I'm big into literature and movies. I was an English major at the University of Louisiana, but then I had an existential quarter-life crisis that lasted over a year, which ended up with me deciding that even though I love literature and writing, I didn't want to pursue a career in that field, which, in turn, led to me unceremoniously dropping out of college, moving back to PA, and I'm now pursuing a career in the nursing field. Yes, I intend to be a man-nurse, or if you will (and I hope you do), a "murse." I'll blog more about these developments later.
Back to my interests: Since before I can remember, I've always been in love with comedy. I used to perform with an improv team called Cult of the Stage Monkey. I didn't get to stay on the team because I moved away, but I still love and support the group - www.myspace.com/cosmonkey . I also love listening to music, which brings us to...
I'd like to meet:
In general, I'd like to meet David Lynch, William Gaddis, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Dostoevsky, Pedro Almodovar, Beck (ask him what's up with the Scientology-shit), Edward Norton (just seems cool), George W. Bush (just so I could stare in his eyes and find out what that feels like), Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Barack Obama, Stacey Richter, George Saunders, Wong Kar Wai, Cat Power, Norah Jones, Tom Waits, Jesus (I mean, that would be pretty amazing, wouldn't it?), William Faulkner, Marcel Proust, Ralph Ellison, Dan The Automator, Tupac, Saul Williams, and most definitely David Foster Wallace, who is the writer with whom I think I "click" the most.
I'd also like to meet whomever put together this thirty seconds of video that made an indelible mark on my soul as a child and has, in part, made me the man I am today. Enjoy:
Music:
When I was a kid, my sisters were really into Bobby Brown and MC Hammer and musicians like that, which got me into "black music" early.
However, the first time I ever really heard music, like really HEARD the shit, is when I stole my brother's tape of Dr. Dre's "The Chronic." -To me, still possibly the greatest rap album of all time. From there, I immersed myself in rap music, culminating with a nearly absurd obsession (actually, there's nothing "nearly" about it, it was certifiably absurd) with 2pac (aka Tupac Amaru Shakur, Makaveli, Don Killuminati, Lesane Parrish Crooks, etc.). But, I feel like I've kind of grown out of rap. From 2pac, I went to back to his influence Marvin Gaye, and got into the Motown and 70's soul music. From Marvin, I went back to Nat King Cole, though I never really got into that time period altogether.
Nowadays, I've gotten much more into stuff like Trip-hop and Acid Jazz. Here are the artists (and types of artists) who make regular appearances on my CD/MP3-Players: Beck (especially Sea Change), Radiohead (saw them live at Bonnaroo '06 - AMAZING!), D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, The Other Planets, Frank Zappa, Dan the Automator (possibly my favorite producer, though he's had label difficulties over the past couple years, and is now just starting to put some new stuff out again), Elysian Fields (anything with Jennifer Charles is money), The French Kicks (great NY group), Townhall (very cool, fun Philly group), Talib Kweli (best MC around), Gnarls Barkely (they're the shit), Medeski Martin and Wood (Love them), Art Tatum, Charlies Parker, Miles Davis, Eric Doplhy, Muddy Waters, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Mozart (fuck you, he lives up to the hype, I'm not posing), Debussy, Hayden, Offenback, Morricone, Danny Elfman, Nicola Piovanni, Samuel Barber, DJ Krush, Tortoise, Gustavo Santaolalla, Boards of Canada, TV on the Radio, Modest Mouse, Cat Power (I think I'm becoming a little obsessed with her) and too many others to discuss.
Guilty Pleasures? Why not?! Here goes:
- a little Harry Connick Jr.
- Crunk (I was just living in the dirty-dirty for a few years and dammit if Li'l Jon and Jazzy Pha don't produce some fire-ass beats)
- "Don'tcha" and "Buttons" by the Pussycat Dolls (hot chicks, just accept it)
- Some Nelly Furtado (especially the songs "Try" and "Say It Right")
- A couple of the Rihanna songs are fun ("Unfaithful" is fucking garbage, though)
- R. Kelly, even though he is a statutory-rapist who really needs to be in jail soon for the love of God! Nevertheless, the man does have talent.
AND WAIT! - Holy shit! I forgot to mention Norah Jones. She's only a guilty pleasure because of how unremittingly girly her music is, and how much of a fan I, a hairy, heterosexual man, am. I can't help it, though. I love her voice and how she approaches her pieces. I don't think she's an artist of the highest caliber or anything, but she's just some good stuff, that Norah Jones.
Movies:
Foreign and Indie are my bread and butter, but goddamit if I didn't love the new "King Kong"! Here's a quick, woefully incomplete list of some of my fav's:
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" - Michel Gondry is a true artist, and this might be the best love-movie made in the last ten years if not one of the very best ever made. There's a million reasons why falling in love is a mistake and how it can all fall apart, but we still try. Because.... (your reason here)
"2046" - Wong Kar Wai is the man.
"La Dulce Vita" - Fellini is also the man.
"Talk to Her" - Okay, Pedro Almodovar is really the man, I guess, jeesh.
"Unbearable Lightness of Being" - Sidenote: I own the book, but still haven't read it.
"Memento" - Christopher Nolan is very cool
"Cinema Paradiso" - God bless those Italians!
"Unbreakable" - M. Night Shyamalan's most character-driven and least preachy movie. It's the only movie of his that I love.
"Edward Scissorhands" - I enjoy and am moved by the movie more every time I see it. I really think it's not respected enough.
"Awakenings" - Okay, I'm a softie sometimes. Sue me.
"Farewell My Concubine" - How do the Chinese do such amazing character-driven movies? HOW, I ASK YOU!?!
