Lucha Libre, pre-Columbian Meso-American art, Ancient cultures, My-T-Fine Products from Washington State, Japanese folk art depicting nightmarish phantasms, Art Brut, Surrealism, Tretchikoff's green skinned women, B-Movies, Nancy Sinatra, Pam Grier, Mary Woronov and Lydia Lunch, Transgressive and Visceral modes of expression, dj'ing and either liberating or frustrating large groups of people. Wicked smiles from nice girls. A cold drink on a sunny day. No straws, though. I prefer to feel it roll over my lips. Pursuing the eternal month of May. Half way there.
Anonymous Bored Girls with Webcams.
Whoa, way too many to list. Let's go with genres: Garage Rock, Rockabilly (the original 50s stuff), Dub Reggae, Old School Rap (from Stetsasonic to De La Soul to NWA), Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Electro-funk, Hard-Core Honky Tonk (Merle Haggard, George Jones, Buck Owens), Neko Case plus the whole Bloodshot records insurgent kountry krew, Mano Negra, Boogaloo and Afro Funk, Funk in general, 70s Punk, Motorhead, The Melvins and Mudhoney, Rhythm and Blues and Soul, Surf Rock, The Runaways, 60s Psychedelic Rock (the less pretentious, more punk phase, like found on Nuggets, though that hippy-trippy stuff too), CAN, Detroit Rock (from Iggy to Alice to Kiss to MC5 to Parliament to Mick Collins related groups), Easy Listening (Martin Denny, Les Baxter, Yma Sumac), Latin Jazz, 70s Bombastic Rock (just 'cuz I like Devo don't mean I can't like Zeppelin...). Um, Eastern European Wedding Music, 60s and 70s Commercial Production music, especially from Britian (like that funky shit on the Sound Gallery comps), Glam Rock and Bubblegum Rock. Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, ultimate 70s guitarist. Sounds that make you shake your ass and rearrange your head. My favorite current band is The Gourds from Austin, TX.
After watching the 2005 film "Downfall," directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and starring Wim Wender's former leading man (and Swiss acting legend) Bruno Ganz, I've easily found the best movie of last year. It's the first treatment of Hitler's life made by a German film company. Specifically, it shows us the absurd tragedy that accompanied the last days in the bunker as Berlin was over-run by the Red Army. See it. Ganz played what may be the most mesmerizing character on screen ever, Hitler. Gott in Himmell. Now on to the old stand-bys: DARIO ARGENTO! DARIO ARGENTO! DARIO ARGENTO!!! Film Noir, Busby Berkely fantasias, Samurai pictures, Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, B-Movies and Sci-Fi from the 50s, El Santo and the Mexican Masked Wrestler genre, old Burlesque loops, Grindhouse Adult Films from the 60s, Japanese monster movies (big Ultraman fan), Akira Kurosawa, Taxi Driver, Forbidden Zone, Faster Pussycat! Kill, Kill!! Brazil, Videodrome, The Bedford Incident, Dr. Strangelove, White Lightnin', Reservoir Dogs, Bad Santa, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Zentropa-an early Lars von Trier film. Perhaps the funniest movie ever, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. Tongue in cheek tribute to cheezy 50s sci-fi. "Bend yourself at the middle!" I've always felt Pauly Shore just needs a good script. Yeah, right!
The Wire, Homicide, Mr. Show, The Sopranos, SCTV, Arrested Development, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, I'm Alan Partridge, Aqua Teen, Harvey Birdman, I.T. Crowd, Trailer Park Boys, Family Guy, Home Movies, Daily Show, Yacht Rock and especially Tim and Eric Awesome Show/Great Job.
I'm always wreckin' the spines on a couple of things. I'm pretty passionate about early-20th century pulp fiction: particularly Jim Thompson (The Grifters, The Getaway, Savage Night, Wild Town, The Killer Inside Me, Pop. 1280). His stories are somehow even more scary than my other pulp fave, H.P. Lovecraft. Philip K. Dick has rearranged my view on reality. Re-Search books which include the Incredibly Strange Films and Music Series; absolutely essential. Neo-realistic horror, particularly the last book written by John O'Brian (he committed suicide before completing it) called The Assault On Tony's and Lynda Barry's Cruddy. Scary stuff. About as far as I'll go into the metaphysical realm is studying the belief systems of ancient cultures and hearing it from a prankster like Robert Anton Wilson. Comic books, from classic 50s era Mad to Zap to Raw to Weirdo and Blab. Dan Clowes' work during his late 80s/Lloyd Llewelyn era is just...the hilt. I consider Jack Kirby to be one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. My fascintation with pulp fiction extends to the "MAN/SWEAT" genre, tough guy pulp magazines from the 50s and 60s chockful of harrowing adventures from behind enemy lines or first hand accounts of guys fighting giant piranhas and outwitting bloodthirsty headhunters in the Amazon, all adorned with cheescake photos of sexy 50s broads. Not overly concerned with political correctness. My favorite book of all time is "A Confederacy of Dunces," written by John Kennedy Toole, set in New Orleans. If you ain't read it, get it.
There was a Japanese movie on TV last night, at the bar I was drinking in. I happened to catch one sequence where a schoolgirl in her uniform began seducing a naked woman. The schoolgirl said (it was subtitled) "I am both man and woman so I can act any way I want." She then showed a rising boner in her panties, and went on to straddle the other woman. They commenced to have sleazy hermaphrodite sex. Her. That girl is my hero.