How Garrison Keillor Ruined My Social Life

Saturday July 2nd was the last time that Garrison Keillor hosted the regular broadcast of A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, a weekly show that ran for 42 years on National Public Radio.

The show was a nostalgic homage to the great live radio shows of the past.   Each week we were treated to a plethora of songs, comical skits and fake commercials shilling for condiments, rhubarb pie and the fictitious Powdermilk Biscuits.  Anchoring each week was Keillor's "The News From Lake Wobegon", wherein he would tell stories about the people who live in this somewhat fictitious town. 

What set this show apart was that it reached beyond the usual confines of rural Americana; indeed, each week one could hear Bluegrass, Gospel (both African American and Country), Show Tunes and many musical guests like Keb Mo and Jorma Kaukonen.  I loved it because I had grown up watching the rural comedies on CBS like THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW.  Say what you will, but when I reached my difficult pre-teen years, I didn't get into as much trouble as my friends; when they went down the street to hang out, I went inside to watch HEE HAW.

When I was a college senior, I took a class titled "Topics in Broadcast Documentary", which was taught by Rebecca Bain from Nashville's NPR affiliate, WPLN.  The station graciously let us use its facilities.  I marveled at the (then!) cutting edge technologies, like analog reel to reel tape decks, turntables and editing bays that featured grease pencils, razor blades and an unlimited supply of white splicing tape.  I listened to WPLN for class but found that I enjoyed the daily news shows and A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION as well. 

In graduate school I never got enough sleep, but I made time for A PRAIRIE HOME.  On Saturday nights I would clean up my hovel, cook dinner (usually chicken wings, ramen noodles and a pre-washed, bagged salad), take a shower and eat while listening to the show.  Then I would lie down during Keillor's stories and I usually fell asleep afterward.   This worked out fine.  I rose early to go to church and passed by mounds of trash that had been generated by the parties to which I had not been invited.

There has always been a piece of me that wanted to party more, but I don't like pulsating music, claustrophobia-inducing venues nor hangovers.  Like Garrison Keillor, my world is the world of words, of books, of ideas.   Eventually I found another bookworm to marry.  Although she doesn't like A PRAIRIE HOME nor the hourly updates of news ("It's too depressing!"), we reminisce about our shared parallel childhoods.  We both watched GREEN ACRES and didn't get invited to many parties.

I'll keeping listening to A PRAIRIE HOME, even when the new host Chris Thile takes over in October of this year.  And I will still make my now grown kids roll their eyes by singing "The Powdermilk Biscuit Song".   To adapt the philosophy of the fictitious proprietor of the nonexistent Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery (one of the show's recurring gags), I guess I can say that Life...is Pretty Good.

Thanks, Mr. Keillor!

--Always B. Positive

How Garrison Keillor Ruined My Social Life

Saturday July 2nd was the last time that Garrison Keillor hosted the regular broadcast of A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, a weekly show that ran for 42 years on National Public Radio.

The show was a nostalgic homage to the great live radio shows of the past.   Each week we were treated to a plethora of songs, comical skits and fake commercials shilling for condiments, rhubarb pie and the fictitious Powdermilk Biscuits.  Anchoring each week was Keillor's "The News From Lake Wobegon", wherein he would tell stories about the people who live in this somewhat fictitious town. 

What set this show apart was that it reached beyond the usual confines of rural Americana; indeed, each week one could hear Bluegrass, Gospel (both African American and Country), Show Tunes and many musical guests like Keb Mo and Jorma Kaukonen.  I loved it because I had grown up watching the rural comedies on CBS like THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW.  Say what you will, but when I reached my difficult pre-teen years, I didn't get into as much trouble as my friends; when they went down the street to hang out, I went inside to watch HEE HAW.

When I was a college senior, I took a class titled "Topics in Broadcast Documentary", which was taught by Rebecca Bain from Nashville's NPR affiliate, WPLN.  The station graciously let us use its facilities.  I marveled at the (then!) cutting edge technologies, like analog reel to reel tape decks, turntables and editing bays that featured grease pencils, razor blades and an unlimited supply of white splicing tape.  I listened to WPLN for class but found that I enjoyed the daily news shows and A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION as well. 

