WRITING LITERATURE TEACHING [Access the Instructor Web Page ] MUSIC, especially Gary Numan [Check out my website Numa Records: The Formative Years ; latest update is about Hammer horror legend Caroline Munro and her Numa single, "Pump Me Up."] PARROTS PARANORMAL INVESTIGATING [Visit Pacific Paranormal Investigations (founders, Glenn Pitcher and David Walters)] OTHER PARANORMAL PHENOMENA [Investigate PPI on MySpace to find out more] QUEER CULTURE [Check in to Planet Out , a nexus for Queer politics and culture] PLANETARY and ASTROPHYSICAL SCIENCE [Visit Space.com for the daily news of the universe] HUMAN SEXUALITY
Just a quick word about "Adds": I'm excited to be networking in such a diverse community of thinkers. If your MySpace profile, though, is a portal for pornography, or if you are a pornographer or a purveyor of pornography, I'll have to deny your request to be added as one of my friends, even if you're a nice person. I'm not against pornography; I honor it as a protected form of speech, and I'm certainly no prude about human sexuality. However, my homepage is closely connected to my profession as an educator. Again, don't take it personally; I certainly don't begrudge you the joys of being open about your sexuality. It's something I'm just compelled to do. I hope you understand.In meeting prospective friends at MySpace, I pledge to remain ever vigilant about my own filters and possible biases, and hope you reciprocate. I openly enjoy people who are broadminded and have many different interests. However, we all have non-negotiables, ones that I hope you share as well: bullying, even if it's just an attitude; intolerance; misogyny; sexual exploitation; and mean-spiritedness. I'm no Pollyanna. I'm a great lover of debate and eagerly enter in discourse about all sorts of controversy. However, I honor respect and comity in all discussions. :)Despite these fairly heavy-duty criteria, I am a fun person to be around. (Or, rather, I'm not unpleasant to be around!) I have a very cynical, sometimes slippery, sense of humor but, I believe, it belies a compassionate nature.
As with everything else, my musical tastes are eclectic. With age, I become more and more judgmental of the industry. Most of all, I distrust the marketed fodder: cookie-cutter music that, like television programming, is primarily intended to sell merchandise rather than promote musical artistry.Musically, I like Kate Bush and Gary Numan. (I run a website about the Numa Record acts of the 80s, called Numa Records: The Formative Years. (Quarterly updates include tributes to each of the eleven singles by the eight artists other than Numan that were released on the label.) These two styles of music define my general tastes as well, and the artists who fall into the categories implied by Bush and Numan are: Tori Amos; Nine Inch Nails; Annie Lennox; Rammstein; Cocteau Twins; Placebo; Death Cab For Cutie; Peter Gabriel; Sulpher; Tik 'n' Tok [There you go, Rod!]; Casey Stratton; and others that are up and coming, like Alien 6. (Some might call a few of these obscure, but, with all due respect, so what? Does good P.R. and popularity make musical artists better than they were beforehand? Errrrr, nope!I'm also an amateur remix artist and have a fair number of examples of my work on-line, on two of my websites. Latest remixes: Noise Noise (Mix 2 Fade) [Gary Numan] The American Way (Manifest Destiny Mix) [Hohokam] The Picture (TFY Cover Shot Remix) [Caroline Munro]
I have a huge interest in anime these days and am thrilled that animation has finally caught on again as a legitimate form of movie-making and storytelling. My favorites are, of course, the character driven anime: Samurai Champloo, Gankutsuou (Count of Monte Christo), Fruits Basket, Gilgamesh, Cardcaptor Sakura, Outlaw Star, Full Metal Alchemist, Witchhunter Robin, Heat Guy J, DNAngel, and, of course, the classics: Cowboy Bebop, Utna, Lane, etc. I respect the Japanese culture of anime, too, that allows for a subgenre of gay stories and characters an equal place of importance in its industry; American animation is, alas, too often more interested in making fun of gay culture via parodies and sad stereotypes.As for actual filmmakers and movies, I love the story-driven sci fi and fantasy, especially the ones with literary basis: Lord of the Rings, Farhrentheit 451, Forbidden Planet (ahhhh!). The Alien series is brilliant. But, I swoon over the older classics. I think the early to middle years of Bette Davis's career produced some of the best movies ever to come out of Hollywood.Documentaries I respect: Fahrenheit 911, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph, Paragraph 175, Out-foxedJust too much, really, to list here!
The Sopranos and Six Feet Under (I know, I know: It's not t.v.; it's HBO), Queer As Folk, The Comeback, Battlestar Galactica, Project Runway, Top Chef, Ghost Hunters, Di Grassi (yes, I'm pathetic for a 45-yr-old), The Daily Show, South Park, Boondocks, Drawn Together, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.
I'm a college English professor, but I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a bookworm. (Believe it or not, it's more common than you might think for professors having to make their specialized academic interests more of a hobby, secondary to reading and grading student papers!) I'm into literature about death and dying, and I teach a course called Views of Death and Dying in Literature. However, I also take a keen interest in literature about gay issues, race-related issues, philosophy, gender and sexism, politics, . . . (I have a deep and abiding respect for enlightened dilletantism.)I'm a writer as well and a creative writing instructor with cross-genre interest (poet, dramatist, short fiction writer and essayist). I've had a life-long love for James Joyce--well, since my senior year in high school, that is.
I admire people who take heroic stances--such as Kweisi Mfume, Cindy Shehan, Larry Kramer, Martin Luther King, Jr--and I believe that there are individuals who can be called heroes for their acts of bravery and self-sacrifice. To call any of them MY heroes, however, just isn't something I do.