(00:00:04) Well about five hours from now Prairie Home Companion. We'll go on the air something that many of you have begun to enjoy or over the years become a regular part of your Saturday evening routine. And this noon. It is our pleasure to give you a chance to visit by telephone with Garrison Keillor. We're calling this segment of our program today A Prairie Home Companion: has it left Minnesota now, we do not mean to be Snyder by that title to be sure but we would like to find out first of all a little bit if some of the praise in the success and the popularity of the show has changed it in any way if it has had an effect on the show about a Garrison. Well, I still have to do it in five hours. Good Lord, that's close. You know. Yeah it is. I'm not ready to go over there. Well, And you know, I don't think it has changed it still do it with the same microphones still use those big bulky microphones and still do it in the world's theater hanging around the world. See you later. Especially backstage can save you from a lot of excessive praise. Put you right back in your place to be around there with a plaster falling down and the roof leaking. Yeah, I do. Remember the the big pans back there to catch the water from time to time. You haven't heard him on the air have you no no, but I do recall hearing about them. Anyway, I wonder if they'll there are some things that you have to do because there are people listening to the show in Los Angeles and New York. And by the same token some things you cannot do because there are people in other parts of the country that here the show or does it make pretty much Universal sense everywhere. I found the you really don't have to edit yourself for people living out around the country. I mentioned place names around Minnesota. We never did do much topical humor on the show though. So, you know, we don't depend heavily for on jokes about the Vikings or the Metrodome or other things that a topical comedian might go for lutherans for some reason gets a big response everywhere. I mean when we go on the road with the show, I think Lutheran's laugh at the word Lutheran's I never knew word like that that would get a response from an audience. Just say Lutheran and people break out laughing. Hmm four minutes after the our Garrison Keillor is with this. If you have a question and would like to put it to him we advise your call in Minneapolis. St. Paul. The phone number is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand for those of you listening in the Twin Cities area. We have different phone numbers all over the place today on the are two two seven six thousand in the Twin Cities. If you have a question for Garrison outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area. The toll-free number is 1-866-560-4440. That someone is on the line already. Good morning. (00:03:32) Yeah, that's right. I'm calling from the steam train during the defeat of Jesse. James stays in Northfield, of course everyone who was there? Enjoyed all the sights and sounds of an earlier era. What I'd like you to do is feed a tell us what you enjoyed most there. (00:03:55) Well, that was a ride from Mendota down by the Emporium of jazz down to Northfield where they were celebrating Jesse James days. I just like the fact riding on a steam train in a car which had no windows and chugging along at a real slow speed. I think the going more about 20-25 miles most of the way and through territory that I had never seen before it's him for much of the trip. It goes up a cut from Mendota to get out of the valley. For much of the way, it's a single track running down towards Northfield and used to be a train ran that route when I had Pals down a Carleton College who were my own age. So that was a long time ago and it was a great train trip. You see a lot of things by train that you don't see in a car and certainly not in plain. Don't you? Yeah, come through the back the back side of all these towns and you see the backyards you don't see what the town would necessarily like you to sing. Ya see that you see the wrong side of the tracks another listener with the question for you Garrison. Go ahead. You're on the air. (00:05:24) I've been listening to carry home Morning Show. I started listening in Fargo-Moorhead about seven years ago, and I miss it a lot right now, but when I came down to the city's I found out that Garrison Keillor besides Local radio announcer with somebody had been published in the New Yorker magazine and I'm somebody who writes and I'm kind of jealous and interesting how he first got published in the New Yorker and I'd like to know what first piece he had submitted and how it came about that was accepted. (00:05:57) Well, I shipped them some stuff in the mail. The New Yorker is one of the few National magazines that reads everything that a gets they really do. So there's no secret about it. You just ship it (00:06:14) in no. (00:06:17) No, it was a story called local family makes unhappy and they just bought it off what they call the slush pile, but you have to remember that the New Yorker comes out weekly and in the course of a year, they will publish about a hundred and forty. Stories, so when you are sending into them you are competing for a small space and you're competing with John Updike and Saul Bellow some and the as Pritchett and Bobbie Ann Mason and some heavy company. (00:07:01) Thank you. You better thank (00:07:03) you for calling we have another listener with a question. Go ahead, please. (00:07:06) Yeah Gareth and do you ever think you'll go back on the morning (00:07:10) program? I don't know. I miss it a lot. I miss it a lot. It's an interesting question life is a lot simpler without it which happens as a person gets old now here kid in the background. See now when you when you're young and you got children and and life is kind of chaotic, you know you find ways to get your life stable and simplified and rational and then when you get older and maybe that happens for you you start