"The Big Lebowski" - I love this movie more and more the older I get.
"City of God" might be the best movie of the last five years.
"Children of Men"
"No Country for Old Men"
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
"La Mome" (aka "La Vie En Rose")
"Amores Perros"
-and for good measure,
"The Exorcist". - I just love how it was made.
Plus, I love the Muppets and their movies. In fact, I'm calling it right now: "Muppets Christmas Carol" is the best adaptation of Charles Dickens EVER!!!
Television:
I try to strictly limit the time I spend watching TV because I always develop an unhealthy relationship with it. I use it to fill in the quiet times instead of thinking, studying, reading, or writing, or even - Please GOD, let me one day acquire this habit - regularly working out.
But I do watch TV, so here is the list of shows I like:
Current shows: The Shield, The Office, Comedy Central's Passive-Aggressive News Hour (Jon Stewart is a king amongst men, and I'm getting close to seriously idolizing Stephen Colbert), SNL, Conan O'brien, Futurama (starting to really love this show, in fact), Family Guy, 24, and I'm hesitant yet willing to admit that I love the show "Project Runway", even though I think the world of fashion is absolute bullshit. Here's my defense: The show is well thought-out, it's the only compelling reality show where the contestans compete CREATIVELY, the contestants are actual artisans in their field, Tim Gunn is a cool motherfucker, and whenever I start to feel a little gay, Heidi Klum comes onscreen and I get that warm feeling (i.e. boner).
Old-school shows that I still like to watch: The Simpsons, Cheers, The Honeymooners, The Phil Silvers Show, Arrested Development (single tear rolling down my cheek), West Wing, Homicide: Life on the Streets, Sports Night, Monty Python, Mr. Show, Strangers With Candy (Love that fucking show!), classic SNL, Comedy Central Funhouse, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Action, any many more, I'm sure.
Shows I used to watch but now I can barely sit through (not including children's TV): The A-team, Knight Rider, Hammer, Ellen (yes, I admit it), Superboy, My Secret Identity, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation (used to watch it as kid, never quote-unquote "got into it". Okay!?!), etc.
Books:
I'm a firm advocate of contemporary fiction. I think people are way, way too antiquated when it comes to their taste in poetry and literature. This might be okay if you're just the casual fan (like I am with poetry, pretty much), but too many of my literary peers are fucking stuck on the modernists of seventy years ago or the beats of fifty years ago. Fucking A! There is so much good shit out there that has furthered the art, probed deeper into the human condition, and generally surpassed what we call classic literature, that you could spend your whole life reading the most noteworthy books from just the last five or ten years. And regarding the argument, "Well you need a good foundation in the classics before you can hope to appreciate what's being written today." I would like to respond "What does 'a good foundation' mean?" You can spend the rest of your life trying to do that and never get past "Canterbury Tales". I agree that having an understanding of literature's history and development can help add nuances of appreciation to certain works, but if the author depends on the reader knowing literature outside of what he has written to receive the full impact of his work, then he is failing at his craft (yes, this is definitely becoming pompous, but I've got to say it). Again, I agree that you may appreciate something more fully if you are well-versed in the context of the work, but the work should still work by itself. "Crime and Punishment" is still an amazing novel without an understanding of Russian history. Joyce, in his ambitious way, even felt that he wrote for the man in the street. Furthermore, I think kids in high school and college or anyone who normally wouldn't be interested in literature are more immediately interested in literature and/or writers that reflect their (the readers') own time period, including the slang, the famous people/events, the syntax, and the general subject matter. What's worked for me is finding contemporary writers who engage me and then wanting to go read the writers that influenced them, which has lead me to go and read some of those classics (much in the same way that I went from 2pac to Marvin Gaye to Nate King Cole). I guess I'm essentially advocating the logic of "Go with what you know." And what culture and time period do people know more than the present ones.
Perfunctorily, here's my list:
"Infinite Jest" "Oblivion" "Interviews with Hideous Men" all by David Foster Wallace.
"My Date with Satan" and "Twin Study" by Stacey Richter
Best American Non-Required Reading Series by Dave Eggers.
"Civilwarland in Bad Decline" by George Saunders.
"Birds of America" by Lorrie Moore.
"Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison.
"Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky.
Short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, Zadey Smith, Vollman, and many others who appear in the pages of New Yorker, Harper's, and, once upon a time, Atlantic Monthly (though I am trying to get more into Lit. Journals like the Alaska Quarterly which I think is amazing).
Heroes:
My dad once described Arthur Koestler as having great "wanderlust" due to his (Koetler's) propensity to see the World. However, due to my father's accent and the fact that I was sitting behind him in the car as we drove to see "Apocalypse Now: Redux", I thought he said "wonderlust" with an 'o' instead of an 'a', in reference to Koestler's propensity to think deeply. I fell in love with this nonexistent word, "wonderlust: a lust for wondering." I felt like it was the perfect word to apply to the people I admired the most. I guess the closest thing I have to a hero or heroes are these people who seem to have achieved higher degrees of enlightened self-actualization. There's the more well-known, conventional self-actualization icons such as Buddha, Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ. I do admire them very much, but I also look up to great thinkers like Arthur Koestler, Niels Boehr, and Chet Raymo (look him up, he's amazing) who gained notoriety in their fields and were accepted as geniuses, but also tried to become "better people". Not just smarter, stronger, nicer, more powerful or virtuous, they used the higher consciousness that makes us human, and used it to make themselves more in tune with that which calls to us from that higher consciousness. And if I can try to do this without becoming a self-absorbed, preachy douchebag, then I think I'll be doing alright...
