[flippyshark]

Oh jeez, let me see...

In spiritual matters - The various gospel authors (canonical and otherwise), Kierkegaard, Robert Bultmann, John D. Crossan, John S. Spong, the Tao, Zen, any number of commentators, redactors and critics, and FWIW, a book that makes me think maybe religion is worth keeping - Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott.

In skeptical matters - Robert Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, Isaac Asimov, Martin Gardner, James Randi, Michael Shermer (also, and in the realm of sci-fi, speculation and intellectual inspiration, I gotta add Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Stephen J. Gould, Jane Goodall, Steve Hawking, I'm forgetting many others, which is a problem with questions like this.)

In aesthetic matters - W. A. Mozart, Frank Zappa, Expressionists (esp. van Gogh), Surrealists, Bunuel, Jodorowski, Kubrick, Samuel Barber, Uncle Walt, Charles Schultz, Herge, Kurt Weill, many punks, and the guy whose music my own compositions always come out sounding like, Mike Oldfield. There are a ridiculous number of things missing from this list, but, this third category is the most important one. (As a writer, I should throw in the two authors I seem to imitate most frequently, P.G. Wodehouse and Vladimir Nabokov.)

But this makes me sound like I actually have an intellectual life. I don't. I'm a complete goofball.

Oh yeah, Jaws. How could I forget Jaws!?