to miss all those things. You used to drive you crazy. So I don't know what to say. Are you gonna have more kids? (00:07:52) It would be great. (00:07:55) Well, if you have more kids, maybe I'll go back in the morning. (00:07:58) I think it's it's a really great program for in the morning. (00:08:02) Thank you. All right, we have another listener standing by with a question. Go ahead. You're on the air. (00:08:07) Yes. I'd like to ask. Mr. Keeler. If he's read the current article in the City Pages alleges some pretty Sinister doings by the MPR (00:08:16) you bet. I did (00:08:17) give it a comment either. (00:08:19) Oh sure. Got a lot of comment. How much you want to hear. What did you want to say? Well, I am not sure how many people have read the article but it's an article that repeats list of charges that have been made several places by other people against Minnesota Public Radio accusing it of what latching onto as much as it possibly can and being greedy for power and so on. I think it's I think it's too bad that a paper as good as that one really got sold a bill of goods by some people in public radium who have been repeating these things most of which are little our little careless with the fact but have been repeating these things about Minnesota Public Radio for years and years and years. the truth is a In public radio, there's an awful lot of petty politics that goes on. Public radio, you know is kind of small potatoes in this country really is does some wonderful things that hardly anybody knows about but it just compared to television and and Commercial radio just doesn't pull a whole lot of weight. So there are a lot of people in public radio who really get their sense of self-importance from going in from going in for infighting and gossip and politicking in a big big way. If you go to a public radio convention, you find yourself surrounded by it and that's why those conventions really aren't worth going to it's a big interest of a lot of people gossiping about who did what Who's got what and so on It's too bad. It's too bad because most of these charges against Minnesota Public Radio come from a few people at a radio station that if they put about half the time and energy into their own station as they put into worrying about Minnesota Public Radio. They might have something but I don't know if I want to comment on all the charges and putting I mean people are people when they get angry really get careless with fact, it just is true. When people accuse Minnesota Public Radio, for example of trying to take over k, uo m at the University and it's just it just isn't the case the idea of a merger between Minnesota Public Radio and kuo EM came from the University of Minnesota. It didn't come from us. But you know, when people get real angry at you they forget about all these inconvenient little facts, so I don't know it's a story. I hope boom sort of go away, but it probably won't I have forgotten about An Inconvenient little fact speaking of them. The toll-free line is tied up with our membership week activities today. I should have had enough sense to realize that so those of you who are listening outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area are welcome to call us collect in the Twin Cities at 2276 thousand 2276 thousand if you have a question for Garrison today, Use the toll-free line to make your membership contribution If You Wish by all means we encourage that but if you have a question for Garrison outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area call us at area code 612 2276 thousand and I think if you live in area code 612 you just dial one two, two seven six thousand. I think that's the way the phone is used. Shall we take our next listener? Go ahead, please? Hi. (00:12:34) Yes. I'm a college campus here in Twin Cities and there's a horrible rumor going around that you're about to leave Minnesota Public Radio and go east to do not get in the head for me, please. (00:12:47) No, I'm not going anywhere. Certainly not going east. Wonderful. Don't stay right here. (00:12:52) That's good news. (00:12:54) Hmm. Well, I think everybody will be happy to hear that. We'll take our next listeners. I'm not sure about that Bob. Go ahead, please you're on the air. (00:13:03) Thank you. I was getting very nervous. First of all, I'm the transplanted New Yorker who has been living in the Twin Cities now for about nine years. My question to Garrison is with is increased popularity. Do you feel that you're becoming more acidified if you will or is your public personality (00:13:24) changing? Hmm. I've always I mean I've been sitting fide for years. I left home and came to the University of Minnesota and loved it immediately always loved the city and it's where I've lived now for well lived on a farm up in central Minnesota for a couple of years back about about 10 years ago. But I've always loved the city, don't you? (00:13:54) Yes, I do. I like st. Paul because it's a small City and it's still country. I have one other question for you. Yeah. Well we ever hear any more about Jim Ed pool. (00:14:05) Well, I certainly hope (00:14:06) so it's going to be hearing less about him and I here's one of my favorite (00:14:09) characters. Well, if you tune into the show today, I thank you will probably hear him. You won't hear him say anything today, but I think he'll be on in the role of my big dog Buster and he will also be making some other sound effects if I can just think of what (00:14:30) well I'll be listening to those. Thank you (00:14:34) more questions for Garrison Keillor. Go ahead. You're (00:14:36) next. Yes as a longtime fan of Garrison's and the and as a person who's turned people on from to the Prairie Home Show from, Wapakoneta, Ohio to Ben Lomond, California and in Bolton to Oscar rather impertinent question and that is having been to the Show recently and and been discouraged to see Garrison delivers monologues without a script. I guess. I wonder how he does that and if he has it pretty