Soulful music, streetlife, chocolate, sushi, old age, tequila, mind-body puzzles, the neverending mystery of male/female relationships, politics without dogma, free education, magazines, North American history, goat cheese, Presidio Park in San Francisco.

Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Stan Getz, Charlie Haden, James Carter, Cassandra Wilson, Sarah Vaughan, Courtney Pine, Branford Marsalis, McCoy Tyner, Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, The Band, Saint Germain, Everything But the Girl, Air, A3, Annie Lennox, Koop, Beastie Boys, Bill Withers, Cornershop, D'Angelo, Dimitri from Paris, Don Byron, Finley Quaye, Funkadelic, George Clinton, Gomez, Gotan Project, Guru, Heavy D, Ice-T, Jimi Hendrix, John Scofield, Johnny Cash, Jungle Brothers, Justin Timberlake, Latin Playboys, Lewis Taylor, Los Lobos, Lou Donaldson, Lou Reed, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Nina Simone, OutKast, Prince, Public Enemy, Remy Shand, Rolling Stones, Shuggie Otis, Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Debussy, Suba, SugarHill Gang, Van Hunt, War, Zero 7.

Deep Cover, Heat, 300, As Good As it Gets, Last of the Mohicans, American Gangster, Last Waltz, Road to Perdition, Gosford Park, Legends of the Fall, Kung Fu Hustle, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Jackie Brown, Get Shorty, Unforgiven, Mississippi Burning.

Dave Chappellle Show, Reno 911, Iron Chef, Red Eye, Saturday Night Live.

Pride and Prejudice (Austen), The Secret Agent (Conrad), Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, Electric Koolaid Acid Test (Wolfe), My Correct Views on Everything (Kolakowski), Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior (Trungpa), Lies of Silence (Moore), Songs of Innocence and Experience (Blake), The Times Atlas of the World.

Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.
-- Charles Mingus

If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight -- as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulness, are needed to redeem.
-- William James

You cannot own the power and the magic of this world. It is always available, but it does not belong to anyone.
-- Chogyam Trungpa

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
-- Abraham Lincoln

The Perfect Man has no self; the Holy Man has no merit; the Sage has no fame.
-- Chuang Tzu