• The Realist: By whom have you been influenced in your work?
• Lenny Bruce: Isn't that an absurd question. 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 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 Caspar 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"; Harry James has cancer on his lip; Dinah Shore has a colored baby; Irving Berlin didn't write all those songs, he's got a guy locked in the closet; colored people have a special odor. I am influenced by every second of my waking hour.