Music. Movies. Writing. Reading. Philosophy. Art. History. Humor. Science. Food. Photography. Nature. Politics. Girls. (Not Always In That Particular Order)
Here's a few of my favorite quotes:
"In dwelling, be close to the land. In meditation, go deep in the heart. In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. In speech, be true. In ruling, be just. In daily life, be competent. In action, be aware of the time and the season. No fight: no blame." ~ Tao Te Ching
"Those diseases which medicines do not cure, the knife cures; those which the knife cannot cure, fire cures; and those which fire cannot cure, are to be reckoned wholly incurable." ~ from Hippocrates’ Aphorisms, circa 400 B.C.
"All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else." ~ Buddha
a Buddha statue in Ayutthaya Thailand.
"A woman is more beautiful than the world in which I live; and so I close my eyes." ~ French poet Paul Eluard
"To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry." ~ Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher and poet
"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself." ~ Henry Miller
"The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism." ~ Albert Camus
"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer." ~ Albert Camus
"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." ~ Soren Kierkegaard
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." ~ Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness (1930)
"All history shows that great power is intoxicating. Fortunately, the modern holders of power are not yet quite aware how much they could do if they chose, but when this knowledge dawns upon them a new era in human tyranny is to be expected." ~ Betrand Russell, The Scientific Outlook, pg. 153
"The man drunk with power is destitute of wisdom, and so long as he rules the world, the world will be a place devoid of beauty and of joy." ~ Bertrand Russell, The Scientific Outlook, pg. 259
"Chance does not speak essentially through words nor can it be seen in their convolution. It is the eruption of language, its sudden appearance. It's not a night twinkle with stars, an illuminated sleep, nor a drowsy vigil. It is the very edge of consciousness." ~ Michel Foucault
"The Bible is not my book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma." ~ Abraham Lincoln
"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time." ~ Abraham Lincoln
"What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism... For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving towards a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, from the Preface to The Will to Power (1901)
"When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance or distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of happiness; when those things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government." ~ Thomas Paine
"There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus — and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all!! That doesn’t mean — I know it will be interpreted to mean, unfortunately, by the bigots who run The Examiner, for example — that doesn’t mean that you have to break anything. One thousand people sitting down some place, not letting anybody by, not [letting] anything happen, can stop any machine, including this machine! And it will stop!!"~ Mario Savio, during his Sit-in Address on the steps of Sproul Hall, The University of California at Berkeley, December 2nd, 1964
Brood on that country who expresses our will. She is America, once a beauty of magnificence unparalleled, now a beauty with a leprous skin. She is heavy with child -- no one knows if legitimate -- and languishes in a dungeon whose walls are never seen. Now the first contractions of her fearsome labor begins -- it will go on; no doctor exists to tell the hour. It is only known that false labor is not likely on her now, no, she will probably give birth, and to what? the most fearsome totalitarianism the world has ever known? or can she, poor giant, tormented lovely girl, deliver a babe of a new world brave and tender, artful and wild? Rush to the locks. God writhes in his bonds. Rush to the locks. Deliver us from our curse. For we must end on the road to that mystery where courage, death, and the dream of love give promise of sleep." ~Norman Mailer, Armies of the Night,(1968)
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ~ Albert Einstein
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." ~ Albert Einstein
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." ~ Albert Einstein
"I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war." ~ Albert Einstein
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." ~ Albert Einstein
"As one's mind becomes preoccupied with theoretical or scientific issues, one may have less attention, time or emotion available for other things. But there are lots of highest-power intellectuals who stay interested in music, like Einstein. Darwin may have been as absorbed in thinking about evolution as Freud was absorbed in thinking about psychoanalysis when he went to operas. All of us are apt to get a little desiccated if we don't make a point of holding on to the delights of art and music and landscape. It's very easy to become preoccupied with theorizing and the activities of daily living and stop noticing the beauties of the world."
~Dr. Oliver Sacks, in a 2007 Wired magazine interview, on the topic of "Darwin losing his youthful passion for music as his mind became a "machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of fact."
"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet." ~ Stephen Hawking, the famous cosmologist who discovered that black holes are not completely black, but emit radiation and eventually evaporate and disappear.
