Akira Kurosawa is easily my favorite film director. The idea that one man could have directed Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Stray Dog, Yojimbo, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, High and Low, The Bad Sleep Well, Red Beard, The Lower Depths, Dersu Uzala, Kagemusha, and Ran (among others) still kind of awes me.

MLK is, in my opinion, the greatest American. His legacy has been kind of simplified over the years, if anything, the high regard in which he is held tends to undersell him. Taylor Branch recently finished a mammoth three volume biography of MLK (slash history of the civil rights movement) that is well worth seeking out if you haven't seen it yet. The first volume is Parting The Waters, and it was followed by Pillar Of Fire and At Canaan's Edge.

My favorite blues singer, though there are many candidates for that honor. Mississippi John Hurt's story is pretty neat. He cut a few sides in the late 1920's and then went back to being a farmer in (you guessed it) Mississippi. About 30 years later, a couple of his songs were included on a folk song anthology. About 10 years after that, 2 young musicians went looking for him based on clues found in a song (Avalon Blues) about his hometown. Avalon was so small that it wasn't found on any current map, but they unearthed a 19th century one that showed them the way. And so, Mississippi John Hurt was rediscovered, almost 40 years after his first recording session.

Queen Bitch by David Bowie and Sweet Jane by The Velvet Underground are two of my favorite songs. David Bowie is said to have only taken up rock music in order to support his career as a mime. Jonathan Richman (of The Modern Lovers and solo fame) supposedly got his start in music crashing on Lou Reed's couch in NYC as a teenager.

Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver is probably my favorite performance in a film ever, though I'm also partial to Takashi Shimura in Ikiru, Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther series, Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, and Peter Lorre in M.