Popular culture, the decline of the west, and cheese. Cheese is good!
Lou Reed, David Friedman and Allyson Hannigan. Among many others.
Loud guitars, plenty of angst, and a good hook are always welcome. Current obsessions: Richard Thompson, Phil Ochs, the Pernice Brothers, Aimee Mann, the Stooges, the Drive-By Truckers, Mission of Burma, Radio Birdman, the Schramms, Jack Nitzsche, Neko Case and Robert Quine.
You should be watching something by Peter Watkins right now. Really. Also Joe Dante's HOMECOMING. Always brilliant: Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Louis Malle and Billy Wilder.
Great television: King Of The Hill, Two and a Half Men, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, This Is Wonderland, My Name Is Earl, The Office, No. 1 Single. Used to be brilliant, now merely good: The Simpsons. Used to be great, now annoying: South Park. Huh?: Family Guy, The War At Home, American Idol, anything with David Spade.
Too many to count, though I've been re-reading and loving Michael Azzerad's OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE. Philip Roth's THE WAR AGAINST AMERICA and J. Hoberman's THE DREAM LIFE are pretty wonderful, too.
Pete Seeger, Mike Watt, Charles Schulz, Lenny Kaye, Ira Kaplan, Peter Guralnick, Richard Thompson, Lester Bangs, lots more.