First of all, Garrison Keillor is a much better writer than he is an entertainer.
Garrison Keillor during his Summer of Love Tour in Saratoga, CA on August 25, 2010, wearing a red tie with a white suit that bagged around his red slipper shoes.
Second, Keillor’s self-proclaimed “Summer of Love Tour”— “celebrating the theme of romantic love…an evening of love duets, ballads, love sonnets, and stories of great passion and marriage” IS NO SUCH THING!
Third, boy do I feel hoodwinked. Thusly, I feel compelled to inform the masses. Here’s my story and commentary:
I don’t listen to The Prairie Home Companion Radio Show on NPR because it airs on Saturday night and Sunday mornings—not my radio-listening time. I have heard a snippet here, a snippet there. My impression: folksy and wholesome. Some good musical guests.
But I do enjoy Mr. Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac daily blog/podcast. It’s always fascinating and well written (except for 7/31/10). The daily poem is almost always a good one—and reminds me that I can’t write a poem worth a damn.
I especially like Mr. Keillor’s novels about Lake Wobegone, a fictional town in Minnesota (where he hails from). They’re full of funny, eccentric characters and tidbits about the Minnesotan/Scandinavian/Lutheran culture, which I find interesting.
So, knowing that Mr. Keillor is revered as a “master storyteller,” as well as a writer, humorist, and radio personality I thought going to his concert about “romantic love” would be a GREAT TIME.
The Mountain Winery, an outdoor concert venue in Northern California. Parking costs $20 and water costs $4.
I attended the show at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA last night, August 25, 2010. It was boring from the beginning.
I can’t be the first person to point this out, but Mr. Keillor has very little stage presence. You know how they say certain entertainers have the “X Factor”—meaning you can’t take your eyes off the performer because he/she is so compelling? Mr. Keillor has the “Z Factor”—for zippo. NO compelling factor. Maybe that’s why he excels at radio where he can’t be seen? (Ouch #1)
In fact, half the time Mr. Keillor TURNED HIS BACK ON THE AUDIENCE and interacted with the band members. Huh?
In addition, he’s not funny. He’s mildly amusing. But mostly he’s corny. At first I thought he was trying to channel Mark Twain with the white baggy suit he wore. But his humor (?)/stories (?) are NOT TOPICAL and have NO BITE. Thusly, he’s NO Mark Twain.
And of course, Mark Twain didn’t sing. But Mr. Keillor can’t sing very well either. (Ouch #2)
Mr. Keillor wrote a song about a car—about the “living room sized car” with a front seat “like a long couch”—the kind of cars that “were made before Ralph Nader came along—“who has no romantic association, illicit or licit.” Jokes about Ralph Nader’s love life in 2010 or ever: not funny. Besides, Mr. Nader’s beef was about the safety of cars—NOT the size of them. I hate it when people confuse their pop culture references. (Ouch #3)
Mr. Keillor then went on to comment about teenagers today and their penchant for “not dating.” He made a joke that a teenage boy will text a girl and say: “Want to hang out?” And she will text back, “K.” That is kinda funny.
But when you say the “K” part again, it is less funny the second time around. By the time you mention it a fourth time, it is not only not funny, but the original funniness is ruined. (Ouch #4)
Comedy is about timing. Say the joke once. The audience will either get it or not. Move on!
The car song also mentioned things like Pell Mell cigarettes and a James Dean-like leather jacket and included surf music, all of which seemed dated and old-hat. There was nothing romantic about this song and there was no story attached.
Next up, the guitar player sang a song—about life as a guitar player. It was sort of funny, a parody of “Would You Like to Swing on a Star?”—which was recorded by Bing Crosby in 1944. Sample lyrics:
“Would you like to play a guitar?
Carry your money home in a jar?”
Again, not romantic, not a love duet, not a sonnet, and not a story. Just dated. (Ouch #5)
Neither was the next part: a rant about some unnamed man “being drawn to a beautiful woman” who then becomes “testy, cranky, and enormous”… looks like she “has a basketball under her shirt”… “everything had changed… she “ate odd sausages, was addicted to bus exhaust…” and became “an enormous harridan”… who had to be “loaded on a forklift” to get to the hospital…
And on and on. Are you kidding me? The clichéd shrewish pregnant woman as comedy? NOT funny and NOT respectful. Haven’t Minnesotans heard that calling a pregnant woman fat and cranky isn’t funny? (Ouch #6)
This section got worst. The woman is transported to a birthing center…supposedly run by an Indian man (?) with sitar music and ethnic drumming of some sort… while the woman screams, “Lose the dolphins! I want drugs! You did this to me!”