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" ~ Jack Kerouac
"Acid is not for every brain...Only the healthy, happy, wholesome, handsome, hopeful, humorous, high-velocity should seek these experiences. This elitism is totally self-determined. Unless you are self-confident, self-directed, self-selected, please abstain." ~ Dr. Timothy Leary
"Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration -- that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves...Here's Tom with the weather " ~ Bill Hicks (Comedian, obviously)
"New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become." ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country." ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason." ~ Hunter S. Thompson, page 43, Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation, published by Summit Books in 1988 (usually a variation of this quote is attributed to the music business, not the TV business, but it really fits the music biz!).
"I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling." ~ Hunter S. Thompson on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
"The future don't matter to us. Nothing matters now - not the land, not the money, not the woman." ~ Once Upon a Time in the West [1968]
"You'll just end up like all the other gringos - drinking tequila, shitting out chili peppers...and waiting for nothing." ~ Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid [1973]
"You can always tell a man who's got something on his mind. He keeps talkin' to people he don't know. Now what is it you're tryin' to tell me?" ~ Arch Harris (Warren Oates) in The Hired Hand (to an insistently insinuating stranger in a bar).
"There's an old saying...'to the victor goes the spoils.'"
"There's another saying, Senator: 'Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.'"
~
The Outlaw Josey Wales [1976]
“Pain or damage don’t end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man… and give some back.†~ Al Swearengen, Deadwood
"Morning. Best time of day to go fuck yourself!" ~ Dan Dority, Deadwood
I'd like to meet:
I'd like to meet Audie England, again. I actually knew her, briefly, back in the early 80s. She was a customer who frequented a record store where I worked, and I flirted with her a lot (nothing ever came of it). She told me she was in a Don Henley video back then. She went on to star in movies, mostly soft-core Skinemax cable flicks like The Red Shoe Diaries and Delta Of Venus . She lives in L.A. and I saw her having dinner once at Musso & Franks, but didn't speak with her. It'd be fun to run into her again sometime. She's a doll, doncha think?:
To be honest, most of the time when I've met someone I've always wanted to meet -- and by that, I mean a personal hero, or a famous celebrity, whatever -- it's been a let-down. Your heroes never live up to your expectations, you know? So, I don't think there's anyone I'm particularly hoping to meet in my lifetime. Unless it's you. Have I met you yet?
Music:
Music has been one of the cornerstones of my life for as long as I can remember. Some of my favorites (in no particular order, really, except I will probably always love the Beatles first and foremost!):
The Beatles, Pink Floyd, John Lennon, John Coltrane, Spritualized, Honeybus, Winter Flowers, Arthur Lee & Love, Caetano Veloso, the Small Faces, The Dillards, Super Furry Animals, My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Fanclub, Elliott Smith, The Zombies, Eric Dolphy, Big Star, Ride, Robin Trower, Ravi Shankar, The Electric Prunes, The Count Five, Randy Weeks, Donovan, Neil Young,
Tony Gilkyson, The Flaming Lips, Terry Reid, The International Submarine Band, Kings Of Convenience, T-Rex, Bruce Langhorne, Bob Dylan, Lilys, Eagles (1st couple of albums anyway), Fleetwood Mac, The Rain Parade, Les Fleur De Lys, Paul McCartney, Roger Nichols and the Small Circle of Friends, The Seeds, Little Richard, Richard Ashcroft, The Verve, To Rococo Rot, M. Ward, Yo La Tengo, Wondermints, The Sweet, Jo Jo Gunne,
