Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 08:13 PM

Here's a couple of bios Keillor's written: On a jazz radio station (Jesus, that picture...) site, and on the city of Brooklyn Park site. He says he lived on 77th and W.River Rd., or, as he puts it:

"Our family came to Brooklyn Park from south Minneapolis in 1947, drove out the West River Road to 77th Avenue North and moved into a brand-new concrete-black basement that my dad and my uncle Lawrence had built in the middle of a cornfield."

He makes it sound wonderfully remote, but I remind you that 77th and W.River Rd. is right across the river from Fridley. (Here's his neighbourhood, again... That river is the Mississippi, and he would have grown up on the west side of it, in that little bulge of land between the two groups of islands.)

"The pastoral qualities of Lake Wobegon - the innocence and freshness - really stem from Brooklyn Park, my boyhood home. I'd be happy to be there still."

Oh, yeah. I bet he's got a "for sale" sign on his Wisconsin mansion, and is scouring one of Brooklyn Parks heavily black, low-income neighborhoods for a new efficiency apartment... The man is so full of shit.

On a related subject, when was the last time a non-white musician appeared on his show?

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Burke
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 07:35 PM

Lepus, Every bio I have ever seen says Keillor's family was from Anoka & that he grew up there. Where did you get that he's from Brooklyn Park?

Rustic, wasn't Red Barn a chain of Hamburger joints? I think they got pushed out by the big chains. There was one near 50th & France S. that's not there anymore. As to what's on Highway 65, some of those numbered roads don't follow the same routes they used to. US 10 has been moved for sure. Parts of Central that were 65 might not be anymore; I get confused around there all the time. My sister moved from Spring Lake Park to Hamm Lake a year ago. (Talk about urban sprawl from 83rd to 150th!) She was right near the 65, 10, University Ave. Central Ave stuff. It was different every time I was there with the traffic worse all the time. I doubt I will ever go to Northtown again.

I posted earlier about some factual information I thought Guest had wrong. Many people have said they do not care, but no one was challenging the actual events. I don't much care about the opinion of someone who does not listen to the show & wants a forum to complain in. I do care that people who like the show may be led into believing there are some events that just did not happen.

Yes he dumped Margaret Moos for another woman. I make no excuses for him. She was not younger, however. I have yet to see any evidence, rather than assertions, of child abandonment. And I have checked the Star/Trib web site where I did find a breif mention of Moos & Keillor.

Keillor has a love/hate relationship with the press. Big deal, what star wouldn't? His personal life became more public than he wanted it to be. It got too hot so he left town. I'll post a Keillor quote at the end.

The Twin Cities are like urban areas all over the US. Urban sprawl has turned small towns into suburbs all over the country. I was in High School there 1968-1972. At the time the biggest school districts population wise outside of Mpls & St. Paul were probably Bloomington and Robbinsdale. They were the only suburban districts at the time with more than one high school. I believe that if Anoka-Hennepin is now the largest district, it must be that it is geographically much larger than the inner ring districts & the urban sprawl has driven the population up.

I was not in Minnesota in the 1950's, but I'd bet even western parts of Bloomington were still pretty rural then. Eden Prarie still was when I worked on the Northrup King experimental farm in 1970-72.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 09:19 AM

Hah, small world, Rustic. More people should be from southern Anoka County. Honestly never heard of the Red Barn, so I'm not sure if it's still there or not. But what was the 100 Twin drive-in is the hulking, new Medtronic World HQ, if you haven't been to your old neighbourhood in a while.

And sorry, never heard of Stash. I only go to Anoka to pay speeding tickets. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Sam L
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 09:07 AM

But why would ignore a thread I quite enjoy, and showed me a different point of view? (Even if I think it's overblown and funny.)I wasn't making fun of the thread, but actually saying what I like about it. It's a Keillor-bashing thread on a folk forum--hell, I love it. I merely forgot it wasn't quite anonymous, SF.

Why would I turn off phc since I like it too--because it's not what somebody else would want it to be?

