Painting, ancient herbal medicine, finding out how all my ancestors were executed, Appalachian Voodoo, serial killers, making mojo hands and juju bags, Pennsylvania Dutch hex magic, Jhonen Vasquez stuff, medieval history especially the gory and plague-ridden bits, English history in general up to the Hanoverians but not after, hillbilly/psychobilly culture, building miniature houses and furniture, collecting antiques that are actually older than I am, Japanese and Thai cooking, Edward Gorey, collecting rare books/first editions, Hello Kitty, cool people, weird people, cool weird people, lizards, Egyptian, Chinese, and African art, Civil War atrocities, collecting maneki nekos, making my own potions-lotions-perfumes, making quilts, finding famous and infamous cousins, mendhi, expensive wines especially if someone else is buying them, beer when I'm buying, occult jewelry, and a lot more boring stuff. I like telling people more than they'll ever really want to know about me. If you are ever unfortunate enough to actually meet me, you'll soon ask yourself: "Why did I bother? I missed a good show on TV for this?"
I'd like to meet:
First off, somebody with a LOT of money and a giving disposition and/or dreamy blue eyes and at least a half-case of PBR. I think I may also need an agent at some point. Or maybe a parole officer. As to the rest of you: most of the other people I'd really like to meet are dead already. To tell the truth, all I have to do is wish I could meet them and they generally die the next week, so I am naming NO NAMES here, you all know who you are. Yes, you do. You know you do. A further fact: in recent months a couple of people whom I always wanted to meet have died, even though I didn't mention their names, so watch your ass.
Music:
Acid Horse, Afro Celt Sound System, Air, Aphex Twin, the Avalanches, the Baltimore Consort, Afrika Bambaataa, Bartok, Basement Jaxx, Blackmanna, Boards of Canada, the Bonzo Dog Band, David Bowie, James Brown, Burning Spear, John Cale, Captain Beefheart, Joe King Carrasco, Johnny Cash, Alice Cooper, Celtic Cross, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, the Chemical Brothers, Copland, the Cramps, Crystal Method, Daft Punk, Darude, Miles Davis, Devo, the Dickies, the Dictators, Dread Zeppelin, Dvorak, Dave Edmunds, Eno, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Firesign Theater, Bryan Ferry, Future Sounds of London, Dexter Gordon, Al Green, Groove Armada, GWAR, Henry VIII, Alan Hovhaness, Iggy especially without his pants, the Kinks, Kraftwerk, Ladytron, League of Gentlemen, Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Lo Fidelity All Stars, Lene Lovich, Meat Beat Manifesto, Bill Monroe, Mudwimin, NY Dolls, the Orb, Orbital, Maceo Parker, Parliament, Pepe Deluxe, Wilson Pickett, the Pillows, Pizzicato 5, Prodigy, Public Image, Simon Rattle, the Residents, Nino Rota, Roxy Music, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Pete Shelley, FB Slim, Sly & the Family Stone, Sun Ra, the Temptations, Johnny Thunders, Tragic Mulatto, the Tubes, Tuvan throat music, Ultralounge misc., Ultravox, Ursula 1000, Armin van Buuren, Wagner, Link Wray, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Rob Zombie, I know I missed a lot but almost anything in fact EXCEPT C/W, Streisand-Tesh-Yanni assorted hateful wussments, and metal bands with big fluffy-haired boychicks in girl pants.
Movies:
After Life, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, Allegro non Troppo, Apocalypse Now, Army of Darkness, Arsenic and Old Lace, Bell, Book and Candle, Burden of Dreams, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Dr. Strangelove, Duck Soup, Fitzcarraldo, Genghis Blues, Gigi, The Gold Rush, The Grapes of Wrath, Grave of the Fireflies, The Haunting, Head, Henry V, Koyaanisqatsi, Kwaidan, The Loved One, My Neighbor Totoro, The Mystery of Caspar Hauser, Nosferatu (both of 'em), Only Yesterday, Radio Days, Ran, The Red Shoes, Repulsion, The Right Stuff, The Sorrow and the Pity, Spirited Away, Stairway to Heaven, The Tin Drum, True Stories, Wise Blood, Zardoz, most stomp-Tokyo giant creature movies, most MGM musicals, George Pal animated shorts, really chee-zee movies, blahblahblah.
