Ya gotta snip the “Here ya go” off the end of yer link, there.
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I can imagine the shitstorm if anyone on BoingBoing ever called something “insufferably black”.
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Zeni says something bigoted.
It’s their culture, what’s your problem?
What a crappy article. Just because your shallow pop culture, over privileged head can’t acquire concepts that wouldn’t fit in a microwave. Just because you can’t communicate in a form and vocabulary that is akin to newspaper glued ransom notes, don’t criticise an incredibly great gifted prolific writer. Go put on your oversized t-shirt and baseball cap and leave the big boy room.
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When Xeni can write two hours of show once a week for 40 years, I’ll listen to her.
I’ve listened to PHC since the 1970’s and, while it has become more variable in recent years, some of the funniest, most melancholy, and most insightful satire I’ve ever heard have been Lake Wobegon monologues.
If being midwestern is “insufferably white,” can we call, say, The Daily Show insufferably Jewish? Dave Chapelle insufferably black? Ellen Degeneres insufferably gay? Xeni Jardin insufferably hipster?
I happen to like all those things and don’t consider them insufferably anything. But that is because, unlike certain commentators, I have a breadth of interest that extends beyond the brim of my insufferably hipster Trilby.
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I like Feldman’s style – it is much in the style of early Bob Newhart.
Hey, to each their own. But I would personally nominate Garrison as a national treasure. And the linked article, read in a voice even more crotchety, was hilarious.
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I actually like the meandering pace of APHC as an occasional treat. It’s not something I could listen to every week, but once in a while it’s charming and comfortable.
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This is what semi-informed unaccountable bloggers write about A Prairie Home
Companion when they are stoned
A Prairie Home Companion is a radio show that is broadcast every weekend on
public radio and is then rebroadcast at times I was too
lazy to investigate. It is hosted by one of the
most widely read and successful authors in the 20th Century whose
name I was too lazy too Google and is a recording of a live show
performed in his home state of Minnesota and also occasionally in other places,
a show compelling enough to have been the subject of a
major motion picture about which I am also ignorant. Because, like other radio broadcasting organizations, NPR
actually measures listenership to its programming, we have no foundation for
saying that “Nobody in history has ever listened to an entire episode
front-to-back, but still we can make some devoutly dumb
and uneducated stoner guesses about the
show based on the snippets we’ve heard, like marine biologists who study the
recordings of deep distant moans to imagine the lives and loves of the elusive
blue whale.
Episodes are like (get ready to read this
word ‘like’ like 100 times) four hours long. That sounds crazy. Maybe
they’re not four hours long, but they have to be at least three hours. Long
enough that you can be on a long road trip and turn on the radio and go, “Oh
man, it’s A Prairie Home Companion,” so then you put a tape (!) in, but then when the tape ends and the radio goes
back on, it’s still A Prairie Home Companion. Do
another bong, Boring Old Raphael.
Every show starts with Garrison Keillor coming out and chatting for
a little bit about nothing, a practice unprecedented in
the history of entertainment and impossible to find except that it is replete in
modern entertainment I otherwise find acceptable. The audience in the
theater where the show is recorded LOVES this. I think for a lot of people Garrison
Keillor feels like a part of the family, and therefore everything he says is
adorable, not unlike this no-effort bloggish thing.
I have never in my life met a person who actually feels this way about Garrison
Keillor, but the laughter from the audience in the theater where the show is
recorded leads me to believe that SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE must feel this way. On the other hand, I
don’t get out of the house much or speak to people over the age of 14.
After he’s done chatting, Garrison Keillor sings a song, usually
the melody of a pre-existing song but with new lyrics. It’s like a Weird Al
song, if Weird Al only wrote parodies of songs at least thirty years old and
they were all about doctors and lawyers and college professors. Come to think of it, the same could be applied to my own work,
in the sense that my writing is a parody of pre-existing writing that has worth
and something approximating a ring of accuracy.
To give you a sense of the kind of songs I’m talking about: I
don’t know (and this “I don’t know” part is key to
understanding my whole point here) if Garrison Keillor has ever sung a
parody of Gilbert and Sullivan’s I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major
General with lyrics about contemporary American politics, but also yeah I
do know, because he definitely has.
Anyway, the song is cute and fun and you start to think, “yeah,
okay, you know what, maybe I do like A Prairie Home Companion,” but
then he sings another song, and it’s like, “all right, guy, enough.” Then he
sings like eight more songs. (Shit, where the fuck is my Adderall?)
After the songs, I guess (and my entire
piece is a guess) there’s like some sketches? One is usually a noir
parody about a grizzled private eye (god, writing this
sentence KILLED several million neurons). There might be one of these in
every show? There’s no way to know for sure (except to
listen, which I’m, like, not into). One is usually a sketch about
cowboys, where most of the comedy comes from the juxtaposition of cowboy
cliches with anachronistic modern life observations. Like maybe one of the
cowboys is developing an app? That could be twenty minutes of showtime right
there. The cowboy segment is usually brought to you by powder milk biscuits. Is
that supposed to be a joke? Or is there an actual powder milk biscuit company
that pays to sponsor the segment? Nobody (i.e. I don’t)
knows. It’s a mystery (as in most things I ponder without effort).
