I like live music, various performing and visual arts, festivals, parks, traveling, and community service/activism-- Basically, I like soaking in the local culture and in return, I believe in doing my part to support the local community and economy. Everything in life is cyclical-- birth and death, give and take, ebb and flow, yin and yang. . .
I'm only looking to make friends--I am too busy for much else right now.
To be my friend, you must like good music. period. In my iPod right now-- The Roots, Zap Mama, N'Dambi, Joi, Bilal, Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Jean Grae, Pharoahe Monch,Bob Marley, Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, Buju Banton, Finley Quaye, Capelton, Anthony Hamilton, Break Reform, Raphael Saadiq, Arrested Development, Res, Conya Doss, Coldplay, Country Joe and the Fish, Maroon 5, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Bill Withers, Sam Cooke, Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd, Shuggie Otis (what'chu know about him?), Del the Funky Homosapien, Wu Tang Clan, Cee-Lo Green, Ken Ford, Phillippia, Various Brazilian Artists [including Seu George, Jorge Ben, Gilberto Gil, and the City of God Soundtrack], Common, De La Soul, Jean Grae, A Tribe Called Quest, Erykah Badu, Floetry, Goapele, Dwele, Jack Johnson, Herbie Hancock, Jelly Roll Morton, , Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, The Pharcyde, Louis Armstrong, Jill Scott, John Legend, Mahalia Jackson, Devin The Dude, Mike Davis a.k.a. Dr. Eargasm, Joshua Redman, Kanye West, Kem, Billie Holiday, Leela James, Roy Hargrove, Sizzla, The Ohio Players, etc. -- I know this is a random selection but it is a good sampling of my music tastes.
Old favorites: School Daze, House Party, Coming To America, Some Like it Hot, The Toy, Sweet Sweetback's Badassss Song, Superfly, Uptown Saturday Night, Five on the Black Hand Side, Breakfast at Tiffany, A Bronx Tale, Hairspray, Goodfellas, The Color Purple, Imitation of Life, Do the Right Thing, Mahogany, and Easy Rider.Great Love Stories: Love Jones, Same Time, Next Year, Father of the Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Carmen Jones, Dirty Dancing, If Lucy Fell, Romeo and Juliet, Casablanca, Only You, Annie Hall, Boomerang, The Wedding Singer, Love and Basketball, Something's Gotta Give, Rebel without a Cause, West Side Story, and now Brokeback Mountain.(Relatively) Contemporary Movies: City of God, Napoleon Dynamite, Ray, Crash, The Best Man, Office Space, Rushmore, The Royal Tennebaums, The Motorcycle Diaries, Lackawanna Blues, Swingers, Eve's Bayou, Lost in Translation, Kung Fu Hustle, Hero, Hustle and Flow, and Sideways.
I don't watch much t.v. these days but I really love old t.v. shows-- "Nick at Nite" is my joint! One of my favorite contemporary show has to be Arrested Development. Even though it is off the air, it is one of the funniest, smartest shows on television . . . ever! I also really like the Boondocks, Grey's Anatomy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Lost. I like to watch Girlfriends, My Wife and Kids, the Parkers, Friends, and Everybody Loves Raymond in syndication.
This is a random list of books. I read (too many) books for my research and writing but this is a growing list of personal favorites-- The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison), The Color Purple (Alice Walker), Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe), Where the Sidewalk Ends (Shel Silverstein), Green Eggs and Ham (Dr. Seuss), Soul by Soul: Life Inside an Antebellum Slave Market (Walter Johnson), Lord of the Flies (William Golding), My Soul is Rested (Howell Raines), The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger), Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak), The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Mask (Frantz Fanon), Children of Strangers (Lyle Saxon), I've Been a Woman (Sonia Sanchez), Iola Leroy (Frances Harper), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Harriet Jacobs). . . . and the list keeps growing