A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

My Dear Mr. Keillor,

I am responding to your invitation to write with comments. I'm not an opinionated person (all right, I am).

You may not be aware of it, but your Songs of the Cat have healing powers. The following is the text of a letter I tried to send your way. I suspect it did not get out of my electronic mailbox:

<< This is in reply to YOUR kind reply to my letter in which I mentioned my 12 year-old kid's coma arousal to the accompaniment of THE SONGS OF THE CAT. I would have replied sooner but my pricey modem was fried by a lightning bolt to our neighbor's tree.

On March 10 of this year, John was a victim of a hit-and-run VW taxi outside the gates of Chapultapec Park in Mexico City. It was to be a spring break extravaganza but became a catastrophe very quickly. The intervention of a high government official at the accident scene let to my boy's stay at the country's finest hospital (American British Cowdray, or ABC) where the trauma team followed the book (and wrote a couple of chapters, too).

In a nutshell, the Mexican doctors and well-wishers treated us like visiting royalty and we were actually sad to leave as we boarded our little CareFlight jet to Dallas. By comparison, the medical care in America has been technically astute, but lacking in humanity (a product of "managed health care").

As I write this, my recovering son is begging me to quit so I can put a Spike Jones* CD in the slot and sing along with "Love in Bloom." Happily, his sense of humor (and, I might say, impeccable taste in music) is intact.

My whole family enjoys The Prairie Home Companion. Your generous offer of an autographed photo of Garrison is gratefully accepted! In fact, it would be my first actual autographed photo of a celebrity! I'm hoping that someone might wall in to my study and say: "Hey...where didya get the picture of Steven King?" Then I can make yet another convert to your matchless radio program.

Yours,

John Davis & Family 2917 Gladiolus Lane Dallas, Texas 75233

*Incidentally, thanks for the hilarious cover of "Pal-Yat-Chee" (first performed by Jones' orchestra and Homer & Jethro) a few weeks ago. I would wager that your audiences would savor a really well done reprise of Spike Jones tunes.>>>

I will simply list a few comments / questions for your consideration:

(1) Where is Leo Kottke these days? Simply irreplaceable. His MUDLARK album was one of only three I owned in college. ' (2) As mentioned above in the excerpt, Spike Jones' musical style would be welcome on PHC!

(3) On the contrary, America needs MORE political satire! Good satire (the Brits' BBC skits, Punch magazine, and TV's YES PRIME MINISTER come to mind as good examples). Americans really have no popular outlets for sharp political humor (witness the rise of Limbaugh [shudder] and incessant Clinton-bashing on the radio). I always look forward to hearing Bush and Dole impersonators on PHC.

(4) I may get an argument on this...but a little bit of Robin and Linda Williams and their gospel goes a long way...

(5) No, your show is not too "talky."

(6) I asked my young daughter a minute ago: " I'm writing Garrison Keillor. Would you like to say anything?"

"Well, he breathes in too much. That's all." She skipped away happily.

(7) Bravo for the "katsup" knockoff in which you guys imitate the guy who imitates your Midwestern voice.

And on and on. I've been a PHC guy since I built a porch while first listening back in 1985. I ruined a lot of lumber.

Thanks for bringing your satire, music, sense of civility to a vastly underutilized medium.

And--thanks again for SONGS OF THE CAT: they can transform our surly teen into a cuddly little kid again...for a while.

Yours,

John Davis & Family

Dear Davises ----

Glad to hear that the kid got good care and awoke, thanks to something irritating about Songs of the Cat. I've often been good at putting kids to sleep and now I have one awakening to my credit.

Leo Kottke joins us this spring for a broadcast from Missouri. We're always happy to have him on ---- he's a great musician and a good guy. We should try to get him more often. As for Robin and Linda's gospel music ---- I think you're talking about the Hopeful Gospel Quartet in which I sing bass. You think there's too much of us? (sob) Well, we gospel singers are used to rejection.....

I am going to be more careful about my breathing in the future. GK