I found out about Sufjan Stevens in one of the most random ways, which was, uh, my college girlfriend in the mid 2000s, um, just had a random CD that was missing its cover art that she's like, "I don't really, I don't really care for this. Do you want it?" And she handed it to me. And it said like “Michigan” or something like that; “Say Yes to Michigan.” And I was like "Oh, okay. Yeah. Sure. I'll take this like random Michigan themed, you know, compact disc," because I would take any music at that point, you know, just add it to my like big CD folder that I had at home. And it's crazy. I, I figured it was just like something that like, a department store was handing out for free. Some novelty Michigan CD with random music on it. And nine times out of ten I wouldn't throw that into my CD player because what would be the point? It wouldn't even accept it. But for some reason I took it and then I threw it into my CD player and listened and I still thought it was novelty. I didn't think it was a real musical artist. I thought it was just someone piecing together random Michigan songs. And then somehow they started to just kind of like -- they worked for me, eventually. And it's like, "Oh, this is kind of unusual, not what I typically listen to, but somehow this works?" Um, ended up being Sufjan Stevens' ode to Michigan. It was an entire, uh, release of his that was dedicated to the state and it was beautiful. I had dabbled in like, folk or lighter music at times throughout my life, but I think that was kind of a real turning point where I was like, "Wait a second. This actually is kind of amazing?" And it sort of fostered this growth of, of an entirely different genre for me, of music that I care for and, and I love. So, um, it's weird how random that is. You know, if I don't take that CD on that particular day, or if I take it and I just add it to my CD rack ‘cause it says Michigan on it and I don't really care about what's inside or what's played on it… um, I don't know. It's just one of…

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio. When is the last time you felt like you had to square off against someone? What happened?  Ugh, I should have squared off today. One of my agents calls me. That's -- she's not even my agent. She works in the [City] office, but she was looking for one of my agents and she calls, and she refers to him, cause he's black, she says "Who is that colored guy that's in your office?" And I just -- so upsetting.  I should have said something then and there. But it's always like, whenever somebody is racist or discriminatory -- and this happens to me and my husband all the time because we both pass very well. Um, it's so shocking, it's so shocking when s*** like this happens that I just can't react properly. I'm not even prepared. I can't even be like "You should not use that word. Do not use that word. Period. There's no excuse for it." I'm just so shocked, I can't even respond, right, in these situations. And it happens to my husband all the time, because he wears a kippah out. Um, you know if he doesn't have his hat on, people know, right, and they say stupid s*** to him constantly. Luckily people don't know -- like since I changed my last name, people don't know, so they'll stay stupid s*** in front of me. But they still don't know. Um, but it's rare. Again if they say some stupid s*** -- I mean we’d have to be talking about Mexicans for them to, you know, say something stupid which usually isn't brought up. You know with him, it's on his f****** head. They know he's Jewish, they can see it. So I should've said something right away. But I didn't. And I thought about it and I thought about it. So I called our boss. I was like, “You know what, this is -- I've got to talk to somebody about it.” Cause it's not okay, not okay to say it. It's not a slip of the tongue, right? You don't just accidentally say things like that unless you use it constantly. You don't accidentally say the n-word unless you're constantly using it. You know what slips out of [my] mouth all the time? The word…