The other day I did an interview on Australian talk radio. The news about the Littleton, Colorado killings had just gone ’round the world and the show’s host said to me that it was typical for the USA to have this problem since there are too many guns there. While I agree with that sentiment in general, I disagree with the particulars and told him so. Violence will never be limited to guns… kids can throw rocks onto cars and buses from freeway bridges and kill people… or, in this case me and my band experienced in Brazil: somebody loosened the lugnuts of one of the wheels of a van taking us to the airport!! Luckily many drivers pointed at our wheels and our driver stopped and noticed that one wheel was barely hanging on by one lugnut only.

In 1996 I learned that Colorado had slashed funding for music and art classes in schools by 30%. You tell me what better way there is for an angry child/teenager to deal with anger than the arts? To learn to transfer the anger into music or onto a canvas?