blues: I should probably be more specific: delta blues. Dirty, scratchy vinyl sounds behind a miserable bastard with a guitar and a spare rythmn. Music made more as much out of myth as notes. No show, no flash, but something honest and human. Dark bars and cold booze on hot nights.
early punk: I feel the need to qualify that so that people don’t think I like Blink 182, or something horrifying. Musically, a lot of it is fucking awful anyway, but I’m a sucker for a DIY ethic, unless it is in some way connected to shelves.
futurism: I think anyone without a certain amount of interest in this is missing the point. We’re going to be living there tomorrow, so we ought to be fucking well trying to guess what it’s going to be like, if only so we have a better chance to get it right.
high weirdness: Well, come on, if you’re going to enjoy weirdness, it might as well be the really fucked up shit.
lafitte’s: Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop is the best bar in New Orleans, and on that basis, a serious contender for being the best bar in the world. If it has survived the hurricane, I will be both shocked and delighted, but I really don’t expect that it has.
new orleans: The only American city I’ve been to that I can say I really enjoyed just for itself, despite the place doing it’s level best to kill me with heat at the time. I can only imagine how much I’d have liked it if I’d gone at a sensible time of year, and I can only hope that they rebuild it exactly as it was.
photography: As I keep telling everyone, I have no interest in this whatsoever.
queen & country: Greg Rucka’s fucking brilliant series of comics and novels about life working at the sharp end of MI6. Forget the Bond movies. This is a series about damaged headcases, and the way the job chews them up and spits them out.
stories: They’re what make us human. If you cannot tell me a story, I have no wish to know you.
this too shall pass: I have this tattooed on me, because I think it’s a sufficiently important sentiment to merit making sure I can’t forget it.