playing the guitar (also clarinet and dabbling with piano); music; writing poetry/fiction; creating visual art (mostly pen and ink); reading poetry/literature/fiction; Shakespeare (goes without saying); pornography; Modern Art (especially Duchamp and Brancusi); museums; librarys; women; theater; travel; Kurt Vonnegut, jr.; languages (ie. Japanese); sushi; books; flavored decaf coffee; chess; pink clouds; go; Double Trouble meetings; William Carlos Williams; Classical Art; independent film; cinema; movies; insanity; indie rock; long walks; interesting words; tarot cards; thunder storms; documentaries; education television; mythology; world cultures; twilight; the discursive continum of western civilization; the list goes on...
It's impossible to name every band or musician that I like, but here are a few: A-HA, Aimee Mann, Air, Alphaville, Arcade Fire, Aphrodite's Child, Beatles, Beck, Bevis Frond, Blonde Redhead, Bongwater, Bright Eyes, Chara, Chet Baker, The Church, The Clash, Classical Music, Coldplay, Counting Crows, The Cure, Curtis Mayfield, Damien Rice, David Bowie, Dead Can Dance, Death Cab for Cutie, Decemberists, Dusty Masons's Grave Cowboys, Echo and the Bunnymen, Elliot Smith, Emo Music, Enya, Evan Dando, Gary Numan, George Winston, Gordon Gano, Goth Music, hallow, Husky Rescue, Imperial Teen, Indie Rock Music, Johnny Cash, John Vanderslice, Kaki King, KMFDM, Leonard Cohen, Lords of Acid, Lou Reed, Magnetic Fields, Maria Callas, Mathew Good Band, The M.A.S.H. Theme (Suicide is Painless), Mazzy Star; Mercury Rev, Michael Andrews, Microphones, Mirah, Modest Mouse, Moldy Peaches; Muse, Neko Case, Neutral Milk Hotel, New Age Music, New Wave Music, Nick Cave, Nick Drake, Nico, NIN, Nirvana, Oingo Boingo, Opera Music, Pearl Jam, Pedro the Lion, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, PJ Harvey, Poe, The Police, Portishead, The Postal Service, Primus, Pulp, Queen, Radiohead, Ramones, Rasputina, The Shins, Sigur Ros, Slowdive, Smashing Pumpkins, Stan Getz, Sting, The Sundays, Suzanne Vega, Switchblade Symphony, Syd Barret, Talking Heads, Talk Talk, TATU, Tears for Fears, They Might Be Giants, 'Til Tuesday, Tori Amos, U2, Vangelis, VAST, The Velvet Underground, The Verve, The Verve Pipe, Victoria Williams, Violent Femmes, VNV Nation, The We(e) Beasties, Whale, William Hung, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, and Yen Town Band.
Kenneth Branagh movies (especially Hamlet); Julio Medem's Lovers of the Arctic Circle; Shunji Iwai's Swallowtail Butterfly; Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenembaums; Donnie Darko; Napolean Dynamite (vote for pedro); I heart Huckabees; Akira Kurasawa's The Seven Samarai (Akira Kurasawa movies in general); Lost in Translation; All of the Cohen Brother's movies (ie. O Brother Where Art Thou?; The Big Labowski; House of Yes); Amilie, Cary Grant movies (Arsenic and Old Lace, Philadelphia Story, and North by Northwest); Kevin Smith movies (Jay and Silent Bob); Quentin Terantino movies; Terry Gilliam movies (Brazil, Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen, et cet.); well that's just a few.
Meerkat Manor!! (the greatest show on television); Invader Zim...Obey the fist!; Aqua Teen Hunger Force; Simpsons; hmmm...The Daily Show and Collbert Report...Oh yeah- AL FRANKEN ROCKS! ...and let me add in The Andy Milonakis Show.
Anything by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr but especially Cats Cradle; I confess I am a closet Anne Rice Fan (I've read them all); The Windup Bird Chronicles and Sputnik Sweatheart by Haruki Murakami; The Complete Works of Shakespeare; Everyone's gotta read a Faulkner or James Joyce book once and yes it will hurt your brain; Some poetry by T.S. Elliot, William Carlos Williams, W.B. Yeats, but you can skip Ezra Pound; of course Ovid and Homer; and I'll add The Walker Of Worlds Chronicles by Thomas Dehaven so that I don't sound too pretentious. (hmm...it might be to late for that).
My real life heroes: Christopher Bursk, who is not only one of the best English college professors of all time but an altruistic and perfectly respectable human being; and Mary S. Steward my grandmother the tower of iron will who, though no longer with us, was a loving caregiver and well of strength until the very end.