And that's the news from Lake Wobegon
July 2, 2016 6:09 PM   Subscribe

As previously announced, Garrison Keillor (previously on the blue) has stepped down from hosting A Prairie Home Companion a public radio show which he has hosted (with some substantial breaks) for 42 years.

His last show, "Sumus Quod Sumus" (from the official motto of the fictitious Lake Wobegon, "We are what we are") was recorded at the Hollywood Bowl, rather than the show's traditional home at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. New host Chris Thile, who first appeared on the show at age 15, will start October 15th.
posted by Halloween Jack (110 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
The Hollywood Bowl? That's pretty fancy.

I mean, I guess a guy could record there....
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:19 PM on July 2, 2016 [6 favorites]






I might start listening to the show again now that I won't be subjected to Keillor's horrible singing.
posted by charlesminus at 6:38 PM on July 2, 2016 [23 favorites]


PHC is indelibly associated in my mind with where my life was in the 80's. I listened regularly for 8 or 10 years before my circumstances moved on and I lost track of it. I knew the show had kept going, but for whatever reason I never tuned back into it. But while I lasted I enjoyed his unstated whimsical humor, though I can see how it wouldn't float everyone's boat.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:45 PM on July 2, 2016 [6 favorites]


*click*

And that's 29 minutes to the first complaint about his singing. Nowhere near the record time of 17 seconds, set by Pastor Inqvist during a memorial service for Jonah Gunnarsson, the Powdermilk Biscuit Sales Rep who was tragically crushed by a truckload of his own product's flour, oh, about nine, ten years ago now, out by the plant on the road to Worthington.
posted by Celsius1414 at 6:46 PM on July 2, 2016 [125 favorites]


PHC is indelibly associated in my mind with....

Learning how to enjoy the concept of talk radio/a.m. It would inevitably lead to me listening to National Public Radio and was my gateway into more news-focused radio listening. Prairie Home Companion is not my favourite program on NPR, but it will occasionally provide a dry laugh or a small chuckle. It's not something I tune into, but it's also not something that I actively tune away from.
posted by Fizz at 6:57 PM on July 2, 2016 [5 favorites]


I went through a few years where it seemed like, whenever I got in the car on the weekend, there was Garrison's voice. PHC had a miracle ability to follow me around the clock to whenever I happened to get in the car. I had liked PHC just fine before this period, but eventually it became rage-inducing.

With no other possible way to address the problem, I stopped driving on weekends.
posted by gurple at 6:58 PM on July 2, 2016 [49 favorites]


At least we'll always have letters from Chris Kimball from America's Test Kitchen.

Oh wait.

*sobs*
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 7:00 PM on July 2, 2016 [6 favorites]


His singing never bothered me, and I really enjoyed the show for a long time. It's time for it to go, but I hold no grudges. The news from Lake Woebegone was absolutely my favorite thing, even though it ran out of steam after awhile.
posted by emjaybee at 7:03 PM on July 2, 2016 [5 favorites]




Aeei! (Being with face-obscuring mop of dirty hair ectoplasmically extrudes through car speakers shouting about tremendously yet gently singing off-key now being the last of the lost arts.)

Will new host get Leo Kottke as often? And will he get eloquently pissed about political shit tsunamis? Can we get an "Eight Miles High" contest?
posted by Mr. Yuck at 7:07 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


Was there a Wexit vote I didn't know about? ;-)
posted by MikeWarot at 7:13 PM on July 2, 2016 [12 favorites]


My favourite Lake Wobegone memory is that episode of The Wire when Bodie finds out radio stations are different outside of Baltimore and doesn't turn off the Home Companion.

Link
posted by Foaf at 7:15 PM on July 2, 2016 [30 favorites]


Woe, begone!
posted by benzenedream at 7:16 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm really hopeful that Thile can reinvigorate the show without turning off too many of the old fans. Public Radio relies too much on the power of nostalgia. Witness that Car Talk is still on the air despite retirement and death. And nostalgia's great, but a horribly shitty long-term business plan.

Sometimes it seems like they're clinging too hard to existing donors and choking out a generation of potential new ones, but maybe Thile can keep the old guard around while opening things up for a new audience.

Kudos to Mr. Keillor. I've given you a bit of grief here and there, but you entertained my family for decades.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:33 PM on July 2, 2016 [16 favorites]


There were a couple years when AFN played PHC and This American Life back to back on Sunday's in Japan, and it was perfect background for prepping Sunday dinner. I was never a huge fan, but I do remember a Halloween episode full of spooky stories and such, and the highlight was Keillor singing a very spare rendition of Bringing Mary Home by the Country Gentlmen. I'd never heard the song before, but that moment, listening to him sing it, is indelibly etched in my mind.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:35 PM on July 2, 2016 [4 favorites]


Insert meme of Andy Dwyer: I've heard about Prairie Home Companion for many years, but I don't know what it is exactly and I'm too afraid to ask.
posted by littlesq at 7:49 PM on July 2, 2016 [3 favorites]


Not gonna lie, I cried.

