Music, sound, spending time with people I love, books, games, good beer, exercise (physical/mental/spiritual), entheogens, space (inner and outer), writing letters, beautiful places outside, possibilities.
Ever since I first heard the Music for the Royal Fireworks (which King George II, for whom Handel composed the work, liked so much that he made everyone stay while the orchestra played it THREE TIMES), I've wanted to play a coronation. Anyone who can hook me up with such a gig, let's talk.
J.S. Bach, Ozric Tentacles, Sonny Sharrock, Shudder to Think, Luke Vibert, Slayer, Frank Sinatra, Pizzicato Five, Emperor, Hoagy Carmichael, Brian Eno, Harold Budd, Nile, Eat Static, Part Time Sucker crew, G.F. Handel, Nirvana, Beck, Primus, Metallica, Frederic Chopin, Sonic Youth, John Coltrane, Stereolab, Leo Kottke, Michael Hedges, Kaki King, Pixies, Sugar, Quanta, my own acoustic stuff, the Roots, Kool Keith (in all his various incarnations), Sebalius, Gillian Welch, Panic Strikes a Chord, Jim Cullum Jazz Band, Trielefantrade, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Deconstruction, Dinosaur Jr, Icarus, Tom Petty + Heartbreakers, Spectrum, Creedence, East Indian classical music, Led Zeppelin, Ruins, Sebadoh, the Beatles, Hendrix, Grateful Dead, Steve Reich, Steve Roach, Zion Godfrey and Friends, Zyklon, Enslaved, Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval + Warm Inventions, Nodens Ictus, Igor Stravinsky, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, lots more...
Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, To Live, Hero, Crouching Tiger), Werner Herzog (Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Stroszek [sp], Heart of Glass, Fitzcarraldo), John Woo (pre-Hollywood stuff like Hard Boiled, the Killer), Ahn-Hung Trahn (the Scent of Green Papaya, Cyclo), Jackie Chan (older stuff, tho some of the new stuff is good too), Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Throne of Blood)
Recently, Star Trek: Voyager (haters fuck off--it rules).
High Priest, Neuropolitique, VALIS trilogy, Foundation trilogy, The Elric Saga, Book 4, Raja-Yoga, True Hallucinations, Cosmic Trigger, The Way of Chuang Tzu (Merton trans.), Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters (Hinton trans.), Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics, Poems of T'ao Chien (Hinton trans.), Mountain Poems of Hsieh Ling-Yun (Hinton trans.), Poetry of Li Po and Tu Fu (Cooper trans.), The Apollonian Clockwork (Andriessen and Schonberger), plenty more.
My parents, grandparents and family, all my good friends, Bill Okon.