Then there’s like ten or twelve more sketches (thankfully, there is no math requirement for pieces like
mine).
Usually (I say both confidently and without
foundation) the show has a vaguely topical sketch, so you know that this
show was recorded recently, like, this isn’t just an old show NPR had lying
around, like, they’re still making this show, in the present. The vaguely
topical sketch isn’t really topical topical though, it’s more like seasonal.
Like in winter there could be a sketch about Christmas, or in the fall, there
could be a sketch about going back to school. Back-to-school is a fun topic,
because you can make jokes about how wacky youth culture is and also make jokes
about the exorbitant price of higher education, and DON’T WORRY, A PRAIRIE HOME
COMPANION WILL MAKE THOSE JOKES.
At some point, Garrison Keillor will read a letter from Lake
Wobegon, or a letter to Lake Wobegon, or I don’t know (as
if you don’t know by now that I really don’t know), something about Lake
Wobegon. If you turn on the radio and you just hear like ten minutes of an old
man talking about people he saw in the supermarket, you’re probably at that
part of the show.
Then Garrison Keillor reads messages for people in the audience
from other people in the audience. Usually, it’s like “Happy Birthday,” or
“Happy Anniversary,” but I guess (again and again)
if someone’s car was about to be towed or if they left their lights on, this
would be the place in the show where they’d make an announcement about that. I
think (a term I use to compliment what I really do)
this segment comes from the time before Facebook or text messaging or maybe
even phones, when you couldn’t just tell someone to have a happy birthday, you
had to get Garrison Keillor to do it for you.
Also, the show has musical guests! Every episode has like five
different bluegrass (I seriously had to Google this word to make sure it was
actually called “bluegrass”) bands come out at different times and play
four songs each. Every song is like eight minutes long, and between each song
Garrison Keillor chats with the members of the band for at least fifteen
minutes.
Then at the end of the show, another band comes out. This band is
probably like three sisters who sing jazz standards together and sometimes
gospel. They sing a song, and maybe even do a little sketch, and then Garrison
Keillor asks them about how they’re enjoying their time in whatever city the
show is recorded in that week. If it’s winter, they all sing a song together
about how cold it is. Then the band plays eight more songs, then Garrison
Keillor sings a song, then there’s a long story about beans, and then there’s
like five more songs. (God, I hate old people, math and being informed. zzzzzzzzzzz).
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no, you’re thinking of Tyler Perry
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people in this thread are taking this
way
too
seriously.
it is possible to find the blog post funny and still think APHC is a good, comfy show. I’d be surprised if the blog author isn’t one of these people.
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Garrison Keillor, horndog:
I’m not about to tell anyone my Garrison Keillor story. I’m not about to relate how last summer Trevor and I were in line for Bourne Supremacy. We started talking to these two girls in line behind us. I was worried Trevor was going to start telling them about the corporation he just joined in Eve Online, so when one of them said she was from Wisconsin, I piped up with my story about how I met Garrison Keillor once. He was a total jerk and he kept hitting on this intern from the paper I was working for. The story ends with him asking me for a pen to write down his room number for the intern and I pretend I don’t have a pen, even though I’m standing there holding a pad.
I have never been able to look at this guy after reading that anecdote.
Thank you. Yes, exactly this. I grew up with PHC. I loved it when I was a kid. It was the soundtrack to our family road trips. One of my favorite memories is going to a live taping at the Fitzgerald Theater. I don’t listen to it anymore, but I’m glad it exists in all its inoffensive glory. Still, I laughed at the blog post and I’d be surprised if the author didn’t have some affection for the show.
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I’ve accidentally listened to it a few times. I find Garrison Keillor’s voice hypnotic. I am pretty sure he could start a cult and I’d join it.
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Wait, BB is “insufferably white”?
Can I be the token yellow dude? (I can show my slanty eye card if anyone needs to see it.)
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I was listening to a close friend complain about how not funny the show is once. He started a sentence about how annoying it was that Keilor said that stuff about all the kids being above average and my brain went into a contest between “Should I explain how it is a joke?” and “Is this guy really that thick?” That was 15 years ago and I am still stuck there. Satire just . . . well . . . WHOOSH!
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In my short life I’ve found that when someone satires a parody people will take it seriously and lose their fucking minds
“You’re making fun of this thing I find funny? WELL I NEVER!”
Wait, wouldn’t the hipster thing to do is religiously listen and tut at people who enjoy more plebeian fare such as family guy
I read one of his books once, and one of the villains is an oversensitive secretary who accuses the protagonist of sexual harassment.
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