Influence

"My friend Paul Krassner once asked me what I've been influenced by in my
work.
I have been influences by my father telling me that my back would become
crooked because of my maniacal desire to masturbate....by reading
"Gloriosky, Zero" in Little Annie Rooney....by listening to Uncle Don and
Clifford Brown...by smelling the burnt shell powder at Anzio and
Salerno....torching for my ex-wife....giving money to Moondog as he played
the upturned pails around the corner from Hanson's at 51st and
Broadway....getting hot looking at Popeye and Toots and Casper and Chris
Crustie years ago....hearing stories about a pill they can put in the gas
tank with water but the 'big companies' won't let it out - the same big
companies that have the tire that lasts forever - and the Viper's favorite
fantasy: "Marijuana could be legal, but the big liquor companies won't let
it happen"....Irving Berlin didn't write all those songs, he's got a guy
locked in the closet....colored people have a special odor....James Dean is
really alive in a sanatorium....and Hitler is waiting to book me for six
weeks in Argentina
It was an absurd question.
I am influenced by every second of my waking hour.

from" How To Talk Dirty and Influence People by Lenny Bruce, 1963.