well worked out word for word or if as he delivers the news from Lake Wobegon and changes when it comes down to the wire or exactly how he manages to do that. I'll hang up and go hear the answer. Thank you. (00:15:24) Well, I don't know I didn't seem odd to me. I think about it during the week. I will sometimes write things down today. I'm kind of on a hook because I have in mind that I might tell a story. It's a long story. I'm not sure whether I should tell it on the show today. I think it might go as long as 20 minutes or it might even be longer and it doesn't it isn't really a like well begun story, but I can place it in Lake Wobegon and get away with it. Well now that story is not written down but I think I have a fairly clearly in my head. It's a it's a story about a family that believes that they are in the Royal line of succession to the house of Stuart the old royal family of Great Britain and particularly of Scotland. Well, I could tell that today or I could do more of a Lake Wobegon monologue that I think would work in Bud the maintenance man and something about snow plowing here since we had a snowfall and I've been having in mind to talk about the tolerance building a new Pig barn and so I don't know quite where that monologue goes, but I could go from here down to the theater and stand up and do either one of those monologues without thinking about it too much partly because you know it The monologue has a standard opening and it has a standard clothes. That's the toughest thing about writing. Sometimes is coming up with a first sentence. It just gets to be so important in a writer's mind. So when you can stand up and say it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, and you just kind of launch off into something. And then you don't even you don't need to give it that have a big ending. You don't have a have a big last sentence. That's pregnant with meaning all you do is it just sort of tails off at the end and you say well that's interesting like well begun. We're all the house that go where all the women are strong and all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average. That's a big help right there. You know that there is a course that that part in the middle. There is an important. I wonder if when you think about about these and think about writing them if you do in fact write some of them out completely if it just leaps right onto the typewriter or if you sit there sometimes with a blank page for a little while. I spent a lot of time with a lot of blank pages. Have you mmm-hmm gets harder as you get older some reason. It's one of those things that experiences is no help in writing. I don't think it is. What do you what do you use for inspiration then? For Lake Wobegon Stars. Yeah, we're people I grew up with my family. My poor relatives get dragged into those things more often than they'd care to admit 20 minutes past 12:00 noon Garrison Keillor is with us answering your questions to to 76 thousand is the telephone number in Minneapolis. St. Paul. And for those of you listening outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area. We are inviting your calls collect today at area code 612 2276 thousand and we have more listeners with questions. Hi, you're (00:19:11) next. Hi. I'm calling from Winter, Wisconsin and I've been listening to your program and I just wonder how in the world everybody gets to you from Dallas and San Francisco and all this thing to say hi to Aunt so-and-so up in New York. And how do you how do you get all of those messages? (00:19:28) They just come in the u.s. Mail. We (00:19:31) yeah to the Minnesota public radio (00:19:34) station. That's right. They just send them to us. Minnesota Public Radio St.Paul 551019. I see you got somebody wants to say hello to today. (00:19:42) Well, I was just I was inspired to listen to your program by a classmate of mine father Joe. Will GE see up in Hurley (00:19:49) father. Joe will go see (00:19:50) Joe will grrrr. Joe will grrrr. Well girl. Yes up in Hurley Hurley, Wisconsin. Yes, and he probably gets you on WGAL now. Okay, but I was also wondering I listened to your ads for the kitty Boutique. I can't stand cats don't you have something for dog lovers? (00:20:08) We have Jack scraps for dogs. (00:20:11) Ah, that must be at a time. I'm on the road or something. I listen to you. See I'm a Catholic priest up here. And I and I listen to you in between on the road to my missions for Mass. You see I see and then I turn you on when I get back to the rectory here, but that must that must be on while I'm away see and mass someplace. (00:20:31) Well now as long as I've got you there you still there. Yes, I am. Go used to at the end of the monologue give the titles of the sermons that Pastor ink Fist and father email would be delivering the next day. And now I think I was wrong about father. Emo Catholic priest does not have a sermon with a title. Now does (00:20:58) he know we usually don't it's a homily right? Yeah, and it's just based usually on the scriptures of the day (00:21:04) sure and you don't print a title in your bulletin or (00:21:07) know, we usually don't even write. Well a lot of us don't even write down notes always just kind of preach from the (00:21:13) scriptures. That's good. All right. I'm glad to have get that cleared (00:21:17) up. Well, I'm glad you do. What's this Monsignor you have on the program. Sometimes you talk (00:21:22) about? Oh, no, I've never brought anybody as big as a (00:21:25) monsignor in. Oh, really? No. No. (00:21:28) No, I pretty much ignore the hierarchy as far as father email is (00:21:32) concerned. I see nobody's ever pressed me too hard on that (00:21:35) point. Huh? Who is Bishop Voyager? Which diocese (00:21:40) in? Yeah, I don't I don't can't imagine what diocese Lake Wobegon would be (00:21:43) in no. I'm going to leave them a freelance (00:21:45) priest. Okay, very nice talking to you. (00:21:49) Thanks for calling. Yeah, bye-bye. We have more listeners with