Detroit, thinking thought-provoking ideas, being able to write those thought provoking ideas in such a way that they capture the true original thought, watching TV-non stop one day and then not watching it for weeks, hearing and participating in bizarre conversations, reading, movies, comedy (I like to laugh), things that make me laugh ... even years after they happened, The Book on Baseball, meeting new people, staying in touch with long-time friends, seeking the truth ... or at least what I think the truth is, hoping that one day the media will do their job and inform the public, bizarre coincidences, moving beyond the bitter ironies, drinking jars of Sangria on the Dominick's patio in A2 on a weekday afternoon, always being mystified by the myticism of the "Edmund Fitzgerald time of year" in Michigan, radio, "Cross Country Checkup" with Rex Murphy, CBC, PRI's Studio 360, "The Night Train" with Mick Collins, reading a good book, listening to amazing music, absolute wierdness, writing in the MySpace Blog late at night, and then waking up the next morning and wondering why the hell I wrote what I wrote, urban solitude, empty fields, dark Detroit bars, July 4 until late November, late February and early March, the Midwest at dusk, traveling to Vancouver, Duluth, Sault Ste Marie, Montreal, Portland, Maine, Portland, Oregon, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, up north, walking through the leaves in late November, the open road just past dusk in the middle of nowhere, feeling the vibe, Detroit Tigers, Lions, Pistons, Red Wings, and all of the true blue die-hard Detroit sports fans that didn't abandon their teams through the bad times, Comerica Park during the Spring/Summer/Fall World Series Run of 2006, amazing memories of Tiger Stadium ... an amazing place!
People with minds that like to engage in some sort of meaningful thought process, Northern Michigan Bigfoot hunters, people who like to hang out late night at 24 hour coney islands, fun people, shiny happy people, crazy people, normal people, straight down the middle people, depressing people, Fall-loving people, creative people, non annoying people, pan flute afficianados, Jim Leyland, Kenny Rogers, Joel Zumaya, Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco, Pat Caputo, Existentialists, Van Hammersly -- Worldwide Billiards Champion, David Letterman when he was on edge and holding the late night comic fort at NBC in the GE era of the late 80's. Ricky, Julian, Bubbles and J-ROC in the trailer park outside of Halifax, N.S. Even though I've already met them once, if I could see any of the people I met at the Halifax Music Festival in Sept. 1996, that would be anything short of amazing! Hamtramck 84 Cents Guy during a lucid moment, Venture capitalists that want to fund my projects, I used to wonder about the whereabouts of "Diving Boy", last seen doing the diving as part of a one man frenzy of his own doing, but I think I realized that too much time has passed and such a reunion would most likely never happen or wouldn't live up to the initial expecations. I still want to meet Bob Bertini from Wendy's and have an in-depth conversation about the pop culture dessert phenomenon that is known as the Frosty!
Neil Young, Frank Zappa, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Bob Dylan, The Band, Pavement, Shellac, Pixies, Grifters, Mission of Burma, Guided By Voices, Nirvana, Buffalo Springfield, Afghan Whigs, Eddy Grant, The Fall, Gang of Four, The Who, Madness, Peter Gabriel, Codeine, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Dread Zeppelin, Missing Persons, Sloan, Foo Fighters, THe La's, Electric Six, Dirty Shame (Detroit by way of LA version), Sonic Youth, Screaming Trees, Mark Lanegan, The Clash, The Jam, The Police, Klark Kent, 70's David Bowie, Robert Palmer, The Power Station, REM, The Replacements, Husker Du, fIREHOSE, Dinosaur Jr., Polvo, The Shins, Superchunk, Scrawl, Big Star, Feelies, Blue Rodeo, Joni Mitchell, Rush, Emm Gryner, Cream, Traffic, Led Zeppelin, Blind Faith, Foreigner, Parliament/Funkadelic, Bootsy's Rubber Band, Dirty Three, Bjork, Pere Ubu, Volcano Suns, Tragically Hip, Gordon Lightfoot, Tears for Fears, Wesley Willis, Jesus Lizard, Fishbone, Wilco, Chavez, Shannon Wright, Spinanes, Sonic Youth, Red House Painters, King Cobb Steelie, Boards of Canada, Joy Division, Interpol, My Dad is Dead, Yo La Tengo, Da Slyme, Gino Vanelli, Robert Palmer, Hall & Oates, Bob Mould, Sade, Julie Doiron, Low, Ida, The Verve, Forget Cassettes, And You'll Know Us by the Trail of the Dead, The Stills, Sweet, The Tiny Amps of Corduroy Tuscadero, Mogwai, Amino Acids, Nick Cave, Nash the Slash, The Children of Paradise, Three Times One Minus One, Stompin Tom Connors, Walter Ostanek, Wally Hung Trio, Five Neat Guys, The Queen Haters, Fugazi, Duran Duran, Chic, Bobby Rush, John Lee Hooker, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, David S. Ware, Miles Davis, Roland Kirk, Fred Anderson, The Funk Brothers, almost anything K-Riot, almost anything Motown, and many many more.
