This semi-multicolored caucasian enjoys the following: being weird, bowling, poker, playing and listening to music of all qualities, collecting records, buying weird swag at thrift stores and yard sales, obscure writing, reading obscure writings of others, Pez, the circus, people watching, and talking to strangers (As long as they promise not to inflict bodily harm on me. So far, so good.)
Can you teach me to play the bass clarinet? YOU'RE IN! I enjoy meeting genuine individuals, geeks, freaks and other candidates of mockery. If your life reminds you of a cartoon, you should meet me. Ladies and gentlemen with a sociopathic case of "the Crazy" will not be served.
Props to all of South East Asia, including India, Pakistan, Laos and Burma! You guys know how to rock!
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As Zappa said, "Music is the best", so this list will be comprehensive. First, the big 3:
Frank Zappa
Captain Beefheart (Live in Belgium in 1969 - dig that bass clarinet halfway through!) .. width="425" height="350" ..
and Tom Waits
And of course the ska bands: The Skatalites, Prince Buster, Don Drummond, The Techniques, Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Specials, Madness, The Selector, The Beat, The Hotknives, Skankin Pickle, Dr. Ring Ding, Judge Dread, The Toasters, The Planet Smashers, Hepcat, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, SeeSpot, After Hours, Fishbone, Symarip and all Skinhead Reggae (including the Pioneers, Desmond Dekker, and the Ethiopians), Trojans, The Israelites, Let's Go Bowling, The Slackers, King Django, Version City, Operation Ivy, NY Citizens, Deal's Gone Bad and probably more.
Other favorites in rotation include The Residents, Man-Or-Astroman?, Erase Errata, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Decemberists, Primus, Nirvana, Deerhoof, Broken Social Scene, Scout Niblett, Joanna Newsom, Old Time Relijun, DEVO, Ego Plum and the Ebola Music Orchestra, the Kids of Widney High, Galactic Anthems (my father's ongoing ambient electronica project), John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, The Tiger Lillies, Faun Fables, The Hellbillys, Throwrag, Rudimentary Peni, X, Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, The Misfits, Man is the Bastard, Iconochrist, Eye Hate God, White Zombie, Wesley Willis, BJ Snowden, The Jam, Atom and his Package, Boris the Sprinkler, Blind Willie Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Weird Al Yankovic, They Might Be Giants, Tenacious D, Melt-Banana, Boredoms, Merzbow, Xiu Xiu, The Wedding's Off, Count Smokula, The Creation, Secret Affair and other mod and Northen Soul groups.
Lastly, big ups to THE CLASH .
Without their music (and the music of the Big 3, in my opinion) the world would be a more fucked up place than it already is.
Big Fish, Return of the Living Dead, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, House of 1000 Corpses, Toxic Avenger Parts 1, 2 and 3, Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD, Most of the other Troma films that aren't just cheesy dubbed over Eurotrash crap, Most Wes Anderson films (it's like modern Oscar Wilde characters on the screen), Swingers, Bowling for Columbine, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, Napoleon Dynamite, Waiting for Guffman, This is Spinal Tap, Blood in the Face (Who remembers when Michael Moore was an actual filmmaker?), Falling Down, The Harder They Come, Battle Royale and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. Does anyone own a copy of Sweet Movie that I can borrow?
Without so many question and exclamation marks, I'll just say "Beware the box, my friend."There are a million other things I could be doing than watching TV; life is just too precious for it. But I accept that it will always be a part of mindless American existence. And so I say..........I LOVE CARTOONS!Ever seen 12 OZ. Mouse? Head trip to dumbsville and back.
I mostly read poetry, plays and various non-fiction, since novels tend to get too introspective for me and are usually not very visual. But I'll read anything people recommend me. Seriously! Fav authors include Kinky Friedman (same guy who recently ran for governor of Texas), Shaw, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Heller (German for "writer", no less), Douglas Adams (of course), Ibsen, Billy Shakes, Marvell, Wilde, Samuel Beckett and many other dead guys who could make today's authors drop their pens in flaccidity by comparison.