Right now my main interest is hanging with the guys in my street gang, The Hooligans. We're a rough and tumble group of lads, up for anything and with nothing to lose. We're a bunch of good time charlies looking to make our names and find our way in the world and nothing's gonna stop us. Not even our deadly rival gangs, such as "The Ruffians," "The Neat Lads" or "The Fancy Boys." We can dance ALL of those gangs under the table so if we ever have to rumble- it's basically a done deal.
I would love to meet either Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad. But that's going to be difficult, because one's been dead for 141 years and the other is a fictional character. But still, I'd enjoy chatting it up with both those folks if the opportunity ever arose. And if I'm way off base and this is where I'm actually supposed to write about the kind of new friends I'd like to meet, then I guess the same answer still applies- I'd like to meet friends like Abraham Lincoln and Tom Joad. Except maybe without Lincoln's beard, or Tom Joad's abject poverty.
Etta James, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Henry Mancini, Glen Campbell, Air, Roy Budd, The Monkees (before Peter and Mike left), Debussy, Mahler, John Williams, The Cowsills, The Bee Gees (pre-disco), Philip Glass, Felix Mendelsshon, Hall and Oates (oh come on, they had a few good songs).
60's comedies, the first two Pink Panther movies, Being There, all 4 "Alien" movies (even though the last two kind of suck), Deathtrap, The Thing (remake) Sean Connery Bond movies, The Birds, Mr. Roberts, Waiting For Guffman, Arsenic and Old Lace, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Planet of the Apes (the original) The Magnificent Seven, American Movie, North By Northwest, anything with hippies in it, anything where a monkey does stuff humans normally do, i.e. skateboarding, surfing, flipping people off, etc.
St. Elsewhere, Mr. Show, Dr. Katz, The Office, I'm Alan Partridge, The Incredible Hulk (go Ferrigno, go) The Bob Newhart Show, Spaced, Bosom Buddies, that show where robots fight other robots, Night Court before the first old lady bailiff died, Family Ties before Tina Yothers turned into a bigfoot, King of the Hill, Ali G and whatever's currently showing on ESPN 2, especially if it's a "world's strongest man" type show, where people throw trucks at each other and juggle elephants, etc.
Anything by Richard Matheson, The Mayor of Castorbridge, The Shining, anything by Lawrence Block, Bright Lights, Big City (guilty pleasure) the comics of Peter Bagge, Studs Terkel books (repetitive but good) East of Eden, Invisible Man (the one by Ralph Ellison) The Martian Chronicles, Sherlock Holmes, anything by Walter Mosley, anything by Richard Russo, FOUND magazine, Sam Henderson's "Magic Whistle" comics, anything by Tom Wolfe, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Flowers for Algernon. I tend to read a lot of fiction, but I try to vary it up now and then, with a nice depressing book about horrific societal problems or perhaps a sadly engrossing biography, such as Sammy Davis Jr.'s "Yes I Can" (trust me, for some reason you just can't put it down).