questions. Hi. You're (00:21:53) next. Hello? Hello Harrison. I'm um attempting to make my first batch of fortune cookies ever this afternoon while listening to the show, and I was wondering if you might be willing to come up with a couple fortunes for (00:22:04) me. Well, the fortune cookies that I don't care for are the ones that have some little moral inside them, you know, be nice to other people and they'll be nice to you things like that. That's not a fortune. Who are they for (00:22:23) people at work great for a (00:22:25) newspaper? Oh, what a newspaper. Well, I don't know I would I would just write some extravagant wonderful wishes on slips of paper and put them in fortune cookies. They all they will they'll write a best-seller. They'll find money on the street. Okay. I don't know something wonderful will happen to them angels angels will come down and and And take them off to (00:22:58) Hawaii. That sounds really good. Thank you, (00:23:03) sir. We have another listener. Go ahead. You're on the (00:23:05) air. Well Garrison, we caught your st. John's showing the Fourth of July weekend. We thought it was great. We were wondering when you may be coming up to Moorhead. We'd love to be able to show some of our friends to Garrison Keillor. (00:23:17) You haven't been up to Morehead since Lord. Now I even forget what it was. I think it it's at least a year ago our plans for traveling are not are not real. Certainly. I think that we're thinking about going out east in the spring, but I hope that either in the spring or in the fall that we have Tha some time to go around the state a little bit. One of the problems was going up to Moorhead is that I really would like to be able to do a live broadcast from up there. But I gather that it's technically not possible. We did one from Rochester here in October and I'd much rather do that then just go up and you know do a show on Sunday or something. (00:24:08) Also, we very much enjoyed your reading of the scripture on Christmas. Last Christmas was very enjoyable. (00:24:16) Well, it wasn't a reading now you have to remember that was that was my pretty loose paraphrase from the from the (00:24:26) gospel. Well, I hope you brought to us. All right. Thanks. Thank you. (00:24:32) What do you like about going on tour? Well, it's you know, it's really my only chance to only chance to travel pretty much. So I enjoy the traveling part of it. I've never been real easy with the idea of being a tourist, you know, and and going off some place just to wander around and look at the sights. I always feel much more comfortable in a strange place if I have some right to be there if I'm there for some reason if I'm there to to write something or if we're there to do a show. I've never I've never enjoyed being a tourist. So touring is is travel for me. Hmm or listeners with questions. Hi, you're on the (00:25:30) air. Good morning. I have a question for Paris several 20 bucks two years ago on the fourth of July. You did a monologue that really thought was quite quite marvelous. We always have a Fourth of July picnic and we read the Bill of Rights and I wanted to know if you could remember it and if there's any way I could get a copy of it and we'll hang up and (00:25:57) listen. Well, no remind me again. Just which one this was (00:26:01) that had to do with the I think the second paragraph of the You were talking about the first paragraph of the think of as a preamble or maybe the Constitution. I remember but you the second paragraph. (00:26:18) Well, I'll have to think about that. But if if somebody up in the control room can pick you up and get you on a line and get your name and address. And if you can call back and give us your name and address, I'll try and think of what that was. Have you ever thought about putting together a compilation of some of your monologues? Well, I'm trying to write a Lake Wobegon book right now and I hope to have it finished in another. I don't know year year and a half which draws on a lot of the monologues but I don't want to print them as they as they are for one thing most of them. I mean a lot of them don't exist in you know printed form. So I'd rather try and reconstructed as some kind of a book. I'm kind of floundering around in a right now trying to Find a way to make a real book out of it, but I hope to finish it. It's about 29 minutes past 12:00. Noon Garrison is with us and we have many people with questions how you're (00:27:33) next. I'm calling from Minneapolis. I first off I'd like to tell mr. Killer that I really enjoy the news from Lake Wobegon. That's my favorite part of the program. My question is where did you get the idea for Lake? What we're gonna do. Was it something that you just came up with or was it did it take a long time or I just want to know where you came up with your characters for that. But I really enjoy that well hang up and let you answer that. (00:28:02) Okay. Well Lake Wobegon came about in a very secure this way when I was doing a Morning Show on what was then Minnesota educational radio up in Collegeville in 6970. invented some sponsors and then I found that some of them in particular Jack's Auto Repair was also the name of some real garages around people would send me photographs. There was one up in the woods north of Anoka off Highway 10. So I thought to avoid complications. I had better find someplace to put these sponsors in so that was like whoa begun and it's sad around for a while. And then when we started doing A Prairie Home Companion the Saturday show back in 74 I started doing a sort of monologue but it was really more jokes than stories. It was the kind of standard small town jokes, you know rube jokes. Our town is so small that that kind of joke and gradually I got out of that thank goodness, because only so many of those jokes around you keep repeating them and got into the business of telling stories. In the lake will begun concept has been a large enough vehicle for you to tell most of these stories. Oh