Music, Movies, Philosophy, Politics, Activism, Raves, Classic Cars, Computers, Science/Tech, Zen, Mythology/Folklore, Science Fiction, Herbalism, Kung Fu, Cyberpunk, subverting the dominant paradigm, Interesting T-shirts, and just about anything else
Anyone who's up for the ride. :)
First, Plug for my Work!
The music shows are quite good...I recommend Global Village (especially Tues/Fri 10am-12noon), Rhapsody in Black (Weds 10:30pm-midnight), Axis of Justice (Fri 7-8pm), Divine Forces Radio (Fri 10pm-1am), Travel Tips for Aztlan (Sat 10pm-midnight), and Reggae Central (Sun 3-4pm).
This Week in Heavy Rotation: Amy Winehouse (may the drugs not kill her), and mucho Chicano roots/reggae/rock, including Quinto Sol, B-Side Players, Los Abandoned, Uhmo Verde, etc.
I'll listen to most anything but mainly I rock: indie, techno, trance, prog house, industrial, experimental, mashups, conscious hip hop, world, classic rock, live bootlegs of radio hits that turn into 14-minute jams, post-anything (i am a fucking nerd, yah?), riot grrl, punk, funk and old skool. I even do classical; it's all about the roots, baby.
Again, like the music question, my tastes are all over the place, as long as they're either done well or done so badly it's funny. (William Shatner fo' LIFE.)
Just like new music, good new movies are also gettin' rarer these days! And so I am rockin' the documentaries... The Devil's Playground is very eye-opening and makes you look in new ways at the faithful, while Festival Express just makes you want to pop some pills and dance like it's your last birthday. I highly recommend The Revolution Will Not Be Televised to anyone seeking social change or even just some grand political drama, and Hijacking Catastrophe for a highly educated glimpse into just how, in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, neoconservatives marched an entire country into Pyrrhic imperial delusion. Born Into Brothels will make you cry, Tarnation will make you want to hug your mom and never let go, and Hearts and Minds will burn a hole into your soul.
I am a foreign film nerd - Amores Perros , Y Tu Mamá También , Run Lola Run , anything Kurosawa, City of Lost Children , La Dolce Vita , The Devil's Backbone , City of God , etc etc etc. And when it comes to kung fu or samurai flicks...well, it is *love.*
Blasts from the past are always great - from 50's movie musicals, to 60's crime flicks (like The Great Train Robbery and the ORIGINAL Italian Job ), to badassssss blaxploitation cinema of the 70's, to the 80's wit of Steve Martin and good ol' John Hughes, all the way back to the 60's and the *real* "Bond....James Bond." I've also recently gotten into the gripping realism of Gillo Pontecorvo's political films from the late 60s as well.
Oh yeah, and of course, I'm a big LOTR/Harry Potter dork (as is everyone else in this zip code).
In general, I'll range anywhere from Fight Club , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas , and Saw to Phantasm , Kingdom of the Spiders , CB4 and Airplane . bring on the flix!
First off: If you haven't seen Firefly ...GO NOW!! GO FORTH AND WATCH!! and then, write letters to bring it BACK!!
Why I paid for premium channels: Sex and the City, Sopranos, Weeds, Da Ali G Show, Taxicab Confessions, Queer as Folk, Big Love, and muchas, muchas pelÃculas - Starz has some good flicks but I still get drawn to Sundance (Doc Day! and TransGeneration!) and IFC.
I'm a ho for animated series, like THE BOONDOCKS!, Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, South Park, Venture Bros., and Invader ZIM.
On regular cable I watch FOOD Network (help me Rachael Ray, you're my only hope), Iron Chef, and Changing Rooms. Look at me, all domesticated and shit.
I have finally found some broadcast love! Veronica Mars and House have drawn me back to network TV. It's gotta be the snarkiness and the anti-heroes that do it for me. :)
I've also been going Old Skool since the DVDs have been coming out: Soap, The Carol Burnett Show, M*A*S*H, H.R. Pufenstuf, Good Times, Robotech, THUNDERCATS! (HO!), In Living Color, Highlander, THE ORIGINAL Star Trek, etc etc.
I was obsessed for years with The X-Files, and it's still my One True Fandom.
I am a big, big dork.
Times being what they are, I'm mostly reading sociological/political books nowadays, both on current events and political theory. I know my Adam Smith, John Nash and Thomas Friedman, but I will definitely see your Marx and raise you a Gramsci.
Good stuff currently on my reading list: Endgame by Derrick Jensen, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, The Party's Over by Richard Heinberg, Going Postal by Mark Ames, The Rosa Luxemburg Reader , Hideous Dream by Stan Goff, Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print , Collapse by Jared Diamond, and the entire Mike Davis catalogue.
When I'm not waxing political I love science fiction - all the classics and Cyberpunk, Too. I love writers who are edgy but not pretentious - Hunter Thompson was cool that way because he was never posing, he was just that weird and I loved him for it.
I can hold my own on English Lit, though I'm definitely on the C.S. Lewis side of the Oxford literary fence. As with the movie thing, I'm also a LOTR/Harry Potter dork (as is everyone else in this zip code), but I also dig on Narnia, Dragonlance, the Belgariad/Malloreon, the Coldfire trilogy, and other fantasy series.
Throw in the Latin American poets & writers (Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, etc), a whole library on spirituality & Zen philosophy, and Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl and we could call it a day. :)
Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Angela Davis, Fred Hampton, Stan Goff, Hugo Chávez, Andres Bonifacio, Gabriela Silang, Lucy Parsons, Maria Callas, Jimi Hendrix, Edna St. Vincent Millay, George Sand, Celia Sanchez, Che Guevara, St. Theresa of Avila, and the people of Latin America