Garrison,
That remark about Mr. or Mrs. Bupkis (at the Madison show) was a winner...it would have brought down the house in NY, Chicago or Los Angeles. But I noticed that nobody laughed in Wisconsin.

I concluded the audience didn't know "bupkis.”

Barry Solomon

Barry, I'm sure they'd recognize "bupkis" in context ("He didn't know bupkis about Yiddish") but as a last name of dairy farmers, it didn't ring somehow. I just used it as a funny-sounding name, rather than for the Yiddish meaning.

Dear Garrison,
I just read a Post to the Host from Bobby in New Jersey who wondered why the jokes weren't funny to him. I think a lot of it has to do with an individual's background and whether or not you relate to either the subject matter or the culture surrounding it.

My great-great grandparents on my dad's side were Swedish pioneers who settled in Minnesota, then Dakota Territory. Because of that I really identify with a lot of the cultural references and I think they are hilarious. (I was raised in the South, though, so I laugh at "redneck" jokes, too!) My husband, who was raised in WV, always wonders why I find something so hilarious, and my kids will say, "Mom, that wasn't funny," when I am nearly choking with laughter. Since they don't have the frame of reference I do, they just can't see it. I think that a study of what makes something "funny" would be very interesting!

Thanks for so many years of wonderful entertainment! I've been a fan for probably 25 years or more and we used to listen to you on family camping trips when my kids were small. Last year was a wonderful thrill for me to see you in person at the Ryman in Nashville. Your quote from "Leaving Home" is one of my favorites: "Thank you God, for this good life, and forgive us if we do not love it enough." It's a good way to live.

Jody Cheon
Dayton, TN

Jody, the comedy that leaves me cold is the second-hand stuff that depends on one's having seen hit TV shows or movies, which is a weak frame of reference for me, whereas comic sagas that involve poverty and menial labor always move me, likewise stories about Americans in foreign cultures, fundamentalists, geeks, and fathers. On the other hand, I think that Paul Rudnick is wildly funny in The New Yorker, though he and I don't have much in common at all — it's a gift of language: he just writes funny, that's all.

Dear Garrison,
My favorite characters on the show have always been Dusty and Lefty so when I went to the Humane Society this week and met a big Russian Blue solid gray cat by the name of Dusty — morose, suspicious, handsome, huge — I adopted him. And just the man for me! As I was leaving, I saw a gray-and-white two-year-old who looked to be just the one to help me befriend Dusty and keep me entertained as well. I named him Lefty. My cats were loaded into two crates and off we went to townhouse life. Two days later we had an appointment with a vet to make sure all was well. The vet began checking him and said, "I know you told me he is Dusty the cowboy, but I am here to tell you this is Dusty the cowgirl!" SO now you have namesake cowgirls in Lexington, KY as Lefty is also a spayed girl!

Muffy Stuart

Muffy, first of all, I am just going to go ahead and assume that you are a girl, okay? On behalf of the cowboys on the radio, I thank you for your loyalty and for naming your cowgirls after them. I hope your Dusty and Lefty don't get into rotgut whiskey or smoking or chewing or spitting or singing mournful ballads, and if you ever come across an old CD, "Songs of the Cat," in a thrift store or rummage sale, you'll find a cat cowboy ballad there to play for your friends.

Post to the Host:
I grew up in a small prairie town not unlike Lake Wobegon. Over the last 20 years, many Mexicans have relocated to my little community. Long time residents (mostly Norwegian and German) didn't (and still don't) know just how to react to this huge influx of foreign speaking residents. When traveling throughout rural Minnesota, I find that many of the small towns on the prairie have also experienced a major immigration of Mexicans. In the 50's and 60's there were no minorities in my small town. In fact, I didn't meet a black person until I joined the Army in 1970. These Mexican folks are very hard working, religious, and good family-oriented people. Yet, sometimes they are viewed as unwelcome strangers who somehow haven't earned the right to settle here. People should remember that a short few decades ago, their ancestors were strange, foreign speaking visitors to these parts too. I wonder what Lake Wobegon residents might say about their new Mexican neighbors at the Chatter Box Cafe?

David Weber
Monticello, MN

Thanks for a thoughtful letter, David. I'd guess that Lake Wobegon residents would try to ignore any new Mexican neighbors. Lack of language is a real barrier in a small town — I know from having traveled around Denmark when I lived there — it makes you an outsider and in a small town outsiders are viewed with suspicion. Bilingualism may work well in Miami or L.A., but not in a small town in Minnesota. The Norwegian and German ancestors met terrific bias from the Anglo-Americans who were here (I'd argue that there is still bias against Norwegian and German surnames) and they mostly shed their languages in a couple generations and took up English. Which Hispanic folks in Minnesota will do, too.

Dear Garrison,
I am a long-time listener to PHC, and it finally dawned on me that you could answer a question that has teased me now and then for many years. Years ago, when I was a student at the University of Michigan, I knew a guy from Minnesota who was pleasant enough, but quite shy, and awkward, and ill-at-ease, and one day I invited him to a Tiger baseball game and there I noticed to my horror that he was eating a bag of peanuts whole, shell and all. I told him the obvious (so I thought) that you crack the shell off and eat the nuts and he said, "This is how we eat peanuts in Minnesota."