I remembered one of those observations I liked so much--on the last joke-show I heard Keillor wondered whether some of the stories in the bible weren't meant with some humour--the story of Job, for instance. But that some of the sense of it was lost along the way, or (I'd add) we just don't expect it to be funny. That's quite good, the delivery was excellent, the unpretentious pause giving just enough thinking time for people to come up with a few of their own jokes on the premise. (Mine was about how Jesus was unable to perform miracles in his hometown, a favorite detail.) The painter de Kooning had the same reaction to his Women paintings. Coming out of the grandiose intentions of Abstract expressionism, nobody noticed they were funny. Where I grew up, my hometown, so to speak, criticism isn't necesarily hostile, or unappreciative.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 11:58 PM

Hey Lepus is the Red Barn still there on Hwy 65? I used to party at a house right behind it. I grew up in Fridley off of Mississippi and Old Central. Then moved to Coon Rapids for 3 years and graduated from CR. I used to hang out in Anoka quite a bit, a long time ago. Do you remember a band called Stash? Those are the guys I used to party with in Anoka. Walter Fournier, Dean Nelson, Tom Shonehart. Any of these names ring a bell with you?
Rustic (with a thread drift)

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 11:04 PM

If Fred wanted to he could just have ignored the thread but no ... kinda like me flipping the dial of my 2 dollar pocket radio to select an non Bawler corpofolk show complete with castrated songs about how nice it is to be so kicked into the dirt that folks live in the past and cannot comprehend much less sing about the real coproreplicon scumbags world we now live in

Did I say protest songs ....

nope

Accept facts, the man cannot sing badly enough for some body - oh anybody please - to tell him to shut the hell up, and what he does croak is so far removed from Folk music it hardly deserves the name, it isn't even known among jammers who do folk. He is a major horses ass and that is no joke, and why in woebegone he cannot roll over along with a bunch more clowns like him I cannot imagine.

Mr Keillor go die someplace else where we don't have to hear you weekly further fall apart on your way to Forrest Lawns...

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Sam L
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 09:34 AM

Well, again, I don't mean to bash Keillor, and I like the show. Don't remember him singing too much, but I can't always catch it. Could care less if he's from Bolivia and married to a lamp-post. And I usually prefer performing artists who know and can use the traditions to those who suppose they've invented theatre from scratch.

   And no, Buck, I think we hear the same show. It's the all that niceness, not any mean spirited ridicule, that might wear thin for me, after a while, but I put that down to my having a particular sort of personality.

   Funny Guest mentions "Minnesota Nice", and likes Fargo. That was how the lead role was played, according to whatshername, the actress. Some people didn't like that aspect of it. Anyway, anonymous posting of a Keillor-bashing thread on a folk forum seems like a good way to shake off the "Nice" association, if you don't like it. A pretty un-woebegone thing to do, and kind of funny in itself.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 06:54 AM

Thanks Lepus Rex. I find it very interesting that the third largest school district in the state--Anoka Hennepin, which isn't within either Minneapolis or St Paul's border, is to be considered "small town". But this is thread has gotten as tiresome as PHC itself, so I'm outta here.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 03:25 AM

Hah, it's not often someone mentions my hometown (Columbia Heights). About friggin' time. Screw you, Hylanders! :)

Anoka is definitely a suburb, though, and has been for a long time. Not that it matters, since Keillor is from the inner-ring suburb of Brooklyn Park, south of Anoka in Hennepin County. He only went to school in Anoka. ;)

Just because I'm linking stuff, here's a Phototour of Minneapolis, and a Phototour of St.Paul. Both cool.

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 01:17 AM

A couple of times on this past Saturday's PHC Keillor mentioned that even though they were calling it the "Valentine's Show", it was not actually Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day was still a few days away. On Thursday, in fact. Well, Thursday is February, 13th, NOT February, 14th! Doesn't he realize that millions of religious listeners hang on his every word and accept his pronouncements as gospel? I think I'll go ahead and celebrate on Thursday just because Garrison said so.

Bruce

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 11:13 PM

I have to add my 2 cents here. Anoka is growing into a larger town if you stay on the Hwy, but it still has a feel of small town, if you go onto Main Street.
Burke, you are absolutely right about Anoka not being a suburb back in that time. It wasn't, and I don't consider it to be now.
I also know Lake Wobegone is fiction. I think anyone who knows the program, knows this. I have to add one more thing- I have never heard anyone from Mn. talk about PHC or Garrison, in the negative. Guest, I guess we just run in different circles!
Peace. Rustic

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 10:20 PM

Yup, you are a damn genius Burke. Ever been to Minnesota? Spent any time up there in Anoka County? I grew up in one of those "small town" Minneapolis suburbs too--Bloomington, same era as Keillor. Not one iota of difference between the two, so I actually know whereof I speak.