The Jayhawks, Ry Cooder, The Turtles, the Left Banke, The Association, Blue Mountain Eagle, Comet Gain, Buffalo Springfield, Dwight Twilley, Indian Jewelry, the Lammas Night Laments series, My Morning Jacket, Barclay James Harvest, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the Black Crowes, Roy Harper, Outrageous Cherry, The Tyde, Beachwood Sparks,
Soundtrack Of Our Lives, Fairport Convention, Ian Hunter, John Fahey, Rockfour, Gillian Welch, Merle Haggard, Led Zeppelin, Califone, The Kinks, The Damnation of Adam Blessing, Rick Nelson, Friends of Dean Martinez, Tim O'Reagan, Blodwyn Pig, Clarence White, Guy Clark, Dead Meadow, Supergrass, West Indian Girl, The Grateful Dead,
Dave Alvin, Stereolab, Traffic, Owsley, The Chamber Strings, Nikki Sudden, Poco, The Incredible String Band, Family, The Lovetones, Robert Wyatt, Iron & Wine, Bonnie Raitt, World Of Oz, Graham Nash, Miles Davis, The Skygreen Leopards, the Jigsaw Seen, the Louvin Brothers, Mojave 3, Sara Melson, Miranda Lee Richards, Cowboy Junkies, Nick Garrie, The Poets, Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, Os Mutantes, Mellow Candle, the Arrows, Vetiver, Heart (early stuff!), Batdorf & Rodney, Wilco, Jeff Tweedy, Devendra Banhart,
Serge Gainsbourg, early 70's Aerosmith, Spacemen 3, CSNY, Van Morrison, The Outlaws, The Raspberries, The Pernice Brothers, Scud Mountain Boys, Andrew Gold/Byrds Of A Feather, Sparklehorse, Man, Strawbs, Bart Davenport, Stackwaddy, The Groundhogs, Howlin' Wolf, Howlin' Rain, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Sun-era Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, Nick Cave, John Prine, Tin Tin, Ian Matthews, Comus, Rogue Wave, Matthew Sweet, Maplewood, Ringo Starr, All Night Radio, Skip Spence, Gene Clark,
Waylon Jennings, The United States of America, The Liquor Giants, Steve Wynn, Van Dyke Parks, Louis Armstrong, Tom Waits, The Hollies, Johnny Dowd, Beethoven's Late Quartets, John Kongos, The Ozark Mtn. Daredevils, Phil Spector & Jack Nitzsche's awesome productions, mostly girl groups, The Volebeats, The Who, Bukka White, John Doe, Elf Power, The Jam, Animal Collective, The Flame, Dennis Wilson, Lucinda Williams,
The Pretty Things, pre-Aja Steely Dan, DJ Nobody, Delta, Mick Ronson, Venice, The Dream Syndicate, The Mamas & The Papas, The Flatlanders, Bob Lind, Roy Orbison, James Burton, Dinosaur Jr., J Mascis & The Fog, The Earlies, Maple Mars, Shooter Jennings, Thin Lizzy, The MC5, 13th Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson, Charles Mingus, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Byrds, David Crosby,
Blind Willie McTell, Belle & Sebastian, Buck Owens, Stalk-Forrest Group, Chet Atkins, The Beach Boys (circa '66-'71), Calexico, Neal Casal, X, High Llamas, Spindrift, The Go, Spirit, Badfinger, Doug Sahm/Sir Douglas Quintet, Cocteau Twins, Bread, Jason Falkner, The High Dials, Warren Zevon, Judee Sill, Ennio Morricone's spaghetti western soundtracks, I See Hawks In L.A., Kris Kristofferson,
Luna, Carole King, Richard Buckner, The Stooges, Son House, Languis, Olivia Tremor Control, Jim Ford, Henry Mancini, Grapefruit, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Midlake, Area Code 615, Air, Fairechild, The Dirtbombs, Engineers, Troy Gregory & the Witches, Moby Grape, Lewis Taylor, Django Reinhardt, Curtis Mayfield, Electric Light Orchestra, The Black Keys, Meic Stevens, Espers, The Radar Bros., Crabby Appleton, Nick Drake,
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Elizabeth Cotten, Kim Fowley, Bodine, Tim Easton, Kasenatz/Katz, Burt Bacharach and Hal David's 60's songs (esp. those performed by Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield), Karen Dalton, Bridget st. John, Silversun Pickups, Golden Smog, Deep Purple, George Harrison, Faces, Tony Joe White,
New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Davie Allan & The Arrows, Idaho Falls, Swervedriver, Cloud Eleven, Beulah, The Warlocks, Mystic Chords Of Memory, Silver Sunshine, The Black Angels, Kaleidoscope *UK, Ghost with Damon & Naomi, Bee Gees (early stuff), Hank Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Nic Jones, Jet, The Cosmic Rough Riders/Daniel Wylie, The Shins, Elton John (early stuff), the Rolling Stones (particulary circa '65-'75), Townes Van Zandt, Johnny Cash, Vashti Bunyan,
