| |
|
|
| 
|
And here it is,
2009, about to drop from the sky. Unbelievable in a way, but there it is, 365 days gone since the last time we sang "Auld Lang Syne" and each of us got exactly the same number, nobody got a bonus. Hard times for many people. Friends whose 401k got socked hard by the crash and who don't talk about
it but their retirement plans have now changed. Friends whose jobs seem shaky. A good radio show, "Weekend America," is biting the dust, dang it. And of course there is a lot of
mortality going around.
We have a new president coming in and I'm delighted about that and also pleased that he's a man of great discipline and decorum and isn't full of himself or vindictive and righteous and he invited that evangelical guy to give the invocation at the inauguration. Bravo, Barack. Enormous progressive
changes have been wrought by mannerly people in ordinary clothing. Anyway, I'll be there at the ceremony January 20, sitting in the bleachers (thanks, Senator Klobuchar!), hoping for a good speech, hoping the inaugural poet proves worthy.
Our old radio show plows forward, after a two-week break, with a winter run at the Fitzgerald and tour stops in Louisville, Duluth, Appleton, Nashville, Durham, Watertown, the April run in New York, and the spring route to Washington D.C., Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago, and Tanglewood.
My New Year's resolution is: Do it better. The enemy, as always, is passivity, inattention, self-indulgence, cynicism — the list goes on and on — when you get to my age, you know your faults all too well — and the reward is to give you some shining radio moments. Those moments are
more intense for the fact that it is a live show and even if you listen to it as a podcast or hear the Sunday rerun, it still is live, sort of. It's produced by an extraordinary team of individuals — backstage, there is the wizardly Tom Scheuzger, the orderly Ella Schovanec mistress of
scriptage, our writer Laura Buchholz who does Mom and Duane and Jim and Barb and Rhubarb and many other things, our music producer Kathryn Slusher who can find anything in three minutes or less, our stage manager Albert Webster who makes sure that nothing bad happens in the theater at any time, our
house sound guy Tony Axtell who is a musician and knows how things should sound, our tour wrangler Caroline Hontz and our truckdriver Russ Ringsak, our various ranchhands Janis Kaiser and Ken Evans and Tom Campbell and Jim and Alan and Hey You, and our technical director/producer Sam Hudson who
makes the broadcast happen and has a say about everything that goes into it. And then there are the people onstage, but you know them already. And the mysterious people back in the office in St. Paul. And the even more mysterious people at American Public Media. And the people at the stations who
put the show on the air.
And so onward we go and you too, God willing. Courage. May we all find some beauty and humor and kindness in the new year, and maybe even some inspiration. We will try to do our best and hope to be forgiven for the rest. Take care.
|
|
Listen to The News from Lake Wobegon wherever and whenever you want. We're pleased to announce GK's signature monologue is now available as a free podcast, updated every Monday.
More Information >>
Download the latest episode >>
|
|
On January 17, we're in Louisville, Kentucky, before moving on to Duluth, Minnesota, on January 24. Then it's back to home base — the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul — on January 30 and 31.
|
|
Post to the Host:
Why isn't the show broadcast on one of the TV cable channels like some other radio shows are? Love the show, would love to watch you in action also (like the movie — which I have seen 5 times).
Beth G.
--
Thanks for the thought, Beth, but my experience is that when you bring TV into the picture, you are dealing with very intense, nervous people who talk loud, and TV sort of takes over. TV people are still under the illusion that theirs is the dominant broadcast medium. Wherever
you have TV and radio operating under one roof, TV is all spread out on the main floor and radio is in the basement. But radio is the medium of people on the move, in cars, on bikes, walking, running, and TV is the medium of people in nursing homes and prisons. Big TV fans in penal institutions:
check it out. So here at our little radio show, we think, "Why take on the grief of being shoved around by a bunch of heavies just so we can be seen in Sing Sing?" Life is good. Why take on troubles you don't need?
Permalink | Comments (3)
|
|
Yo Mama's so hairy, Bigfoot has a picture of her!
This joke was sent in by Richard H., of Fairland, IN. Thanks Richard!
|
|
A Manageable Endeavor
(12/29/2008)
Listened to the show Saturday and it was not bad. I was at my parents' kitchen table for most of the show, in the midst of a large number of nieces and nephews and brothers and sisters-in-law and dogs...
The Blessings of Dumb Childlike Wonder
(12/23/2008)
It is the blessed Christmas season. But of course you know that. Unless you live ten miles up a box canyon deep in the Wasatch Range with only your dog Boomer and are demented from drinking bad water, you are inhaling Christmas night and day...
Tulsa Tonic
(11/18/2008)
A couple of highlights worth mention from the Mudcats Montana tour this last summer: We played in Butte where my brother Mick lives, at the Silver Dollar Saloon — he lives in the city but not at the saloon — on a Monday night...
|
|
This independent feature-length documentary film by Peter Rosen goes behind the scenes at A Prairie Home Companion, and inside the imagination of the man who
created it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Back to newsletter list
