I like reading, listening to music, playing guitar and bass (and struggling on keyboards and drums occasionally), pinball, walking aimlessly in the woods, going fishing, drinking good beer (especially stouts and ales), my ancient Roman coin collection (yeah I'm a closet nerd), watching old movies, going to see live bands, going to museums (history and art), graphic design, cooking (but I hate cleaning up), ancient history (particularly Roman), making cynical observations about the world around me to anyone who will listen....oh yeah, and sex. Who doesn't like that?
I'd like to meet:
Nobody....so sod off!
Okay, maybe I'm not THAT bad. I'm not against meeting interesting people with something to say. If you do want to add me, you'd best send me a message along with your request or else I'll probably assume you're trying to sell me something and I'll deny you without even looking at your profile. The Deny button brings me great joy!
Movies:
The Good The Bad and The Ugly
A Fistfull of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More
Dawn of the Dead (original)
Night of the Living Dead
Day of the Dead
Bride of Frankenstein
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Pandora's Box
Five Deadly Venoms
King of New York
Susperia
All's Quiet on the Western Front
A Clockwork Orange
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Sleeper
Beevis and Butthead Do America
Hell is For Heroes
Forbidden Planet
The Jerk
Wings
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
This Is Spinal Tap
Tora! Tora! Tora!
Spartacus
Deathrow Gameshow
Nosferatu
The Passion of Joan of Arc
2000 Maniacs
Frankenhooker
Winchester '73
Repo Man
Yojimbo
The Battle of the Bulge
...and just about anything with Vincent Price, Humphry Bogart, James Cagney (except maybe that Yankee Doodle Dandy crap), Audrey Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Lon Chaney Sr., Steve McQueen, Louise Brooks, The Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy (in the early days, before they got all schamltzy), Clint Eastwood, Charlie Chaplin, Clara Bow, or the Monty Python guys. Universal monster movies, Hammer horror films (especially with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing), WWII flicks, and the old Star Wars movies before George Lucas fucked them up.
Television:
I don't spend much time in front of the tube.
Books:
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (the whole damn series)by Douglas Adams
I love British humor...and Douglas Adams' books read like Monty Python movies...same sense of the absurd, maybe even better. The whole series is worth reading.
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
I got turned onto this from watching an old Vincent Price movie called The Last Man On Earth. It was based on this book. The book is much better.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
I like everything I've read by this guy, and I like this one the best...though Slaughterhouse Five is a very close second. One of my favorite things about Breakfast of Champions is the little illustrations he did in it. They made a movie of this, but I haven't seen it. Don't think I want to.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
A multivolume history meticulously researched and written by a prissy rich Englishman in the late 18th century. It's not something to read cover to cover. I just dip into a chapter here and there, depending on who (or what) I want to read about at the time.
Post Office by Charles Bukowski
It's hard to pick a favorite here, but I do like his narratives much better than his poetry books. Bukowski's books are thinly-veiled autobiographies. He changes his character's name to Henry Chinaski, but the experiences are all his, written in a brutally honest, vulgar style. Sordid tales of women, booze, gambling, and getting in fights.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
A look into a future where people are bred and conditioned to fit into a specific caste in society...Epsilons being the lowest (they perform repetative machine-like manual labor) and Alphas being the highest. People are kept "happy" with subliminal messages and by giving them a fun drug called Soma. They spend their nights high on Soma, screwing like rabbits. Not a bad life I guess...where do I sign up?
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A book about a violent kid used in an experiment to condition him against violence. They screw him up so badly that any violent thought or actions make him physically ill...but is it really "reforming" someone if the person isn't able to act with their own free-will? The movie omits the last chapter, making everything come full-circle. The book has an extra twist on the end that is more satisfying.
Julian by Gore Vidal
An interesting novelization of the life of the Roman emperor Julian II (known as Julian the Apostate). He was part of Constantine the Great's dynasty, and when he was emperor, he attempted to reverse the spread of Christianity and revive the old Roman state religion. The last of the Pagan emperors, he was also a brilliant general and he lived an interesting life. This book is very well-written. A real page-turner.
The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
A history of Julius Caesar and the first eleven emperors of Rome. It was written in the 2nd Century AD. The book is full of amusing anecdotes. It's part biographical facts, part palace gossip. There's a lot of stuff in here that probably isn't true...if Suetonius was around today, he'd be writing for the National Enquirer. Still, it's fun to read about the outrageous things that Caligula and Nero did, even if a lot of it is bullshit.
