I spend up to two hours a day on correspondence. Hearing from fans on the Internet and being able to directly respond to the fan base is exciting. You can cut out the middle man like the fan club... before a recent appearance in Tyler Texas I had fans reaching out on MySpace offering their lake house Mavericks tickets. It was amazing.

Recently I went to a disco with friends and all the young people were saying 'Dudamel we want to go to your concert but it's impossible because it's sold out.' It's really amazing.

Recently I've been doing risottos. Some of them have been amazing. Some of them not all of them.

At that time I had recently finished a book called Amazing Grace which many people tell me is a very painful book to read. Well if it was painful to read it was also painful to write. I had pains in my chest for two years while I was writing that book.

I'm vulnerable to criticism. Any artist is because you work alone in your studio and until recently critics were the only way you'd get any feedback.

Michelle Pfeiffer hasn't been finding a lot of work recently because she doesn't like what a woman her age is offered. That's a real double standard. You get Sean Connery who gets older and older still playing opposite young ladies but it doesn't work the other way around.