When I went to the University of Iowa in order to be a writer, I thought, This is the worst way to learn how to write. To sit in a room with a bunch of would-be writers, who want to write the Great American Novel, every one of them, and you read their stories and they read yours, and you're not living a life. I don't like that. I like learning on the job. The character of my work has definitely evolved from the character of my life.

You develop a sensibility when you're a young child. Some people say your personality is formed in the first three, four years of your life.

If you took any of my radio shows and you took the music out of them, they wouldn't be remotely the same thing. Music is really important.

I found it extremely annoying when somebody would say something like "You seem to be influenced by Ken Nordine." And I didn't even know who Ken Nordine was.

I considered people who didn't like my work to be in some way defective, deficient, lacking a sense of humor, and not understanding what was really going on.

When I went to the University of Iowa in order to be a writer, I thought, This is the worst way to learn how to write. To sit in a room with a bunch of would-be writers, who want to write the Great American Novel, every one of them, and you read their stories and they read yours, and you're not living a life. I don't like that. I like learning on the job. The character of my work has definitely evolved from the character of my life.

Listen, you listen to the work and you decide whether you want to support it. But don't ask me why I'm doing it, because I really do not know the answer.