record collecting,photography(with my trusty Canon SureShot which i can't find at the moment)(SPECIAL NOTE-i found it mid-october at work while reaching into the drawer where i keep my 45's-yay!!),architecture(especially the "midcentury modern"of palm springs),cars(especially Mercurys-i own a montego and a sable),old ads,travel(especially my annual trip to idaho at thanksgiving),historical aspects of Las Vegas(aptly described as 300 years of civilization crammed into 60),riding my 1966 schwinn stingray 5-speed for fun, fitness, and receiving comments like"woah!!look at that bike!!!
albert einstein(shares my birthday),molly ivins,carole lombard,don rickles,jimmy carter,richard nixon(in real life at nwpt stat. i met Herbert Kalmbach and Donald Sagretti),Michael Caine(also shares b-day)and oh i'm sure i'll come up with some others.
LP's of the 50's(american pop standards),motown that hasn'tbeen played into the ground by KRTH,some new stuff,except the top 40 stations ruin it for me(by the way,i still use cassettes,but never did use 8-tracks,although i have 2 craig-pioneer 4-track players amongst my collection),songs with good lyrics(a personal fave is "it hurts to be in love"by gene pitney-very tricky word plays abound!!it's almost a grammar lesson to listen to that song.)(another tricky lyric song is "music to watch girls by "by andy williams--take a look at it on Youtube!!),most of those burt bacharach/hal david hits,dusty springfield(esp.her version of "anyone who had a heart),dionne warwick,ella fitzgerald and sarah vaughan,all the "four "groups of the 50's-four aces,ames bros.,four coins,four freshmen,four lads(still performing!!),streaming KJUL,las vegas(it's as if they broke in and stole my records and play them now).By the way, i know Stan Ridgway personnally.
palm springs weekend,what's new pussycat,the president's analyst,that thing you do,halloween(the 1st one),cookie's fortune,the pajama game,the music man,down with love(and all the films of the genre that inspired it),any old movie with shots of las vegas-such as meet me in las vegas,crazy mama,oceans 11(1960),that "rollicking "disney comedy 'the boatniks"-not that great a movie,but filmed all over newport beach in 1970,before they ruined the place.
mad tv,sat nite live,scrubs,that 70's show,dean martin show and andy williams show(thanx to youtube),password,what's my line,i've got a secret,to tell the truth,sherriff john's lunch brigade,,SCTV, RENO911 ///RADIO:NPR,especially "wait wait,don't tell me"and "michael feldman's waddya know?"
peyton place,famous folks'autobiographies(faves are rosalind russell's and sidney sheldon's and morris lapidus-architect of the eden roc and fountainbleu hotels),up the down staircase,architectural books like learning from las vegas,googie (about all those coffee shops of the 1950's-I always appreciated them,now the rest of the world is catching up-see above-behind/ahead of times),anythong to do with mad magazine(by the way i could read when i was 2,but couldn't tie my shoes til around 6 or so),also troy paiva's book Lost America-he took pics at night of abandoned motels,gas stations,etc,in the desert-check his site online...
everyday folks trying to make things better,people like Molly Ivins who get uncomfortably close to the truth instead of whitewashing things and doing what everyone else does,people who are true to themselves but still fit in with the rest of the world(yes it is possible,speaking as a practitioner of such)