just getting an autograph.
It seems like women don’t want men to be men anymore. They want men to be women. But they really don’t want what they say they want. It’s very weird.
If you’re old and you lose, they say you’re outmoded. If you’re young and you lose, they say you’re green. So don’t lose.
Sometimes, with directors, you have to take what they say and translate it in your head, into something that makes sense to you, because you’re speaking two different languages.
