Ok, my interests... well, you name it! Sports (I love Fantasy Football!), girls, cars, movies & music, the usual stuff. OH, & Philosophy, Theology, Cosmology, Astronomy, Psychology, Ethics, the Environment, Economics, Politics, Current Events, Science & Technology, etc etc etc, all kinds o' stuff! I absolutely hate capitalism, the 2nd worst idea ever foisted upon humankind imho* (it WILL ultimately lead to our destruction, unless humans are somehow able to control their greed, vanity, materialism, etc AND put the common good ahead of self-interest!), the worst idea being 'private property rights' (these things are mostly white guy ideas by the way). I lean as far to the left as anyone you'll ever meet, and that applies to economics (I believe in communism* for economic, social, environmental, and religious reasons & I also think adopting it & forcing selfish, greedy people to accept it may be the only way us humans are gonna survive the next 100 years!), I also lean to the left spiritually & politically. I'm a member & supporter of the Green Party (the ONLY political party that truly understands the problems we face, the only one that's stayed true to the ideals most of us say we believe in, and the only one not corrupted by corporate money), even among them I'm pretty far to the left.
But, I'm not ALL about that stuff! I'm also into fashion & fads (you don't need to tell ME about Freakonomics or Tipping Points!), gadgets (just a little bit though, I am genuinely concerned about e-waste & how our throw-away society is going over the edge; plus, I also believe that computers, gadgets & the internet are contributing to the on-going dumbing down of our society & the world, along w/ TV & advertising, of course!); I'm also into relationships, & did I say women?*Note: Lest you think I'm some radical left-wing wacko who has been brain-washed, please be aware that I have a B.S. in Finance (I was a straight-A student for 5 of my last 6 semesters in college, I was a President's Scholar and made the part-time Dean's List for 3 straight years! - yeah, you may say it was only San Jose State, but the fact is my PSAT & ACT test scores were in the top-10%, I was the first one in my family to graduate from college, AND the thing I'm most proud of: I worked my own way thru college while working full-time & supporting my wife & baby son); I'm also well-known thru out the SF Bay Area for having what is probably the BEST record in Silly Valley of picking 'winning' & 'losing' stocks (for at least the past 15 years!), and the main reason I DON'T have an MBA is simply because I do NOT like what B'schools teach (i.e. to think IN the box, values that I believe are unChristian (e.g. that greed is good, that 'success' in business AND in life is to be measured in dollars & cents, that free markets are the answer to everything, that both the planet & people can be exploited for personal gain, etc), & they teach WHAT to think, not HOW to think! - & therein lies many of the problems in the world today!)
I'd like to meet:
Who would I like to meet?
Oh, I'd definitely like to meet Sandy Summers (the young woman I credit with perhaps saving my life, literally!, and I want to thank her face-to-face someday), also Sasha Grey (my fave pornstar, one very intelligent & creative person, cute too; Naw, I could never do all the things she does & I don't really care for hard-core b-g sex (esp when it's with someone I like as much as I do her!), but she's no hypocrite, I have a LOT of respect for her, she just seems incredibly interesting, & I'd sure like to have the chance to try and tame her!). Lotsa others too, most of whom are among my myspace friends (many of my biggest crushes can be seen right here). So who else?Well, the main reason I signed up for MySpace was to blog, network a little & perhaps meet some new people who share similar concerns & interests (or not-so-friendly types who disagree with my views & wanna debate, feel free to bring it on!).But on the other hand!, IF I meet some sweet & petite woman who wants to date or correspond, that's fine by me! Just be warned: I have some strong religious & political beliefs that might not sit well with a lot of people; I've become rather well-known in these areas & associating with me may be difficult at times due to the fame, the paparazzi that seem to be just about everywhere & are so curious to know what's going on with me; I have a lot of interests, and I'm very committed to the causes I support & whatever things God wants me to do; Those commitments and the controversies that surround me (I may be the ultimate shit-starter, even though that's not my intent) make my life very difficult at times (such is the life of...); HOWEVER!... Those are the downsides! If you think you can deal with them, & if you have things in life you want to accomplish too, then I bet you'd find life w/me more than interesting & never boring!I'm somewhat 'haunted' by my old church (the Jehovah's Witnesses) and by a personal(?) 'relationship' that I hung on to for the past 15 years (both of which have much to do with my fame, but definitely NOT all of it!, I happen to believe that God himself has much to do with it, just so's you know!), and my life WOULD be a lot 'freeer' if I didn't have to carry around the 'baggage' associated with the fact that neither of them (my old church OR my former fiance) have provided me with the 'closure' I need (as such I think that says a LOT about what kinds of people they really are, and why I'm not 'associating' with them, at least for now).All that said, whether you're a JW or not, if you want someone spiritual, someone who HAS God's spirit, someone who's interesting & curious & who can guide you thru this system, while giving you a purpose and showing you other ways to serve God (& really, that's the bottom line isn't it??, not a title, not 'prestige' or 'standing' within the congregation - if that's how you think, you need help, badly, and it shows your real & true intentions are selfish & self-serving rather than pure & out of genI'muine concern for all of God's creation!), then I may well be your guy!I'm available, I'm in no particular hurry, as I'm doing well & taking care of myself, I'm gainfully employed, & serving God my way (i.e. in the way HE wants me to!), etc; so what I'm gettin' at is this: Take time to get to know me, & I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised!(By-the-way, I really like the Nylon video below. I have always dreamed of going to Paris! I think the french rock scene is interesting, AND about 1/3rd the way into it you can see my favorite new fashion model (Darla Baker) & the woman who imho has the prettiest & freshest face of anyone this year. That's her in the big glasses & wool cap; take a look & see for yourself!)
