Lenny Bruce

I took Lenny Bruce's autobiography off the shelf to reread his description of what had influenced him in his life. At the end of How to talk dirty and influence people he says:

I have been influenced by my father telling me that my back would become crooked because of my maniacal desire to masturbate...by reading "Gloryosky, Zero!" in Little Annie Rooney...by listenting 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 unturned 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 a 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 imfluenced by every second of my waking hour.

I can relate to that last sentence...every second of my waking hour!