By his own reckoning, Garrison Keillor was the host, head writer and ringmaster for approximately 1,500 episodes of A Prairie Home Companion, the folksy, satirical program that began airing over National Public Radio in 1974 (Keillor, who created the program, retired in 2016).
The Minnesota humorist and top-shelf storyteller is 84 years old, and he still writes at a feverish pace (more than 30 books to date) and continues to tour, telling tales and engaging live audiences.
He stops at the Capitol Theatre Saturday, in a program with standup comedian Erica Rhodes called The Crazy Uncle and His Sensible Niece.
Keillor’s humor is so dry, his delivery so deadpan, it’s sometimes hard to tell, during this Catalyst interview, whether or not he’s being serious.
That’s the sign of a sincerely good yarn-spinner.
St. Pete Catalyst: The show is called “The Crazy Uncle and His Sensible Niece.” What happens?
Garrison Keillor: The Crazy Uncle, I’ll be as crazy as I can. And I think what crazy means, in my case, is just stream-of-consciousness. I’m 84, and I have a tangled mind. I don’t want to say memory loss, it’s just kind of random. And so I get up with a microphone and I just go to whatever comes to mind next.
You know, I’ve written acres of material over the years, and it’s always surprising to me what comes back. These days, I’m talking about mortality, in a cheerful way, and I’m feeling lucky. And I’m preaching a sort of Emersonian philosophy. I just think he – Ralph Waldo – was so much more sensible than other people back in his time. He said “Nothing good is accomplished without enthusiasm.” He said “Live every day, and put the past behind you.” Which sounds simpler than it is.
So I’m trying to preach to people, at this strange time in the country’s history. I do not want to say a word or inkle, or even shadow, anything political. People have heard enough.
Tell me about Erica Rhodes.
Well, I’m very curious about her, because she’s on the rise in the world of standup. And she’s very ambitious. And the only way for me to see her, I think, is to go and work with her.
Was she on A Prairie Home Companion while you were there?
She was on as an actor. She played roles in The Adventures of Guy Noir, The Last of the Cowboys and so forth and so on. She came on the show when I think she was around 10, and she really enjoyed it. She was very professional. She worked hard and she got along with other people.
And then she sort of disappeared and, you know, went off and tried college. Eventually found her way into this line of work. And I keep hearing wonderful things about her. And I don’t know what she’s doing. So she’s making it work.
Will she be riffing on what you’re talking about? I’m trying to get an idea of the show’s format.
I want to do everything that comes to mind. I want, first of all, to give the audience a chance to sing. Which they don’t get often enough. And I always find a way to get to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty,” and the effect is always the same. They know the words, of course, even though they may not have sung it since they were in grade school. They know the words, and they are astonished at how wonderful they sound.
And they sing it in harmony. Some audiences, people are moved by this. And their children look at them – the children have never heard the song before – and they see their parents weeping.
If I’m brave, I might get people to sing the National Anthem. There are other places you can go: Elvis, “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” …. I have tried to get people to sing “Honky Tonk Women,” but people are reluctant to.
I stay away from hymns. I’m Episcopalian, but I don’t need to go too far in that direction.
So I want to pigeonhole you about the format …
I’m going to do the opening, and we sing, and then I want her to interrupt me. I want her to comment. I want her to improvise on what I’m improvising. So I want us to get into a little touch-and-go.
And I’ll tell some stories. Stories is what I do. I don’t want to stand up there as an 84-year-old man and talk about how things used to be. But the truth is, I do miss some things. I don’t hear people tell jokes, just in ordinary life. I don’t hear this. And it bothers me. To me, jokes are a beautiful use of language. They teach you about precision in language.
I don’t hear people telling stories; I hear endless opinions. Opinions tend to be irritable, even mean-spirited. Stories, I think inevitably are kind and generous. And so I want to tell stories.
I don’t hear people singing together. We used to know the words to the same songs. Even different generations. And we could sing with a piano, or without.
What if people don’t feel like singing? They just want to hear you telling stories.
They can not want to, that’s their perfect right. But they will be surrounded by people who are. And this will have an effect on them.
They don’t need to sing loudly.
And the stories … I will find a way to these songs through a story. There will be a logic, I swear. I may be crazy, but even crazy people have their own logic.
Why do you still go on the road?
At 84, there’s nothing to prove. I don’t care about awards or anything. I have enough money. I’m not looking for professional recognition; I really would rather not have it. I simply want to encounter a group of people I’ve not seen before. And this brings your mind into tremendous focus, when you look at a room full of people who expect you to be funny
I think I can be funny, but I also want to touch them in a way that they weren’t expecting.