Post to the Host
GK responds to queries on topics from childbearing to potato salad, with a little bookstore fetish in between.

Send your own post to the host.
Here's your chance to ask GK your most pressing questions—about the writing life, the radio life, Lake Wobegon, Guy Noir, whatever you like. Also, feel free to send feedback about the show. Honest comments and criticism are always welcome!

Garrison, Garrison, Garrison!
I find it difficult to believe that someone as well-read as yourself would persist in singing our beloved, America the Beautiful, with incorrect words! The phrase is "for purple mountain (no "s") majesties", and in the final verse it is "for patriot (again, no "s") dream". I beg, beseech, implore you to read Lynn Sherr's wonderful book about the song which tells "The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation's Favorite Song". It's mine, too, and since you're in a position to influence the singing public, I hope you'll help everyone to get it right! Thanks!

Pamela Y.
Westerly, R.I.

I don't sing "America the Beautiful" from a text, my dear. I learned it in the third grade, and that was a long long time ago. When I sing the verses about the heroes proved in liberating strife and the pilgrims' feet (or is it pilgrim feet?) I sing the same refrain at the end of each one ---- "America, America, God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea," although that's not how Katherine Lee Bates wrote it, and I'm well aware of that.

I imagine that many of the two-thousand who sang the song sang it your way, the true and correct way, without the slight sibilance, and others sang it my way, and maybe some sang it another way. This happens in life.

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Dear Mr. Keillor
Just wondering why you were so mean-spirited about the city of Philadelphia this past show in Philadelphia, PA on January 27th. You went out of your way to remind us--and your national audience, of unpleasant events in our past; a barrage of mud spewed from your microphone regarding events that happened over 20 years ago. Was it to egg us on to boo you? Which we did. That had to be a first for you. I don't recall similar attacks on the character of cities you preformed in; you never mentioned rampant gang violence in Los Angeles or the high homicide rate in Dallas. You have lost your shine with my wife and I. We'll still listen, but it can never be the same. Philadelphia is a wonderful city to visit--and live in. We welcomed you here with a sold-out show and you treated us with disdain.

Edward S., Jr.
Philadelphia, PA

Other Philadelphians who were at the show went out of their way to thank me for the little essay on their city and they felt that it was complimentary. At a reception afterward, one man said, "You let us off easy," and a roomful of people nodded. The show was anything but disdainful. Go back and listen to it again. I think Philly is a great city that is on the rise. A lot of young people are discovering it and finding that it has big city advantages along with pretty reasonable rents. And that it's interesting and lively. But the city has its problems, including corruption and violence, and the bombing of the rowhouses in 1985 was a historic event. As for the booing, it was a joke, as you would know if you had been there. I mentioned the Eagles fans who booed Santa Claus at a game at the end of a lousy season and the audience responded a few minutes later by booing me. They were laughing as they did it. I felt honored.

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Post to the Host:
I was deeply touched by your lovely rendition of "Children of the Heavenly Father" on your show from St. Louis. It has been a favorite of mine since early childhood (over 70 years ago) and the only Swedish hymn I learned to sing in Swedish. Although I'm not Lutheran (but second generation 100% Swedish) I am pleased to find this hymn in many hymnals of other denominations. I prefer the translation you used however, also your rendition of that simple melody sung slowly, softly and serenely. As such it has spoken to many of us through the years as an expression of and reason for our deep abiding faith. Thank you sincerely.

Lorraine K.

Moundridge, Kansas

It was an odd place to sing an old Swedish hymn, Lorraine — in a gaudy picture palace from 1927 and a big elephant's head up over the stage and statues of eastern gods on the walls — surely the Fox Theater premiere of "Children" — but when that young jazz singer Erin Bode let slip that her dad is a Lutheran minister, I got the idea for a duet. In rehearsal, we tried "Side by Side" ("O we ain't got a barrel of money/Maybe we're ragged and funny/But we travel along/Singing our song/Side by side"), which is from 1927, and then we tried "Children" and it sounded better. I was so concerned that the News from Lake Wobegon might go long and knock "Children" out of the show, I wound up forgetting most of the monologue and so it ended EARLY and after the duet and all, when we came to the end of the show we had to do more choruses of "Back in the U.S.A." than we wanted to, but that's all in the game. Glad you liked the hymn and when I find someone else who knows "Day by Day" (Blott En Dag) I'll do that one too.

