Music:
Michel Petrucciani, Matt Wilson, Joe Henderson, Django Bates, Makoto OzoneSteely Dan, Bruce Hornsby, Stevie Wonder, Ben Folds.Chick, Herbie, McCoy, Keith, Bill, Red, Oscar and the rest
Movies:
Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, Charlie Kaufman, Mockumentaries, Sideways, Lost in Translation, Wedding Crashers, really good and really bad science fiction.
Television:
I do watch too much television. Columbo is my current addiction! Oh, sir, If I may, just one more thing...
Books:
Guns Germs and Steel, Lush Life, How My Heart Sings, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (and six more), The Harry Potter Series, The Ingenuity Gap, Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Melodic Intervals and Patterns, Bergonzi's Jazz Series.
Heroes:
Aaron Copland, John Irving, Lister Sinclair, Charles Ives, Artie Lang, Gandhi, the Fifth Estate, Wendy Mesley, Noam Chomsky, Jared Diamond, Thelonious Monk