Then there is a pop sound, crying, and Mr. Keillor continues, “This will be your child for the next 35 years…making videos and blogging….You’ll wonder, how did this happen? Went from love to pushing you off a cliff…your children push you to a cliff.”
WHOA! What kind of commentary is that? It certainly wasn’t a “love story” or “a story of great passion.” It was lame. (Ouch #7)
This was followed by a sex education lesson about sperm having “one mission to gain admission to a female reproductive canal” and “nothing could be fine-a than to swim in a vagina.”
And: “Sperm—you can get them from a bank, or Jim, or John, or Frank…He did not withdraw, he’s your pa.”
This is romantic?!
The next “story” was even worse, about a man bar-b-q-ing a “gazelle haunch” when his wife interrupts him to ask, “Do you notice anything different about me.” This tired old war-of-the-sexes shtick is NOT FUNNY. (Ouch #8)
Throughout all these “stories,” a guy named Fred performed sound effects. For instance, when the man in the gazelle story cuts up the dead animal to eat, he does so with a buzz saw. Fred made a buzz saw sound. Fred made MANY sounds to accompany the “stories.” I found this “added attraction” to be annoying—and again, NOT funny. (Ouch #9)
After a woman played a song on the fiddle (I am not a fiddle fan = Ouch #10), I leaned over to Ye Ol’ Hubby Man and said:
“I am not going to make it to the end.”
He said, “How much were the tickets?”
“$75 each.”
“I’ll pay another $150 to leave right now!”
And scram we did!
The best part of the evening: We didn’t get stuck in the horrendous traffic jam trying to slither down the treacherous one-lane mountain road.
To summarize: Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion Summer of Love Tour = UNROMANTIC, UNFUNNY, and PAINFUL!
My blog about the poorly written Writer’s Almanac blog:
http://fuchsiawoman.com/blog/write/how-not-to-write-like-the-writers-almanac-july-31-2010/
Funny, I thought the same thing!
Wow!, this was a top quality post. In theory I’d like to compose like this too – taking time and real effort to make a beneficial article… but what can I say… I keep putting it off and never seem to get something done.
Excellent post! I really like your writing style : D
As a former newstalk radio professional who was on the air for 19 years, I have an interest in all genres of radio. As someone who worked in professional stand-up comedy for a number of years in Los Angeles, I also have a deep interest in many styles of comedy. As someone who was raised in St. Louis, I have a built-in bias for most things Midwestern.
Yet I have never found APHC nor its revered host GK anything more than mildly amusing. And that’s when he and APHC are on a roll, which to my experience is seldom. Much of the APHC music is interesting, but such melodic America seldom rises to the level of great art, nor are tunes which I require a second–much less tenth or fifteenth–listening for my mind to fully mine their creative depths, as is the case routinely with great pop, rock, country or show tunes.
As a newstalk radio guy who abhors my longtime genre’s wholesale move into pre-recorded broadcasts since the mid-90s, I’ve for many years declared “Call-in radio which isn’t live should be dead.” Yet the generally-live APHC remains, to my ear, something a production that its cast should consider fortunate to have made it to its second season.
I understand that some humor works better when understated; indeed, I’d argue that’s the case with MOST humor and virtually all satire. But GK and APHC aren’t merely subtle, they’re unfunny. HUGELY.
Existentially,
BRYAN STYBLE/Orlando
Mr. Styble:
WOW — loved your intelligent, thought-provoking, and well-written post. And the fact that you agreed with me (that GK is not funny) made it even better. And made my Christmas. (Yes, boys and girls, WORDS are better than shoes!)
You have an interesting background — the talk radio gig sounds really fun. Can’t say the same for a stand-up comedian — one of the hardest jobs out there?? I enjoyed your comment about satire working better when it’s understated. I need to ponder that … I think I jam home my satire — and if the words aren’t enough, I bold the text — and color it, too! Yikes.
Thanks for posting and Happy Holidays,
Toni
A thousand miles…
of anticipation pulled into the mountain winery where parking wasn’t included and a hamburger and kettle chips were a mere seventeen dollars.
Three hours of endless duets interspersed with droll tales dragged out to fill the hours made the walk back to the car a joyful end to too little lasting too long.
“I wanted to see you one time ‘live’ before you retired, Mr. Keillor.”
It was a thousand mile, six hundred dollar mistake.
Tim and Donna
Mountain Winery show
Aug. 23, 2011
Tim and Donna –
Too funny! Looks like you had the same UN-funny experience as me.
I had such a disappointing/crummy time, that every time I run into Mr. Keillor on the radio, I run the other way!
How does that guy sell tickets??