Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..

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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 03:39 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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 - 06:43 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: Lepus Rex
Date: 13 Feb 03 - 08:20 PM

Oh, and yeah, Burke, and it is weird that Ham Lake is now a suburb, huh? And the whole corridor between Mpls/St.Paul and St.Cloud is filling up, too. Crazy.

---LEpus Rex

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 11:42 AM

Yeah, yeah. So it's off topic: OK, Rustic, I asked my roomate what the Hell the Red Barn was (and read Burke's post), so now I think I know what you're talking about: a buffet place, right? Did you mean the one on 49th and Central? If so, no, it's been a Taco Bell since... maybe the mid-80s? I believe it's still the same structure, although heavily remodelled to look more "authentically" Mexican.

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Burke
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 05:28 PM

What's really crazy is taking this road that's a dead end about 2 blocks long and sticking any kind of number on it, not to mention 150th. It makes as much sense as the all those Xenia's out on the western fringe that don't link up either.

Lepus, Thanks for the links and the info. Is Brooklyn Park the Hennepin part of the Hennepin/Anoka district?

I looked back at the City County Data books that have the population statistics. Neither Bloomington or Brooklyn Park counted as 'urban centers' in 1950. Meaning <2500. Most of the centers that counted apart from Mpls. & St. Paul were <10 square miles in area. In 1960 Bloomington with 37 sq. mi. was 50,500; Brooklyn Park with 26 sq.mi. was 10,200.

Makes you think about how things like rural, urban, suburban are defined. I found more interesting comparisons but have to run.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 07:54 PM

Yup, Burke. Anoka-Hennepin School District 11 serves Anoka, Blaine, Coon Rapids, Fridley, Ramsey, Andover, Champlin, Dayton, Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center, Burns Township, and Oak Grove Township. Which really is a pretty huge area...

Into the mid-late 40s, Hilltop (the tiny, mobile home-dominated town surrounded by Columbia Heights) was home to a golf course and the Oak Grove Riding Academy and Stables, which is a very odd thought if you've been there in the last few decades. So yeah, I guess I see what you mean about the definition of "suburbs." I still don't believe that 77th and W.River Road was as idyllic as Keillor claims, though. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 12:14 PM

Gee if it had read different I would be concerned but you wrote it...
"posting of a Keillor-bashing thread".. it ain't it's a ]Kreillor Killin' thread except for the lack of rope, he would already be cross eyed!

Can't help but notice the fact the Blob Doddle is also Minnesotan and wondering if there is a connection to SongKillor? Maybe the republicon shopowners guild decided the state was getting a bad name from all that down-an-out lovin poetry?, as if they had anything to worry about ...huh Mr Blob Grab was the biggest money maker since Levi hissef fell into a barrel of blue dye, but then rednecks were never blessed with too much brains were they?, all that shoot first ask later stuff.

Still, suppose woebegone was some kind of attempt to put the wino image in the trash can; now that it is seriously backfiring ...mmmm with Jerkinstein Fiddlin and Donohoe Guitar being so errrr original he he he he he, that some kind of backlash o the hippies may re-emerge?

Come to think of it, ain't Jesse the Giant a hippie?

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Sam L
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 06:49 PM

Huh? I don't follow any of that, I'm sorry. I get a vague impression you thought I was trying to argue with you, or make some sort of put-down. Not at all. I just don't happen to agree.

The only thing I could try to argue with is how people go straight to personality, personhood, and biography. Not that there's anything wrong with being interested in all that, but people take so little trouble to talk about qualities and style, particularly, and those are interesting things to hear people's thoughts about. I mean, lately I'm liking Vaclav Havel's plays a lot--doesn't mean I want to smell his socks.

    I'm not from Minnesota, and while I can appreciate that people who are might be disgusted by popular association with stuff they don't like... ...as Mel Brooks explained it--tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die. It's not a put-down that I think this thread is very funny, It's not an argument that you are wrong in your views about Keillor or anything, it's just that I don't really care how much you hate him, so it's funny to me that you do. Fred

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 09:37 PM

Fred, "Sorefingers" is into some sort of bashing of Garrison Keillor and of anyone who disagrees with "Sorefingers" - kind of a typical 14-year-old chip-on-shoulder thing. There's nothing to do for it, alas, except wait until hormones settle down and maturity sets in.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Sam L
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 10:36 PM

Buck--I keep trying to explain that I like and admire Keillor but can sympathize with the other point of view. Can't seem to do it, how to explain it--sheer perversity I guess.

   If PHC was associated with my neck of the woods I might prefer to dislike it, but it's not, so I get to laugh about it. It's so ...NICE. The humor is so... KIND.

   I started a thread on tips for living well, saying I was a little depressed and wanted to hear about things that are good. And I did. But at some point it occurred to me how awfully funny it would be if I got on again and said Okay I was just a little depressed but now I want to kill myself. It's not true, but if you have a certain pathology, a little Beckett humor, these things occur to you. I remember someone making a Thanksgiving toast in thanks for all the friends who are with us (nice) and also for others like FirstName Lastname, who aren't (ugly but funny, and having some truth in it).

