I’ve been heavily influenced by many people I’ve never met. Some are long dead. Some have no reason to ever see me, let alone think about my existence. And some I just haven’t met, yet. People are a melange of influences. One of these influences wants me to write again — so, hello — and another of them is a beloved British celebrity. A national treasure. Joanna Lumley has no reason to know of me, but she crosses my mind daily.
He was strongly influenced by one of the most important and derided albums of all time, “Paris,” by Paris Hilton. I knew I loved him then. If you don’t know by now, I don’t think you’ll ever know how significant Paris Hilton’s debut album is. I’m not going to get into that even though it is one of the seminal albums of our age…I connected immediately with the mysterious gay cowboy and his dramatic mask. In other interviews, he gushes over Dolly Parton and her wigs with the reverence of an art history major wandering through the Louvre for the first time. I am captivated by him.
Benjamin Phillips 