I didn't really get PHC until I left minnesota and moved - for no good reason - to Wyoming. I was completely cut off from home and would tune in every week to hear the news from Lake Wobegon. His accent, his stories - He could have been talking about my uncle Jerry and aunt Mary. He could have shown up at a family reunion and introduced himself as a great-uncle and would have fit right in. The townsfolk could have been my neighbors. Our Lutheran church also had weirdness with their first female pastor (a young one at that! Who invited us to call her by her first name!!! ). He called casseroles Hot Dish and sang hymns I recognized and berated our crappy sports teams.

PHC was a lifeline that terrible year I spent alone in that godforsaken state. And when I finally moved back to the motherland I kept listening and enjoyed it until the end. I didn't expect it to be perfect forever. His voice started to go and his jokes got a bit stale, but thats also what happened to my uncles. It's okay. We're still family.

So there ya go, metafilter, one person who was sad today to see him go! I'm fine with how uncool that makes me.

* gets newspaper, pushes glasses up onto nose, sits in chair and snaps paper open, hums old song to self *
posted by Elly Vortex at 7:57 PM on July 2, 2016 [88 favorites]


I have been listening to PHC since the seventies, when it was hip, and I was young. I grew older; so did the show, inevitably. I've always enjoyed the musical guests. I don't know if I enjoyed the sound effects jokes in the early days, but they definitely grated on me as time went on; and my wife couldn't stand Guy Noir. The only commercial that I could listen to anymore was the original Powermilk Biscuit song. So we haven't been regular listeners for such a long time. But I've been grateful whenever it happens to be on when I turn on the radio, and there's a musical guest playing, or the news from Lake Woebegon, or even (if Bess isn't around) Guy Noir.

I do look forward to Chris Thile's hosting, and I hope he can find a formula that will last for years and years without the need for gags that run for decades. There's so much good music to hear.
posted by willF at 7:57 PM on July 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


He got a great accolade from President Obama, who name-dropped Dusty and Lefty and Guy Noir as he recounted listening to PHC on the drives between Springfield and Chicago as an Illinois state senator.

In the words of Dick Proenneke: You can't beat that.

And his singing was fine with me, including last week's 17 minute sing along encore on the last live show. I, for one, will miss him.
posted by y2karl at 8:03 PM on July 2, 2016 [9 favorites]


I won't miss him, and he either quit too late or stopped trying too early, giving in to the horrible temptation of sentimentality, but he definitely had something. I listened to the last show and it was sweet and not too maudlin.

Besides, they'll be running his reruns for years anyway. If you're going to do that, can we at least get This American Life reruns?
posted by msalt at 8:07 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


Illinois is a big old state and it takes a lot of time in a car to get anywhere. Makes you listen to things you never meant to. Hell, I became a Cubs fan for a while cause I could follow WGN down through Springfield and almost all the way to the River.
posted by wotsac at 8:08 PM on July 2, 2016 [7 favorites]


This show was a refuge for me growing up in small town in a deep red state. It chased away a lot of darkness with humor.
posted by humanfont at 8:10 PM on July 2, 2016 [3 favorites]


Insert meme of Andy Dwyer: I've heard about Prairie Home Companion for many years, but I don't know what it is exactly and I'm too afraid to ask.

Defined:

A Prairie Home Companion (PHC) is a long-running public radio show on PRI/NPR. It is inspired by even older shows such as the Grand Ole Opry, but has more-or-less outlived all its inspirations and so has become the sole remaining example of that it which it emulates.

In many people's minds it's inextricably intertwined with its host, folksy, literary funnyman Garrison Keillor. The show is a collection of songs, jokes, comedy segments and advertisements, mostly fake (like for Powder Milk Biscuits, the Ketchup Council, the National Association of English Majors and, most memorably, Bee-Bop-A-Ree-Bop Rhubarb Pie), sometimes real (like for "Sleep Number" beds). Chief among these sections is the News From Lake Woebegon, a spoken-word piece written and performed every week by Keillor about the fictional Minnesota town he supposedly grew up in, filled with fictional Minnesotans, where "all the women are strong, all the men good-looking, and all the children are above-average." Keillor has turned Lake Woebegon into something of an industry unto itself, and he has penned many books about the place. These bits are sometimes hilarious, but more often just kind of pleasantly familiar. Other bits include Guy Noir, Private Eye (voiced by Keillor) and the Lives of the Cowboys.

The show has lasted 42 years and so has picked up a number of assorted bits of lore and in-jokes. For example, every year they have a 'Joke Show,' filled with literal jokes, of the classic form, both bad and worse. One particular joke has gained a certain infamy, the "Penguin Joke," oft-repeated, its repetition and longevity itself the funniest thing about it, which the cast certainly knows. It goes (undoubtedly paraphrased):

Two penguins are standing on an ice floe. One says to the other, "Hey, did you ever notice, the way we look standing here, it's like we're wearing tuxedos."
The other penguin says, "How do you know I'm not?"

It is worth noting that, in Robert Altman's movie A Prairie Home Companion, his last film and a celebration of just about everything about the show, the joke actually kills someone.
posted by JHarris at 8:21 PM on July 2, 2016 [28 favorites]


Holy shit what an episode! I had my suspicions about Dusty and Lefty for a while, but apparently I was way off base and I still don't think I was ready for the truth. And Guy Noir's backstory was way more intense than I expected. I honestly don't think he can be redeemed at this point.

