That's a big one, interests, I could let this become highly convoluted but I think I'll strive for some semblance of elegance here. TRUTH JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY! Not enough is it? Okay, I like to write. I was wary of interaction with these infernal machines until I found that they could be great creative outlets and now I spend more time writing than I have in years, in a more directed way anyhow. Nowadays when I write to friends I tend to write personalized novellas more than e-mails. They don't seem to mind so I'll continue in this manner until I hear different and am forcibly subdued by jackbooted thugs. So much for elegance. I also enjoy plunking around on my guitar and making myself happy with it if no one else. "He was ahead of his time", you just wait, after I die and the recordings I've made on my boombox karaoke machine are discovered there'll be a PBS special about me and they'll pan and scan high school pictures and track down my remaining family members and somebody that I never even knew existed will claim that I fathered her child but she was sure that I was an alien and a bunch of kids who don't even realize that I'm dead will start calling me a sellout and my album will hit the charts in outer Mongolia and slowly make its way across mainland China where a Swedish tourist and his French mistress will come across some strange little record shop/dim sum parlor in Beijing and decide to take a chance on this poor midwestern boy's memory and THAT is my plan for world peace-which I guess in the end is also an interest.
A real live lion tamer with the whip, the chair, the whole nine! I suppose that the whip & chair bit is a little outmoded at this point and definitely not very "P.C." but hell a guy's gotta have a dream. So, are lions really ever tame or are they just putting up with these jokers for the free red meat? Understanding that my chances for meeting a lion tamer are slim (I'm proud of my restraint for not referencing the "Claude Balls" joke) I'd settle on meeting anyone with a penchant for subversion in their everyday life. Who knows, ketchup might make a much better hair care product than anyone ever dreamed of! You don't have to be a Maoist machinist from Michoacan to make a difference but if you are and you're reading this be assured that I fully support you. (I don't know if such a contingent exists south of the border but I'm a sucker for alliteration) Basically, if you've read this far and haven't speedily clicked your way back to safety I suppose that we could establish a basis for consistent palavers on a plethora of topics ranging from airplanes to zookeepers. And zookeepers brings us back to lion tamers which I suppose brings us to the end of this screed, I love it when it works out like this, talk to ya soon.
I think it best to leave out any attempted explanation and just leap right into an abbreviated list of what's sitting out around my stereo right now. So here it goes: Tom Waits, Camper Van Beethoven, Slayer, Merle Haggard, The Stone Roses, Mr. Bungle, Robbie Fulks, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (most of the Matador catalog makes me spring wood), Monster Magnet, Rev. Horton Heat, Frank Zapppa, Ween, Funkadelic, Bop Jazz, Louis Armstrong, Toots and the Maytals, dub reggae, I could go on but I think that lays out a pretty good roadmap for now. I know when my brother's read this they will say "I can't believe that he didn't list...". Which reminds me of two more faves, The Chemicals and The Living Blue, check 'em out, they'll blow yer skirt up.
I always get hung up on this one. Friends will always give the "well you're the one who went to film school, come on Speilberg" schtick just to bust my balls but it is a tough one. Fuck it, start with the Coen Bros. and work from there. The Coens are so thoroughly entertaining. The range they posess in being able to go from the hysterical to the disturbing at the drop of a hat not to mention their ability to create a most engaging visual realm in which these events transpire strap me into my seat and suspend my disbelief every time. For his sheer staying power if nothing else and we'll stop there cuz there's plenty else, Eastwood trips my trigger like no other. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is an archetype for a myriad of cinematic styles from later Westerns to anime. The team of Eastwood's muscular performance, Leone's supple direction and Morricone's riveting scores set the "Man with no Name" series apart (for my dime) from the other great westerns of the time with the raw and realistic portrayal of Man's struggle with Man and Himself. If Eastwood had not the benefit of Leone's tutelage and confidence-before this gets a little too grandiose, the dude's bad, as bad now as he was then. From here I'll keep it short and sweet: Jim Jarmusch keeps it real, The Jerk is quite possibly the greatest movie ever made, Kurosawa elevated us all with his artistry, and I've seen "Back to the Future" over 50 times, I'm sure. My mind races. Whenever I go to see a movie in the theatre, even to this day, I am momentarily transported back to the state of wonder that enraptured me as a child. When the house lights go down and the music swells and images sweep across the screen I am three years old getting ready to see my first flick ( a little number called "Star Wars") all over again. Of course when I realize that I'm in the wrong theatre and that I'm getting ready to see the new Vin Diesel movie the magic is kinda lost but you pick up what I'm droppin'.
Quickly replacing pentathol as favored anesthetic. Reflects ourselves back on ourselves with the single rule: Lowest Common Denominator beats a full house. I'm not tryin' to act like some highbrow jag off here, I'm not above watching some boob tube but I already feel detached from reality as it is. Reno 911 is a hoot though.
"Don Quixote" by Cervantes, anything that that hack Thompson scribbled down (no rest for the wicked but at least take it easy H.S.T., whatever cosmic rock you've crawled under), anything by Vonnegut, Nietszche is still important and still as widely misunderstood but "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" constantly sits on my re-read list, I'll continue later...
Popeye the Sailor Man, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, Teachers