Literature, writing -- audio/video technology, contemporary art, aesthetics, post-modern philosophy and science -- misconceptions, concise brevity, the tragic flaw... Impenetrable incomprehensibility, unconventional nutritional theories......substance (and the complete lack thereof)...lamentation pining and woe -- but only in that order...Exploring good food and drinks at restaurants, pubs and such...discovering new interests...ellipses.
To name a few that have hit me at various times: REM, Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Sirens, The Mainliners, The Cynics, Son Volt/Wilco/Uncle Tupelo, The Smiths, The Posies, Live Skull, Charlatans UK, Concrete Blonde, Stone Roses, The Fall, Stephen Malkmus/Pavement, Royal Trux, Mercury Rev, The Launderettes, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Youth Group, Teenage Fanclub. Lately, though, my faves are all over there in my "Friends".
Barry Lyndon, On The Waterfront, Training Day, A Scanner Darkly, Waking Life, Dig!, Crumb, Clerks, Dazed and Confused, 24-Hour Party People, Dogtown and Z-Boys, How To Draw A Bunny, Pollack, Basquiat, American Buffalo, Jesus' Son, Anything w/ Robert Downey Jr., Robin Wright or Ed Harris...Favorite directors include Peter Greenaway, Werner Herzog, David Lynch, Tod Solendz, Kubrick, Van Sant, Jarmusch, Cronenberg, Scorsese, Coppolas, Linklater and Woody Allen. In other words, I once spent about a year watching a lot of IFC.
Most recently I've been reading some Chekov, Hart Crane and that silly Hitchhiker guy. Through the years some favorite writers: Thomas Hardy, Dennis Cooper, Breece D'J Pancake, John Hawkes, William S. Burroughs, John Gardner...As a Lit major of course I read the standard stuff -- especially enjoyed Kafka, Joyce, Stein, Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Flaubert, Billy Shakes, and Chaucer. Baudelaire, Verlaine and Rimbaud and those guys...
The person I most admire is Alan Smithee. Not the band, the person. If anyone can send me any recent photos of him, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm told he has a sister who's bitter.