As to your "setting the record straight" can you explain which thing I said that was an out and out lie there, Burke? Sure, you interpret the same facts differently than I do. I'm pretty sure that is the point I've been trying to make all along in this thread.

What are you trying to do here? Resurrect the reputation of a fallen comrade, or what? All I said was he couldn't sing, his writing was maudlin crap, and I didn't think much of him as a human being either. That is called A-N O-P-I-N-I-O-N. And I would tell you what to do with yours, but I'm a Minnesota Nice person.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Burke
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 08:52 PM

Sorry, a post-script.

Garrison Keillor has always acknowleded his debt to the Grand Ole Opry for the idea for the show. Rip-off does not apply. Several sources give this sort of summary: It was writing an article about the Grand Ole Opry in 1974 that inspired him to create a live variety show for radio. Thus "A Prairie Home Companion" was born on July 6, 1974 in a St. Paul college theatre in front of an audience of 12 people.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Burke
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 08:42 PM

There are a whole lot of statements that our Guest has made that have convinced me that he/she doesn't have the facts straight. So just for the record some things I did find.

Garrison Keillor was born in Anoka, Mn in 1942, graduated High School 1960. Married 1965. Son Jason born @1970. This marriage ended in divorce sometime before 1985.

Anoka county has some areas that have long been part of 'suburban' Minneapolis. Specifically Fridley & Columbia Heights. Given no interstates & the distance to Anoka, it would be a stretch to consider Anoka itself a suburb during the 1950-1960 period. Keillor's grandfather farmed in Anoka. In 1950 the population was 7396, in 1960, 10,562. The town was growing quickly as Minneapolis spread, but since his family was from the town, I suspect it still thought in terms of small town.

In 1985 he met Ulla Skaerved, a former exchange student, at their 25th High School reunion. He was living with his producer Margaret Moos at the time. Current Biography covered him in 1985 & stated that he was living with Moos and his son from the previous marriage. It would appear that his new wife moved in with Keillor & son. She had 3 children.

Keillor left Minnesota for Denmark in 1987. By then his son would have been almost done with High School. A child who, perhaps, chooses to stay & finish the last 2 years of school instead of moving to a foreign country has hardly been abandoned. He later worked (does he still?) for the show. Insert criticism for nepotism here.

Keillor obviously went through a few years of instability when his Danish family could not be happy in Minnesota & he was miserable in Denmark. He quickly moved to New York (a compromise?) He has since relocated back to Minnesota.

Don't know when that marriage dissolved maybe midlife passion is not all it looked to be. In 1998 he had his second child with his 3rd wife, violinist Jenny Lind Nilsson.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 06:43 PM

Buck, I have this sneaking suspicion you want to have at it with me. :)

Be that as it may, I must correct the record. I never said Northrup was a superior singer. And don't worry, I don't listen to PHC. OK? OK!

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 06:22 PM

Well, Fred & Guest, Minnesotans who are sick of Lake Wobegon and/or Keillor don't have to listen. And as far as Northrup somehow being superior because he "really is Indian" that's irrelevant, Keillor isn't writing about Indians - he's writing about the descendants of Scandinavian settlers. And he is from Minnesota - not Lake Wobegon, since that's a fictional place. And Fred, apparently we're hearing different things in Keillor's stories, because to my eye & ear he quite plainly loves the people he writes about. Still, Guest, why is it you seem not to think there's room for more than one "humorist from /of Minnesota?" Surely it ain't THAT small a culture?

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 06:11 PM

Jim Northrup is, IMO, the best damn humorist Minnesota has ever produced, but so much of his gift doesn't come through in his writing. He is unbelievably funny live, but it is a rare month that goes by that I don't really appreciate his "Fond du Lac Follies" column in The Circle newspaper. I think his best writing is in those columns.

