I read almost exclusively nonfiction when it comes to books, and
mostly on music and film. I read about many other subjects too, but
those are largely thru newspapers, magazines and on line
sites.
I love a wide variety of music, which could largely falls under the
category of american roots based music .... rock (Beatles, Allman
Bros., Bruce, anything from Jack White, Jayhawks, Little Feat,
Stones, Black Keys, Leon Russell, Boz Scaggs, Dr. John, Bonnie
Raitt, et. al.), traditional R&B (James Brown, Ray Charles,
Etta James, Aretha, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Al Green, Ruth Brown,
Arthur Alexander, James Hunter, Dinah Washington, Four Tops, Otis,
et. al.), traditional country (Patsy Cline, Dwight Yoakam, Willie
Nelson, Emmylou, Hank Williams, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Ernest
Tubb, Buck Owens, Asleep At The Wheel, Loretta, et.al.) and
Americana, so to speak (Steve Earle, Joe Ely, Gram Parsons, Buddy
Miller, Lucinda Williams, John Prine, John Hiatt, Delbert
McClinton, Kacey Chambers, et. al.), jazz (Duke, Miles, Basie,
Coltrane, Monk, Brubeck, Louis Prima, Big Joe Turner, et. al.),
standards (Frank, Tony, Bobby Darin, Dean Martin, Julie London,
MIlls Bros., etc.), and other genre defying artists such as Van
Morrison, Raul Malo, Al Anderson, Doug Sahm, Bob Dylan, Elvis
Costello,... and many, many more, but am fairly open to most "good"
music (and i do have excellent taste in music). I'm not into much
mainstream music that you might hear on almost any mainstream
commercial radio station. I consider that to be manufactured lowest
common denominator pablum, with a few exceptions.
I am definitely a movie lover with, again, a wide range of
interests, but my favorites are spy, caper and thriller films.
Thriller, as in Hitchcock, et.al., not like horror films, which I
do not care for. Drama, comedies, documentaries are all fine. Some
faves that come to mind are Harold & Maude, Being There,
Manchurian Candidate (original one), The Italian Job (original
one), The Graduate, It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Annie Hall,
Hopscotch, What's Up, Doc?, films of Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Billy
Wilder and "Tom Dowd and the Language of Music" AND "Before the
Music Dies" are probably the best two music docs I've seen .... and
MANY more.
Not a big TV watcher .... mostly PBS, documentaries, movies on TV,
college basketball, MSNBC, CNBC, real & honest news (which
would eliminate unfair and imbalanced Fox News) .... not too many
"regular" series type shows, but really do like Burn Notice and 30
Rock, and think Frasier is about as well written sitcom as there
has even been ... dislike almost all reality shows (except the few
that are intelligent but could possibly be considered in the big
picture as a reality show, like maybe antiques roadshow, some food
and travel shows, history detectives, etc.).
Food and wine very important, and I love most good food. Some would
call me a foodie. Also love good wine, but am not a wine snob
(well, depending on your perspective of that). Not particularly
into sushi or Indian food (don't hate 'em, just wouldn't choose
them), but otherwise pretty open. I do try to eat fairly healthy,
and almost never eat fast food (the very occasional Chick-fil-A
would be an occasional exception), and rarely fried foods (fries
and calamari would be the occasional exceptions for that)
