Prior to being mugged I did not feel I had to carry a gun. However, I knew how to shoot a gun very proficiently. As a boy, I used to play cowboys and Indians all the time.

To shoot a gun proficiently, including speed shooting, is much less of a skill than typing.

During my jury selection process, we went through over 360 jurors. It took six months, all New York residents. Of the 360 jurors, over half of them had been mugged one time. Quite a number of them, maybe 30 40, 50, had been mugged twice.

You know how some people complain about the way carriage horses are treated? That they are in a small stall? That is mistreatment. In a holding cell, you get very bored. You have no newspapers, you have no anything.

I thought I was a pretty good physical specimen. But there was a teenager from Brooklyn, who basically wiped the floor with me on the street. He gave me a punch that I didn't even feel. All I knew I was looking up at the sky. I tried to fight him, and I got a number of injuries after that.

With my time in the limelight, I regret that I didn't use it more to push vegetarianism. I support vegetarian options in the school lunch program.