So my question is, Is this really how Minnesotans eat peanuts?

Rich Crawford
Ann Arbor, MI.

Rich, I do not eat peanuts that way, not at baseball games or anywhere else. But if someone from Michigan is nearby, I like to place the peanut on his skull and crunch it with my fist.

Post to the Host:
Re: 4/30/05 opening monologue — actually, the Susquehanna River doesn't run through Virginia, only through Pa., Md., and NY. The 4th river you were looking for is the York River, which runs about 3 mi. down the road from here. Very disappointing to Virginians (the early ones, not the NY Virginians), who have known the names of those 4 rivers since the first grade. Kind of got you off to a bad start around here, not to mention the misinformation you spread everywhere else. Also, the Newport News Shipyard is nowhere near Norfolk, but rather on the other side of Hampton Roads. Have to come through that tunnel you were talking about to get to it.

Next time you come to Va., I would be glad to review the script for you, at no charge. I enjoy the show every week, especially my hero, Pat Donohue, but I get embarrassed when you make such glaring errors as the ones you did yesterday. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Bill Campbell
Williamsburg, VA.

Mr. Campbell, I was referring to the rivers that run into Chesapeake Bay which include the Potomac and Susquehanna. The little song I sang went —

It’s a country of rivers, how lovely their names:
Rappahannock, Potomac, Susquehanna, and James.
Elizabeth, Nansemond, so pleasant to say
As they flow to the sea through Chesapeake Bay.

If that seems inaccurate or embarrassing to you, I am sorry, but the audience in Chrysler Hall applauded the verse, so perhaps they were those New York Virginians. As for Newport News being "nowhere near" Norfolk, I guess that depends on what you mean by "nowhere". My Rand McNally would seem to disagree with you, but you're in Williamsburg, so I guess you must know. (I will say hello to Pat from you and tell him you think he should find a better radio show to play guitar on.)

Post to the Host:
Every once in a while I stumble upon your show on 90.9FM on Saturdays between 6 and 7:30. I am utterly perplexed. Every time I hear your show I can't help but stay tuned — in my never-ending quest to understand the world around me.

I send this email with respect. It is obvious that you and your cast are extremely talented.

But no matter how long I listen to your show I never get any of the jokes. I don't understand why people are laughing. Yesterday I listened for a half hour while driving to the airport. I listened because I wanted to figure out if you used a laugh track. A laugh track was the only thing that made sense to me. A small group of people with a single "laugh" button made a lot more sense than an entire auditorium filled with people who found your jokes funny.

Let me give you a specific example:

"If you are looking for an amusement park that also stresses values, bring your family to six flags over scripture"

An auditorium laughs on cue. And then you describe 10 different rides with descriptions that make the auditorium laugh on cue again. Here is my question: What about this joke is funny? Is it me? Am I too young to understand? How could an entire auditorium filled with people find this funny? I sat there, like I always do, with a blank perplexed stare.

And now I am writing to you for some help. Here is a little bit about me that may help you to diagnose the problem: I graduated from NJIT summa cum laude with a degree in statistics. I am an actuary. I read a lot. I like the music you play. I am unmarried, and I am from New Jersey.

Thanks,
Bobby Hancock

Bobby, explaining a joke usually doesn't make it funny, but Six Flags Over Scripture is a fictional amusement park with rides taken from the Bible, e.g. Ezekiel's Wheel, and The Jordan River Underwater Ride (total immersion guaranteed), and The Parting of the Red Sea. I guess it's only funny if you went to Sunday School and heard those stories. But maybe not. We try. But we don't try too hard. Maybe you shouldn't either. Just send us some actuary jokes. Funny ones, that is.

Dear Mr. Keillor,
I enjoyed your lecture at Old Dominion University, although I was a bit disquieted by your assertion that we are becoming irrevocably disconnected as a society and that never again will we have any sort of American psyche. I had never considered the issue before, and think you may be right. Do you believe this is inevitable or if maybe there's something we can do about reversing this schism?

April Phillips
Norfolk

April, thanks for your note and for coming to the so-called lecture at ODU. I'm glad you found that part of it disquieting — the assertion that we are becoming disconnected and fractured as a people — I am bothered by that, too, but I'm not sure I should be. I'm nostalgic for the national awareness that existed in the Fifties and Sixties, when everybody knew who Elvis was, and Frank Sinatra, and Hemingway, and Jonas Salk, and Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Jack Kerouac — I mean, everybody — and now there are no equivalent figures. But maybe that's not a problem. Freedom is freedom, after all, and if the mainstream disappears, maybe it's because nobody wants to be thought of as in the middle, or moderate, or mediocre. Freedom includes the freedom to be eccentric, reclusive, anti-social, and cranky. Perhaps what we're seeing is a full flowering of freedom that began after the Cold War ended and, with it, the need for national unity. Terrorism holds no terror equivalent to the Cold War — anyone who remembers the Cuban missile blockade of 1962 knows that — and in the absence of such a threat, people can afford to be fractious, no?