The reason I used him for a comparison is that "Fond du Lac Follies" could easily be viewed as another sort of "News from Lake Wobegone" sort of writing. The difference being that Jim Northrup really is Indian, he really is from the place he writes about, etc.

Finally, Fred, it is nice to see that someone "gets it" after 100+ posts. Yes, the Lake Wobegone thing is mighty tiresome to many of us Minnesotans, who never did find the humor at other people's expense funny to begin with, much less 30 years later.

Thank you for articulating what I failed to, and bless your little heart for doing it so well.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Sam L
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 05:29 PM

It's easy to make fun of, but there's something to it.

I may just be used to being an inbred ned beatty rapist, but I'm not sure I'd trade it for being associated with a tribe of smurf-like laughably repressed doofuses. But I always liked the scarey get-ups for halloween.

There's a likeness between Lake Wobegone and the sleepy town (that time forgot) in Van Gogh's Starry Night. We and Vincent sit together seeing the coiling cosmos above this oblivious nowhere town, we and Garrison congratulate ourselves for our sophistication and worldliness, in regard to a town that never heard of New Coke, they never ran out of the Old Coke.

   The literary formula is A and C recognise each other's superior intelligence through dumb B, who doesn't get it. It works pretty well, flatters us, at someone's expense. Plato in the dialogues, the disciples in the New Testament, Minnesotans in PHC, and good old Leonardo paints himself as the ghost-dummy between us and the Mona Lisa.

I can see how you'd get good and sick of the joke, the condescending warm-fuzziness of it, whether anyone takes it very seriously or not.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 04:45 PM

You mean Lake Wobegon is not a real place!!???? OMIGOD!! MY LIFE IS RUINED!!!

Don (sob, sniffle) Firth
Next thing they'll be saying is that Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy aren't real!! I can't stand it!!!

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Sam L
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 03:45 PM

Well, Guest, you are quite right that many people do take fiction to heart in that way, and when it gets coupled with celebrity and notoriety it can be absolutely exasperating. James Dickey is a good writer, but his son begged him to exclude a notorious scene from the film of his book Deliverance, on the ground that it would be all anyone talked about.... Jokes and even serious notions about inbred hillbillies are everywhere, as though there were time in a 200 year old country to outpace a royal family in that department. Truth is simply that mountain people didn't institutionalise their developmentally challenged family members.

   Somewhere in this country some schoolmaster fostered a notion that fiction should be simple and sincere, but it gets very complicated to be sincere when you represent real places and groups of people out of the play-dough in your own head. I think you have a point, I do see it now, but it's an aggravation that can't be cured. Nothing wrong with expressing it, since that's all that can be done. Nobody is above criticism. But it may be the audience's fault more than the artist's. And I'd suspect Keillor's craft evolved to a degree in a collaboration with his audience, the way a performer feels that strange dynamic, of what will work. Keillor might be taken too seriously, might sometimes take himself too seriously, we might all take ourselves too seriously.

I liked Fargo, very much, but the crawl about the "true story" and names changed out of "respect" for the survivors bothered me from the start. And I was wrong, it ends back in Brainerd, not in N. Dakota.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 03:41 PM

What's to rip? Seems like an amusing guy. Hardly does the same kind of thing as Keillor, but seems to do what he does well enough. What's your point?

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 03:39 PM

No ripping, just apples and oranges, guest. (Ever read Harold of Orange?) I've only encountered Northrup as a poet--we've been speaking about a much larger body of work for Keillor. One doesn't trump the other.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 03:32 PM

Enough arguing between the Keillor's lovers and haters.

Here you go, Jim Northrup. Can't wait for you all to come back and rip him because the loathed anonymous guest recommended him.


http://www.jimnorthrup.org/

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 03:26 PM

Guest, you need to sort out the tangle you've created. You're assuming that if we like PHC that we believe there is a place like Lake Wobegone that just isn't called Lake Wobegone by Keillor? That because it is closer to reality than say, other fictional places like Middle Earth, that we presume (foolishly) that it isn't really a fictional place after all but MUST IN FACT be a real place that Keillor is simply disguising by changing the names? So fit Northrup into this false presumption about our (apparently) false assumptions, please. Does he write about a real place, making it in fact autobiographical fiction (or that strangely named style called creative nonfiction?) or does he do like Keillor and make up a place, but you're just more convinced by it?