Music:
Rock, pop & alt, and some other assorted stuff. Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy, etal. I definitely have a soft spot for women who sing their hearts out, & some of my faves are on my page (in no particular order: Lily Allen - one of the best songwriters of the last 20 yrs, and my biggest crush of all so far for 2007!, Regina Spektor, KT Tunstall - one of the 'greenest' & most aware singer / songwriters around today, Katharine McPhee, I could go on & on!).
Back in the day I was heavy into southern/country rock (esp. The Allman Bros & Lynyrd Skynyrd), folk & blues rock (The Grateful Dead, The Stones, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, etal, and John Denver, one of my true environmental heroes & a really big influence on my life), pot-heads (like the South Bay's own Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan - imo the best artists of the 70's, Journey (in the early days), etal, latin rock, The Beatles, the Mamas & the Papas, the Beach Boys (the California Sound of the day - as a real beach bum, Santa Cruz being my second home in my Sr year of HS, I've always loved surf music!).
Later I 'progressed' to Genesis, Queen, ELO, etc; then got married & had kids, so I missed most of the 80's. When my kids got to 'that' age in the mid-90's, my own interest in music was re-awakened in time to find out about No Doubt, Smashing Pumpkins (my fave band of the 90's), Nirvana, and others.
I also love jazz (Miles Davis - Kind of Blue being the best album ever recorded!, Dave Brubeck, Getz & Gilberto as in The Girl From Ipanema, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Harry Connick Jr, Chick Corea, etal), even classical on occasion!
And here are my Dozen Desert-Island Discs: 'American Beauty' by the Grateful Dead, 'Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis, 'Getz & Gilberto' (Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto), 'A Night at the Opera' by Queen, The Eagles 'Greatest Hits 1971-1975', 'Chronicle' by CCR, 'Holland' by the Beach Boys, 'An Evening with John Denver' (or Rocky Mountain High), 'Rubber Soul' by the Beatles (or Abbey Road or the White Album or Revolver or any of several others), 'Rotten Apples' by the Smashing Pumpkins, 'Tragic Kingdom' by No Doubt, and the 'When Harry Met Sally' soundtrack by Harry Connick Jr.
Movies:
My Favorite Movie (so far) of 2007: 'Waitress' (w/the very beautiful Keri Russell). There are lots of others I'd like to see, but for some reason I just haven't gotten around to it this year. Last year though! Saw lotsa good ones & the ones I missed I've rented. My Top-12 + 1 Best Movies for 2006:
Babel, The Queen, Letters from Iwo Jima, The Devil Wears Prada, Casino Royale, Little Miss Sunshine, Blood Diamond, Prarie Home Companion, Thank You For Smoking, The Departed, Dreamgirls, Half-Nelson (Shareeka Epps as the best new actress of the year!) & Sherrybaby (Maggie Gyllenhaal's was the BEST over-looked performance of the year, imho!).
My Favorite Movie of the Year: The Devil Wears Prada, with Casino Royale a close second. My Guilty Pleasure of the Year: Bring It On, All or Nothing (w Hayden Panettiere), The Most Important Movie of the Year: An Inconvenient Truth (of course!) Best Movie of 2005: 'Paradise Now' a must see for anyone who would like to get into the mind of a 'terrorist' (one man's suicide bomber is another man's martyr!), not a movie designed to make you sympathetic to 'terrorists' but to help gain some understanding, build some mutual respect & hopefully contribute to a more lasting peace! It's that good!