The Wicker Man soundtrack, David Bowie, Linda Rondstadt, Bert Jansch, Willie Nelson, David Sylvian, Leafhound, the Moon, Joy Division, Destroyer, The Cleaners From Venus, We All Together, Euphoria, Harry Nilsson, The Action, Primal Scream, Brian Eno, Emmit Rhodes/The Merry-Go-Round, the Jamme, Pete Ham, Neu!, France Gall, Scott Walker, Billy Nicholls, the Wackers, The Flaming Groovies, The Quarter After, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Free Electricity, The Aerovons, the Brian Jonestown Massacre,
Brendon Benson, The Decemberists, Acetone, Milk N' Cookies, the Curt Boettcher-produced albums by the Millennium and Sagittarius, The Moon Upstairs, Pink Mountaintops, James Taylor, Fred Neil, The Sid Hillman Quartet, Todd Rundgren, Mortimer, Nelson Bragg, Thomas & Richard Frost, Linda Perhacs,
The Clientele, The Hacienda Bros., The Smoke (UK & US), Jackson Browne, John Cale, the Thrills, Wiskey Biscuit, Future Pigeon, Syd Barrett, Smallstone, Electromagnetic, Flying Saucer Attack, The Charlatans, Lou Reed, Humble Pie, Free, The Move, Leslie Stevens - Leslie & The Badgers
Andre Williams, Eric Matthews, Frank Sinatra, Rainbow Ffolly, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Roxy Music, Lee Hazlewood, Postal Service, Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson, America, Yoko Ono, The Allman Brothers/Gregg Allman, Djivan Gasparyan, Mark Eric, Steve Earle, The Court & Spark, Blossom Toes, Mike Stinson, the Stories, The Godz, The Band,
Robert Johnson, The Velvet Underground (and Nico!), The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Traveling Wilburys, Neil Halstead, The Doors, The Shore/Ben Ashley, Felt, Marc Carroll, Television, Bobby Jameson, Leon Russell, Cheap Trick, Elvis Costello (and the Attractions), Rockpile/Nick Lowe/Dave Edmunds, The Monkees, Octopus, Roy Wood/Wizzard, The Steve Miller Band, The Fugs, Little Walter, Gram Parsons/the Flying Burrito Brothers,
Junior Kimbrough, Bob Marley, The Clash, Bo Diddley, Link Wray, Dr. John, Tim Buckley, Twice As Much, Richard Twice, Old 97s, Ryan Adams, Uncle Tupelo, The Hudson Brothers, Gary Higgins, Dntel, Wings, Mud, The James Gang, Mott The Hoople, all the Nuggets I and Nuggets II bands (all of 'em), Robyn Hitchcock, The Bobby Fuller Four, Epic Soundtracks, Dungen, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Amon Duul, Michael Hurley, Karen Carpenter's gorgeous voice, Glen Campbell, The Album Leaf, Simon & Garfunkel, Hawkwind, Spindrift, LSD & The Search For God, Kevin Ayer/Soft Machine, Various Tropicalia, The Yardbirds, The End...literally, and literally I could list thousands more!
Movies:
As people sometimes like to say, they haven't been makin' 'em like they used to. A lot of my favorite movies seem to have been made during the gritty realism "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls"-era, from the late 60's to mid-to-late 70's, pre-blockbusters, pre-CGI, pre-big budgets and years before our current celebrity-obsessed pop cultural approach to movies kicked into high gear. I've particularly liked American movies from this period -- lots of action-packed crimes thrillers and revisionist westerns and black comedies, especially, and have a strong feeling for handful distributed by the short-lived Warner Brothers-Seven Arts company, between 1967 and 1969.
A good way to catch up on the great 70's movies you may have missed is to check out the fully-expanded version of A Decade Under the Influence: The 70's Films That Changed Everything -- a really remarkable documentary co-directed by Ted Demme, which explores the rise and fall of new American filmmaking in the 1970s, and features interviews with Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Roger Corman, Hal Ashby, Dennis Hopper and many, many others. It originally aired on IFC (the Independent Film Channel), though I'm sure it's out on DVD now.