sure. Yeah. I mean if there were if I needed if I were really wanted to tell a story that I couldn't possibly put in like while we're gone. I could always have somebody from Lake Wobegon leave Lake Wobegon and and go off and have other things happen to him. So how sure that's how they handle that. You're more listeners with questions. Hi, you're on the air. (00:30:24) Hello. Mr. Keeler over a year and a half ago. You wrote a guest editorial for the st. Paul Pioneer Press describing how the people of Lake Wobegon were pleased with the Reagan administration's cutting of government programs, but that they just did not understand how these cutbacks were hurting our cultural life Oh, I thought it was such a cute editorial and I would like to see more of your political writings in the paper, but I have two questions first how have the Reagan Administration cutbacks specifically hurt your program Perry Prairie Home Companion and second. the people of Lake Wobegon change their assessment of the Reagan Administration since your previous editorial (00:31:09) Well, first of all, the the cuts that the Administration has made in monies for public radio have not hurt the Saturday show at all. Really. We don't get that much money from from the feds the National Endowment for the Arts if I'm correct gives us I think 40,000 a year and that may even be high. I think that may have been that may be less in the summer. We could lose that tomorrow and not feel a whole lot of pain. people in Lake Wobegon their attitudes towards the Reagan Administration why I think that in Lake Wobegon as in many other places, the current Administration is is blamed for droughts and blamed for unhappiness of all sort and it's probably fair enough, don't you think Bob? What do you think about political commentary the the role of people like yourself making comments you look at Ed Asner for example who prominent career and got into Political things and he had some trouble you think that people who are in your business should stay clear of political commentary. Well, as soon as I as soon as I start opening my mouth at over dinner or at somebody's party about You know what? I think about what's going on what I hear coming out of my mouth is kind of a mishmash of stuff that I've read in magazines and newspapers. Nothing really very original or or profound. So I don't think I would care to offer that for public consumption, you know, I mean if I came over to your house and we were you know, we were talking about just about anything. I mean, I'd throw in my two cents worth to but I'd be about all it's worth. I take it then that you do not aspire to a career in public life and elected public life in the legislature or something like that many meetings too many meetings sitting there for hours hours hours in these. Long and he's my by these long tables under fluorescent lights and you have to listen to everybody repeat themselves five or six ten times. You know, it's awful. I hate meetings it terrible. Let's take another caller. Hi, you're on the air. (00:33:55) Yes. I was turned on to your show by a very dear man who just about live to hear your show every week. It's the highlight of his week. I think and the reason that I found out of ours we used to have these long rides from commission meetings that are held all over the state. I'm calling from River Falls, Wisconsin. So since Wisconsin United Ministries and higher education commission, and he went to Green Bay to a commission meeting this weekend, and I know they're in for a terrible ride on bad roads that we have to get over to Green Bay, and I was just wondering if you could say hello to him on your segment of the show today. I know that that would make a long terrible Drive much better for (00:34:34) him. A pencil here Potter. And what's his name (00:34:37) now? His name is Robert and Mitch Mitchell Mitch Mitchell. That's (00:34:42) hard to remember. (00:34:44) He's on some bad roads from Green Bay about the time you shall be on the air. And I know that it will really make his (00:34:50) week. I know he was coming back from (00:34:52) Green Bay, right? (00:34:54) All right to River (00:34:55) Falls. Well just to Menominee he goes he's at a different school and I'm at (00:35:00) all right, I'll make a note of it. I'll put it in my pocket and if I forget it God forgive (00:35:06) me, certainly, we're all human. All right. All right. Thanks a lot. I appreciate that. How (00:35:13) many of these requests for mentioned come in? Do you suppose during the week? And how many do you get a chance to actually use I would say in the mail for each show. We will get anywhere from 75 to 150. Hmm. And then of course, there are a lot more from the audience at the theater. So I imagine in a show we might we might actually be able to read maybe 75 really that many. Oh, yeah sure. So that's not a bad average. Well kind of I don't know feel guilty about the ones that I don't get to. Maybe I should have a show some day where that's all you do. I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind really no, I wouldn't mind people have interesting things to say in letters not really very much about the show at all much more about where they grew up or what they're up to now their kids and things like that. No, I that wouldn't be a bad idea for a radio show to just have a have a letters program. We have people with questions for your Garrison. Let's take our next call or now. Hi, you're on the air. (00:36:35) Thank you. Good afternoon. First of all, I'd like to thank mr. Killer for making himself available to the public in this manner. And secondly, I'd like to say that I ate lots of Parma biscuits before I attempted to make this call ID the strength to do what needs to be done as the person who's owned by two cats. I go down to Aunt Bertha's as often as I can and I especially like the Song a different front through this last Saturday night, but the kept going in and out the door and I was wondering if you would possibly repeat that