Cold beer (Chimay, Flying Dog, Dogfish Head, Heineken, Delirium Tremens, Sam Adams, Guinness, Miller Lite), great wines (Fiddlehead Fiddlestix, Iron Horse, Frog's Leap, La Serra Moscato d'asti, Ravenswood Zinfadel, Penfolds, Burgundies), conversations with my friends, politics, new writers, old music, old writers, new music, trying to find a storefront bar in Jefferson Park that isn't completely insane. Good theatre.
God, A genie, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Bill Clinton, Gene Hackman, the casting director who thought Chris Rock'd be good in "Bad Company", Ralph Fiennes, the Russian guy who's been in space for like 7 years, Christopher Hitchens, Brett Favre, Greg Maddux, Nicole Kidman, Beetlejuice, someone with the balls to impeach the president for knowingly and willingly misleading the United States government & people into a war with Iraq, betraying, compromising, and ultimately ruining the identity a CIA deep-cover operative (Valerie Plame) as a vendetta against her husband (Joseph Wilson)'s article in the NY Times: "What I Didn't Find in Africa", as well as innumerable human rights and civil libertes violations and hijacking the worst day of our country's history (9/11) for his cabal's own imperialist, hegemonic designs.
Sigur Ros, Camera Obscura, This Will Destroy You, The Black Keys, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, The Six Parts Seven, Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Liars, Tortoise, Radiohead, 45 Souls, Dave Matthews, Mozart, B.B. King, Calexico, Deb Talen, The Weepies, Moby, Interpol, Marvin Gaye, Bill Withers, Rocco DeLuca and the Burden, Snow Patrol, Al Weber, The Sundays, Don Caballero, Mazzy Star, Morrissey, Das Spooky, Marty Robbins, Elvis, The Be Good Tanyas .
Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Criminal Minds, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Standoff, 24, House, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Three's Company
David Foster Wallace, Phillip Roth, maybe Beckett, "Infinite Jest"; any Hemingway, any Joyce, any Colson Whitehead, and Steinbeck, any Oates; Jerzy Kosinski, "The Painted Bird"; any bio by Joseph J. Ellis; "1776" by McCullough; "Art and Physics" by Shlain. Isaacson's bio on Benjamin Franklin is exquisite. Patrick Kavanaugh poetry.
Jerzy Grotowski, Eric Forsythe, Tara Egan, David Foster Wallace, John Sierros, Zach Galifianakis, Dexter Bullard.