In graduate school I never got enough sleep, but I made time for A PRAIRIE HOME.  On Saturday nights I would clean up my hovel, cook dinner (usually chicken wings, ramen noodles and a pre-washed, bagged salad), take a shower and eat while listening to the show.  Then I would lie down during Keillor's stories and I usually fell asleep afterward.   This worked out fine.  I rose early to go to church and passed by mounds of trash that had been generated by the parties to which I had not been invited.

There has always been a piece of me that wanted to party more, but I don't like pulsating music, claustrophobia-inducing venues nor hangovers.  Like Garrison Keillor, my world is the world of words, of books, of ideas.   Eventually I found another bookworm to marry.  Although she doesn't like A PRAIRIE HOME nor the hourly updates of news ("It's too depressing!"), we reminisce about our shared parallel childhoods.  We both watched GREEN ACRES and didn't get invited to many parties.

I'll keeping listening to A PRAIRIE HOME, even when the new host Chris Thile takes over in October of this year.  And I will still make my now grown kids roll their eyes by singing "The Powdermilk Biscuit Song".   To adapt the philosophy of the fictitious proprietor of the nonexistent Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery (one of the show's recurring gags), I guess I can say that Life...is Pretty Good.

Thanks, Mr. Keillor!

--Always B. Positive

Evolving

     "Be careful.  That's eighty below zero!" the Wizard said.

     Gingerly I moved my gloved hand among the pellets, lining up the canisters and trying to ignore the arthritis and carpal tunnel pangs in my right arm.  Even through the double layered gloves, I could feel the biting cold, trying to eat its way through the fabric.  I did very little else and soon grew bored at holding the lid while the Wizard worked.

     "Could I touch the stuff from the large metal tank?" I asked.

     "No!"  This rebuff warranted his kind but steely gaze and a full stoppage of his work.  "That's liquid nitrogen.  It's two hundred below zero.  Your hand will burn and freeze instantly!"

     The Wizard was an Evolutionary Biologist who had been offered a prestigious position at a research university in another state.  I was helping him move.  Despite my weekday job in the American bureaucracy, I have no shame in following the Ancient Hebrew admonition (paraphrased, of course):  "Learn to work with your hands as well as your mind."  Still, I have to question the validity of my having completed college just to wear a collar that reverses frequently from white to blue.

     "We have to transfer these containers from the freezer to the coolers and make sure that they have plenty of dry ice around them" the Wizard continued.

     "What's in them?"

     "These are samples from hundreds of varieties of sharks.  I've spent most of my life acquiring them."

     "From where?  Fish stores?"

     "No.  I captured them myself."

     As we (actually he) continued to work, he regaled me with his adventures, of his travels to all of the continents including Antartica, of his fascination with American social mores and traditions, of his upbringing in Africa.  On that last point, I can honestly say that he was kind, authentic and perhaps as non-colonial as a White man can get.  I suppose that devotion to the origin of species can make one appreciate all of Mankind.

     Still, the canisters, boxes and sealed vials of shark DNA fascinated me.  I made some offhand remark about sharks and live birth.  This earned a mini-lecture about differing gestational models, of how different species of sharks reproduce, ranging from live births to internally laid eggs to even same sex cloning.

     I asked:  "Does that have anything to do with why they have been around for so long?"

     "Exactly!" he exclaimed, growing more excited.  "The reason why sharks have survived is because they are so adaptable!"

     After a few hours I returned to my rather mundane life.  In the grocery store I heard people talking of the poor economy.  On NPR I heard the usual litany of woes.  On the internet more of the same.  This is not our first economic downturn, nor will it be the last.  The greatest difference, however, is the amount of information we now have at our fingertips.  With this onslaught of data we can either drown or adapt.

     Cue the background music from the movie JAWS...

Always B Positive

Monday, Monday

It's Monday and I am fighting a sore throat, editing a manuscript, looking at unfinished projects and getting ready for work.  NPR is talking about the monogamous nature of Voles.  And right now, I am realizing that I have nothing to say.

That's one of the reason why I generally don't read blogs:  They are often exercises in vacuous polemics.  Vanity rants.  Monologues by people that we normally wouldn't listen to anyway.  Perhaps the multiplication of media and the use of bandwith have all coalesced into one huge sea of white noise.

So here's a challenge:  Choose one thing to say right now that is of ultimate import.  Just one thing.   Make sure that one message gets to at least one person who really needs it.  If possible, tell that person face to face or via phone or email.  Don't create one of these chain letters or FORWARDS; tell a specific person directly.

By the way, today is Valentine's Day.

Positively Positive!