Traveling to mall-less countries and neighborhoods, scuba, live music of so many types, viewing and collecting art, talking trash, Afropop.org, missing NY, watching the Oakland skyline and the Lake Merritt shoreline twinkle at dusk, nice drives in the warm California weather (with the seat heaters on if it just ain't warm enough), regaling folks with my stories about concerts, politics, and my crazy life, like that time i snuck onto the stage at Yankee Stadium when Nelson Mandela was in town....
Cool folk in the Bay Area to hang with. Cool folk elsewhere to visit. Prince lovers and SGI members everywhere. African-diasporic music, art, dance (Rennie Harris, Ron k. Brown, Urban Bush Women, Peru Negro, many west and south african and caribbean dance companies) and food lovers. Folk that will walk with me around Lake Merritt.
I don't watch many movies, but I do love political, historical and music documentaries, sci-fi, and action movies like: What the Bleep, Motorcycle Diaries, Buena Vista Social Club, X-Men 1-3, Memento, Amelie, Oceans 11-13, Frida, Dogma, Matrix 1-3, Star Wars, Star Trek, Meet the Parents & the Fockers, When We Were Kings, Minority Report, Kama Sutra, Borat, History of the World Part I (does that mean I'm old?), Calle 54, Life, most Bond movies, American Pie/Wedding, Bourne Identity and Supremacy, most Michael Moore and Albert Brooks movies, Lumumba,Bamboozled, Journeys with George, Fog of War, Control Room, The Corporation...how's that for high and low brow?
Colbert Report, Daily Show, Battlestar Galactica, Planet Earth, Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Dirty Jobs, Man vs Wild, Survivorman (and all those crazy white boy challenging nature shows), Dog Whisperer (calm submissive!), all those nature shows, NFL, NBA, World Cup...and Dave Chappelle, In Living Color, Da Ali G Show, Sex in the City, and West Wing reruns.
Anything by derrick bell, manning marable, michael moore, robert caro, laura esquivel, edward said, kimberle crenshaw, don miguel ruiz, howard zinn, julianne malveaux, john powell, tim wise...lots more. And hopefully within a year and a half...me!
My Mom (RIP) & Dad, Paul Robeson, Che, the Deacons for Defense, Michael Collins, Shirley Chisholm, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Fela, Derrick Bell, Miriam Makeba, Curtis Mayfield, and many others...and, every now and then, when I summon the infinite power of my faith, my ancestors, and the universe, me.