My friends and I would get up early and take our horses through the national forest. My mom was very free. It was always 'Out of the house!' There was no watching television on weekends.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I had the best of both worlds when I was a kid. I'd spend a quiet week with my mum, then I'd go to my dad's property in the Adelaide Hills, where there were all these kids and animals running around.
I would leave school every day and walk to my grandparents' house under the El because everyone worked. I was 6 and walking home alone from school. It was a different city and a different time.
I spent a long time away from my parents when I was younger. I would go hunting and fishing with my uncle, and we would go for weeks at a time. I also spent a lot of time in Texas with my grandparents.
I would go visit my mom on Sundays, and my brother was working on stuff. I'd go in there and sing a little melody, then we started working with words and the next thing you know it was just born organically without really trying.
As a kid, I was just led out in the morning to go spend my day with my friends and just run in the woods. And I'd only come home to eat or when I was thirsty.
My parents were brutal to each other, so I slept in the basement by an old coal-fired furnace. I became a street kid. Occasionally, I'd live with aunts or uncles, then I'd run away to live in the woods, trapping and hunting game to survive. The wilderness pulled at me; still does.
When I was a kid, I would come home from school, and my mom would buy the industrial-size Famous Amos cookies or Chips Ahoy when I was lucky. And I would sit in front of the TV set with a glass of milk... and I would dump cookies in there, smash them with my spoon, and eat cookies and milk with a spoon watching 'The Dukes of Hazzard.'
I'd come to the country to do my Thoreau bit, so I needed an office that looked out onto the woods for inspiration. I converted one of the bedrooms into my workspace and through its windows watched the wildlife appear each morning with the sunrise. Many were the days I would sit in wonder, coffee in hand, for hours.
I'd get home at 3:30 A.M. from the bar after my shift ended at 1. I'd write jokes, film it, and then sleep. So I did that for two years.
As a child, I had to get up early for school or work. I'd get ready by myself. I'd set my alarm to wake me up very early in the morning, and be off to work, the family driver driving me every morning. I did it alone, my parents never coming in to wake me up.