Guitar chords, novels, half-coyote dogs, crocodile cowboy boots, painting pictures of celebrities, maps, films, rivers, feather beds, love songs, auctions, Trivial Pursuit, blue-blooded girls of independent means, Spanish, having lawyers for friends, museums, vegetable gardens, pearl snap shirts, push-ups, small towns, big cities, and rowdy pasts.
Keith Richards and Cormac McCarthy.
Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, The Band, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Beastie Boys, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, The Reverend Al Green, Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams, White Stripes, Waylon Jennings, those Williams boys who still mean a lot to me (Don and Matt), Johnny Dango, Gillian Welch, Public Enemy, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young, Jim Croce, Loudon Wainwright, Merle Haggard, Marvin Gaye, Iron and Wine, Dolly Parton, Townes Van Zandt, Seu Jorge, Lyle Lovett, The Strokes, Woody Guthrie, Jackson Five, Steve Earle, Wilco, Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Leon Russell, Flaming Lips, The Temptations, Tom Waits, Lou Reed, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, and the 1985 Chicago Bears.
Cool Hand Luke, The Aristocrats, all Wes Anderson movies, The Graduate, The Big Lebowski, The Last Waltz, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, good and scary zombie movies, good and kickass westerns, Pulp Fiction, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Godfather (parts 1 and 2 but not 3) Donnie Darko, Trainspotting, Goodfellas, good and well-made documentaries. There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men--incredible.
If you stop watching television, your mind will become more peaceful.
Slaughterhouse Five, All the Pretty Horses, Song of Solomon, As I Lay Dying, Confederacy of Dunces, Cash by Johnny Cash, Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson, Invisible Man, Flannery O'Connor short stories, Last Picture Show, etc. etc. I'm on a mission to read the "Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century", as ranked by some hifalutin library-type folks.
Dean Martin.