WFMU, the Best Show on WFMU, writing, learning, humorous minutiae, noir affectations, death, sandwiches, music geekery, the art du cinema, the occasional cute and/or funny animal, getting worked up about world crises, abstraction to the point of ridiculousness, the ongoing internal war between the desire for self-improvment and laziness (to be filmed as a six-hour miniseries for Danish television)
70's glam, proto-punk, 80's post-punk, dub & roots reggae, first/second-wave ska, raw garage-y "rrreal" rock n roll, moody classical, some ambient, gospel (50's, 60's or earlier), 60's soul, raw nasty late 60's/early 70's funk, 50's pop and rock, long-defunct or recently reunited indie bands, weird grimey hip hop, late 80's-early 90's hip hop, retarded Baltimore club music, various tuneful noise, girl groups, indiepop, annoying jazz, old tyme country, some blues (further away from BB King and any white people the better), english folk, some soft rock, power pop. Specifically: Bob Dylan, Guided By Voices, the Wipers, the Fall, Funkadelic, James Brown, Prince, Neil Young, AC/DC, Husker Du, Sleater-Kinney, the Reigning Sound, the Oblivians, Mr Airplane Man, the Dirtbombs, New Pornographers, Neko Case, Laura Cantrell, Mission of Burma, Stooges, Television, Bowie, T-Rex, White Stripes, Tom Waits, Elliot Smith, Pavement, Fairport Convention, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Roy Orbison, Curtis Mayfield, Sly & the Family Stone, the Rolling Stones, Velvet Undergound, Jonathan Richman, Minor Threat, Public Enemy, MF Doom, De La Soul, Beastie Boys, Wu-Tang Clan, Talking Heads, Aphex Twin, Tim Hecker, Arthur Russell, Magnetic Fields, Miles, Mingus, Big Star, Elvis Costello, the Who, Thin Lizzy, Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, Betty Davis, Ted Leo, Lightning Bolt, Brian Eno, Volcano Suns, Satie, Debussy, Penderecki, Led Zeppelin, Motorhead, Richard Thompson, the Roots. I also hate the singers of every band Pitchfork breaks.
Most anything by: Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Wong Kar-Wai, David Lynch, John Cassavettes, Akira Kurosawa, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Mike Leigh, Luis Bunuel. Also: The Third Man, Tender Mercies, Safe, Taxi Driver, Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Stop Making Sense, Dark Days, Yi Yi, Withnail & I, Glengarry Glen Ross, Goodfellas, Passion of Joan of Arc, Le Cercle Rouge, Army of Shadows, Double Indemnity, Eternal Sunshine..., the Jerk, A Shot in the Dark, the Conversation, the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Chinatown, Anchorman, 2001, Dr. Strangelove, Santa Sangre, The Holy Mountain, Dead Ringers, Network, L'avventura, Vertigo, Branded to Kill, Do the Right Thing, Once Upon a Time in the West, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Robocop, Au Hasard Balthasaar, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, the Battle of Algiers, the Apartment, Out of the Past, Playtime, Street Fight, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Breaking Away, The Sword of Doom, Ugetsu, Boogie Nights, War Photographer, Kiss Me Deadly, most Monty Python, Five Easy Pieces, the King of Marvin Gardens, the Good the Bad & the Ugly, the Magnificent Ambersons, Chimes at Midnight, Badlands, Scarecrow, Picnic at Hanging Rock, the Age of Innocence, Jackass 1 & 2, the Marriage of Maria Braun, Hoop Dreams, Crumb, Grand Illusion, Airplane!, Reds, Underground, Bloody Sunday, the Double Life of Veronique, Monterey Pop, Two-Lane Blacktop, the Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
The Wire (the greatest show ever made), Homicide, Deadwood, Brass Eye, Alan Partridge, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Twin Peaks, Upright Citizens Brigade, Peep Show, Home Movies, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Father Ted, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Garth Merengi's Darkplace, Larry Sanders, The Singing Detective
I'm not saying you can't go wrong with these people, but you'd almost have to deliberately try: Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Charles Portis, Faulkner, Philip Roth, Richard Yates, Don DeLillo, Raymond Chandler, Studs Terkel, Milan Kundera, George Saunders, Sarah Vowell, Kafka, Vonnegut. Also: The Demon-Haunted World, The Denial of Death, 1984, Libra, The Third Policeman, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Awareness, Banvard's Folly, Atonement, Random Family, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Things They Carried, Chronicles (Bob Dylan), Middlesex, Jesus' Son, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families (if you find that one in the humor section a grave stocking error has occured)
the Dalai Lama, Tom Scharpling, Steve Nash