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Dear Mr. Keillor:
I have been listening to you for as long as your show has been on the air and I felt I should tell you of your newest fan: my 7-month-old son, John William. Seven-month-olds are not always the happiest of creatures and what gives him joy, through colds and teething and plain old everyday 7-month-oldness, is PHC. As soon as he hears "Tishomingo Blues" his eyes light up, he flashes a big two-tooth grin, and he leans back against me and stares intently at the laptop while it plays. So thank you for giving my little boy (and his momma) some happy quiet time. And thank you for making so many past shows available on the archives so we're not limited to it being a once-a-week occurrence!

Karen Q
Syracuse

What makes your little boy smile, of course, is being in Momma's arms when she's settled down in a chair and in a good mood, and what puts Momma in a good mood is having the boy in her arms and happy. It's symbiotic. You could get the same effect by playing Mozart, with the extra benefit of raising the boy's I.Q. Our show makes no promises about that. Or you could tune in via the Internet to the CBC and immerse him in French. Now is the time to start him on a second language, which will give him a leg up when it's time to apply to Harvard and Princeton. PHC is nothing you'd want to put on a college application, believe me. I am only trying to alert you to your responsibilities as a mother. Making a child smile is not so hard. You need to think ahead to when he's 18.

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Post to the Host:
From the Leah Garchik column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Jan 17, 2007:

"Nedra Ruiz, who went to the sold-out "Prairie Home Companion" show at the Opera House last weekend, says harrumph over host Garrison Keillor's assertion (twice) that Giuseppe Verdi wrote "Tosca.'' It was Puccini."

Mark C.
San Francisco, CA

Verdi helped Puccini write "Tosca" — that's what I meant to say. They were on tour in San Francisco with Verdi's opera "Fresca" and Caruso was demanding something new so Puccini wrote "Bosco" and Verdi changed it to "Tosca" and there you are. (Or maybe I'm thinking of Monteverdi.) Anyway, it's not worth you worrying about, Mark. Opera fanatics are always going to argue about these minor points. Let's you and I take the high road and focus on beauty and truth, and let the scholars niggle as they will.

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I'm THRILLED you were honored for "Prada" —
And for my little film— nothing. Nada.
Don't mind in the least.
I am an artiste
And a man's gotta do what he's gotta.

Out here on the prairie, it's level
And no place for pride, lust, or revel
Or extravagant dress
Or covetousness
Of awards for playing the Devil.

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Mr. Keillor-
I sent the following comments to my radio station that has just started its semiannual fund drive; I hope it serves for some consideration. Thanks.

I have been a supporter of WVXU over the past years and with the membership drive here again I want to call on the station to drop Prairie Home Companion.

Just recently this show has aired programs from Honolulu, New York City and San Francisco — surely among the most expensive cities in the country. You make the case for supporting the radio station and how expenses are rising every year, but anymore I can only hear, "It's vitally important you do your part to send Garrison to Hawaii and Manhattan." As long as the show depends on the generosity of listeners (from whatever amount they are able to give as you ask) I think Mr. Keillor should demonstrate - and we should demand - some better discretion on how the funds the station spends so much effort in raising are spent.

John S.
Cincinnati, OH

The cost of PHC to the stations, John, is the same, whether we go to New York or Honolulu or, as we did this fall, to Music Hall in Cincinnati. What the stations pay for is the right to broadcast the show. The fee varies according to the size of the market so, for example, the Cincinnati station pays more than the station in Missoula and less than the station in San Francisco, and the travel schedule often isn't set in stone until the season is well underway. PHC is unusual among radio shows in that ticket revenue is a major part of the budget. In Honolulu, for example, we more or less paid for our travel expenses by doing two new shows in one day, a live broadcast in the early afternoon and another show in the evening which was taped for broadcast earlier this month. Two fresh monologues, new sketches, etc, all in one day. You seem to suggest that we're cruising around and enjoying the sights at the expense of the listeners. I don't think that's true. It is true that we stay in hotels and don't sleep on floors, as we did in the early days of the show, but we're all getting older, John, and we can't get along as cheaply as we used to. I would be happy to keep the show right here in Minnesota for thirty-three weeks a year, and not have to fly hither and yon, but stations want us to keep touring. The Cincinnati station wanted us to go there, and Hawaii Public Radio wanted us to come out there. Both earned revenue from our visits. Hope this clears up the matter.

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Dear Mr. Keillor,
I'm originally from Ontario, and I moved to Australia in 1974, about the time your show started. We're 17 hours ahead of New York, and I have to tape your show from the Internet. I play it when I go to bed. So my wife goes to sleep in the spare bedroom. She says my laughing is worse than my snoring. What should I do?

Many thanx,
Blake S.
Melbourne, Australia.

PS. Why not bring your show to Australia some time? We have ketchup here but the Aussies call it tomato sauce (pronounced tom-aaw-toe source).