Television:
It really saddened me to see Veronica Mars end (my favorite show of all for the past 3 years), but I was ecstatic(!) to find out that Kristen Bell is gonna be part of Heroes this season! YaaaY! And I'm glad that Friday Night Lights (the BEST show on TV period!) is coming back too. Not only is FNL the best written show on all of TV, it's got the best ensemble & 4 of the best looking & most talented women on TV today (Adrianne Palicki, amazingly sexy & the woman who totally deserves an Emmy for Best Spptg Actress, Minka Kelly (aka the other cheerleader!), Aimee Teegarden & Connie Britton. Another fave is 'Ugly Betty' (being into fashion & fashion models so much what did ya expect?!). And when it's on I really like Dancing with the Stars (imho Cheryl Burke is the sexiest woman on TV, Carrie Ann Inaba is nice too, and I also think Julianne Hough - the winner w/Apolo Ohno - was the freshest & prettiest new face on TV thus far in 2007).Other shows I watch: Sunday morning & weekend News-talk shows (my faves are The McLaughlin Group & This Week with George Stephanopoulos), Saturday morning kids shows (the best by far is Cake, not to take anything from Hannah Montana or The Suite Life, but Cake takes the Cake!), NCIS (I have a thing for Abby, my favorite character on TV), Spanish-language shows & telenovelas (Amor Mio!), Sports, Science & Nature programs, etc. I loved Buffy & Roswell & Dawson's Creek, & I still watch Smallville at times. My fave reality show of all HAS to be 'Beauty & the Geek'! (if EVER there was a show created that I was meant to be on it's that!); I'm hooked on Big Brother 8!, & of course AI big time! (Gina was my fave, but I'm happy that Jordin won!) And finally, I love Sci-Fi shows like Battlestar Gallactica & Farscape, and my fave TV show of All Time is definitely the X-Files!
Books:
First & foremost: 'The Kingdom of God Is Within You' by Leo Tolstoy (yes THAT Tolstoy, the War & Peace and Anna Karenina guy, this is the book that inspired Gandhi & imho it is the best book ever written at explaining the root causes of apathy, war & injustice AND what we can do about those things!); 'Catch-22', 'Catcher in the Rye', '1984' by George Orwell, 'Notes From Underground' (by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1 'y' or 2?), 'Lolita' by Nabakov & 'Reading Lolita in Tehran', the two best books about the state of the planet & where humanity is headed: 'Guns, Germs & Steel' & 'Collapse' both by Jared Diamond (the first being the book Bill Gates called the most important book he's ever read!), 'Travels With Charley' (his dog, written by John Steinbeck, a remarkably prescient non-fiction book that sensed America becoming corrupted by $$$ and materialism way back in the 1960's!), 'Hubbert's Peak' (I'm really into oil & energy issues, I've done a lot of research on those topics, plus I have a background in civil engineering & geology), 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy' (by Greg Palast), 'Nickel & Dimed' by Barbara Ehrenreich, etc ...
Let's see, all things Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Dickens & the Great Philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Hegel & Wm James being particular favorites, and Karl Marx of course!)...
OH! And about the Bible, the Santa Biblia, I recommend it be read & studied once (yes, the Jehovah's Witnesses DO provide a good Bible study program, but...) and this is my point: do NOT take it all literally! It CAN help one know a bit about God, but it actually teaches us more about man (& man's inhumanity to man!)... THE BEST WAY TO KNOW GOD & LEARN WHAT HE WANTS US TO KNOW ABOUT HIM & US IS TO... GET YOUR NOSE OUTTA THE BOOK & LIVE LIFE!!! The Bible can be & perhaps is best used as a reference, but other than Jesus himself, do NOT use it to pattern your life after someone else!!! Live YOUR life, find God & YOUR purpose in life & fulfill it!!! That's what the people who wrote all those books of the Bible did! Write your own chapter! Also, there are MANY ways to serve God & humanity but most of all it's about how you live your life NOW! As it is THAT, especially in showing how you care about others & that you WANT everlasting life & that you want others to have everlasting life...
Heroes:
Julia Butterfly Hill, Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, MLK (I really admire people who have been able to make big social change while practicing non-violence!), similarly, Henry David Thoreau, George Orwell (a guy whose feelings about capitalism vs. communism, totalitarianism vs. democracy, as well as civil liberties, justice, etal pretty much mirror my own), Wendell Berry, J the C of course, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, Cesar Chavez & Delores Huerta, everyone with the courage, convictions, passion & the compassion to stand up to George Bush & speak out against this insane, stupid, unjustified, needless, chaotic, bloody and costly war in Iraq (not just people like Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink, International Answer, etal but all the people attending the protests & writing letters), as well as those speaking out against social & economic injustice (many of which I list here among my friends, such as the ACLU (who is doing the most important work in America today!, doing all it can to keep us free from fascism & keep church & state separate), Amnesty International, Global Exchange, and others).
