Carousing, philandering, infiltrating, wandering, looking at stuff, talking to strangers, stumbling around, and getting up to no good. Sometimes I indulge in a little this and that, but only on Sundays, when the church particularly frowns on it.
Music
I like what you like. You do have good taste in music, don't you? I also like Sandman, Timezone LaFontaine, Jonathan Coulton, and just about everyone Andras lists. Some music I've listened to more than once: Prince, Peter Gabriel, Chris Whitley, Charles Mingus, Zero 7, Soul Coughing, The Previous, They Might be Giants, Ween, XTC, Frank Sinatra, Front 242, Stevie Wonder, Air, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Barcelona, The Pixies, Jack Johnson, Public Enemy, MC Chris, Tom Waits, Ben Folds, De La Soul, Django Reinhardt, New Order, Jeff Buckley, DJ Shadow, Sade, Sigur Ros, Tenacious D, Beastie Boys, Massive Attack, Nina Simone, Gorillaz, Wilco, Nick Drake, Talking Heads, Yo La Tengo, Tony Levin, English Beat, Orbital, Celia Cruz, Dead Kennedys, Moev, David Holmes, Morphine, Louis Prima... and of course, I listen to the 8ball, as everyone should.
Movies
The Big Lebowski, Layer Cake, The Fog of War, Fight Club, Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead, Groundhog Day, Cool Hand Luke, Three Kings, The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Apartment, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Grosse Pointe Blank, Waking Life, Glengarry Glen Ross, Ed Wood, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Barton Fink, Trainspotting, Blade Runner, Koyaanisqatsi, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, Natural Born Killers, Say Anything, Office Space, True Romance, Dr. Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket and the first 15 minutes 20 seconds of Wedding Crashers
Television
Six Feet Under, The Daily Show, The Sopranos, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Taxi, Northern Exposure, Deadwood, The Simpsons, Family Guy, The State, Futurama, Entourage, Mr. Show, Bullshit!, Mythbusters
Books
Catch-22 above all others. HST, Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Chuck Palahniuk, Tim O'Brien... A Pattern Language, Still Life with Woodpecker, Cat's Cradle, The Power of Myth, My Cousin My Gastroenterologist, His Dark Materials, Louis de Bernieres' Latin America trilogy, Calvin & Hobbes, Safe Area Gorazde, Tropic of Cancer, The Right Stuff, Footprint guides, phrasebooks and a good atlas.
Heroes
Mark Twain. Doug Stanhope. If they ever team up to do a buddy flick, I'll buy the bootleg DVD from the guy down on the corner. Ricky Jay. Richard Feynman, Burt Rutan, Christopher Alexander, Kurt Vonnegut, Jello Biafra, Joseph Campbell, Penn & Teller, Bill Hicks, Neal Cassady, Danny Hillis, Michael O'Donoghue, James Kunstler, Howard Bloom, Stewart Brand, and everyone else who thinks and works for progress on this planet. Hunter S. Thompson. Tim Page. Fred Cuny. Sterling Hayden. Chuck Yeager. Captain Haddock. David Greenberger. Kathryn Bigelow, who made the best bad movie of all time. P.J. O'Rourke, back when he was writing the modern classics "Holidays in Hell" and "Republican Party Reptile." And all my friends, who are way cooler than me.
About me: A reluctant user of paper towels and a friend to all cats. I can parallel park like nobody's business, I'm noncommittal to my facial hair, and I typically smell OK, so far as I know. I enjoy hassling airport security, getting lost, and doing anything I really shouldn't do. Although I know what it's like to be trapped inside a Colombian brothel, inexplicably, old people love me.
A drunken Englishman once told me that quitting my job and moving from everything I love in Olympia, Washington to Colombia was an excellent idea. I've always been easily influenced by random drunks, but in fact, it was the biggest mistake I could think to make. I now live in lovely Bogota, Colombia, where the sound of explosions is really, honestly, almost always just fireworks. I put photos here and sometimes people say nice things about them. I wrote an article about life in Colombia here. Plus, there's this blog thing that gets updated on the sober days.
I am perhaps best known as the victim of a cruel, cruel aluminum foil experiment. Confused by the shiny pictures? Read an interview with the primary responsible evildoer here. I'll tell you this: foil the inside of your house and you'll save on heating bills, but don't alert the media, or else you'll be getting phone calls from wacky morning zoo crew radio hosts at 5AM for weeks.
I know what time it is, where it's at, I get both up and down, and if you need to know exactly what is the rumpus, just ask, man.
Who I'd like to meet: Geeks and nerds. People who work on the inside. Interesting losers. Generous sponsors. Freaks of all stripes. People who make things, play things, say things, film things, blow them up, or appreciate those who do.
I still haven't met Kevin Sykes, Seymour Hersh, and Brian Williams - he seems like quite a charming fellow. Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, and Ivan Brunetti. Malcolm Gladwell, Brian Eno, Rudy Rucker and Cory Doctorow. Ira Glass and Sarah Vowell. Gilbert Gottfried. Gene Wilder. Charles Grodin. Debbie Harry. About half a billion other people I'm sure I'd like in some way.
Letters to Chris can be sent to: Christopher Alan Kirk - 568-823 - RAO 3 - cela 107 Penitenciária Cabo Marcelo Pires da Silva Rod. Eduardo Saigh (SP 255) KM 292,5 18730-000 Itai, SP Brazil
Colombia's tourism industry is currently running an ad campaign to try to dispel gringo's impressions of danger in the country. I saw an ad on CNN International and their slogan is "The only risk is not wanting to leave." In my experience, that is 100% true.