in the future. (00:37:07) No, I don't think so. But I think I think there will be a songs of the cat song book that Bertha will will put out of got another one. I'm going to do on the show today. Hmm. All right, we'll look forward to that. You will do you like cats you don't either while I like Kat songs anyway, and I like some cats when you come over to my house and one of our cats crawls up on your lap. Are you wince too polite to throw it down, but you see I can see you wince will take another listener with a question. Hi, you're on the air. (00:37:41) Hi my husband today. I'm calling for Moorhead. We've listened to prayer and companion for a number of years and we've noticed probably in the last six months or so. We feel a significant increase in the number of messages that you relate over there and wonder if that's our imagination or if you really are reading more if you feel like you need to tie it in in the National since (00:38:08) I need to do (00:38:09) what you know. Predating messages from all over the country. And if you feel like that ties in the nation to Minnesota Public Radio or your show. Are we just feel like you do it a whole lot more than you used to? (00:38:28) Hmm. I think I do too. And really one reason for that is the discovery that I made which really surprised me that a big part of the appeal of that show to people out around the country. Is the fact that it's live and that people could sit in New York or Boston and listen to the same show at the same time that their friends and their relatives far far away. We're listening to it, which doesn't really have a whole lot to do with with us or what we do or the music on the show. Its To me. It's a it's a mysterious mysterious thing. And so I I enjoy reading more of those of those notes for that reason. It is people trying to get in touch with each other course, I could always right. They could always call but they want to have their name spoken out in public and it's a some mysterious thing. We have another listener standing by with the question will go to our next caller. Hi, you're on the air. (00:39:56) I have a rather dull question for mr. Keeler and then but first a comment that I love the show, but I just saw a parity being done. I don't know if he's aware of it, but somebody in town he's doing him and his show good for them and a local theater. (00:40:11) Oh, yeah. Is it any (00:40:12) good? Well, I don't know. I guess it's pretty close to the real (00:40:15) thing really, but is it still running? Can I go see (00:40:19) it? It's I think it's it's at the improvisational theater. So it's off and on they don't know only when they get a suggestion of your show, which was regularly. The question is the whole question is as a writer what influences have you had other humourists are right? And which writers at this point do you like to (00:40:39) read? I still like to read EB white. I like to read one man's meat. I don't know how many times I've read that book. I'd like to read his letters like those two books and then his collected essays or probably his best. He's an amazing writer and not too many people. I who who really understand how wonderful he is. (00:41:10) Do you ever read any are perelman or eventually (00:41:14) the great SJ? I haven't read for for a few years. I've got to sit down. I got his last book the last laugh that I want to sit down with one of these days. He's a funny man who promised I think was one of the few writers who ever make me laugh out loud on an airplane to following up at a slightly different tack as our caller who of the great people in radio of bygone days. Do you admire? I've always had a real fond spot for Fibber McGee and Molly like I was shows awfully well done softly. Well written Bob and Ray, of course though the sort of improvisation that they do is nothing that I have ever done ever. Could there are people there are people around here whom I grew up listening to Bob to Haven and Cedric Adams and slim jim on the radio and David Stone on the Sunset Valley barn dance, and I have wonderful memories of them. In my head, but I have no desire to go back and listen to tapes or anything. I don't think cloned card. Boom is somebody I would be interested in going back in hearing. I think he was a funny man. I wonder if there's anything of Cleland card and on tape a lot of people just remember him course his class as axle in the kids show was on channel 4, but he had a long career in radio before that. Yeah. He was on every morning. I remember it. It is 16 minutes before one o'clock and more listeners with questions for Garrison. Hi, you're on the air. (00:43:08) Yes. Hello Garrison. I'm calling from Chaplin right across the river from Anoka. Yeah, and I wonder if you know that there's an immense feeling of rejection developing amongst your loyal attendance at the World Theater when you read those out State messages and leave ours by the (00:43:25) wayside. I always get some of yours in in fact I try to do. Half and half I do my best, but I'm sorry that you feel that way. I'll read more today. We'll take another listener now with a question. Go ahead, please. Hi go on the your (00:43:45) head. Thank you. I'm not the first person to thank you have a wonderful and unique imagination guess and previous caller asked about what you what right has inspired you in your childhood in your development were there people or the way that you were treated that you think help Foster that that imagination that you have developed? (00:44:07) Well, there were wonderful storytellers in in my family whom I remember sitting around and listening to usually on Saturday nights. They would come over my Uncle Lou who actually is my great uncle and who still going strong at the age of 94 my Aunt Ruth and there are many people especially my father's family were wonderful story tellers And wouldn't it would only have a few stories in their in their repertoire. They didn't invent any you know, they were telling stories out of there out of their