Some of the movies I've enjoyed so far in my life include (in no particular order):
The Long Goodbye,
Midnight Cowboy,
Touch Of Evil,
The Indian Runner,
Straight Time,
Los Olvidados,
The Night Of The Hunter,
The Conversation,
Joe Kidd,
High Plains Drifter,
Five Easy Pieces,
Lolita (1962),
Pulp Fiction,
Lost In America,
Being John Malkovich,
Papillon,
Defending Your Life,
Big Jake,
Pocket Money,
Dogtown & Z-Boys,
Soylent Green,
Roman Polanksi's Repulsion,
Badlands,
Born To Win,
Catch-22,
Scarecrow,
Point Blank, Blood Simple, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing , Breakheart Pass , In Cold Blood, Rio Bravo, Rafferty & The Gold Dust Twins, Shampoo, Rancho Deluxe, The Devil's Rain, North Dallas Forty, No Country For Old Men, Emperor Of The North Pole , Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Hombre, Fargo, A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More , The Good, The Bad and The Ugly , Once Upon A Time In The West , Duck, You Sucker!/A Fistful of Dynamite and all of the "spaghetti" westerns, especially Django, The Big Gundown, The Great Silence , and many of the films directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood,
The Mystery Of Kaspar Hauser, Even Dwarfs Started Small, The Thin Red Line, Goin' South, The Missouri Breaks, The Deerhunter, Heaven's Gate, Night Moves, Cutter's Way, Jackie Brown, The Kid Stays In The Picture , Chinatown, The Two Jakes, Cutter's Way, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Wicker Man (1973), The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The French Connection, Serpico, The Cincinnati Kid, The Sting, The Last Detail, Rolling Thunder, Blazing Saddles, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? , Cool Hand Luke,
Being There, The Claim, Charley Varrick, The Doberman Gang, They Only Kill Their Masters, Kelly's Heroes, The Mechanic ,The Hired Hand (great soundtrack by Bruce Langhorne!), Rio Lobo, Smile (1975), McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Gimme Shelter, Fat City, Harold & Maude, M*A*S*H*, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, Reservoir Dogs, The Hospital, Cisco Pike,
Easy Rider, Rosemary's Baby, Dr. Stangelove, Body Heat, Heat(1995), Electra Glide In Blue , True Grit, McKenna's Gold, 100 Rifles, Guns for San Sebastian , Hustle, The Sentinel (1977),The Laughing Policeman, Dog Day Afternoon , Office Space, The Shawshank Redemption, Vertigo, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Grizzly Man, Caddyshack, Deliverance, Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway,
The Longest Yard(1974), A Clockwork Orange, Zachariah, Greaser's Palace, The Graduate, The Shining, The Shooting, Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!, Slither(1973), Sometimes A Great Notion,The Motorcycle Diaries, The Big Lebowski, Honcho, The Corporation(documentary), Rushmore, Billy Jack, Race With The Devil, Woodstock, The Wild Bunch, Shalako, The Trip, Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid,
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, Jeremiah Johnson, Sunset Boulevard, The Exorcist, The Dirty Dozen, Sullivan's Travels, Performance, The Rain People, Zabriskie Point, Panic In Needle Park, Elephant Man, Drugstore Cowboy, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, Quadrophenia, Freaks(1932), The Parallax View, Bless The Beasts & The Children, Paris, Texas, Barton Fink, Putney Swope, El Topo
The Apartment, The Godfather I & II, The Last Picture Show, Hud, Blue Velvet, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Mean Streets, Raging Bull,Harry In Your Pocket, Johnny Guitar, Gun Crazy, The Seven-Ups, Betty Blue, The Omega Man , Animal House, Two-Lane Blacktop,
Stardust Memories, The Life & Times Of Judge Roy Bean, Riot On Sunset Strip, This Is Spinal Tap, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Bonnie & Clyde, Rear Window, Rope, Vanishing Point, Tom Horn,
...and literally thousands more!
