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).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He stops at the Capitol Theatre Saturday, in a program with standup comedian Erica Rhodes called The Crazy Uncle and His Sensible Niece.<\/p>\n
Keillor\u2019s humor is so dry, his delivery so deadpan, it\u2019s sometimes hard to tell, during this Catalyst interview, whether or not he\u2019s being serious.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the sign of a sincerely good yarn-spinner.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. Pete Catalyst: The show is called \u201cThe Crazy Uncle and His Sensible Niece.\u201d What happens? <\/p>\n
Garrison Keillor: The Crazy Uncle, I\u2019ll be as crazy as I can. And I think what crazy means, in my case, is just stream-of-consciousness. I\u2019m 84, and I have a tangled mind. I don\u2019t want to say memory loss, it\u2019s just kind of random. And so I get up with a microphone and I just go to whatever comes to mind next.<\/p>\n
You know, I\u2019ve written acres of material over the years, and it\u2019s always surprising to me what comes back. These days, I\u2019m talking about mortality, in a cheerful way, and I\u2019m feeling lucky. And I\u2019m preaching a sort of Emersonian philosophy. I just think he \u2013 Ralph Waldo \u2013 was so much more sensible than other people back in his time. He said \u201cNothing good is accomplished without enthusiasm.\u201d He said \u201cLive every day, and put the past behind you.\u201d Which sounds simpler than it is.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019m trying to preach to people, at this strange time in the country\u2019s history. I do not want to say a word or inkle, or even shadow, anything political. People have heard enough.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tell me about Erica Rhodes.<\/p>\n
Well, I\u2019m very curious about her, because she\u2019s on the rise in the world of standup. And she\u2019s very ambitious. And the only way for me to see her, I think, is to go and work with her.<\/p>\n
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Was she on A Prairie Home Companion while you were there?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t know what she\u2019s doing. So she\u2019s making it work.<\/p>\n
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Will she be riffing on what you\u2019re talking about? I\u2019m trying to get an idea of the show\u2019s format.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t get often enough. And I always find a way to get to \u201cMy Country \u2018Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
And they sing it in harmony. Some audiences, people are moved by this. And their children look at them \u2013 the children have never heard the song before \u2013 and they see their parents weeping.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m brave, I might get people to sing the National Anthem. There are other places you can go: Elvis, \u201cCan\u2019t Help Falling in Love With You\u201d \u2026. I have tried to get people to sing \u201cHonky Tonk Women,\u201d but people are reluctant to.<\/p>\n
I stay away from hymns. I\u2019m Episcopalian, but I don\u2019t need to go too far in that direction.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
So I want to pigeonhole you about the format \u2026<\/p>\n
I\u2019m 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\u2019m improvising. So I want us to get into a little touch-and-go.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019ll tell some stories. Stories is what I do. I don\u2019t 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\u2019t hear people tell jokes, just in ordinary life. I don\u2019t hear this. And it bothers me. To me, jokes are a beautiful use of language. They teach you about precision in language.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
What if people don\u2019t feel like singing? They just want to hear you telling stories.<\/p>\n
They can not want to, that\u2019s their perfect right. But they will be surrounded by people who are. And this will have an effect on them.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t need to sing loudly.<\/p>\n
And the stories \u2026 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.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why do you still go on the road?<\/p>\n
At 84, there\u2019s nothing to prove. I don\u2019t care about awards or anything. I have enough money. \u00a0I\u2019m not looking for professional recognition; I really would rather not have it. I simply want to encounter a group of people I\u2019ve 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<\/p>\n
I think I can be funny, but I also want to touch them in a way that they weren\u2019t expecting.<\/p>\n
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