A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

Garrison,

At least I'm not the first to break with formality in addressing you by your first name; how can one feel entirely formal with someone who has been a guest in my home each weekend since I was a child and it was my parent's home? But already I digress, breaking Rule 3, and for that, I apologize and will get right to the point...

What ever happened to some of those great old characters from days gone by?

Give us some more rhubarb, Mournful Oatmeal, Powdermilk Biscuits and such. Put Guy Noir back out on the street, on a case. Maybe bring Philip Austin, Peter Bergman et. al. on for a night and have Guy meet Nick Danger. He's met a lot of people along the way, why not Nick?

What IS funny? What you're doing now. Some more booger jokes, and yes, even fart jokes, would be a nice touch now and then, but don't overdo it. And don't worry about the political stuff. It's a part of our daily life, and you don't just take swings at one side all the time (maybe you lean on the right for gags a bit more, but, hey, they set themselves up for it...). You haven't offended me at all recently, though every once in awhile you do cause me to stop what I'm doing lest I make a mistake, do a double turn, or just raise my eyebrows in wonderment of where on earth you come up with some of this stuff. Last week (or was it a week before that?) you replayed the show about the big winter storms in the east. You were poking it straight at me, mister, and my friends and family; I remembered hearing that show when it was "live" last year, and boy, it was just plain funny. Your humor helped us forget our back pains and slipped disks from the shoveling, and hearing the show again made me remember how good it felt to laugh at our own plight.

I look forward to the next joke clearance program. The old one is on tape, and it might be a good time to solve your fart-joke crisis of confidence. Load 'em all into that week. Get 'em out of your system. It'll feel good.

Your Friend,

Eric

Dear Friend Eric,

Are those Firesign Theater people still out doing comedy? I thought they had gone to work for Microsoft. (Wasn't Bill Gates in the original troupe? Didn't he do the gnggg gnggg gngggg sound?) I am looking forward to getting back to the show next week, though it's been fun working on this book of mine. Walter Mondale is quoted in an interview recently, since he returned to Minnesota from his stint as Ambassador to Japan, as saying "I thought about writing a book, but that's a terrible way to spend a year of your life."

Ah, Walter, you should try fiction. Yrs, GK