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Ron Olesko
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 03:16 PM

Lucy - the "Fargo" that was mentioned was the movie which took it's name from Fargo, North Dakota.

We all welcome a difference of opinion, but this "guest" or "troll" who started it originally did not back his or her opinion without any reason. If you re-read those posts, and re-read them honestly, it does appear that this person was not trying to start a legitimate conversation, but rather trying to rip Garrison a new one.

Garrision Keillor is no saint, but he isn't Michael Jackson either. Whatever happened in his original marriage and what led to his decision to cancel and ultimately return to PHC is of no interest to me. Leave that to the tabloids. What IS important is the quality of the show, which I will agree is not up to the same level as earlier years.   However it is a unique show.   Keillor is the first to admit that he "copied" the Grand Ole Opry format.   The FACT is that he created a show which does have a couple of imitators itself, but none with the reach of PHC.

So for all his faults, he is still an interesting artist that many of us enjoy. We aren't making him a saint, just a good entertainer and writer.

Ron

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 03:14 PM

Why do you care whether anyone likes Keillor? You stated your opinion, and that's fine & dandy, but you seem bent on establishing that it is in fact NOT an opinion, that there's soemthing wrong with Keillor, and something inferior about those who enjoy his work. Why is that? And you also seem bent on whining that those who disagree with you are some sort of "cult" and not honoring YOUR opinion. Why is that? Are you protecting us from LUTHERANS??????????? Or tall, shy people on the radio?

(And I think you're nuts if you don't realize people know it's fiction, regardless of what anyone posted in this thread - not everyone is as gullible as ...uh ... some)

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 03:09 PM

You know Buck, I appreciate that what he writes is fiction, but I'm afraid you are a bit too optimistic about all adults being able to grasp the fact that his fiction IS NOT autobiographical. Just read back through this thread, and you will see quite a few misconceptions that people hold about this guy, because they feel the Lake Wobegone act is somehow autobiographical, when it really isn't. Now, that IS a common mistake people make--they try and literally interpret artists' work as autobiographical in some way. But that is a true exercise in futility, because art is, by it's very definition, a metaphor for something else, even when it is autobiographical.

So, I agree that in a perfect world, everyone would understand that Lake Wobegone is NOT autobiographical, or even a very good fictional representation of Minnesota and Minnesotans, of the Heartland, of life on the prairie, or anything else.

My suggestion is for folks to try reading Jim Northrup for great cultural humor in a Minnesota vein.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 03:05 PM

Loki --- shhh! Keep your head down --- you've stumbled into a battle that's gonna make Dubya's dustup with Saddam look like handbags at twenty paces. I just did a search and I think this is the thread you're looking for. Just scroll down to mousethief's name, click on PM and you can send a Personal Message. Good luck. Now get out quick!

BJ

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 02:59 PM

Someone really needs to point out here (to one of the participants in this thread), I think, that Keillor writes FICTION and his radio show is music & humor and FICTION. And grownups realize this. As to whether he sings well, whether his stuff is funny, whether it's worth listening to or reading, those are all matters of taste, and nothing more or less. I don't understand a mentality that feels it needs to come back and poke at a disagreement over such a subjective thing, over & over again.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 02:56 PM

It is his own mythology Fred, but it is still a mythology about someone else's people. Therein lies the rub, IMO, and in the opinion of others who have strong feelings about that aspect of his Lake Wobegone act. No make that one man Lake Wobegone INDUSTRY!

Hey, this isn't anything I think the guy ought to be lynched for or anything. I said at the beginning of this thread that we all are free to express an opinion. I'm not saying mine is right. But it is mine, and it is one shared by some other Minnesotans too, the majority of whom have never even heard his show. It's not like PHC is competing with the radio programs with the biggest audiences, after all. So a lot of Minnesotans with strong negative opinions about Keillor have never heard the program.