It's good to take a break and I'm sure that a night in the guest room only makes her fonder of your company the next night. We don't bring the show to Australia because we're old and cranky and our world is shrinking. It's a big deal for me to take the show to Minneapolis. Australia seems like the other side of the world, perhaps because it is the other side of the world. Fourteen hours in an airplane seat would cripple me for weeks and there I'd be in a strange country, limping around, possibly with slight paralysis on the left side, and slurring my speech. Not a pretty thought. I was there once and it seemed to me that people were having so much fun just drinking and watching cricket that an American radio show would be pointless. If you can enjoy cricket, you don't really need entertainment: you can amuse yourself by watching planes land or birds sit on telephone wires.

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Mr. K
Could you say a few words about the north shore of Lake Superior? We're thinking about taking a trip to Minnesota in August, h-qing in Duluth, and doing day trips along LS. Anything we should be sure not to miss? Anything we should be sure to miss? Thanks for your help and for the show.

Rex M.
Lees Summit, MO

Duluth and the North Shore are worth your while for sure but I haven't driven up there in years so I asked the poet Louis Jenkins of Duluth to respond, and he has, as follows:

"The Munger Trail, a former railroad grade. (West Duluth) particularly for biking; Enger Tower for a great view of the city and the Lake. It's on Skyline Drive which runs along the hill above town. Great views, all along; Canal Park, and Park Point, on the other side of the famous Aerial Lift Bridge, the longest fresh-water sand spit in the world, great beach and sometimes the water is warm enough to swim in. The whole area is crowded in summer so avoid it if you hate traffic jams and lots of people. You also run the risk of being "bridged", trapped on the Point while the bridge is up, allowing a ship to enter the harbor and halting all automobile traffic; Cross the St. Louis River Bay to Superior, WI, try the Anchor Bar for burgers & beer and The Boathouse for fine food and a great view of Duluth; The Lake Superior Hiking Trail along the North Shore; Old 61 hwy. along the NS, lots of shops, curios and gifts, if you like, and views of Lake Superior, great food at the New Scenic Cafe; Stoney Point for a nice short walk by the Lake; The town of Knife River especially Russ Kendall's for smoked fish, buy a couple of smoked herring for lunch, take them down to the beach, turn right at the "Marina" sign, eat the fish with your fingers while viewing Knife Island. You'll need lots of napkins, and don't feed the seagulls; All along the North Shore are lovely rivers, Lester, French, Sucker, Knife, Stewart, Baptism, Temperance, Caribou, Cascade… with lots of hiking trails. There are towns and parks, Two Harbors, Castle Danger, Gooseberry Falls State Park (very crowded, but lovely); Split Rock light house, Beaver Bay, Silver Bay, Schroeder, Tofte (see the Commercial Fishing Museum), Lutsen, Grand Marais, where you can take the Gunflint Trail up to the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area (BWCWA) after which it's Canada. Just look around, there are undiscovered treasures."

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Dear Garrison,
I've enjoyed your show for many years and hoped to book a place on one of your cruises. This year the cruise goes to Norway — a country that is currently participating in hunting and killing whales. Can we find an excuse for this action, in view of alternative products, energy and food available to such a progressive country?

PLEASE BOYCOTT NORWAY (and other countries like Japan and Iceland) UNTIL THEY STOP KILLING WHALES. Please help this worthy cause and reconsider your trip, as you have a powerful voice in the world. Thank you for everything.

Nancy G.
Portland, OR

There are two sides to this issue, perhaps more, and the Norwegians present their side at their Web site which strikes me as reasonable and worthy of some respect. The Canadians are bludgeoning baby seals, the French are force-feeding geese, the English are harassing foxes, and the Mexicans are torturing bulls. And here we are, waging this war in Iraq that goes on and on and on. For Americans to condemn Norwegians takes a certain, hmmmmm, chutzpah, no? Everybody has blood on their hands, even the Danes. (Talk to the Greenlanders about them.) I boycott some things — I've never set foot in the Mall of America and I refuse to eat veal and I prefer "fair trade" coffee and organic dairy products and eggs and meat and I try to patronize independent bookstores (thereby, in effect, boycotting chains) — but do realize there is something quixotic in it. Lovely and noble, but only a gesture. I look forward to Norway, where I've been several times, and cruising the coast and listening to the Kreutzer Quartet play Grieg and the jazz band Kustbandet play "Vil Du Kom Hjem, Jens Jensen" and sitting in a group discussing Sigrid Undset and hearing Phoebe Hansen talk about her Norwegian-emigrant dad. Where should we go to do all of that? Minot, North Dakota?

