lists

i love lists-always have. top three, top 10, five worst, whatever. lists are great conversation starters and good fun in most any context. i even like the "my favorite," list, which isn't even a list at all, but rather a thinly veiled act of self disclosure, but still f-u-n, fun.

while it has always bothered me when my friends don the garb of a corporation, (e.g. the gap t-shirt or even the izod polo shirt.) i prefer rock band t-shirts because i think they speak for me and what they say aligns better with my personal beliefs or outlook. sure, some people may misinterpret my t-shirts to mean any number of things: "i like to party till i puke," or "i condone wrecking hotel rooms," or even, "peter pan syndrome is my way of life," but i can't be concerned with that. rock band t-shirts tend not to be interpreted as: "i misreport my earnings on purpose," or, "i reject kyoto," or "pensioners can look out for themselves." all this said, here are my top 10 rock and roll bands of all-time:

radiohead
pearl jam
u2
the beatles (or john lennon, he was a band unto himself)
bob dylan
the smiths
jeff buckley
rage against the machine
talking heads
nirvana

(another great thing about lists, and my friends can attest to this, is they can change by the minute.) plenty of good artists were left off that list, and i am resisting the urge to name any of them right here.

the five best movies ever made differs dramatically from my five favorite movies ever. the five best ever made:

apocalypse now
star wars
the wizard of oz
scarface
traffic (or traffik)

my five faves:

central station
dances with wolves
syriana
dancer in the dark
american beauty
(i like justice.) also, breaking the waves could easily have been on either list.

novels have changed me and so, novelists are like giant thumbs to me. they mold and shape their readers, whether intentionally or not. my top 10 novelists ever:

milan kundera
slaman rushdie
francois-marie arouet (voltaire)
gabriel garcia-marquez
louis ferdinand celine
herman hesse
kurt vonnegut
jd salinger
henry miller
robert a heinlein

i have only visited a handful of the great cities and i will proclaim my allegiance to my own; la. but of the rest, i like these three in this order:

san francisco
tokyo
buenos aires

the cities i most want to visit would fall in this order:

dublin
beijing
paris

cities i want my unborn son to visit:

cairo
sao paolo
london

men of letters who write (or wrote,) from the heart:

richard rodriguez
gao xingjian
che guevara
alistair cooke
karl marx

i recently discussed my favorite sources of news in the new information age, (be it a person, a blog, a paper, or any other media.) i would rank them as follows based on unwillingness to parrot the status quo or kowtow to general electric and the ability to cut through the layers of confusion so prevalent in this age:

www.talkingpointsmemo.com
noam chomsky
www.alternet.org
keith olberrman
salon magazine (www.salon.com)

okay, enough lists i suppose. (it is getting a bit ridiculous.) it is fun to lighten it up a bit, (though i'm not sure i did that.)