OTOH, Mudcat is a forum of folkies, people who will listen to PHC religiously, because they get to hear folk music on a national broadcast in the US. That is rare, but not unprecedented. There are national broadcasts of other folk, blues, Celtic music too. Grand Ole Opry still has a radio show. Fiona Ritchie does a fine program. So I guess it just depends on what you listen to, and whether you have been exposed to Keillor the (not very) folk musician, or Keillor the Minnesota Celebrity.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Sam L
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 02:48 PM

That's right, 35n. Well, I don't know. My Dad was violently attacked for holding Appalachian people and family members up to ridicule in his writing. Being one of those family members I didn't and don't think that was the intent or the right reading. I once expressly gave him permission to write anything he wanted to about anything having to do with me. I had no illusions about how that might've gone, either, but was saved from disgrace by not being a very interesting subject.
   On the contrary, I think my father's seriousness about representing a particular heritage actually weakened his writing in some places, bogged it down in not wanting to be misunderstood by anyone, in that way. So, I still think Keillor's world is his own mythology, nothing anyone has to necesarily feel reflects on them well or poorly.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Loki
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 11:37 AM

Sorry, I don't know how to use this system.

I am trying to reach "Mousethief" who posted something in 01 about having a book of Jodys or Jodie calls at home. (They usually go, "I've got a girl lives on a hill..." and the chorus goes "Honey o baby mine" or "Hey lodi lodi lo" or "to your left, your right, your left). I am looking for some and if Mousethief (or anyone else) would be willing to email me he or she can at [e-mail]

I would really appreciate it.

Thank you very much,

India

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 09:57 AM

Fine, have it your way SRS. But it isn't just me doing the criticizing in this case. As to Keillor showing his love for his small town, he is from one of the largest Minneapolis suburbs, Anoka. He ain't a small town country boy at all. It is just a schtick.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 09:53 AM

I can't imagine actually starting a thread about someone I didn't like. There are too many people I do like - including, as I've indicated Garrison Keillor.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 09:46 AM

Or the fans don't give full credence to a critic who remains a nameless guest? Potshots from the anonymous peanut gallery are always suspect.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: JedMarum
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 09:44 AM

People with character voices have always done better then one might expect, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Mellisa Etheridge, Maryanne Faithful - these are people with appeal at a mass market level, and people who don't have truly great singig voices. BUT they offer us a window to their soul, when they sing, and we respond.

Garrison has a similar appeal, as a singer. We love his homey approach to the radio. We respond to his love for the people in his town, a town we've all seen, people we all know, or at least people we canall undertsand. And his singing, well - that is just an extension of his story telling - that is just an extension of his character.

And besides, he does OK.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 09:40 AM

You come from the south into Minneapolis on 35W South. I'm guessing the A & W in question is the one that (used to be?) in Black River Falls.

The fuss is that there are many in Minnesota who can't stand Keillor the Minnesota Celebrity. And I do mean can't stand, not just mildly dislike. We see a very different Keillor here locally than people see nationally, because of the MPR propaganda machine--it comes without all the local controversy. So people are seeing strong opinions of him expressed here by some locals.

OTOH, you have a Keillor cult, or a PHC cult nationally. Not huge numbers by any means, but certainly huge numbers for nostalgic radio show programming that mocks the local yokels, more than for the folk music, if MPR's marketing info is to be believed.

So, that is what the fuss is about. It is the wholly different perceptions of Keillor locally and nationally. And like so many other cases like this, the national fans of Keillor don't like having their icons criticized.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Sam L
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 09:30 AM

Kids, kids. The movie is called F A R G O, with the letters spaced wide like that. It begins and ends in N. Dakota but most of the events take place in Brainerd, Minneapolis, and up around White Bear Lake (Go bears!. Somehow coming from Fargo the two killers enter from the south, though, with that view of the skyline, on--what is it 94?. (Remenber the root beer thread? Going into Wisconsin on, I think, 90, there's an A&W at exit 19 that makes their root beer fresh daily. Don't try to travel with it, it goes flat.)
Many people were displeased with the presentation of Minnesotans in the movie. It may be a bad idea to form a view of people you don't know from the particular visions of particular artists. Many people used Dead Souls for an idea of Russia, though Gogol knew very little of it. When he tried to work from knowledge of Russia, details of actual lived lives, sent to him by fans, he couldn't write anymore.
Thanks Don, I just didn't mean to sound hostile. I like the show, can think of a few humorous observations from it that are worthy of anyone. It's very difficult to be funny all the time, and sometimes you miss. I don't quite get all the fuss. But I don't know anything about the Jesse Ventura thing.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 12:20 AM

I've fired my typist.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Feb 03 - 12:19 AM

Lucy Goosey, it looks to me like the fans of PHC and Garrison Keillor have a clear understanding of his feet of clay, and like in him spite of it. This doesn't sound like the life of a saint to me. Sounds like a talented man who isn't perfect and is in fact rather odd looking by just about everyone's standards. Probably the reason he sticks with radio!

