Um. Good.
for starters... last modified: 21MAY10
Very good: Shadow Puppets by Chuck Gamble, Babe The Blue Ox, Roxorloops, Dave Attel, early Tom Clancy, Sin City (movie); Spectre Supreme (not VR), The Breakfast Club, Sharon Resultan (The Weather Channel), early Margaret Cho, Spalding Gray (except for the Slippery Slope monologue which was recorded in a damn STUDIO, for Christ's sake...get an audience!), Rockwell Automation's Retro Encabulator, "Colours" by Sweet Honey In The Rock, David Spade & Drake Sather on the Young Comedians special back like forever ago, The Wall by Pink Floyd (movie & album), Rip Torn, pre-"Uma-Oprah" Letterman, drummers who sing, "The Smoker" by David Schickler, Anthony Hopkins, pre-"Comedy Product" Jeannean Garofalo, running, the video for "And She Was" by Talking Heads, The Lost Scrapbook by Evan Dara, The Grandin Theatre (Roanoke, VA), Meigs Field (r.i.p.), "Dog's Death" by John Updike, Qix, Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson, Dodgeball (movie), Roland JC-120, Carl Lewis, McAfee's Knob, "You're What You Want To Be" by Cruel Story Of Youth, "Sentimental Clown" by Mike Russillo, Sean Rouse, Juno, Bill Hicks & Andrew "Dice" Clay on that Rodney Dangerfield comedy special on HBO in like 1989, Watermark by Enya, Garrison Keillor reading anything (The phone book. Recipes. Anything.), PageSpinner, "Valentine" by Delays, the Pommel Horse statue in Atlanta, The Long Walk by Stephen King, The Boondock Saints, CrunchWrap Supreme at Taco Bell, Comet Shoemaker-Levy II, Quisp, Saturday Night Live, Jaws, Harlan Williams (comedian, not actor), "Morning Sickness" by What Peggy Wants, Body & Soul by Frank Conroy, Human Radio, Frisky Dingo, Gail Matthius, Rob Reiner's first five movies, St. Louis Rams, Color-It, canard wings, The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, BB's Compact Discs, Shawn Colvin on Austin City Limits, Larry Sanders, the nun saying "what is it you c*nt face?" in The Sound Of Music, Jeremy Piven & Paula Marshall on Cupid, The Fire Theft, Powers Of Ten, Tenacious D, Virginia Tech, Closer To The Flame and Work Songs For A New Moon by Rob Jungklas, Patty Wagstaff, "Now I Can Die" by Nina Gordon, 1989 Toyota Camry w/ manual-V6, Alan Rickman in Die Hard, The Crying Of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, the lugubrious chatter at the end of Jackson Browne's song "Cocaine," Left Eye's rap in the "No Scrubs" video, "She's My Baby" by Mazzy Star, Greg Giraldo, Desmond Morris, the Sirius/Procyon/Pollux/Castor/Capella/Plieades/Aldebaran section of the sky, Living With The Law by Chris Whitley, Atlanta Braves, The Golden Mean, Johnny Carson, Cocoa Pebbles, Inside The Actors Studio, Gray's Anatomy (the anatomical reference book, AND the monologue by Spalding Gray, but not the TV show, which I've never seen), the word obtain used as an intransitive verb, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace, Alessandro Ambrosio (have mercy!), Cast Away (movie), the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter, The Ben Stiller Show, "Ta Douler" by Camille, James Lileks, Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes, Space Invaders, mid-80s John Hughes movies, Walt Mink (all four albums...it's a crime they're not better known, and broken up), Sun Chips, rigatoni, Burn Notice, Kahlua, A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Withnail & I, Boeing 747-400, MS Word 5.1, Lunar Lander, A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava, hammer-ons & pull-offs, "Going Back To Miami" as performed by Look What Landed, "Magic Carpet Ride" as performed in (if memory serves) four-part harmony by Johnny Sportcoat & The Casuals (circa 1985, South Main Cafe, Blacksburg, VA), Underworld by Don DeLillo, Lincoln & Flood by They Might Be Giants, New Belgium 1554, Archer, Leo Kottke (esp. the Austin City Limits version of "Jack Gets Up" and the above-the-headstock-string-bend in "Easter"), Defending Your Life, Was It Something I Said by Richard Pryor, maps, The World According To Garp by John Irving, Manic Nirvana by Robert Plant, The Car (cheesy B-movie from 1977), remove as a noun (particularly in the song "One Cool Remove" by Greg Brown by way of Shawn Colvin), Eschaton in Infinite Jest, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, ER, Colin