Anyone else still catching their breath after this one?
posted by sourwookie at 8:24 PM on July 2, 2016 [3 favorites]


Roger Angell, who edited Keillor's first New Yorker piece in 1970, called him "certainly the strangest person I know." (New Yorker article.)

My wife hates his show. Anyone who has listened to his show for decades has gotten tired of his show, I'm pretty sure. At first it was fun, of course. But as much as he disparaged his Minnesota culture, his show was painfully white-bread.

However, I can't dis the guy. He came out to Denver and did a benefit for my school (one of his musician's daughters went there)! Those red socks I remember. If you like the show, don't worry, it will be on repeat forever, like Lawrence Welk shows.
posted by kozad at 8:29 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


...“People who don’t listen to his show much think it’s homespun olde-tymey stories,” Glass wrote. “They don’t hear the variety and dark emotion and ambition in what he’s doing. It’s like they buy the packaging without noticing the complicated product he’s actually making.”

Glass’ vehicle for saying so was the reprint of a letter Keillor had written in response to a listener. The listener tried to enlist Keillor in some harrumphy old-guy business, suggesting that he could appeal to a younger demographic by, like storyteller David Sedaris, “taking up with a same-sex partner, living the life of an ex-pat…”

Keillor, gently, subtly, eviscerated the writer’s attempt at clubbishness, and in that response is a lot of what makes the Lake Wobegon stories so resonant.

“The house in Normandy is neither here not there,” Keillor wrote, a breathtakingly good sentence, and all the more so for the way what’s good about it sneaks up on you. “(Sedaris) seems to be a deeply monogamous man with old-fashioned attitudes about privacy and loyalty and discipline. Sardonic, in his case, conceals a sentimental romantic. If young people are drawn to Mr. Sedaris, I can only applaud their good taste.”
Good riddance, Garrison Keillor? Ira Glass, for one, disagrees
posted by y2karl at 8:31 PM on July 2, 2016 [24 favorites]


Honey, could we ask for more?
posted by anarch at 8:32 PM on July 2, 2016 [7 favorites]


Loved it. My wife and I were at the bowl for this last night. I'm looking forward to seeing what Chris Thile does with the show.
posted by Arbac at 8:38 PM on July 2, 2016 [3 favorites]


There's another bit in the link that y2karl posted that bears repeating:
"There are people for whom it is important not to like this particular show, and I honor that,” he said. “When I was their age, it was important for me to look down on things that my father liked, and so I did. In looking down on things, however, we give up ever understanding them."
Yes, the tread had just about worn off the tires by the end, but Keillor could still bring some wonderful bits: Brandi Carlile covering "Sunday Morning Coming Down" relatively recently, or his repeat on Memorial Day weekend of "Argonne", his rewrite of the sea chanty "Lowlands" to reflect what a horrible slaughter WWI was. People snipe at his voice, and its shortcomings are especially prominent when he's paired with a superior vocalist as he is here, but, you know, I doubt that that fact escaped his attention, and in songs like this it really works very well.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:04 PM on July 2, 2016 [13 favorites]


I was driving home from a music festival two weekends ago when the opening of PHC came on the car radio, and I was shocked at how terrible Keillor's singing sounded, like he just didn't care any more. (It never particularly bothered me in the old days.) Still, 42 years of success at the same thing in our age of sound bites and short attention spans is quite an accomplishment. And some of his monologues, written at his peak, probably were as good as anyone ever has done along those lines. It's no mean feat to have populated a community like Lake Wobegon completely out of the air(waves).
posted by LeLiLo at 9:37 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


Long time former listener, mostly from my time after giving up on the Commercial Radio Biz soon after college, when my personal schedule usually had it on the car radio while going to one of the first Trader Joe's stores in Southern California for cheese, specific frozen items and wine-if-I'm-going-to-be-entertaining-hip-but-broke-friends. TJ's is now a national chain, but it grew slower and a lot later than PHC, and my trips to Joe's there days are accompanied by K-PIG because that's the best mood music available on a weekday.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:38 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


Such a strange feeling. Haven't listened to the show in literally years, but I'm still sad it's over.
posted by EatTheWeek at 9:41 PM on July 2, 2016 [7 favorites]


The show used to be pretty darn good every week. No, really. And Keillor could sing! But he (and the show) just got old and tired, frankly. I'd be sadder about him retiring, but it's been a long time since I was listening regularly. I don't say all that to knock the guy. He may well have been giving the show everything he had, right to the end. But when people say the show is bland and his voice is bad, I want to say, "Well, maybe... but you should've heard him back in the day!"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:49 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was working at a restaurant in the early 80’s and on Saturday night the waiter would tune in to the show at closing time. It was a nice change of pace to the usual blaring music played while we cleaned up. I’ve enjoyed it ever since. I thought it was unique and a simpler form of entertainment that is pretty much disappeared from the airwaves.

I’m sorry to see it go.
posted by jabo at 9:50 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


My wife, from a different ethnic and class background than I, *hates* the show. I eventually gave up.

The above is a decent pocket bio and relationship history.
posted by mwhybark at 9:53 PM on July 2, 2016 [5 favorites]


I've been listening to the show since I was a kid in the 70s.