youth. My family had a number of house burning stories from great stories that were two houses that burned down back in our family history one down in Charles City, Iowa and one up north of Anoka and I love those house burning stories and just tried course a kid was not supposed to, you know, make suggestions or talk a lot in this sort of group, but tried to get the conversation around to the subject of fire. So they would tell those wonderful stories. I remember listening to those. I think it's a it's a great great art and it's it's still practiced. It's practiced everywhere, you know, wherever people can sit still long enough and give each other enough slack so that somebody can really unwind a long story not be afraid that you're talking too long that you're putting into. Details, that's that's where storytelling lives on it's not it's not what anybody does on the radio. That is so important. It's what people do in their homes and in taverns and in cars on long car trips. When do you suppose you decided to become a writer but I was a little kid really was a little kid and it really amazed me how pleased schoolteachers were of a kid would would write something write a story or write a poem or something all he just thought that was wonderful. Well, I didn't have a whole lot going for me in school. Otherwise, I was slowed learned to read and I was slow to learn just about anything else but by writing. For my teachers I could. Get back some of the points that I lost you 12 minutes before one o'clock. Let's take another listener. Hi, you're on the (00:46:59) air. Yeah, I've got I guess two questions one is being being a new injecting into Minnesota after wandering and everyone telling me about how wonderfully bizarre you were on the morning show, but I'm wondering how how how the Prairie Home Companion got born did and came into the world and that sort of thing and how it did time to the into the into the morning trapeze. Everybody's mentioned something about them goes off giggling hysterically won't tell me the punchline get very upset about that. Oh don't be sad another question, which is what you get a lot of various ethnic groups there. I was being Jewish. I there any Jews in Lake woebegone. (00:47:42) Not now not now, I think that there used to be I used to be I don't know. Would you want to live then? I mean I would seem to me that for a Jew it might not (00:47:57) be I've lived in a city where we just about this. I live in Juneau Alaska were just about the size of Lake Wobegon and lots of lots of ways. (00:48:07) I would assume like Wobegon would not be particularly hospitable. I mean, it's not that people would be, you know cruel and ugly but I would just think he might feel odd, but then anybody any stranger would feel odd living in that town if you moved in I don't recommend it. I think it just takes so long to get to know anybody in the feel comfortable there. I wouldn't recommend it the Saturday show got started in 1974 and I was in between tours of Duty on the morning show and I wanted to do something in radio. That would be Fun because I was earning my living writing back then freelance writing comic fiction for the New Yorker. Which was hard work and sit alone all weekend of room with a typewriter and I want to do something on Saturday. That was fun with my friends. And that's how the show started. Is it still fun these many years later. Well, it sure exciting. It's so exciting. I feel kind of odd sitting here talking to you. I mean I ought to be doing something it seems to me working. What are you doing? I was going to ask you that. What are you doing on Saturday before the show? How do you get ready for it? Well, I've got to I've got to sit down and make some notes or make some little lists and stuff. I got a jack scraps for dog spot. I want to do with Jim Ed on the broadcast. So I've got to think about which foods I'm going to put in this particular bag of Jack scraps. I haven't done a fear mongers shop Commercial for a long time. and so I need to Come up with that and I still have to figure out what I'm going to do in that monologue today. Well sounds like you got your work cut out for you this afternoon. We will keep you about nine more minutes and let you get to it. Meanwhile no a listener with a question. Go ahead (00:50:14) please. Hello Garrison. I think you make Minnesota proud and I think that it's time that a calendar be made after you but I wanted to tell you I read an article in the magazine American film and it talked all about Minnesota and it's filmmakers, especially film in the cities that is located in st. Paul and I'm sort of involved in that in writing screenplays. I was curious if that is ever crossed your mind. You could write it about Jack scraps, you know dog food or I just wonder it's such an exciting form of writing when I wanted to (00:50:45) know. I'm sure that it is I get excited whenever I think about it, but as far as doing anything with A Prairie Home Companion on film (00:50:55) or anything (00:50:56) I can do would be I think that would be Little bit odd. I've seen videotapes of shows that we've done and it's been taped twice once in Wisconsin and once here and I didn't like what I saw but a lot of it is is guy standing there with a microphone talking and kind of swaying back and forth and it's nothing you'd want to sit and look at four. You know on a screen for a while more listeners with questions as we come near the end of the are high. You're next. (00:51:30) Yes, sir. Hello Garrison. I'm calling from Osceola, Wisconsin. I've been waiting a long time to get ahold of you. Hmm, and I guess I'm on the guy if you might remember if we're writing you all those nasty letters. Oh, yeah, when you first came on in the morning show you and Jim had pool and I noticed that you even brought some on the radio. So at least some of my thought were pretty good but I guess about after a year of hearing your morning show and a few Brandis in my early morning tea. I got so that I enjoyed