Since you guys seemed to dig my bar-discussion blog about assembling your dream rock n’ roll band , I decided I’m gonna try to do more of them, maybe once a week. Some music, some movies, some like this one, where it’s just about life. If you have any good open ended questions like this, be sure to hit me up on Twitter or Instagram and let me know.

Today’s question is…if you could have dinner with any three people, alive or dead, who would they be? No rules at all, pick any three people you’d like and they’re sitting down at the table with you all together one night.

I know a lot of people probably won’t like my picks, but here they are: Kevin Smith, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Dave Grohl. All alive, all artists and storytellers in their own way. I’ve got no interest in dead folk.

Kevin Smith is a guy I’ve written about pretty extensively here. He’s my biggest artistic influence in the world (by far) and I’ve spent more hours of my life listening to him talk than I could count. Seriously, I tried to tally it up with how many podcasts he does per week, all of the time, and I couldn’t do it. It’s months and months and months combined. Between those, his movies, his Q&A specials, live shows I’ve attended, forget about it. A lot of his shit was there for me when I was going through a rough time, as well, and helped pull me out of depression more than once. I have “Why not?” tattooed on my left wrist (in the Clerks font!) as a reminder to always encourage others to go after their dreams because of this speech he gave in 2012:

Lin-Manuel Miranda is, in my opinion, the most talented artist of our generation. Hamilton is obviously his masterpiece, and masterpiece is the only word I’d use to describe it. I’ve listened to the soundtrack hundreds of times and I’m still picking up little historical intricacies hidden within the brilliant lyrics. I got a chance to see the show before he and the rest of the original broadway cast left, and it was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. Moana’s soundtrack is the best a Disney movie has had in decades, In The Heights is great, and he’s an overall amazing human being who does as much charity work as I think anyone in the world does. His work ethic is much like Alexander Hamilton himself. Because of all of that, he earns a spot at my table.

Finally, Dave Grohl. The greatest grunge drummer there’s ever been turned straight up rock n’ roll frontman and guitar player. A guy who could’ve rode off into the sunset on Nirvana residuals and instead formed a band many (including myself) would argue is even better. To put it bluntly, Dave Grohl just seems like a really fucking awesome person and I want to hang out with him. Nothing has beaten his Christopher Walken impression as my favorite video of the year:

So there you have it, that’s my party of three. What is yours? Hit me up on Twitter and let me know!