   I think there's ultimately something ugly in denying every sort of ugliness, or even any kind of intensity, and Lake Wobegone falls into that kind of feel-good humorous mythology. All the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, nobody is an internet troll.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 11:02 PM

Bull, booh to you, I don't care nuttin about G K - just doin my radio citizen bit, after all it is supposed to be 'Public'.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Deda
Date: 16 Feb 03 - 12:22 AM

Personally, I am a Munchkin, and I want to go on record protesting Frank Baum and Hollywood's portrayal of Munchkinland, which are totally and grossly inaccurate. Why, my next door neighbor is over five foot two and a half! And my great uncle sang bass! The misrepresentations that we suffered because of those books and that movie -- well it just ain't right! And anyone who's ever been to Munchkinland knows right off how they got the place all wrong -- The yellow brick road doesn't begin in a big corkscrew like that. It's ridiculous. I want a lawyer.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Cruiser
Date: 24 Apr 04 - 02:44 PM

...brings folklore to the forefront. Sure he can't sing, but the fiddle and Bb bass sax playin', jokes, and Americana are entertaining. Like most NPR programs, I try not to miss his radio program.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Apr 04 - 02:50 PM

We don't hear him often enough over here in the UK.
John

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 24 Apr 04 - 05:49 PM

Richlmo said, in part:
By the way,Sorefingers,I don't remember anyone responding as many times as you have to a thread they started.

He's a troll who just has to stir the pot. Even, it appears, to the extent of calling in others of his multiple personalities to make it look as if there were people to agree with him.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 24 Apr 04 - 05:53 PM

And, for what it's worth, I am an expatriate Minnesotan. I think PHC is every bit as good as it ever was. His voice and singing technique, while not star quality in themselves, are acceptable for the role they play in the show.

The one adverse comment about GK I've seen in this thread that I'd agree with is, unfortunately the man can't read poetry. A small failing, IM(not-so)HO.

And yes, as a (now transplanted) Minnesotan, I've seen his show live, and would love to do so again.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Cruiser
Date: 24 Apr 04 - 06:14 PM

I am listening, for the first time, to the live webcast of Prairie Home Companion. The link follows:

Live Webcast of PHC

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 03:50 AM

If you have digital radio in UK, PHC is on BBC7 one evening (haven't the schedule to hand at the moment). I came upon it by accident and wondered what it was and, for once, guessed correctly.

RtS

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 04:42 AM

RtS I live in an area where we cannot get, and have no chance of getting digital radio signals. There are many reasons for this, one is our geographical location, [highlands of Scotland] Among the other reasons there is the fact that we are a sparsely populated region, [not many votes], and when we do vote there is a tradition of returning a Lib/Dem MP. So not very high up the priority list of the present bunch of turncoats that run the country!!
I know I can get it through my satellite TV, but that's not much good if I want to listen to a vintage British comedy, and she wants to watch a soap.
Anyway this is going off thread so to justify my previous post, I love GK, I like his deep voice, and slow speech patterns, I find them soothing and the content amusing, and I like the down homey atmosphere of the PHC.
John

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 07:06 AM

Giok, I knew there must be some benefit from living in the "Silicon Corridor" near sunny Bracknell (gateway to...er, nowhere special) There are so many B****y masts around here (not to mention Imperial College's ageing research nuclear reactor)I'm surprised we can't all pick up digital radio on our umbrellas and glow in the dak like the Reddibrek ads!

RtS
(Tho' we did buy it for the Britcom from "wireless" days!)

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,DA
Date: 20 Nov 11 - 12:03 PM

Someone here said a good singer lets you see his character, that's the problem I have with GK's singing. The affectation his ego insists on puts up a brick wall. He can't let down his guard for a milllisecond. Must suck to be him. That said, I love his monolouges.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Stringsinger
Date: 20 Nov 11 - 12:30 PM

Garrison has a mellifluous voice and is a great story teller in the tradition of Lee Hays.
I understand his frustration at wanting to be heard as a singer and I think that all of
the disparaging remarks about him and his accomplishments are off the mark. He was out there on the line for freedom and justice while many of his detractors were sitting on their butts doing nothing.

The PHC is innovative and gave an opportunity for many fine talented people to present themselves to the public that the regular media would have ignored.

I see a lot of sour grapes here.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Nov 11 - 12:53 PM

I like his singing. Of course, I also like Leo Kottke's singing, so take it with a grain of salt.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Stringsinger
Date: 20 Nov 11 - 01:05 PM

Do you like Louis Armstrong's singing? I do. No Bel Canto there.

Singing goes beyond mere vocal technique. Whether you're Jussi Bjorling or Louis Armstong, the public generally recognizes good singing when they hear it.

Vocal training can help but it not the entire picture. What is does mainly is to help save your voice.

I would be honored to sing with Garrison Keillor.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 20 Nov 11 - 01:11 PM

I've stopped listening to PHC for the second time because of his singing and self-indulgence.

It is good to be the king.

Russ (Permanent GUEST)