I'd very much like it if someone would take all the old shows, extract the skits and monologues, and republish those bits alone. I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

I just don't like bluegrass/gospel/country that much, and there's absolutely no excuse for broadcasting that much mediocre, off-key singing.
posted by mikeand1 at 9:54 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


... I enjoyed his unstated whimsical humor,

Aaaand 3 hours later I notice that I misspelled "understated". Oh well.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:54 PM on July 2, 2016 [4 favorites]


Two penguins are standing on an ice floe. One says to the other, "Hey, did you ever notice, the way we look standing here, it's like we're wearing tuxedos."
The other penguin says,
...

... "Oh, no, it's just vanilla ice cream."
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:59 PM on July 2, 2016 [15 favorites]


Through appearances on Radio 4, and a parental copy of Lake Wobegen Days, Keillor gave me, as a British child in the early 90s, my first real introduction to the complexity and mythology of (fictionalised) rural American small town life. Regardless of the specificity and fantasticism of his portrayal and his personal stylistic idiosyncrasies, the notion of rural America he provided has helped me to contextualise works as diverse as Twin Peaks and Parks & Rec, and I'm glad of his work.
posted by howfar at 10:04 PM on July 2, 2016 [9 favorites]


Quite simply, PHC is one of the Wonderful Things that makes life Good.
posted by brambleboy at 10:18 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


Was?
posted by brambleboy at 10:19 PM on July 2, 2016


I have listened to PHC for literally decades. I never sought it out, but with its long running time and airing twice on most weekends, it was hard to avoid. I always found it a wonderful/horrible mix of excellence and extremely boring, but I never tuned away from it.

I found Keillor's ever-more-pronounced little whistle while speaking to be a thing that I didn't hardly notice at first, but for the last few years was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. But I loved his storytelling, found the comedy sketches to be insightful even when I found them pointless, and loved the musical guests. Wasn't necessarily music in my wheelhouse all the time, but then neither was Hee Haw, which I watched growing up with my parents, and I think the exposure to things I might not pick out for myself gives me a broader appreciation and makes me a better person overall.

My two favorite parts of the show every time were the reading of the audience announcement cards (partly because the audience was pretty clever and partly because Keillor had perfect delivery while reading them) and of course the Tales From Lake Wobegon.

The amount of delight in the miracle of the simple experiences in life that the show helped develop an appreciation in myself to stop and notice the small things and to realize that most of life is small things and if you don't take the time to examine them, you're basically missing your entire existence.

I hope the show finds a new and steady course under the new host. I know I will be tuning in.
posted by hippybear at 10:24 PM on July 2, 2016 [8 favorites]


Also, I found the Altman film to be utterly delightful.
posted by hippybear at 10:37 PM on July 2, 2016 [4 favorites]


We listened to the show today and it was truly bittersweet. Yah, he doesn't sing like he used to but most folks his age don't. But good lord, those five women were knocking out of the freaking park every time. The phone-in from Obama was sweet. My only complaint was that wandering Woebegone monologue near the end.

The News from Lake Woebegon segments have really gotten rambling and pointless. In the show's prime, Keillor could take a few threads and wind them into a tight short story that always hit home. I remember one about an old car that was being used as a septic tank. Somehow it ended up in the high school homecoming parade. That did indeed make me laugh out loud. Or Pastor Inqvist's battles with the conservatives on the church council. Keillor hasn't done anything like that for a long time.

But for those who are only casually familiar with the man and the show, you're amiss if you think it's just a sentimental look back at small town America. There are few things about growing up in rural America as scathing as The 95 Theses from one of the first Lake Woebegon books.

Goodbye Garrison, in your name we'll always be battling the Val Tolefsons of the world. And I do look forward to what Thile will bring to the table.
posted by Ber at 10:42 PM on July 2, 2016 [18 favorites]


nd my trips to Joe's there days are accompanied by K-PIG

Pronounced "Ka-pig".
posted by JHarris at 11:55 PM on July 2, 2016


It's funny how Keillor inspires powerful negative reactions in some people. PHC was a constant in my house, and even though I grew up in Southern California it still feels like home to me, so much so that for a long time I entertained the idea that whoever I married must insist on listening to the show every weekend, too.

But I moved to New York, and eventually realized I'd outgrown that idea around about the time I was dating a wonderful man with otherwise impeccable NPR credentials who insisted that every time he heard Garrison Keillor he wanted to light him on fire.
posted by gusandrews at 12:14 AM on July 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


K-PIG
Pronounced "Ka-pig".


Nope, it's Kay-Pig, like many other western US radio stations with call letters starting with K... KBAY (kay-bay), KBIG (kay-big), KBOS (kay-boss), KCAL (kay-cal), KDAY (kay-day), KFIG (kay-fig), KFOG (kay-fog), KFOX (kay-fox), KHAY (kay-hay), KMEL (well, that one's ka-mel)...
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:29 AM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


And yet Jonathan Schwartz still wreaks his work upon the world.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:11 AM on July 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


I can't believe he's been on longer than Michael Feldman. 42 years? I remember his first show and I doubt it was 42 years ago. But maybe you're right, it just seems odd, considering Michael just hung up his mick after 31 years.

ps: I fell so out of love w/GK a long time ago. Something he said that pissed a lot of people off, but I can't remember what it was now. I'll listen to his last program, what the hell?
posted by james33 at 2:41 AM on July 3, 2016


Some of the best parts of the show were lost -- the SFX guy (Fred Newman?) who died -- or were thrown away -- Pat Donohue being sent off -- but GK still insisted on the awful Guy Noir stories. After listening for most of my life, I gave up a few years ago.