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 11:59 PM

Well THAT'S never been done before! An idea was borrowed to create another program? What is the world coming to?

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 11:22 PM

BTW, PHC isn't even an original idea. Keillor ripped off Grand Ole Opry to make himself the star.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Allan Dennehy
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 10:57 PM

Sorefingers,

Don't know who Keillor is so I don't have an opinion myself. Mind you I'm curious now. However I'm very surprised at how agressive some of the replies you recieved were. Its a forum and you expressed your opinion. I, for example think that Ewan Mc Coll murdered a lot of the fine songs he wrote. Now I will respect any man who will disagree with me but not someone who accuses me of being a whinger or a troll just because my opinions differ with his/hers.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Lucy Goosy
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 10:09 PM

Maybe y'all can get a campaign going to get Garry Boy knighted by Queen Lizzy.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: richlmo
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 09:56 PM

Guest,Sorefingers,
Having aquired a father in law some 25 years ago (lost him lastyear)who was a local radio legend, I have listened to many PHC shows and heard from an old radio man what Keillor was doing, what he wasn't doing right and what he should be doing. Bottom line was , that was what the old radio man looked foward to, every Saturday night. I think Garrison Keillor is a national treasure. Of course, I'm not from Minnesota.
I'm not real crazy about his solos, but I enjoy the Hopeful Gospel Quartet.
Someone earlier pointed out, if you are in your truck and get where you are going, it's hard to turn the radio off until the skit is finished. Been there many times.
By the way,Sorefingers,I don't remember anyone responding as many times as you have to a thread they started.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Lucy Goosy
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 09:53 PM

"There are NO other shows that can do what Keillor can do."

Thank God for that.

Ronnie me boy, can ye take out yer map and look up Moorhead, then? There's a good lad.

Why is it that when someone expresses an opinion that disagrees with your own, so many of you dismiss that opinion out of hand by making the lame claim that the person who's opinion differs from yours must have an ax to grind, or that they must be jealous, etc. Whazzup wit dat?

This thread is starting to read like a hagiography. Saint Garrison must be beloved by all, or off with their heads!

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 09:32 PM

According to most maps it is!

That reminds me of the classic line in Animal House. Belushi was trying to inspire the frat and said "Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"    One of the frat members looked confused and another said "Don't stop him, he's on a roll".

Guest seems to have a personal ax to grind. When you look at it, it really is no big deal. It is a radio show, it is entertaining, and MANY people listen to Keillor. I tend to agree with Burke's summary. However, even though the show may have slipped a few (or perhaps several)notches from it's heydey, it really doesn't matter.   There are NO other shows that can do what Keillor can do. He offers a stage to a diverse group of musicians, many who would not have the opportunity to reach so many.

Yes, he may have some "issues" with his life, but that really isn't our business. He has done a LIVE RADIO VARIETY show for the last several decades. Tell me one other person that can claim that.   Guest, of course he is not the producer. You must be nuts to think that one person could write/perform AND produce that program.   So the people in Minnesota don't appreciate him? I can live with that. Please tell me why that should sway my opinion of him.

Guest, I hope you are able to work through your issues.   Garrision Keillor is an important figure in the worlds of literature, music, and popular culture. At least there are many that can recognize this.

Best of luck to you guest!

Ron

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Lucy Goosy
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 09:27 PM

Fargo/Moorhead are twin towns, one in No Dak one in Minn. Same diff.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 09:08 PM

Isn't Fargo in North Dakota?

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 10 Feb 03 - 08:59 PM

So E S Took voice lessons, dumped his kids ran off with a bimbo, now it is all hangin out.

I mighta guessed from listening to that false smarmy outatune squak ... next time I will not pause ... simply squish squish squish..

Reminds me o that flousy Dr Laura and her advice , haw haw.