Art (well der!), films, ballet, music esp. reggae/dub, design, non fiction. I walk my dogs along Auckland's beautiful beaches so they can catch up with their dog friends. I wonder what they're saying to each other. I think they're planning to take over the world.
People who want to buy my art (just kidding - actually..no I'm not). Other creative types - artists, musicans, writers, people with interesting opinions and others who have rejected conformity. Harmless geeks and people who say no to commercial radio. Jeff Buckley, so I can ask him why he went swimming in his jeans. People who alphabetise their music collections. Oh yeah and George Dubya so I can kick his arse!
Dub, reggae, jungle, reggaeton, afro latin and most variations on those genres. Guitar based rock and roll from jangly 60s pop eg. the Byrds, Kinks to the industrial metal of 90s eg. Ministry. Late 60s Mowtown. Early Bowie. Patti Smith, Johnny Cash, Hendrix. Probably my fave band of all time is Led Zeppelin but hate to commit to any one favourite tho admittedly they wore the tightest pants. NY and Brit punk bands of the late 70s. Have a soft spot for Irish soul of Van Morrison, Waterboys etc and confess to still knowing all the lyrics from the 70s Saturday Night Fever album. Any 20th century jazz that features Lionel Hampton or Gene Krupa on the drums. Gypsy guitar of Django Reinhardt and smoky jazz from Paris in the 50s. Verdi and Puccini arias, the ballets of Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky. Grew up in a classical and jazz household and played classical music till my mid-teens. Is it just me or is Snoop Dog kind of sexy? Currently listening to NZ pacific dub and soul e.g Black Seeds, Fly My Pretties fantastic Kiwi guitar bands like Dimmer, Mint Chicks, The Tutts, Shaft, The Veils and the legendary kiwi guitar bands of the late 70s and 80s, The Clean, Verlaines, The Gordons. Also liking Motocade, Voom, Reduction Agents, Bloc Party, Tapes n tapes, Collapsing Cities, Cansei de ser sexi, TV on the Radio, Guillemots, The Knife, Peter, Bjorn & John, Hot Chip, The Go Team, The Rogers Sisters, Clap your hands say Yeah and soooo much more.............
Films by Martin Scorsese - esp his work from the 70s. Robert Altman, Coppola, Linklater, Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider), Jarmusch, Polanski, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Jane Campion. High Fidelity is one of my top 10. Also like Documentaries - check out 'Life in Debt' - a doco about how the World Bank and the IMF completely f**ked up Jamaica's economy.
The Daily Show, Extras, Arrested Development, South Park, Alt TV, BBC World, C4, Simpsons, Rove Live, Family Guy, Outrageous Fortune, Antiques Roadshow, Sopranos, History Channel, Arts Channel, Animal Planet, The League of Gentlemen, Little Britain, Black Books, The Green Wing, re-runs of Father Ted and The Vicar of Dibley, quality BBC drama .....er...that seems like rather a lot of telly doesn't it? I actually don't watch as much of it as that list might suggest. And I must be the only person on the planet who detests reality TV. If you're out there fellow Reality TV haters please get in touch.
Mostly non-fiction political and social commetary/opinion on the human condition. Noam Chomsky, Neil Postman, Camille Paglia, John Ralston Saul, Eric Schlosser et al. Art books and biographies - Catchafire, bio on Bob Marley and bios of other music legends. Historical reference such as 'London, the biography' by Peter Ackroyd and interesting historic subjects like Mark Kurlansky, 'Salt', 'Cod'. NZ Art news magazines and music mags. Hardly ever read fiction. Classics mostly, Dickens, Poe, Steinbeck etc and some poetry. I forced myself to read The Da Vinci Code which I found underwhelming and derivative i.e bloody boring and have resorted to non-fiction thereafter. Any good modern fiction recommendations are welcome.
Bob Marley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, my Grandma, animal welfare advocates, Robert Fisk, any American who has the guts to publicly criticise the Bush administration, Boudicca, Mozart, Maria Callas, Heironymous Bosch, H.R.Giger, Matthias Grunevald, Galilleo, Yves Tanguy and all the artists from the dada and surrealist movements, Sir David Attenborough, the Irish martyrs of the 20th century, the writers of The Simpsons, Koko the sign language gorilla, Socrates, Einstein, Da Vinci, Robert Plant & Jimmy Page, Robert Rauschenberg, Buddha, the early Polynesian navigators, African kids who bring up their siblings after their folks have died of Aids, Giorgio de Chirico, people who sheltered Jews in WW2, my folks....i could go on and on......