I will give the new guy a chance: I've heard some AMAZING things come out of my radio over the years, courtesy of PHC, and I really would be pleased for that to happen again.
posted by wenestvedt at 3:43 AM on July 3, 2016


Keillor did a great job with that show... He made me love that place....If I could find out where it was, I would move to Lake Wobegon in a heartbeat.

I'll just leave this here for you, my favorite.. Lutheran ministers on a pontoon boat.
posted by HuronBob at 3:53 AM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


I will miss him. I am neither American, Canadian nor British, but I have been listening to him since the nineties. Even though I can't stand Bluegrass. I even travelled to Indiana to see him live at Purdue.

And it was grand.
posted by fordiebianco at 4:46 AM on July 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


Always enjoyed the show but haven't listened for years because his voice gives my wife the crawlin' heebie-jeebies...
posted by jim in austin at 6:01 AM on July 3, 2016


Count me among those who will miss him and his show as well.

I'm still looking for one monologue of his that I heard in the late 90s, which really impressed me, and I figured this might be as good an opportunity as any to see if anyone could help me find it.

The little I remember was that it involved a man who had the idea to attach some kind of structure to his home, I think it was something like a "sun porch" and all his misfortunes that followed upon making the addition, and at the end, Keillor brings it full circle with a clever little coda along the lines of "... and we'll put a sun porch on it."

Can anyone point me to that epidsode? I'd love to hear it again.
posted by Borborygmus at 6:28 AM on July 3, 2016


The original Sound Effects Guy was Mr Tom Keith, who also co-hosted Minnesota Public Radio's Morning Show for decades under the alias Jim Ed Poole.

I met Tom when I was 4 or 5 years old while camping near one of the many small lakes in Minnesota. He tried to teach me how to skip a stone. Hearing Tom make funny noises on the radio 6 days a week made me want to be an entertainer when I grew up.

I've drifted in and out of listening to PHC over the years, and made a number of fruitless Internet searches to find a working recording of Keillor's "Tomato Butt" monologue, which is considered perhaps his best.

Keillor, along with Charles Schultz, really captured the funny melancholy of Minnesota.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 6:33 AM on July 3, 2016 [8 favorites]


I'm 39 and grew up listening to PHC back when there was a Department of Folk Song section of the show every week. It certainly shaped my love of what now I guess we call americana music. I don't think Garrison has ever gotten enough credit for the calibre of musicians he has hosted. From John Prine and Emmylou Harris when I was a kid, to the Wailin Jennies and Brandi Carlile now, his show has always been a breath of fresh air in a world of top 40 commercial stations and classical only public stations.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:45 AM on July 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


I have PHC in the same bucolic fantasy box as The Archers and, having lived the semi-rural life, have no wish to revisit. There's a sense of reactionary, claustrophobic stasis which I find passivating and smothering. I appreciate that for many this is instead a comforting microcosm of humanity on the small stage - dramatically amplified in the Archers, magnified by wry, moderated affection with PHC - but it doesn't work for me.

Couldn't agree more that looking down on something means you cease to be able to understand it, and I don't look down on it. Like a well-constructed combine harvester, there's much to admire and no doubt about its utility, but if you don't get a thrill from agricultural machinery then there are much more diverting and rewarding things to contemplate and engage with.

tl;dr - good that it's there, keep it off my wireless.
posted by Devonian at 6:46 AM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


My favourite Lake Wobegone memory is that episode of The Wire when Bodie finds out radio stations are different outside of Baltimore and doesn't turn off the Home Companion.

This is literally how I started listening to PHC, and NPR in general, except for me it was listening to an album rock station, and driving up into the mountains to go elk hunting that made is fade out.
posted by 445supermag at 6:52 AM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


I still pine for the News from Lake Wobegon about the person who was driving down a highway with a mattress on top of their car, and the mattress coming loose." It was mentioned in this Ask years ago. It hit that sweet spot for me of beauty in the mundane, and I haven't been able to find it again.

Thank you, Garrison Keillor.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:57 AM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


a working recording of Keillor's "Tomato Butt" monologue

"Tomato Butt."
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:00 AM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


I grew up in a small Midwestern college town. It was only about half a day's drive from Minneapolis/St. Paul, but it was like another planet. At the time (1970s-80s) this part of the country seemed about twenty years behind the rest of the world.

My parents were golden age radio kids, and Minnesota Public Radio was always on in our house. It was a lifeline. Saturdays were my favorites: the Metropolitan Opera Saturday broadcast at noon, and then Prairie Home Companion at 5. I didn't like the bluegrass as much, but I loved the stories, jokes and commercials. (Bertha's Kitty Boutique!) It was comforting to sit back and have someone tell you stories and let the pictures form in your brain, especially someone who understood the small town upper-Midwest experience so well. Lutherans! Potlucks! Ice fishing incidents!

So it was really exciting when we went to see PHC live in St. Paul. You could still stand in line the night of show and get tickets. It was at the World Theater, a glorious old dump later renovated and renamed The Fitzgerald. During the monologue something (probably a pigeon) got spooked from its home in the rafters and started flapping around a few feet above Keillor's head. The audience was gasping, trying not to laugh, but Keillor was unfazed and neatly incorporated the flapping thing into the News from Lake Wobegon.

