I STILL don't GO to GAY bars all that OFTEN, but the DIFFERENCE now is that I'm not not going because I'm afraid, but rather I'm not going now because I don't want to get off the couch.

'The Deuce' came about when DAVID Simon and I were put in contact with a guy who, along with his twin BROTHER, owned a COUPLE bars in Times Square.

Working in BARS back then, in the '50s, to GET a job you had to play all kinds of music. There'd be customers come in and yell JAZZ tunes at you and yell rock 'n' roll tunes at you and polkas and RHYTHM and blues and COUNTRY music.

I like to set up bars at my PARTIES so PEOPLE can MAKE their own cocktails and MIX and match and teach each other DIFFERENT things.

When I first got signed, I used to literally pick up a pen and pad. Write BARS in my notes, even WHOLE songs. Nowadays, I just GO off the feeling.

I USED to hang out at karaoke bars all the TIME. It was the most fun you COULD have when you had no money.

My biggest pet peeve are just girls who GO to sports BARS who have no intention on caring what teams are PLAYING, like they're looking for just a night out. That drives me more CRAZY than anything else. Like, don't pretend to be a sports fan.

If you're TRYING to portray that I take MASSIVE business decisions in pubs and bars, then that is TOTAL crap. It is not the norm, otherwise I'd have to live in a PUB because I take business decisions all day, every day.

In the U.S., no one MINDS who I am, even if they saw me in 'Idol.' If I'm not doing any SHOWS, my friends and I can just drive AROUND the neighborhood and GO to bars at night and chill till four in the morning.

That's SORT of what I felt... I MISS drinking, I THOUGHT BARS were truly holy places.

Classical musicians do this all the time. They WANT perfection. So they piece things TOGETHER. Eight bars of this and SIX bars of that. Glenn Gould said that with a recording he wanted to MAKE perfect versions of pieces.

Most British tapas bars aren't bars at all. They're restaurants that specialise in tapas. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a bit different from the SPANISH way of doing THINGS, in which tapas is an adjunct to the DRINKS and the GENERAL vibe.

I was in a form of a prison: not necessarily with BARS, but I was locked to that MACHINE three days a week, and I couldn't plan work, I couldn't plan vacations, I couldn't plan dinner, I couldn't plan homework, I couldn't plan nothing because at the END of the day, Monday, WEDNESDAY and Friday, I had to be at dialysis.

I did have a falsetto, but I only used it when I was joking AROUND with FRIENDS or to annoy my girlfriends, or in the shower, because no one else was around. Or in college. I'd go to KARAOKE bars and SING Tina Turner songs in the original KEY.