Figuring out what exactly makes the concept of the vampire so intriguing. Coming up with a really good revenger's tale. Finding a way to make an action movie on-stage. Finding ways to enjoy my days of being young and pretty. Getting into shape. Becoming that actor that you really like and see everywhere and think he'd probably be a lot of fun to hang out with. Actually being fun to hang out with. Seeing my friends happy again. Entertaining you, you sassy minx.
SOMEONE WHO:... thinks that movies and books are active experiences... can churn a good time out of a crappy situation, who can joke about even the worst of experiences... likes poetry, but not that whiny emoting poetry or that really obtuse triteness either, the bad-ass visceral poetry, Eliot, Plath, Crane, Frost, Coleridge... considers themselves a Romantic in the true sense of the word... is intrigued by decadence... would sell plasma to see Nick Cave or Tom Waits in concert... believes there is something bigger than themselves... anyone interested in being a young, dangerously silly, smarmy, charming and passionate FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH. This isn't a come-on. It's a call to arms.
Well, there's the holy trinity of Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. I'm also a fan of rock chicks such as Sleater-Kinney, The Breeders, Ani Difranco, Rasputina, Tori Amos, Jennifer Charles, etc. Ummm, some other examples of frequently played people: Velvet Underground, Everclear, Firewater, Beach Boys, Gravediggaz, Jay-Z, Randy Newman, Billy Joel, Current-93, NIN, Modest Mouse, John Cage, Michael Nyman, David Tibet. So yeah. Music. Fun.
The Royals: David Fincher, Terry Gilliam, The Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, Hitchcock, Scorsese, Speilberg. I've recently gone crazy for the work of Shinya Tsukamoto. Highlights from my personal stash: Die Hard, Equilibrium, The Imposters, A Life Less Ordinary, Monty Python's Meaning of Life, Punch-Drunk Love, Ravenous, Say Anything, Very Bad Things. Honorable Mentions: Battle Royal, Cemetery Man, Phenomena, Anchorman, Shawshank Redemption. I'm stopping now. I like movies. Guilty pleasures especially. I love art-house movies and big-budget blockbusters. Movie snobs on either side don't know what they're missing.
X-Files, The Twilight Zone, Deadwood, Sopranos, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Get Smart, Adult Swim, Seinfeld, Freaks and Geeks, SportsNight, Pete and Pete, Twin Peaks, Looney Tunes, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Strange Luck, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Millenium
Anything by the American Romantics. Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, Whitman, Emerson, Charles Brockden Brown, Stephen Crane. Anything Vonnegut. Poets like Robert Browning, Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Walt Whitman. Some favorites: The House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje. Catch-22, Joseph Heller. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain. The Nightmare Factory, Thomas Ligotti. Cruel Shoes, Steve Martin. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers. The Complete Collection of Woody Allen Prose. All Calvin and Hobbes collections, Bill Waterson.
Kurt Vonnegut, Steven Speilberg, Tom Hanks, Edgar Allen Poe, Charlie Kaufman, Heironymous Bosch, Cole Porter, Jon Stewart, Charles Sanders Peirce, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Rod Serling, Franklin Roosevelt, Hallie Flanagan, Bill Waterson, Berkley Breathe, Robert Browning, Jimmy Stewart, David Cronenberg, Hunter S. Thompson, Sam Peckinpah, T.S. Eliot