He came to our town to speak at the college when I was in junior high. I got to meet him and shake his hand. He was very tall and his voice was quiet. We talked about cats.

Thank you, Mr. Keillor.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 7:05 AM on July 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


I enjoyed APHC, though I haven't tuned into it regularly in the past 10 years, and I will miss the show.

I wonder what the state of the archives are, and the plans for them are? I would love to hear the first year of APHC. I guess maybe they're available on tape or maybe even CD, but I am afraid that our crazy copyright laws and poor planning may end up dooming APHC to utter obscurity.

Look at the old Jack Benny and Fibber McGee & Molly radio shows: Two of the greatest radio shows ever and the only reason they still even vaguely survive today is because you can go online and listen to most or all the existing shows for free. There's not even a way to pay to listen to truly older APHC shows.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:17 AM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


I always liked the darkness that poked through. The middle aged and older people facing their mortality and mediocrity.
posted by Alluring Mouthbreather at 7:27 AM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


Okay - is there some trick to making the link on that web site work? I've been trying to listen just to the "new from Lake Wobegon" section and it keeps crashing on me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:20 AM on July 3, 2016


Copied and pasted from a thread 5 years ago:

I am a good friend of Garrison's actually, and I know he gets a lot of snark on here, but he is a generous guy, gives me complimentary tickets to his shows quite often, and the mans on Facebook for Christ's sake!

Lets add on: He included small shoutouts to me here and there in his work. He dropped my name right before singing Gold Watch and Chain with Meryl Streep in the Altman flick. So I was forever grateful for that. He also inserted my last name in various novels for very minor characters.


I first met him backstage at the show Halloween 1998, and he was kind, even after 2 hours on stage. Next time we met after the show, he gave me his personal email, after me saying I never got a reply from the official show email. We stayed in touch all these years and I got to attend many shows thanks to comp tickets, I will be at the Minnesota State Fair show September 2nd so it will be nice to see his swan song in Minnesota.
posted by wheelieman at 8:42 AM on July 3, 2016 [9 favorites]


I never got to be a regular listener (pre-internet it was hard to reliably hear NPR in Canada), but usually enjoyed it when I could catch it, and it dropped off my radar before I had a chance to become sick of it, I guess. We enjoyed the Altman film.

(never quite got the appeal of the mouth-noises sound-effects schtick, other than an improv vehicle. I know the veterans of radio did much better sfx)

I've enjoyed GK's sense of humour and writing, and his love for radio as a medium. I have a few of his books, a medium where some of his darker side comes out (other than the PLC spinoff stuff). One is "WLT - A Radio Romance" - a novel that celebrates the golden era of American radio, and also it's seedier side.

For me, the pinnacle of GK's recorded work is "a young lutheran's guide to the orchestra". If you like wit, you need to hear this. I can't find a free link to it; I think it's available on iTunes or Spotify.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:53 AM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


.
posted by valkane at 9:13 AM on July 3, 2016




I heard The Night Is Long on PHC several years ago, it's one of the songs that made me sniffly in the very first listen.
posted by Fantods at 10:34 AM on July 3, 2016


Yes, the tread had just about worn off the tires by the end...

Speaking of which, the night before last I went to sleep listening to the BBC on KUOW and later went into a dream where I was at a party with Scott Simon and the guy would just not shut up.

Man, I thought, this guy will not let anyone get a word in edgewise -- oh, the inanity!

And then woke up and he still would not shut up. It was awful.
posted by y2karl at 10:36 AM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


.. that link to "a young lutheran's guide to the orchestra" isn't working for me (could be a Canada Thing), but if it is for y'all, great!
posted by Artful Codger at 10:37 AM on July 3, 2016


I've been a PHC fan since the 80's and I credit him completely for my being able to decode my husband's Lutheran, pastors kid, Scandinavian family.

Yes, his singing voice has become a little weaker, more off-key since his first stroke in 2008-2009 or so...but his pace! He has continuously been cranking out stories, shows, essays, songs. The guy is a creative powerhouse.

If you haven't read "Home Grown Democrat" or "We Are Still Married", you're missing out.

And the "In and Out Cat Song?" No one has ever nailed the fickleness of felines so well.

It's been fun, Garrison. Thanks.
posted by jeanmari at 10:58 AM on July 3, 2016


The In and Out Cat song for your listening pleasure.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6NZh9ennozk
posted by jeanmari at 11:01 AM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


Here's hoping The Vinyl Cafe on CBC Radio One is next!
posted by Kitteh at 11:34 AM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


I listened to the last show this morning, first time in a decade or so that I had tuned in. I got a little misty-eyed toward the end. GK had a remarkable long run, and I don't fault him a bit for it.

I have a lot of nostalgia around PHC. I first heard it in the late '70s, I think, and one pretend guest was a mime. I thought that if anybody could carry off a mime performance on the radio, maybe I ought to keep listening. I still have boxes of cassette tapes of old shows.

And, Lord, the music: Chet Atkins, Doc Watson, Chris Thile, Greg Brown, I'm With Her, Taj Mahal, Pat Donohue, opera, Broadway tunes, choral music. If there was anything I didn't enjoy, I can't recall it.

