All things music; my 3 nephews; getting my passport stamped; seeing the US through the windshield of a van; being in or near large bodies of water; reading; rousing rabble; hiking/walking, both in the city and the countryside; playing 80's songs on my baritone ukulele; photography; monkeys; full moons; fire pits; reflexology; Vans sneakers; the colors purple and brown; the Pacific Northwest; Asheville, NC; (most) red wine(s) and pale ales; spicy foods (especially Asian cuisines); strawberries; crunchy/chunklet ice; hating on W and country music; indie music, film, and book stores; college football Saturdays and NCAA March Madness; the Sunday New York Times; festivals of every ilk; and the mighty Auburn Tigers, among other things...
Julie Delpy, Arianna Huffington, D.L. Hughley, Michael Franti, and Al Gore...
Anything with Paul McCartney or George Porter Jr. playing on it; J.J. Cale; Yo La Tengo; the Avett Brothers; the Wood Brothers; the History of Jamaican Music boxset; the Dave Rawlings Machine; all things New Orleans; Beck; Tony Joe White; the Staple Singers; King Tubby; Charles Mingus; Jerry Garcia; Gov't Mule (especially the Allen Woody years); Medeski, Martin and Wood; G. Love and Special Sauce; Morphine; Steve Jordan; Pino Palladino; Oteil Burbridge; Mike Gordon; Lowell George; the History of Def Jam Records boxset; A Tribe Called Quest; ?love and Hub; Soulhat; the Jazz Mandolin Project; Fela Kuti; Os Mutantes; De La Soul; Astor Piazzolla; Augustus Pablo; Prince Buster; Jackie Mittoo; Yellowman; Gregory Issacs; Fat Boy Slim; Squarepusher; Jellyfish; Trip Shakespeare; the New Standards; "Saturday Night Fever"-era Bee Gees; Robyn Hitchcock; Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" cd; the Commodores; Abba (for real); Coltrane; Monk; Oscar Peterson; Sonny Rollins; Chet Baker; Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen; Ray Brown; Django Reinhardt; Rahsaan Roland Kirk; Sun Ra; M. Ward; Nick Drake; Iron and Wine; Spearhead; Soul Coughing; the Flaming Lips; Jon Spencer Blues Explosion; Kings of Leon; Nirvana; X; the Jam; the Ramones; Led Zeppelin; pre-"Tattoo You" Stones; the Buzzcocks; the Faces; R.E.M's I.R.S. years; White Stripes; Violent Femmes; My Morning Jacket; Elvis Costello; Seu Jorge's Bowie covers cd; Bright Eyes; Elliott Smith; Gillian Welch; Freak Mountain Ramblers; the Kung Pao Chickens; John Hartford; The Mississippi Sheiks; Stringbean; David Grisman; the Be Good Tanyas; The Holy Modal Rounders; Old Crow Medicine Show; Danny Barnes; Hoyt Axton; North Mississippi All Stars; Albert Collins; Lightnin' Hopkins; Mose Allison; Tom Waits (especially the eclectic/trashy percussion stuff); anything on Fat Possum, Fog City, and Rope-a-Dope Records; all 70's funk, but especially that of the past and present Parliament/Funkadelic, James Brown, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals bassists; my 1980s mentor and good friend, Milton V. Davis; my hometown church choir director, Oliver Brazille; all things Motown and James Jamerson; and the many outstanding musicians that I'm fortunate enough to play with on a regular basis, among many, many others...
Planet of the Apes; The Warriors; American Beauty; Boogie Nights; Sling Blade; Escape from New York; Sin City; Shawshank Redemption; At Midnight, I'll Take Your Soul; Sixteen Candles; Blazing Saddles; Young Frankenstein; That Thing You Do!; most films by Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and the Coen brothers; and anything with a zombie in it, among others...
All things HBO; The Office; Lost; Arrested Development; 24; Adult Swim; and old Soul Train re-runs, among others...
Latest read: "Sell, Keep, or Toss?: How to Downsize a Home, Settle an Estate, and Appraise Personal Property" by Harry L. Rinker. I also read the New York Times each day and subscribe to Billboard, Rolling Stone, Entrepreneur, Bass Player, Wax Poetics, and National Geographic Traveler, among others...
My mom, my sister, Snoop Dogg, Bill Maher, J.J. Cale, and anyone who is paying attention and is outraged, among others...