Guitars, leftist politics, dreams, hot sauce, fringe art, Indian food, poetry, the quest for the perfect apple fritter.
Favorite comedians--Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Andy Kaufman, Chris Rock, Jake Johansen, Steven Wright, young Bill Cosby, Emo Phillips, Dave Chappelle, Dave Attell.
Other funny-stuff Hall of Fame: Firesign Theater, Darwin Awards, Steve Don't Eat It, James Lileks, The Onion. And, lest we forget, the totally awesome www.homestarrunner.com
Other folks who are passionate and curious about music, literature, food, justice, art, film, comedy, cartoons & comics, and provocative ideas.
Tom Waits, Husker Du, Otis Redding, Laurie Anderson, Flaming Lips, Hank Williams, Rocket From The Crypt, Ray Charles, Pixies, Nick Cave, Public Enemy, Explosions in the Sky, Richard Thompson, Stooges, Buddy Holly, Yo La Tengo, Run-DMC, Johnny Cash, Mission of Burma, John Coltrane, R.E.M., Charles Mingus, Dianogah, the Band, De La Soul, Reverend Horton Heat, Howlin' Wolf, Sonic Youth, Motorhead, Captain Beefheart, Decemberists, Robert Johnson, Butthole Surfers, Neil Young, Big Star, Sonny Boy Williamson, Velvet Underground, His Name is Alive, Ramones, Jonathan Richman, James Brown, Los Lobos, Robyn Hitchcock, the Who, Replacements, Lightnin' Hopkins, minutemen, Black Sabbath, Television, Fugazi, Billie Holiday, the Bronx, Talking Heads, 13th Floor Elevators, Miles Davis, Dinosaur Jr., Kinks, Big Black, Thelonious Monk, XTC, Shins, King Crimson, Uncle Tupelo, Elvis Costello, etc.
Annie Hall, Wings of Desire, Napoleon Dynamite, Koyaanisqatsi, The American Astronaut, It's a Wonderful Life, Un Chien Andalou, This is Spinal Tap, Jacob's Ladder, Heavy, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Down By Law, Citizen Kane, Half Nelson, Stop Making Sense, The Last Waltz, and pretty much anything by Alfred Hitchcock, Terry Gilliam, Wes Anderson, Stanley Kubrick (excepting Eyes Wide Shut), or the Coens.
Simpsons, Monty Python's Flying Circus, MST3K, Sealab 2021, The Office (BBC Version), Ren & Stimpy, Kids in the Hall, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Family Guy, Austin City Limits. Semi-guilty pleasure: CSI
Leaves of Grass, the Tao Te Ching, V., The Winged Seed, Grendel, Waiting for Godot, Catch-22, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Lolita, Siddhartha, and anything by Mark Twain (especially Huck Finn), Kurt Vonnegut (especially Mother Night), Philip K. Dick, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Campbell, Howard Zinn, RW Emerson, HD Thoreau, James Hillman, Jonathan Kozol, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lester Bangs, or Neil Postman. MLK's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" and "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" bring tears to my eyes. That Shakespeare guy was OK, too. Poetry? William Carlos Williams, Lucille Clifton, Pablo Neruda, Galway Kinnell, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Stafford, Antonio Machado, E. E. Cummings, Federico Garcia Llorca, Theodore Roethke, Rumi, Carolyn Forche, Arthur Rimbaud, Gary Snyder, etc.
Greg Palast, Amy Goodman, Eugene Debs (duh), the entire staff of The Onion