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Mr. Keillor,
Since this past summer, I've become addicted to old radio shows (OTR.net). I've been listening to Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, CBS Radio Workshop, The Great Gildersleeve, The Couple Next Door, You Bet Your Life, Command Performance, and such interesting cultural artifacts as I Was A Communist For The FBI. After a couple of months of listening to radio instead of watching TV, I find that television bores me — just can't watch it anymore. There's something tedious about seeing the pictures on the screen instead of in my mind. Go figure.

My question: Are there any programs from the golden age of radio that you consider sources of inspiration for A Prairie Home Companion — the show or any of the running skits? Any performers or serials you were addicted to in your formative years?

Stella F.
San Francisco

I listened to most of the shows you mention, Stella, not on OTR.net but on a floor-model Zenith radio in a big wooden cabinet with temple-like pillars and a big speaker. I lay on my stomach and soaked them all up and then they all faded away. I'm not that interested in hearing them again and don't feel that PHC is channeling or recreating them, but who am I to say? What's interesting to me is your interest in them. And their availability on the Internet. And now I've looked at OTR.net and the vast array of old shows offered and it's quite staggering. If I got into this, I could easily spend weeks here and forget to come to work, just sit unshaven day after day eating Twinkies and listening to "The Great Gildersleeve" and "Father Knows Best". There are more than four-hundred half-hour episodes of FKB at OTR.net, which adds up to a couple weeks of steady listening. My family would have to stage an intervention. I might be helpless to control my nostalgia and have to turn to a Higher Power and sit in a church basement with other radioheads and talk about the empty places in our lives that "Amos and Andy" fills. I'm just not going to go down that road, Stella. You're a beautiful woman who sidled up to me at a cocktail lounge and offered me some deadly reefer and I'm saying no thanks, babes. First, it's old-time radio shows and before you know it I'm into vintage cars and then I'm taking part in Civil War reenactments and a guy's got to draw the line. But thanks, sweetheart.

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Dear Garrison,
You occasionally mention geezers on your show. Is it age or a state of mind that makes one a geezer or geezerette? I think we are only as old as we feel, some days 37, and some days 67, but geezerhood sounds so very old. I'm not sure that I ever want to admit to that. Be there, yes, act old, never.

Thank you for many years of laughter. Our eldest daughter introduced us to your show in 1981 when she came home from Iowa State for Thanksgiving. "You'll love this! Everyone at school listens to it every Saturday night!!" Remembering my own college years, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. We have been captivated ever since.

Thank you,
Nancy S.

I like the word "geezer," a descriptive sound, almost onomatopoeia, and also "coot," "codger," "biddy," "battleaxe," and most of the other words for old farts. It's a time of life that offers a lot, some latitude in behavior and speech, a loss of arrogance, a sort of dark humor, and yet, inside, there is still a young person pushing forward. One runs the risk of looking ridiculous, though, not to acknowledge one's age. The facelifts, the weird comb-overs, the embarrassing use of kid slang by seniors, etc. My use of the word "geezer" is like gay people referring to themselves as "queer" ---- take the insult and make it your own, that's how to deflect prejudice. On the other hand, young listeners write in and tell me, "Don't talk about being old. It isn't that interesting." I'm sure they're right. Age doesn't mean all that much. When I go to dinner with the nieces and I start a sentence, "The difference between your generation and mine is..." their eyes glaze over. They're not a generation and neither am I, we're just people who happen to be on the same bus.

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Dear Garrison:
I've been surprised if not flabbergasted at the people who took offense at "Don't Scratch Your Butt" and the "Imagine" parody. These are people who obviously watch absolutely no television, because "Don't Scratch Your Butt" sounds like a recitation from a Sunday School primer compared to what routinely runs even on the regular networks in prime time. I see things on cable that I wish my 16-year-old wasn't seeing or hearing, but I know there's very little to stop her, since every network and practically every show seems to drip with sexual innuendo and cheap scatological references. I've waited years for the general public, especially parents, to get outraged about this to no avail. And yet some self-righteous wags can get their knickers in a clump over a reference to scratching one's butt. Amazing.

And anybody who objects to a parody of "Imagine" has certainly never paid much attention to John Lennon's music, in which he skewers a herd of sacred cows from head to tail. Nor, probably, have they read "In His Own Write" or "A Spaniard in the Works." He'd no doubt be the first to tell these people to bugger off -- or at least go somewhere and scratch their butts.