For my fave movies, they are in not really any type of alphabetical order: American Movie, About Schmidt, Bad Lt., Bang the Drum Slowly, Beautiful Girls, Better Off Dead, The Big Lebowski, Blue Collar, The Blues Brothers, Bottle Rocket, Brother From Another Planet, Bulitt, Bang the Drum Slowly, Capote, Carlito's Way, Catch-22, Clerks, Code of Silence, Dirty Harry, Diner, Don't Look Back, The Eiger Sanction, Everyone Stares: The Story of the Police, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The French Connection, The Godfather, Donnie Darko, Drugstore Cowboy, Wild at Heart, Fargo, The Godfather, Glengarry Glenross, The Graduate, Groundhog Day, Invasion of the Body Snatchers -- 1978 Donald Sutherland mustache and perm version, Jump Tomorrow, The Mechanic, Midnight Run, The Monitors, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Office Space, Paddle to the Sea, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Raging Bull, Real Genius, Repoman, Roadkill, The Shawshank Redemption, Slacker, Slapshot, Star Wars, Strange Brew, Stripes, The Suburbanators, Taxi Driver, Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould, Trading Places, Uncle Buck, Wargames, We Jam Econo: The Story of The Minutemen, Wings of Desire, almost any late night Canadian movie on CBC
I like good situation comedies, documentaries, and I still like Letterman. WKRP in Cincinnati, M*A*S*H, Newsradio, Seinfeld, Barney Miller, Taxi, The Jeffersons, SCTV, Mr. Show, SNL 1975-80, 86-early 90's, Kids in the Hall, Get A Life, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Law & Order, Homicide, Sopranos, X-Files, Simpsons Fourth Season, The Flintstones, Early Family Guy (currently they've jumped way off their original path), Tex Avery's Screwball Classics, Scrubs, Bowling championships, Putt-Putt Golf Championships, This Week in Baseball on Classic Sports, SportsCentury, especially when it's baseball-oriented, Hockey Night in Canada Late Game, Curling Championships in winter, C-SPAN, Match Game P.M., The Gong Show, High Rollers, Sanford and Son, Welcome Back Kotter, Alice, Happy Days before the live studio audience, Trailer Park Boys, Doctor Who, I really don't watch reality TV ... a genre that dumbs down the American public!
I like good fiction and non-fiction. HST (R.I.P.)! Kurt Vonnegut as well! The Rivethead by Ben Hamper, If you can find it, a must-read is "The Ed McMahon Barside Companion"!
I think people that do cool things for the right reasons can be heroes. Be a hero about the little things. Add in Gene Rayburn for good measure ... and Orville Reddenbacher! Also, the Swedish guy who lived next door to me in Chicago. On a semi-daily basis he would sit out on his back porch in the daylight hours and talk to me while downing a half a fifth of some kind of alcohol that had to have been extremely potent. I couldn't understand a damn word he was saying to me but he was one of the happiest guys I have ever met. Man, we shared some good times! Those were the days!