The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Ray Bradbury was the first author that I was really exposed to back in grade school. I'm a big Philip K. Dick fan, but the emotion and humanity that Bradbury brings to his stories and the way he uses sci-fi to get at the human heart is something that's unique and for me incredibly influential.
I'm a mad thinker in general. I think about everything, all the time. Especially when I write music, a lot of the influences come from personal experiences or from being on the outside looking in, being that person who witnessed things that stuck with me throughout my life.
My mom's a psychologist, and I think that has influenced me on a personal level. Plus, I'm just generally interested in visualization and humanity, social activity and technology, and what happens in aggregate.
Outside of advertising, the person who's influenced me most is quite possibly Frank Gehry.
The biggest direct influence on my career is Ben Edlund, who gave me my first real professional break and, through his friendship and example, turned me into a writer and a more critical thinker in general.
R Stevie Moore was obviously a huge influence and is still a very big influence in my life.
In terms of whether my mom was influential, I think she instilled a certain way of thinking in me quite early: having a reflective mindset regarding my actions and trying to find the underlying reasons to behavior. I think that's quite helpful when you're trying to understand a character.
It wasn't until I was in my teens that I started admiring writers as inspirations for my own work, and my earliest influences there were Stephen King, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Richard Adams.
At a very young age, I was influenced enormously by Julio Cortazar or Carlos Fuentes. In that literature, there's always an exploration of different perspectives, points of view.
In Henry Adams, I discovered not only the prototype of the modern thinker but also someone who is more interesting: a viper-toothed, puling, supercilious crank, thwarted in ambition, aging gracelessly, mad at the cosmos, and ashamed of his own jejune ideals. He is nevertheless very dear to me.