Monday, November 28, 2005

Garrison Keiler, Lake Wobegon, Prairie Home Companion

You all know everything about Garrison Keillor. Not me, even though I ask and ask I get no cogent answer. It took years for me to get that the name, the place, and the 'Prairie' bit are really the same outfit. Sort of. I have a friend who lives in Brooklyn, actually Rockaway Point, aka Breezy Point, the same place having two zip codes. The identification must be complete: Keillor has three ID's, so he does too. He, my friend, and his wife do private recreations of skits done on Keillor's TV show (the one and only one on PBS, KCET in LA) and because of  this identification simply cannot, will not, did not, even tell me that his idol has a regular, Saturday night (?) TV show that lasts for two hours. 


Finally, by accident, when there was nothing else to watch, I stumbled upon KCET at night and there he was, Garrison Keillor in a conventional dark business suit, red tie and nice hair, rumbled a bit as if to deny he was just a business man. The sneak is probably in the biz of the Spirit. Oh, oh, oh the women! on his two hour show!  Women, black, and white, and really truly women, not carved from ice as manikins of the sort Hollywood and TV has conned itself into believing that's what we like because that's what they like in their hysterical hatred of all women, but especially women unself-conscious of their womanliness and who, when they sing it's not to do something to us, but simply to be with us.


That Prairie Home companion guy doesn't even have commercials as far as I could see. He did a take up of having a commercial but it was actually something else.


Here's a bit of his writing, copied from the back cover of his 'year 2001 book' Lake Wobegon Summer 1956..... a novel:


"I am stunned. I had no idea. God. A TYPEWRITER.


"The enormity of this gift is truly staggering; it's as if he gave me the keys to a new car. I promise myself that I will never think snotty things about Uncle Sugar's hair and his balloon butt ever again. I have lusted for a typewriter for so long. Grandpa is looking out the window of heaven, and Jesus is standing beside him. Grandpa says, 'Jesus, why did you give an Underwood typewriter to a boy who thinks dirty thoughts all thetime?'Jesus says,Well, we'll see what he does with it.' "


Not once since 1996 Online have I heard, read, any of the Keillor undertakings mentioned above. So, I mention them. In defiance I guess. Or as a plea for equal time.  I really, truly, don't know what to make of it all. I think I feel that the media, and my weakness in not resisting advertised media, has cheated me.  I want revenge.


Barry  


 


 


 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never a big Garrison Keilor fan.  Hmmm.  I wonder why?  I like your word "cogent" though.  There's a drug called Cogentin.  Did you know?  It erases side effects from other drugs.  Pulls you together.  Clarifies.  Interesting, huh?
Don't mind me.....keep enjoying that Garrison guy.

http://journals.aol.com/ladeeoftheworld/PossumsPrepareforBattle

Anonymous said...

>Never a big Garrison Keilor fan.  Hmmm.  I wonder why?

Best would be if you could/would tell.
Let me guess: because he's Christian?
Because he's over-weight? He's getting
on in years and in America it is assumed
only Youth can entertain? What Garrison
Keillor believes is less interesting to me than
how he is about whatever it is that he does
believe, experience, know, and want. I like
him because he's never, ever going to say
something bad about me. If he borrowed
my pencil he'd soon give it back, or if he
accidentally took it home he'd have a box
of pencils delivered immediately.  I like
him partly because he believes in marriage
in an era that treats marriage as a convenience,
or an annoyance, with nothing in between.

Barry