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What's Been Playing:

Mostly Asian and European. I'm into electropop, synthpop, classical, art music, industrial, synthesizers/early electronic, noise, electro, and movie soundtracks.

Yellow Magic Orchestra is my favorite music group. Others (In no order but most recently listened to): New Order, Soft Cell, Dalek I Love You, Magical Power Mako, Cabaret Voltaire, Visage, Limahl, Eric Serra, Alphaville, Brian Eno, Real Life, Limahl, B-Movie, Kajagoogoo, Naked Eyes, Apogee and Perogee, Nik Kershaw, testpattern, Erasure, Ed Starink, Alphaville, Eric Serra, Fortran 5, Landscape (UK), Art of Noise, Yello, The Assembly, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, Front 242, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Ministry, Drip-Dry Eyes, KMFDM, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Giorgio Moroder, Kitaro, Heaven 17, P-Model, Hirasawa Susumu, Hikashu, Universal Energy, Droids, Propaganda, Minako Yoshida, Fockewulf 190, John Foxx, The Act, Sadistic Mika Band, Fields of Nephilim, Flower Travellin' Band, Carmen Maki, Murasaki, 44MAGNUM, Anthem, Auto-Mod, Thor (fun Canadian fantasy 80's metal), The Plastics, Beat Musik, The Beatniks, Ippu-Do, Masami Tsuchiya, Jinnai Takanori, 1984, The Rockers, Battle Rockers, Klaus Schulze, Richard Wahnfried, Dr. Break, Happy End, Robert Rental, Neuronium, Neon Judgement, Far East Family Band, Harry Thumann, Silicon Teens, Logic System, Dissecting Table, Simon Boswell, Thomas Leer, Throbbing Gristle, Mach 1.67/Hiroyuki Onogawa, Zeitlich Vergelter, CHC System, Clock-DVA, The Normal, Tangerine Dream, NEU!, Laibach, Gary Numan, Bruce Haack, Schaltkreis Wassermann, Telex, Gershon Kingsley, Dick Hyman, Bill Nelson, The Human League, New Musik, Fad Gadget, Kraftwerk, Jan Hammer, Chu Ishikawa, Der Eisenrost, Moog, Roky Erickson, Ultravox, Alice Cooper, GUITAR WOLF!, Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, Peelander-Z, Goblin, Danzig/Samhain, The Police, Wu-Tang Clan, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Japan, Space, Mark Shreeve, Zodiac, Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis. I truly like Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yukihiro Takahashi and Haruomi Hosono for their solo work, and their combined group: Yellow Magic Orchestra.

I can't kid, I recognize many obscure movies just by hearing two lines from a TV situated behind me all the time. I find horror, sci-fi and fantasy to be the most beautiful, interesting, expressive, superior and diverse genres in film.

My regular television viewing died with the end of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and Quantum Leap (A long time ago, essentially). Occasionally my viewing rises from the grave and hungers for: The Wire, Black Books, The IT Crowd, The Mighty Boosh, Spaced, Man to Man with Dean Learner, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Mythbusters, Scrubs, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Seinfeld, Good Times, Sanford and Son and Tales from the Darkside/Twilight Zone reruns.

My other favorite author is Robert E. Howard, creator of the Conan series. I was delighted when I found out that Conan was part of the Cthulhu mythos that Lovecraft created, and shocked in a most awesome way of fashions when I discovered that Howard and Lovecraft corresponded with one another in their lives and writing careers.

Howard, much like Lovecraft, was before his time and died too early in his life when he committed suicide. He fathered Sword and Sorcery, of which I can't stand any other author or entry in the genre except for Howard's work with Conan and others, such as Kull the Conqueror. Looking at the wonderful and magnificent lands in his writings, I imagine Howard wanted nothing more out of life than to write, and he managed to create the most vibrant characters and standards in fantasy fiction. I've read a biography on Howard; many of his quotes, attitudes, and traits resonate with those of my own. I think I resonate very well with him, whether it be the trivial distinction of the same first names to the more profound realm of our thoughts on schooling.

“I hated school as I hate the memory of school. It wasn’t the work I minded; I had no trouble learning the tripe they dished out in the way of lessons - except arithmetic, and I might have learned that if I’d gone to the trouble of studying it. I wasn’t at the head of my classes - except in history - but I wasn’t at the foot either. I generally did just enough work to keep from flunking the courses, and I don’t regret the loafing I did. But what I hated was the confinement - the clock-like regularity of everything; the regulation of my speech and actions; most of all the idea that someone considered himself or herself in authority over me, with the right to question my actions and interfere with my thoughts.” - Howard to Lovecraft in a letter.

That excerpt managed to bring me out of a most foul and abysmal mood, and I think I'll always walk this plane of existence with a reverence for Howard that I share for no man, beast, nor idea.

I also enjoy cyber-punk (Snow Crash), various horror genres (The living dead), science fiction (Aliens, Predator, Aliens Vs. Predator, Phillip K. Dick), etc.

Comic books ranging in independent brands, a ton of Marvel (since I was a child), to a few certain manga series (Shonen Jump monthly, The Drifting Classroom, Samurai Legend, Katsuya Terada's Monkey King, Icaro, Lone Wolf and Cub, Gyo, Bio-Booster Armor: Guyver, Koroshiya 1/Ichi the Killer, Akira, Crying Freeman, Benkei in New York, Hotel Harbor View, ). I also enjoy all manga from Tezuka Ozamu (Hitler, Buddha) and Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira/Domu: A Child's Story/Flower/Farewell to Weapons/Memories/etc.) Mostly horror and sci-fi are the genres I stick to in non-Marvel comics, examples ranging from: Y the Last Man, Ex Machina, Clive Barker adaptations, The Keep, The Thing from Another World adaptations (continuing John Carpenter's remake of The Thing in other words), Army of Darkness/Evil Dead series (there are quite a few entires, even Ash Vs. the Re-Animator), numerous H.P. Lovecraft adaptations (544 MBs last I checked), Miracleman, Joe R. Lansdale adaptations, The Walking Dead, multiple zombie/living dead series (1.35 GB at this point), Conan the Barbarian adaptations (both Marvel and Dark Horse), most of Steve Niles work, the I Am Legend adaptation, Will Eisner's works... And much much much more, believe it. I love Hellboy and all of Mignola's work, as well. (Have the entire Hellboy series, waiting for it to continue later this year).

For my own learning, I've read the works of Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi was the greatest warrior of Japan's samurai era. He was and still is the most skilled swordsman to have walked the Earth.

I've read the better biography of his life and works, and have read his own personal work to his students, the Gorin No Sho (Book of Five Rings). His views of life and combat, named by him as "The One True Way" (or Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryu) are very interesting to me. As he advises doing so in taking up his teachings, I have taken them as my own and found many a similarity in his thoughts and mine. He is truly the greatest warrior to have ever lived.

More about him can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

My favorite series is the Adversary Cycle, by F. Paul Wilson. It combines Lovecraft's supernatural horror with Howard's sword and sorcery. It is sublime.

I also read a fair bit of Asian history, folklore, and social studies. These subjects include the previously mentioned Musashi, and also: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Hagakure, and two graphic novels detailing the visit of a French animator to North Korea and China. I've also read a quite a few books on Hiroshima and the Atomic Bomb, and North Korea.

I do have people I enjoy watching/listening to/reading of, but I don't worship or idolize them. The closest I could consider is Robert E. Howard, but I keep him respectfully as a figure I share similarities with and think to benefit from remembering. Still, I do not want to see him as a glorified apotheosis that would skew the real man, as is typical with the execution of the hero concept in man, in my belief.