Quinn's HBO half-hour that they only showed once in 1993 or whenever, McSweeney's, Darwin's Radio, Moving Mars, and Blood Music by Greg Bear, Soul Coughing, Carrie Ann Moss in Red Planet, Fairchild-Republic A-10, The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis, Greeks Cellar (Blacksburg, VA, circa 1985...is it still there?), "LA Song" by Deconstruction, James Burke (Connections guy), The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman (or anything else by Laura Kightlinger for that matter), Contact (movie & book), Tony Thompson (drummer), Love Actually, early Suzanne Vega, Pi, Woot, Cyclone I & II, Nick DiPaulo, the enormous star Antares in the constellation Scorpio (because if you put it where the Sun is, the four planets out to and including Mars would be inside the son of a bitch), Heaven's Above web page, Anker Stones, "Shakers" by Daniel Orozco, Gibson Les Paul Standard, Skeptical Inquirer, Barnes & Noble, "The Show" by Girls Aloud, The Naked Lunch (movie - haven't read the book), "3A Essay" by Hugh Gallagher, pre-1982 AC/DC, Kathy Griffin (her six hour-long Bravo specials, not the D-List reality TV show), Antrim Chapel (Roanoke College, Salem, VA), Sundowner 6362U (GSO), Murder By Death, Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, Tetris, Sno-Caps, Presumed Innocent (The book. The movie's decent but the book grinds the movie under its heel), House Of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, Jupiter, Judy Gold, Boeing 737-300, Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon, DeLorme Street Atlas 4.0, Love Spit Love's first album.keep going...
Great bordering on genius: Patton Oswalt, John McPhee, Mute Math's video for "Typical", Mom's tomato sauce, rainbows, Bill Hicks (r.i.p.), The New Yorker, Macintosh Computers, Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout, Arthur Ashe (r.i.p.), XTC, MYST & Riven & Exile & Revelation & End Of Ages, Starry Night (sky software), gravitation (will we ever know just how the hell it works?), "CommComm" by George Saunders, Beyonce's "Single Ladies" video, Doug Stanhope, Papa John's Pizza, Tim Minchin, Steven Spielberg (esp. the first thirty-five minutes of Saving Private Ryan), "The Fourth State of Matter" by Joann Beard, The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, Led Zeppelin, ThankYou brand tapioca and chocolate pudding, "Enough" by Alice McDermott, OK Go' s first album, Apollo 11, "A Little Night Music" by W.A. Mozart, Dogfish Head's Palo Santo Marron ($5 a bottle, and worth more), Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, freshly ground coffee, The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers, (hell, ANYTHING by Richard Powers), Carter Beauford (Dave Matthews Band's drummer), a particular atmospheric ocurrence: when the sun at sunset peers in under a broad and thick overcast, Flim & The BB's, The Matrix movies (esp. the first one, though all three do indeed rock hard), A-10 Attack/Cuba, Haughty Melodic by Mike Doughty, Cate Blanchett, Maria Bamford, Isaac Newton & James Clerk Maxwell & Albert Einstein, "Sad But True" by Metallica, the "Man Your Man Could Smell Like" Old Spice commercial, pre-Sept. 11 Dennis Miller (it's unfair to expect a man who is afraid the boogie man is coming after his family to be the funniest man in the world. Anymore.), The Beatles, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (hell, ANYTHING by Neal Stephenson), Richard Curtis, "Pink Moon" by Nick Drake, Land-O-Lakes Special Collection Vanilla Egg Nog, "Sloop John B" & "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys, the Sun (it spawned us, it sustains us, and someday it will render us beyond molecular—but not atomic—recognition), House, M.D. in general and Hugh Laurie in particular, French Vanilla ice cream, Misplaced Childhood by Marillion, Jeanette Goldstein in Aliens, Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Infinite Jest & "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (the title "cruise ship" essay) by David Foster Wallace, Voyager 1 & 2, the Chinese guy who stood in front of the tanks, Meryl Streep, Kiehl's Ultimate Shave Cream, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, High Tension Wires by Steve Morse, Carl Sagan (r.i.p.).
