Books
Since last year I’ve lived in Baltimore, or as I like to call it, the City of Poe. While this creepy metropolis has gotten quite a reputation for being crime ridden, drugged-out landscape where dudes name Omar walk down the streets with a big ass gun, my life is luckily quite different that the characters on The Wire. Indeed, a small list of my favorite places in the city include Normal’s Books & Records, the coolest used shop in the hood, where I go at least twice a month in search of something by Georges Simenon, Harlan Ellison, Rosa Guy and other favorite writers.
I’m working on a new short story called “Frankie Five Hundred,” about a Black woman model in 1959 living in Harlem. While researching the period, I found two books at Normal’s that were quite helpful. How I Became Hettie Jones, by writer, journalist and ex-wife of LeRoi, Hettie Jones and Minor Characters by Joyce Johnson, novelist and former girlfriend of Jack Kerouac. In addition, last year I found paperback editions of Pinktoes and The Primitive, both by my hero Chester Himes. I bought them, but the type is much too small for me to read.
Music
I’ve always enjoyed having eclectic taste in music which can switch from Mozart to Wu-Tang without warning. Truthfully, I don’t listen much new music, though a few years ago I found myself spinning the Weeknd’s singles “Wicked Games” and “The Hills” a lot, because I just loved his drugged-out coke king angst. Of course, that was before he got all Michael Jackson and started dancing while trying to feel his face.
Albums
Fresh/Sly Stone
1999/Prince
Walking Wound/Everything But the Girl
Super Fly/Curtis Mayfield
Pre-Millennium Tension/Tricky
Betty Davis/Betty Davis
Brown Sugar/D’Angelo
Mezzanine/Massive Attack
“Take a Bow (single)/Madonna/Babyface
Bitter/Meshell Ndegeocello
Movies
The French Connection
Annie Hall
Shadows
Super Fly
Uptight
The Anderson Tapes
Out of Sight
Light Sleeper
Being There
Taxi Driver
Comic Book Artists
Jack Kirby
Steve Ditko
Howard Chaykin
Alex Nino
Bernie Wrightson
Michael Wm. Kaluta
Jim Steranko
Kyle Baker
Los Bros Hernandez
Bill Sienkiewicz
Television
The Odd Couple
Homicide
The Twilight Zone
Sanford & Son
Barney Miller
X-Files
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Atlanta
Law & Order
A whole bunch of cartoons
Comedians (my other favorite storytellers)
Richard Pryor
George Carlin
Jack Benny
Robin Harris
Steve Martin
Mike Nichols
Eddie Murphy
Chris Rock
Lily Tomlin
Redd Foxx
Filmmakers
Sidney Lumet
Shirley Clarke
Wong Kar-wai
Malcolm Lee
Jules Dassin
Francis Ford Coppola
Charles Burnett
Peter Bogdanovich
Lynne Ramsay
Spike Lee
Spiritual Godparents
Malcolm X
Bob Fosse
Chuck Jones
Miles Davis
Chester Himes
Billie Holiday
Zora Neale Hurston
Vincent Van Gogh
Francis Bacon (painter)
Marvin Gaye
Bio: Essayist/short story writer Michael A. Gonzales has written about books for CrimeReads, Longreads, Catapult and The Paris Review. His fiction has appeared in various magazines, journals and websites including Brown Sugar edited by Carol Taylor, The Root, Art Decades, Bronx Biannual edited by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Darker Mask and Black Pulp, both edited by Gary Phillips. In addition, Gonzales has written about pop culture, visual art and film for The Village Voice, New York, Wax Poetics, HYCIDE, Pitchfork and Newark Bound. Upcoming short stories will be published in the photo book It’s After The End Of The World by Gerald Jenkins and SOLEDAD #2 edited by Jeremy R Richey.
Photo by Paul Price
