Guitar playing. NFL football. Everything Iowa State, but mostly ISU football. Chicago White Sox. Montreal Expos (because they don't exist anymore). I like making food. I like hot sauce. Sometimes I like it really hot, sometimes not so much. Beer. Especially local beer.
People and friends from my past lives. No, I don't mean THAT kind of past life. Like from places where I grew up, high school, college, that sorta thing. Oh, and I wouldn't mind meeting some decent folk in the NW Indiana and Chicago areas either. That would be decent.
I like guitar-oriented music. Drive-By Truckers, Slobberbone, The Drams, Todd Snider, Robert Earl Keen, Replacements, Rolling Stones, Faces, Tom Petty, Whiskeytown, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, Wilco, Bottle Rockets, Jayhawks, Gear Daddies, Joe Henry, John Mellencamp, Descendents, Van Halen, DWARVES, Supersuckers, Coney Hatch, Rough Cutt, Jackson Browne, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, James McMurtry, 70's cheesy pop, 80's new wave and some 80's pop, early Sub Pop stuff, Touch Me Nots, Grave Blankets, and Becker totally rule. I also dig all kinds of alternative country stuff. My iPod's a fucking mess.
Wes Anderson movies (Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, Royal Tennenbaums), Napoleon Dynamite, funny stuff, Star Wars stuff, nerdy stuff.
I pretty much avoid anything with commercials. I dig the HBO TV shows like "Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under." I also like "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Mostly I like watching movies on Starz, Encore, HBO, football, Chicago baseball and hockey.
Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series and other stuff by him. Tim Robbins stuff. H.P. Lovecraft. Yeah, I dig the Harry Potter books, too. Books about synchronicity and interconnection. I like to read books about rock stars, but after reading each one so far, I find that they're either wacky (Kurt Cobain) or self-centered (Neil Young) or fucked up socially (Jeff Tweedy). Mostly, they're all assholes in some way. I can totally understand it, though.
They say you should never have heroes that are still living, because they can disappoint you. Or maybe it was Will Rogers who said that. Anyway, it's right. I don't think that I have any heroes. Just believe in yourself and learn from everyone. I think that's what I do.