Mrs. Z and I once had tickets to see PHC in Dallas, and House Speaker Jim Wright chose that day to resign. Working for the Fort Worth paper, I had to forgo the show and edit instead. I regret it to this day, but at least the paper bought our unusable tickets.

Also, I'd like to thank everyone upthread who linked to monologues and whatnot. They're all keepers.

I fell out of listening as my life changed, but the final show was a Good Thing Today.
posted by key_of_z at 12:30 PM on July 3, 2016


I never once tuned into PHC deliberately, but I have listened to NPR in the car on the weekend so, you know. And there it was today, the last show (I presume). You know what? He's not always that funny but I'm a big fan of soporific Sunday-afternoon radio and so I will miss him. And you can't knock his choice of musicians. Actually the first the comes to mind offhand is Robbie Fulks (who I had never heard of) doing this song on PHC - sold me instantly.
posted by atoxyl at 1:10 PM on July 3, 2016


I've been a long-time listener, ever since my Public Radio loving dad put the show on Saturday evenings when I was a kid. (Both PHC, and also the interim American Radio Company, while that was a thing.) I'm going to miss GK's "It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegone..." stories. Good luck to Chris Thile!

To end with: Copenhagen.
posted by Guy Smiley at 1:44 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


And you can't knock his choice of musicians

Sara Watkins has been a staple on PHC for a long time, and she's a founding member of Nickel Creek. Her compatriot from that band will be taking over PHC hosting duties this fall. Her interview on The Frame earlier last week was charming and is worth a listen.
posted by hippybear at 1:50 PM on July 3, 2016


What a fantastic ride! To anyone who hates on this show, and to those ready for a new generation, I give you The Dinner Party Download. Witness the absolute vapidity and worthlessness of a bunch of faux hipster-should-have-just-been-a-sketch-on-Portlandia idiots.

In other news, I got to see PHC last November, trying to get to see a show before he retired, and it was such an amazing experience. The Altman movie really did it justice, without spoiling a live show.
posted by Snowishberlin at 2:02 PM on July 3, 2016


"Well sir, it has been an uneventful week in Badger Falls..." (Simpsons YT link)
posted by Guy Smiley at 2:05 PM on July 3, 2016


To anyone who hates on this show, and to those ready for a new generation, I give you The Dinner Party Download.

DPD is the Parade Magazine Sunday supplement of public radio offerings.
posted by hippybear at 2:08 PM on July 3, 2016 [4 favorites]




Here's hoping The Vinyl Cafe on CBC Radio One is next.

Way ahead of you on that one...
posted by y2karl at 4:18 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


With him leaving, it really ceases to matter whether he was entirely my cup of tea -- like Car Talk, whether PHC did it for you or not, it helped to sustain and build loyalty to public radio, which loyalty a lot of people work hard to continue to earn every day. I wasn't a frequent listener, but he piled a ton of fuel into the engine of an enterprise that's enormously dear to me, and I owe him for that.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 4:55 PM on July 3, 2016 [10 favorites]


Good-bye, Garrison, I'll miss you.

can we at least get This American Life reruns?

I stopped listening to Ira several years back. I grew weary because almost every episode was a rerun.
posted by Rash at 6:12 PM on July 3, 2016


APHC is a public radio church service. It is neatly structured as one: the opening theme as invocation; readings from the books of Guy Noir, Dusty and Lefty, etc. (you could also argue the PSAs and ads are gospels of a sort); the notes from the audience are the community announcements, the local connection; the musical guests provide the hymns often literally; and the Powdermilk Biscuit jingle at the top of the second hour (and always at the top of the second hour, coming back from the station break) is a doxology, followed by Keillor's sermon on Lake Wobegon. Any breaks during Pledge Week serve as the offertory. The structure is nearly inviolate, and that's one of the reasons why it feels good and comfortable-familiar even if you haven't listened for years. What some may call predictable others call welcome.
posted by Spatch at 7:35 PM on July 3, 2016 [17 favorites]


I can see that, actually. After walking away from the church I was raised in nearly 30 years ago, I went back a couple of years ago to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, and the order of service was exactly the same, despite a few pastor changes and decades in between. I won't say I felt at home there, but the familiar structure was reassuring.
posted by hippybear at 7:57 PM on July 3, 2016


I'm still mourning the loss of Wiretap. With Jonathan Goldstein. A bit more my speed than PHC.

If you've never heard of Wiretap, i recommend the "Why is Mason Reese Crying?" episode. Something about that one always gets me.
posted by ELF Radio at 1:37 AM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


If anyone has a link or recording of Keillor singing Streets of Laredo I'd love to have it. Cash's rendition may be definitive, but there's something about the way Garrison sings it that will forever be, for me, exactly correct. Yes, I know it's strange. Humor me?
posted by Richard Daly at 2:27 AM on July 4, 2016


I'm still mourning the loss of Wiretap. With Jonathan Goldstein.

Whoa, I had to look this one up as I've been listening to it all year on KUOW and now come to find it ended in June in the US, being a broadcast of reruns all this year. That was a good show, so I share your loss.
posted by y2karl at 6:25 AM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Another amazing PHC moment that I'll never forget, from their first show after 9/11 (they were broadcasting primarily from NYC at the time): Tom Paxton's song "The Bravest"
posted by hydropsyche at 8:20 AM on July 4, 2016


Here's hoping The Vinyl Cafe on CBC Radio One is next.