Television:
The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Bozo's Circus, Cops, Electric Company, Dirty Jobs, Cops, Ernie Kovacs, Freakazoid, the Freedom Auto Sales half-hour, Good Eats, Cops, Gumby, Gigantor, HR Pufnstuf, Invader ZIM, Iron Chef, Kung Faux, Cops, Laugh-In, Legends of Ji Gong, Lidsville, MXC, New Zoo Revue, Oh! Super Milk Chan, Cops, Our Funny Village Head, Robot Chicken, Rocko's Modern Life, SGC2C, Cops, Svengoolie, Worst Jobs, Cops, anything Poirot, anything about serial killers or gory murders, Cops, anything about forensics, anything about medieval warfare or history, Cops, biographies about English royalty not counting the inbred twits who currently occupy the throne and its environs, Cops, and Cops. Lately, I've been watching a lot of Cops to see if any of my relatives appear on the show. They haven't yet, but hope springs eternal. I reckon I watch Cops about six times a day. Also Maury, I think some of my family's been on Maury. MAURY!!!!! Oh MAURY!!!! I love you MAURY, please make my dream come true MAURY.
Books:
Amphigorey, Amphigorey Also, Amphigorey Too, Ancient Evenings, Being There, The Canterbury Tales, A Canticle for Leibowitz, City of Night, A Clockwork Orange, A Coney Island of the Mind, Doctor Sax, The Feminine Mystique, Gargantua and Pantagruel, The Golden Ass of Apuleius, The Golden Bough, the Greater Key of Solomon, Hollywood Babylon 1 and 2, In a Dark Wood Wandering, the Lesser Key of Solomon, the Leyden Papyrus, The Long Lost Friend, Lost Chicago, the Mabinogeon, the Malleus Maleficarum, Maus, The Mauve Decade, Moby Dick, the Morte d'Arthur, Nausea, The Neon Wilderness, The Painted Bird, The Romance of Sorcery by Sax Rohmer, Rootabaga Stories, Satori in Paris, So Big, The Tale of Genji, The Tin Drum, Travels With My Aunt, The Years, the Oz books but only Baum's, and pretty much anything by SV Benet, Boccaccio, Brautigan, Burroughs, John Dickson Carr, Catullus, Cheiro, Richard Chwedyk, Colette, Conan Doyle, Eliot (TS, for heaven's sake not George), Euripides, Gogol, Homer, O. Henry, Ibsen, Shirley Jackson, Erica Jong, Sybil Leek, Lovecraft, Ngaio Marsh, MacGregor Mathers, deMaupassant, Pascal, Sendak, Shakespeare, Solzhenitsyn, Sophocles, Naomi Wolf, Alexander Woollcott. Oh, and I just discovered Muriel Spark and I like her lots.
Heroes:
Ed Paschke, Dowager Empress Cixi, William Burroughs, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Emperor Norton, Julia Child, Richard Brautigan, MAURY!!!, Cragstan, Grace O'Malley the Irish pirate, Salad Fingers, MAURY!!!, Grillo the Clown, Brini Maxwell, Andy Warhol, my cousin Bambi who is the bestest greatest neatest in the world, CARL THE MAGICAL TIKI GOD, Kurt Vonnegut, Sun-Ra and the other Warriors of DOGGONE, my Granny Janes, MAURY!!!, the Greeter of Laguna Beach, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, my friend Joanne S, my lifelong good friend and inspiration Juan the Cuban podiatrist, Diana Vreeland, MAURY!!!!!!, the good folks at Luxuria, MAURY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, and a host of nameless people who shall remain nameless.
