"I call myself a vernacular writer.

"Vernacular translate of native-born slaves.

"A slave is an ambassador in bonds, who speaks boldly, as one ought to speak. To his master.

"Woodie Guthrie wrote a song that contains the line, `I ain't gonna be treated thisaway.'

"`Hard Travelin'.

"I tell the cotheads to kiss my natural white ass.

"I call them by their name.

"`Dem.'

"The MFWICs.' Motherfuckers-what's-in-charge.

"They're the cause of it all."

"Sometimes I call myself the Swinette Picker of American Letters.

I dream of playing the swinette on stage, at Americana music festivals, selling my books at the record table afterwards. A swinette, you stretch two horsehairs across a hog's ass and pick it with your teeth. Brew mounts the steps, walks across the stage with great dignity, takes a stuffed Miss Piggy doll out from under his robes, lifts her skirt, presses her butt to his face, and squeals like a stuck pig. Great cry and little wool, as the Devil said when he sheared the hogs.

"I'm not a vernacular writer, I'm a funicular writer. All funiculus means is cord.

"Play it like a zoo-zoo."

"That's what I'm doing here.

"I read from my work at a writers conference and then sell books at the book table afterwards.

"The zoo-zoo is just to draw a crowd."

Pyle stood up and started dancing.

"I'm just a song-and-dance man," he said.

He looked like Peter Boyle singing "Puttin' on the Ritz" in Young Frankenstein.