Interests & Hobbies
Favorite Books:
Eduardo Galleano's histories of the Americas. He writes this poetic prose told in tiny little anecdotes about the maddening racism, classism, and self-hatred that Latin Americans feel toward themselves. Ngugi Wa Thiongo's novels about post-colonial Kenyans struggling for dignity are another favorite. Other favorites include Shakespeare for giving us modern English, Hemingway, Orwell, Bukowski, Hunter Thompson, Brett Easton Ellis, Zinn, Chomsky, Althusser, Foucault, Said, bell hooks, Tariq Ali's analyses of the Middle East, the investigative journalism of Seymour Hersh, Jeremy Scahill, and Matt Taibbi, Frank Rich's columns about politics, Malcolm Gladwell's columns about unexamined misconceptions, and comics by Alan Moore, Frank Miller, or Neil Gaiman.
Favorite Songs:
Dylan, Bowie, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Who, Cash, Kinks, Marley, the Beach Boys after Brian Wilson became crazy, Cafe Tacuba, Prince, Toots and the Maytals, Pink Floyd, A Tribe Called Quest, Stax Records for soul, Iggy Pop, the Clash, CCR, Motown Records, Public Enemy, the Ramones, Wu Tang, Rawkus Records hip hop, Peter Tosh, the Sex Pistols, the Velvet Underground, Jimmy Cliff, the Cure, the White Stripes, James Brown, the Zombies, Chess Records blues, the Roots, Fania Records salsa, Jurassic 5, Matador Records indie rock, De La Soul, Beastie Boys, Geto Boys. In short old rock, old reggae, old hip hop, old salsa, old country.
Favorite Movies:
Goodfellas (and most things directed by Martin Scorsese), Do the Right Thing (and most things directed by Spike Lee), Pulp Fiction (and most things directed by Quentin Tarantino), Memento (and most things directed by Christopher Nolan), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (and most things produced by Judd Apatow), the Big Lebowski (and most things by the Coen Brothers). Brick, Y tu mama tambien, Almost Famous, 12 Monkeys, Leon: The Professional, Fight Club warrant mentioning. I watch a lot of foreign or old movies, too, but not as often as I used to do. The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Community, Arrested Development, and Peep Show are my favorite TV shows.
Best Reason to Get to Know Me:
I'm not an asshole