By the way, I'm really against this horrible illegal "war" we've started in Iraq, which I see is basically our U.S. occupation a country that didn't ask us to come over and take over, and if you'd like to know more about this, I highly recommend going over to your local video store, or heading over to NetFlix, and renting all of these great films: BattleGround: 21 Days On The Empire's Edge, Uncovered: The Truth About the Iraq War, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Fahrenheit 9/11, or any of the literally dozens of great documentary films which all show the real truth about what's going on over there.
Television:
Lately, I've been watching a lot of documentaries, Sunday morning political talk shows, and historical and scientific-related shows on the History or Discovery channel rather than wasting my time with reality TV, the one-hundred millionth episode of one of the CSI's, or the one-hundred millionth episode of one of the Law & Order's or all those network sitcoms I never watch, the ones that star people like Jim Belushi, or some horribly oafish stand-up comedian I don't really find all that funny (though I do enjoy NBC's The Office !!, now that's a funny show!)
Deadwood has been my favorite show for the past few years, and I'll miss it terribly (RIP), but I also like watching The Sopranos (RIP?), The Wire, Rescue Me (RIP?), The Shield, Dexter, and a few other TV shows here and there. One of my favorite TV shows of all time was Twin Peaks; I also enjoy watching the Sundance Channel, IFC and lots of other movie channels too.
Books:
I've enjoyed reading books by so many writers over the years, including numerous works of fiction and non-fiction by these writers: William S. Burroughs, Albert Camus, Euroda Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Richard Hugo, Wallace Stegner, Richard Brautigan, William Faulkner, Andre Gide, Norman Mailer, William Kittredge, Haruki Murakami, Vladimir Nabokov, Paul Bowles, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Thomas Pynchon, John Steinbeck, Annie Proulx, William Styron, Carson McCullers, Cormac McCarthy, Nathanael West, and so many more...it would be impossible to list them all. Seriously. Impossible!
Some of my personal favorites, books I continue to return to again and again, books I recommend, include: John Fante's Ask The Dust, The Road To Los Angeles and other novels, Tom McGuane's To Skin A Cat and other shorter fiction, J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye and other writings, Henry Miller's Tropic Of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn and other writings, Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Knut Hamsun's Hunger, Oscar Zeta Acosta's The Autobiography Of A Brown Buffalo, John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy Of Dunces , Charles Bukowski's Women, Ham On Rye, Hollywood and other writings, Hubert Selby's Last Exit To Brooklyn, Richard Ford's The Sportswriter and other writings, Louis-Ferdinand Celine's Death On The Installment Plan and Journey To The End Of Night, Feodor Dostoyevsky's short novels, especially Notes From The Underground, Albert Camus' Exile & The Kingdom short stories and other works, including The Plague, Franz Kafka's novels and shorter writings, Jack Kerouac's On The Road, The Dharma Bums and other writings, Norman Mailer's The Naked and The Dead and Tough Guys Don't Dance, among others, Jim Thompson's crime novels, especially The Killer Inside Me and After Dark, My Sweet, Norman Mailer's The Naked and The Dead, Andre Gide's The Immoralist, Horace McCoy's Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years Of Solitude and other novels and short stories, Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch, Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire: A Season In the Wilderness, Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, William Kennedy's Ironweed, a lot of the books in the Vintage Contemporaries series (1984-1994ish), and so many more!
Heroes:
All of my heroes have let me down in one way or another, so I don't have any current heroes, but I admire people who find a way to make a living by doing whatever it is they love to do. I haven't made up my mind who I'm voting for in November '08 -- the elections are still a long way off, and a lot can happen before then. I respect Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and particularly Governor Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico), and also Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) (he says he's not running for President, which is a shame) and I'm also keeping an eye on Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) and former Senator John Edwards (D-North Carolina) -- and I'm also watching Texas Republican congressman Ron Paul's ascent, though I have to say, I don't agree with him on every issue, but I have to respect some of his more liberal (Liberterian) views. And hooray for filmmaker Michael Moore! And Noam Chomsky! And Howard Zinn!
Past "heroes" *(for lack of a better word) have included: Salvador Dali, Neil Young (still sorta fond of ol' Shakey), Billy Wilder, Hal Ashby, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern, Peter Fonda, John Lennon and I guess I've admired a lot of existentialist writers, especially in my twenties, including Soren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus.
