Theatre, history, current events (unfolding history), unicyling, nba basketball, smart sci-fi, comic books/graphic novels, poker, playstation, sticky stinky yummy green stuff
Funny, smart, talented, funny, reasonably polite, warm, funny, witty, clever, funny - any/all of the above. Old souls. Good humans. Blue stars. Green clovers.
David Byrne, Talking Heads, Soul Coughing, Eels, Henry Mancini, Tom Ze, Perez Prado, for some reason any version of "Perfidia, " lotsa Ska (mostly 80's, '2nd Wave' - Specials, English Beat, Madness, etc.) most Luaka Bop disks of weird and wonderful world music, plus a secret love for slavishly and shamelessly crafted poptunes of the "one-hit wonder" variety. Lush orchestrations, especially strings and horns, make me really really happy.
In no particular order - True Stories, Down By Law, Amelie, all them Lord of the Rings flix, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, City of Lost Children, Easy Rider, The Manchurian Candidate (original), The Great Race, Godfather I & II, Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange, The Killer, and, er, Butch and Sundance The Early Days.
Wonder Showzen, Daily Show, Colbert Report, Battlestar Galactica (new), Lost, The Office (ok, both versions), My Name is Earl, Family Guy, Drawn Together, South Park, The Shield, The Simpsons, Robot Chicken, TV Funhouse, Sopranos, Venture Brothers
Alan Moore (The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Miracleman), James Ellroy (American Tabloid, LA Confidential, The Big Nowhere, The Cold Six Thousand), Warren Ellis (Planetary, The Authority), Frank Miller (300, Sin City, The Dark Knight Returns), Peter Hopkirk (great historian whose books read like adventure thrillers - The Great Game, Like Hidden Fire, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road), Paul Gallico (The Abandoned, Love Let Me Not Hunger), Thomas Friedman (From Beirut to Jerusalem, The World is Flat), Camille Paglia (Sexual Personae, Vamps and Tramps, books only - in her live appearances she sound bytes herself in stupid and oh-so-'controversial' ways). PLAYWRIGHTS - Moliere, Durrenmatt, Ionesco, Shakespeare, Elmer Rice
Clarence Darrow, Edward R. Murrow, single moms, anyone who quietly perseveres and struggles to succeed without stepping on the backs of others