What makes people get up in the morning? What is this strange itch? Why don't I get more mail? Do people really think anymore? Who is getting all that mail that wasn't forwarded? What conspiracies should I really be worried about? Did we really go to the moon? Did I really just moon that horse? Is peeing outside a virtue? Could I survive without electricity and running water? Is ivy pretty and nice for landscaping or merely the plant worlds version of a pandemic?
Most of the people I'd like to meet are dead. Which is not to say that I want to meet dead people. I should say that the people that I want to meet, I can't because they are dead. But I suppose that there are a few people alive that I would like to meet. Actually I would want to have dinner with them, or coffee, or a beer. Meeting people is not what it's cracked up to be. You meet someone, you shake their hand, you say something lame in an attempt to sum up an hour's conversation in one sentence. It generally is more symbolic than it is a memorable moment. So I would like to have dinner. I had a dream once that I was dining with Steve Martin. He was witty but comfortable. I knew him pretty well and he seemed rather taken aback at our strange familiarity. I also sang with Bono on stage at a rather intimate show in my old barn back in Missouri. The strangest time was when I bonded with Don Henley over his solo material. I told him that I got the depth of what he was trying to do. He told me no one wanted him to move beyond the Eagles. He was sad because he had always seen them as a vehicle to his solo career. But the fact that I got it was something. He was actually a very cynical guy in my dream. Like all famous people he seemed to only hear the top 10% of what I said. I also sat horrified in a car as Clint Eastwood talked about his estrangement from some farm lady. He took impossible curves way too fast. We ended up in a strange toy city that existed beyond the upper crust of the sky scrapers of Portland. It was a saccarine nightmare of Walt Disney and Vegas.
Does anyone really read this list of bands? Does it tell you anything about me that will compel you to want to know me? Hmmmm. To list all the bands I like would be rather lengthy and I believe, in the end, rather futile. Suffice it to say that eclectic would be applicable to my taste. In fact I will list what I don't like to hear and most everything else is open season. Things I think suck : modern R&B ( apparently called this because no one can think of a better name I guess, but it has nothing to do with rhythm and blues that is for sure), Emo metal or whatever the hell it is exemplified by bands like Atreyu, Shadows Fall or any band that has a Biblical name but has nothing to do with anything Biblical (Lamb of God, Avenged Sevenfold, etc.) Those bands hurt me in many ways. In fact most modern metal is not in the spirit of what I like. I do like Megadeth however on occasion. Modern country is out as well, although you really couldn't torture me with it as much as the first two. I worked in radio in Portland and one of the stations was country and I found I could tolerate most of it, but tolerate would not be enjoying or liking. I search and found a few gems in the pile, but wouldn't stoop to pick them out.Lately I have found that there is little new coming out that excites me. I am a junky however and need new music so sometimes I like things for a little while that are mediocre just to get that high. Often I am able to delve into the past and find bands or albums that I didn't know about. Taylor Bacon exposed me to Sagitarius the other day and I had never heard of that in my life. Not bad. Can't go wrong with classic pop for me.
Movies.....hmmm. Yep I watch em. What happened to the Coen Brothers? Have they made a film up to the standard of Fargo, or O Brother Where Art Thou? in a long time? I'm so sad, fortunately Wes Anderson stepped in to make high quality quirkiness before the vacuum sucked us all away. I still hope the Coen Bros do something good again. I need to know that sucking after awhile is not inevitable.
Without sounding like an ass, I don't watch television. Not really for any real reason, outside of it rotting mind and soul. I have watched enough television in this life already. So I can say that I think there have been moments when the medium shined. Even now, if I hear about a good show I rent a season on DVD and check it out. For the most part though (outside of Discovery, TLC, and History) television is a monumental waste of time. So here goes my good list of television. Twin Peaks, The Prisoner, Arrested Development, The Simpsons, Kids in the Hall, NYPD Blue, The Sopranos, Star Trek (James T. Kirk), Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, Andy Griffith Show, Have Gun Will Travel, The Rifleman, X-files, Married with Children (first few years), Saturday Night Live (hit and miss of course), etc. That's enough on that rather vapid subject.Ok I will leave all of that that I wrote two years ago. I will add that I think television has greatly improved in the last few years. I have been addicted to getting the seasons of certain shows on DVD and watching the whole thing until I'm stumbling and mumbling and feel as sore as a whore on Friday. So I do dig T.V. again, even though I'm not really watching T.V. as it.......oh whatver. I like Lost, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, and Firefly (why oh why did they cancel that show!)
I used to read depressing and soul wrenching novels. Doestoevsky comes to mind. I don't read fiction all that often now. I mainly read religious stuff. I read the Bible all the time and I can't get enough of it. If I was on an island, give me the Bible and a good commentary and I would be content. Of the Christ followers that write I am really diggin' Henri Nouwen, Brendan Manning, Frederic Buechner, Ravi Zacharias, Francis Schaeffer, Phillip Yancey, C.S. Lewis, Dr. Paul Brand, GK Chesterton to name a few. I love to sit at the feet of these great men and learn more about God. I also like the "hinges of history" books by Thomas Cahill. He has made me aware of some cool stuff in history that are really important but relatively unknown. I highly recommend "How the Irish Saved Civilization" I couldn't put that one down and I will never celebrate St. Patrick's day the same. The socialogical case studies of Dr. Robert Coles are fascinating. "Children of Crisis" taught me more about the South than any class, book or movie. It is a read of effort but it will open your eyes to a world most of us guess at poorly.
Martin Luther King, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dr. Paul Brand, Francis Schaeffer, Dad, Mom,