Sincerely,

Beaufort Cranford
Dearborn, Michigan

The host thanks you for your gallant defense, Mr. Cranford. If I am caught skipping around St. Paul in a lace dress and a paper parasol and am held up for public ridicule and need to wage a p.r. campaign in my own defense, the name of BEAUFORT CRANFORD will spring to mind. And thanks for mentioning John Lennon's two books. He was a witty man, for sure. I saw a documentary on him once, shot at his estate in Sussex, I believe, with footage of him alone playing the piano and singing, and he struck me as very light-hearted and given to verbal hijinks. So the Lennon of the primal screaming was bewildering to me. I guess I preferred "Julia" and "In My Life" and "I Am The Walrus".

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Mr Keillor,
Just when I am at wits end from listening to your pompous blatherings and ready to reach for my radio dial for relief, you put on Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, Pat Donohue,or one of your other extraordinary talent associates. I am then hooked for another five or ten minutes of listening before the pattern repeats. Your sense of timing is absolutely evil, as I am tricked into listening to the entire show week after week. If you want my ever so humble opinion, you should give your staff a raise and put yourself on minimum wage.

Sincerely,
Vaughn T.
Bristol, VA.

You are probably right, Mr. T. But I'm not sure the Shoe Band is up for doing a two-hour show every week. It takes a lot of material to fill that time, and either you hire a raft of musical guests or you need someone to talk a little. Most people seem to like some talk on the radio, so they got me, the pompous blatherer. If this is a mistake, then it's one that's gone on for thirty years and a mistake of such long standing is hard to fix. I await your further advice.

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Dear Mr. Keillor,
I am the only student at Worland High School who listens to your show. How am I so certain you ask? While my fellow students are asking each other if they heard the latest song by some pop group, I am asking them if they caught last week's news from Lake Wobegon. The many stares and "Lake what" tell me that they have not. On Saturday nights my friends call and say "Don't tell me you're listening to that stupid show again." I ask them if they have been getting enought ketchup lately. I would much rather listen to the world's tallest radio comedian than play at the park on a cold Wyoming night. I always look forward to hearing the rad rhubarb script and smiling to the sound of Dworsky rocking out. There is a wonderful and complete feeling that I can only get while listeing to A Prairie Home Companion or when at my grandparents house. Your show really scratches me right where I itch.

Thanks,

Todd J.
Worland, WY

Thanks for the kind words, bucko. I admire you sticking up for our radio show there in Worland, Wyoming. You're a brave man. It's awfully easy to kowtow to the majority and mouth the prevailing wisdom and it takes integrity to say what you yourself think and believe in. We sort of expect that from westerners though, don't we? When Oscar Wilde came to America, the Easterners looked at him askance because he was rather flamboyant and even weird, but the cowboys and miners of the West welcomed him as if he were one of their own. Mark Twain got his voice out west and he was as independent as they come. So stick to your guns, and we'll try to make a show that's worthy of being defended publicly in your high school.

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We've been flooded with requests for GK's peanut butter fudge recipe as seen/heard on the New Year's Eve special, so here it is:

1 lb. box powdered sugar
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 (18 oz.) jar smooth peanut butter
2 sticks margarine
1 (12 oz.) bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 stick margarine

In a large bowl, combine powdered sugar, graham cracker crumbs & the whole jar of peanut butter. Melt 2 sticks margarine & pour over dry mixture. Mix well. Spread in 9 x 13" pan. Pat evenly and refrigerate for 1/2 hour.

Melt 1 stick margarine & bag of chocolate chips. Mix well. Pour over peanut butter base.

Refrigerate for another 1/2 hour before cutting bars. Store in fridge.

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Post to the Host
This is to thank you for one of the best New Year's Eve's I've ever had, and I've had a lot! My plan was to watch your show on PBS, probably after my father, who is 96 and lost the love of his life on New Year's morning four years ago, had, with the cat riding on the seat of his walker as she does every night at 10, gone to bed with his book. But my father watched in fascination as you walked around Nashville and then he stayed for the rest of the show smiling and marveling at the stories, the sound effects, and the musicians and reading the lyrics of the love songs that so applied to him and my mother, the little Swedish girl who at age 5 started school in my father's living room where he, 3 years her senior, and 15 or so of the other children in Hot Springs VA were taught by his aunt. (I know that's a run-on sentence, but I like it).

When the show was over, we looked at each other and laughed as we agreed that we had experienced something very special on this New Year's Eve that surely is one of the last that we will spend together. Blessings, thanks, and Happy New Year!

Anne B.P.

That's a run-on sentence that would've made William Faulkner envious, Anne. If you'd put some dolphins and a crazed pterodactyl in it, Fred Newman could do it on the radio. Glad you enjoyed the show. Doing TV is more or less like being tied naked in the stocks as people throw dead fish and offal at you, but if onlookers find it amusing, then I guess that lends some purpose to the exercise.

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