it a little bit and then I was sorry to see that you left the left the morning show and shortly after that. I saw your picture in the Minnesota monthly and I guess I am I felt that I was psychologically able to handle that. I'm not sure about my small children. Oh, yeah, I guess my question is do you do plan sometime in the future to get a shave and a haircut so I can show your picture to my my small (00:52:36) children? Well, no, I don't know which picture you saw in Minnesota monthly. But I shaved a year ago (00:52:43) October take my God. Are they going to print a new picture of you in a sort of monthly? (00:52:50) Well it keep trying to keep trying to bring photographers by I think I've gone through four or five different photographers and they look at the contact sheets and they don't show them to me maybe someday. (00:53:04) Yeah. Okay fine. I'll get my children. (00:53:08) Thanks for calling. It will take a next star next caller. Hi, you're on the air. (00:53:12) Yes. I'm an old fan of Garrison's a Morning Show. And I remember very vividly shaving and almost killing myself because I was laughing so hard so many times. I wonder if Garrison could possibly recycle one of my favorite sponsors from the old the morning show Jack's Auto Repair where the flashing lights lead to Total satisfaction. I think you also had a kind of a ancillary store. There were they sold the things I like narrow belts and out of style clothes. Have you ever thought of recycling more of the morning stuff Garrison? I'll hang up and listen. (00:53:47) Well, I may need to today. I'll tell you well. That's an idea Jack's Auto Repair. I don't do much on Jack's I use Jack to write angry letters to the show which we read on the air from time time. He's very sarcastic about it the dry goods Emporium, which you mentioned. I have not brought back. And now that I think of it, I'm not sure who's in the dry goods business in Lake Wobegon gets Cogan's five-and-dime. I may need to I may need to start up some new businesses up there. You know, when you do when you develop a story like Lake Wobegon over a long period of time just week after week. There's a lot of logical inconsistencies that creep in and people write in known and to remind me of them and there's a lot of business you never take care of now. I can't remember for example if I've got a doctor they're not I think I do. Okay, my birth name. Hmm. Well, I had a sit-down some time with a lot of little 5x7 note cards and put that town on a logical working basis. You could actually computerised it even yeah. I said let's take another caller while we still have a few minutes. Hi, you're on the air. (00:55:12) Hello. I'm calling from Central Minnesota, and I want to say that I enjoy here Saturday program very much. We miss the morning program. You capture us middle minnesotans so well, and I was wondering how come you chose this area for Lake Wobegon? There must be 15 or 20 make war begins with three miles a (00:55:35) year is to live up there. I lived in Freeport and I lived in st. Cloud and I don't I mean it's nice of you to say that I've captured something. I guess I've captured something but I don't think I've really captured that area. There are people up there who tell great stories with, you know, dialect and all about Central, Minnesota and Stearns County. Do much better job of it three minutes before one o'clock. We'll take another call or two. You have a question for Garrison. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:56:11) Yes. First of all, I'd like to say how much our entire family enjoys the Saturday show and I have two questions one is are you going to grow your beard back and second? Are you planning to have another mouth off? We went to that one last year and it was by far the funniest thing I have ever seen and I hope you will be doing another one. (00:56:33) I just hadn't thought about the mouth off. I guess that was last February or so. Maybe we'll do it (00:56:39) again. Oh, that wasn't that was absolutely funny funny isn't even the word for (00:56:45) it. Yeah. I'm tempted to grow a beard back, but I don't know person is supposed to Make up their mind about that sort of thing. Aren't you? I mean in just be somebody be who you are look like what you look like and not keep fooling around with that. I think we have time for one more call. Hi. You're on the air. (00:57:06) Yeah. I'm a long time fan and Morning Show and a couple things. I miss one is a Northfield police report and wonder people are still locking their keys in the car and also the pledge week Jingles that used to appear. Yeah annually seemed to inspire a lot of contribution and build up to the big moment. Wonder if either of those might be become part of the new National show (00:57:35) not those not those old pledge week poems. No, I don't think so. Oh, I see. I mean, it's not wonderful that you that you bring that up because nobody around Minnesota Public Radio like those at all. I just didn't care for him. I didn't know that they were any good until you just told me that you Do you like them the Northfield police report? No, I don't think I'll work that in on the Saturday show. I use that in a piece for the New Yorker this last year and I think that between that piece and the many mornings that I read the Northfield police report. I think I've used Northfield now about as much as a person ought to for a while. Now. I give him a rest. Well Garrison, we're going to give you a little rest here. Thank you very much for coming and visiting with us today. I know that you got to get the show on the air in about four hours and you know, the few little projects ahead of you will be for interesting hours. Well, we'll we'll all tune in and find out how it all comes out tonight. Thank you very much Dorothy hand for thanks for answering. The phones are engineer red Olsen weekend is made possible by economics laboratory products and services for household institutional and Industrial Cleaning worldwide. This is Bob Potter.