A thousand times this.
posted by Ber at 9:34 AM on July 4, 2016


I wonder what the state of the archives are, and the plans for them are? I would love to hear the first year of APHC.

Yeah, me too! Are there any archives online? I've never really listened to the show, but I've been to a few live shows that were fun. I'm curious what Garrison Keillor sounded like when he was younger.
posted by bluefly at 9:58 AM on July 4, 2016


It's a nice thought but Stuart McClean is so Canadian content pandering that he must have an audience for life. Which is not a bad thing in itself, the content pandering part in so far as the music is concerned, but, Jesus Fuckin' H. Christ, those monologues are the aural equivalent of waterboarding.
posted by y2karl at 10:01 AM on July 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's a case where imitation is the sincerest form of just not getting it.
posted by y2karl at 10:08 AM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Last I checked the archives were all Real Audio files, which is just I can't even. I sent them an email at the time and got a not-at-all-apologetic email in reply about their chosen partner blahblahblah.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:20 AM on July 4, 2016


Yeah, the (great) song I linked to above is only Real Audio, which means I can't actually listen to it on my computer currently. But I remember how great it was.
posted by hydropsyche at 11:46 AM on July 4, 2016


I'm curious what Garrison Keillor sounded like when he was younger.

Hipster GK from 1979
posted by entropicamericana at 11:54 AM on July 4, 2016 [8 favorites]


awesome, thank you. A 20 minute segment! Different times.

You kids, don't put them beans up your nose.
posted by mwhybark at 6:05 PM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


I don't know that Thile, Keillor's handpicked successor, has the chops to carry the show. His trial runs have sounded like he's working folksy really hard but is coming off kind of smarmy and ministerial. I would imagine it would improve with time but the show is such a fit around Keillor that there's no stopping the juggernaut, is just gonna grind you under until they farm or the repeats.

Maybe time to see if Tom Bodett wants a gig. Get him some singing lessons. It's been many years but I'd love to see him dust off the old End of the Road stores again.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:59 PM on July 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


I love his music and there is no denying Thile is incredibly, incredibly talented and gifted, but I've always had the impression that he is his own biggest fan.
posted by entropicamericana at 5:32 AM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


On the "hipster GK" link -

Oh my God those opening credits are the 70s-est 70s thing that ever 70'd.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:01 AM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


PM Magazine! I hadn't thought about that show in a long time.
posted by thelonius at 7:09 AM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


“How ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ Made American Religion Real,” Jacob Lupfer, Sojourners, 06 July 2016
posted by ob1quixote at 9:55 AM on July 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


The stories from Lake Wobegon are just wonderful writing and storytelling. Sometimes foolish, sometimes really true and moving. Yes, his over-reliance on his own singing was annoying. Still, an amazing talent and accomplishment.
posted by theora55 at 8:39 AM on July 7, 2016


I love his music and there is no denying Thile is incredibly, incredibly talented and gifted, but I've always had the impression that he is his own biggest fan.

I grew up around musicians like this, and I agree, he has the mark of someone who loves his talent very much. I tend to be a bit more forgiving when they have the talent to back it up, but it can be a bit of an eyeroller.
posted by middleclasstool at 1:40 PM on July 7, 2016


I tend to be less forgiving if they are the sort who, upon hearing you play something, have to play it back to you twice as fast, twice as smooth with infinite ornament and variation.
posted by y2karl at 11:26 AM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Garrison Keillor responds to the Republican Convention on Facebook:

A week ago I felt good about America but no more. Praise the Lord, I’ve seen the dark. Coyotes are running freely in the streets of our big cities, the stock market is teetering on the verge of collapse, the monetary system will soon go belly-up, China and North Korea and Iran have a knife to our throats, our schools are in chaos, politicians corrupt, the media stupefied by political correctness, and everywhere you look you hear foreign accents. We are on the edge of the abyss.

At my house, we’ve begun fortifying the basement walls with sandbags and laying in barrels of fresh water and K-rations. We refuse to be at the mercy of the government when liberals decide to shut down the water supply. We have purchased flame-throwers which are much more effective than firearms and we have enough napalm to fight off platoons of invaders plus the attic holds four tons of dynamite that is wired to a single switch in the refrigerator: when we go, we’ll take the whole neighborhood with us. We’ve cashed in our bonds and put some of the money in coffee cans and buried them in the yard and the rest we’ve invested in precious agates, which is the only truly safe place to put your money these days. The American Board of Agates in Waco, Texas, has a brochure that will knock your socks off.

Of course, none of this information appears in the mainstream press and you can be sure that no newspaper dares to print what I’m telling you now. The greatest nation in the world is about to collapse like a paper parasol in a hurricane unless Donald J. Trump is elected president and given the power to turn things around.

I am a lifelong Democrat, or was until I watched the Republican National Convention last week and the darkness became visible and the pieces clicked into place and suddenly everything made sense. This is Scriptural prophecy come to life, the seven-headed beast, the whore of Babylon, the woman with snakes coming out of her head, all of it. It’s here. Now.
posted by Obscure Reference at 6:53 AM on July 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


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