Post to the Host

Comments for the week of 12.10.23

GK,

I am a United Church of Canada minister and also a preacher’s kid. As I near the end of my ministry after close to 40 years, I find myself in a reflective mood. When I was a student on the cusp of becoming ordained, a wise mentor played for me the recording of Pastor Ingqvist and the Orlando Rural Lutheran Conference. It was a seminal moment that has stayed with me throughout my life and helped me to realize the importance of self-care for those of us on the front line of ministry in the church. Your wisdom and insight into church and ministry has been a wonderful touchstone for me. Garrison, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Peace,
Rev. Tim Graham

Pastor Ingqvist needed Orlando after the march through Advent, a respite from his role as savant and saint, a chance to lie around and be ordinary, to play tennis, to watch TV, and to be naked with his wife. I saw a new word the other day, never saw it before, “dechurched,” which in this news account meant the depopulation of the church, but it also describes what Pastor needed, a cleansing of ritual, a restoration of simple awareness of surroundings. This happens to me on Sunday after I’ve done a Saturday night show. I’m not looking for monologue material, I sit and let the homily do what it will, and I’m moved by the Exchange of Peace and Holy Communion. I’m anonymous, a great relief. GK

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Garrison,

I enjoyed your recent post where you told the farting joke, and I wonder why we laugh so much at jokes about our bodily functions. By the way, I’m a woman and didn’t roll my eyes at the joke when I read it in the privacy of my home, but I might have if I’d heard it in public (it’s the ladylike thing to do). Inside I’d still be laughing.

Cathy

Thanks for cluing me in on feminine sensibility. I am extremely careful around women and sometimes I miss the Sixties when we all palled around together and experimented with tastelessness but I am not headed in that direction. I don’t think I am. GK

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I sure hope that Garrison didn’t see Lake Michigan out the train window as he rode across Ohio. His geography teachers back in Minnesota must have failed him. That was Lake Erie.

Bill Snyder
Waukee. IA

We didn’t pay much attention to the other great lakes since we had the superior one and we also have the geographic center of the North American continent. Some people think North Dakota has it but that hardly seems likely. GK

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You are a Republican. Your gut has yet to inform your brain.

Todd Montgomery

I will take this under advisement, sir, though if DJT is who defines Republicanism, I don’t see the resemblance. GK

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GK,

You are wrong. Laughter is wonderful, even (especially?) at bad jokes, and making people laugh is a great gift.

Humour is evanescent; what was funny fifty years ago, or even twenty years ago, may well not be funny today. If something is old and still funny that’s wonderful, but rare. E.g., “Parkinson’s Law” and Gilbert & Sullivan. If it’s not funny anymore, that’s normal. If it was funny at the time, that’s more than enough.

When the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, I heard an interview with Bob Newhart. Lifelong Chicagoan, lifelong Cubs fan, had been waiting for this for nearly a century (age 94, I think). And he was still working! He was asked why he hadn’t retired. He said, “I haven’t gotten tired of making people laugh.”

And some people are, well, just funny. Mary Lou Fallis of Toronto, soprano and comedienne, as a student sang Der Hölle Rache, the Queen of the Night’s revenge aria, in a master class. And people laughed! The person who was teaching the class said, “You have a rare and wonderful gift. Use it!” She has.

Eating beef: Why not? You’re too old to die young.

Elizabeth Block, Toronto, Canada, who like her Austenian namesake dearly loves a laugh.

P.S. You wrote a parody of a Shakespeare sonnet that I had a copy of on a now deceased computer, “Let us not unto the marriage of true minds admit an editor.” I’d love to find it again. Is it online anywhere?

I did a search of my hard drive for that poem and didn’t find it but I did find several angry letters to the editor of the Minneapolis paper, which, I believe, I hope, I didn’t send. I’m afraid you’re on your own. GK

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GK,

Thanks for sharing your experience with those in our life who have decided that love triumphs over principle. I needed this reminder here at Christmas when our culture wants to bless self-indulgence as a virtue and our politicians are pitting funding for Ukraine’s survival against our own border security worries. However, I now have to look back and see how my principles have displaced love in my family relationships. When my wife recently asked what we might give our adult children and grandchildren for Christmas I suggested the Rolling Stones Bleedalbum with the song “You Don’t Always Get What You Want.” When she asked me about sending gifts to distant family members who get their news and political ideas by watching Fox and listening to screwballs like Sean Hannity, I suggested we send them gift certificates for therapy sessions to work on mending their moral compasses. My wife actually shares most of my principles, but she too believes that love often requires us to eat our principles, at least temporarily, for the greater good of all. So, your column has persuaded me to get up early tomorrow morning to fix her a cup of Guatemalan coffee, apologize for my cynicism about extending the Christmas spirit toward our family, and thank her for her persistence in expressing love when I want to chastise our offspring for being too self-indulgent or encourage her family to move to Russia. 

Ben Thayer

Thrall, Texas

I’m giving people red leather-bound journals and nice pens for Christmas. Something to write their thoughts in, and I don’t need to know what thoughts they think are worth writing. GK

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I just read Garrison’s column from December 12, 2023, Laughter; it was wonderful. Please let him know that he is a national treasure to so many people and in no way has he wasted his life.

Sincerely,
Eric Adcock

Thanks. I think you’re right. I hope so. We writers can’t be absolutely sure. We spend so much time in our heads and then we publish something and it fades away suddenly, completely, but I do think it is worthwhile to pay attention and keep doing it as long as possible. GK

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Dear GK,

Delighted that you are going to a Rolling Stones concert next year. Which one will it be? Please say more about that all-time great band. Merry Christmas.

Carole Hunter

I know nothing about the band except the sound, but David Remnick wrote a terrific piece about Keith Richards in The New Yorker about ten years ago. Worth looking up. The one-time heroin addict and hophead now leads the life of a country gentleman with grand estates and tax attorneys and security men and yet he can still go out onstage and be a gangster of rock ’n’ roll. Amazing. GK

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Hi, Garrison.

No one who has to turn out comedic material on a regular basis could be funny every time. You rocked it plenty of times, in my humble opinion — I was a regular listener to PHC for many years and was happy that our local station reran the Saturday night show on the following day, so I was able to record some of my favorite monologues. I have some in my comedy playlist and they still make me howl (it can be a bit dangerous if shuffle mode brings one up while I’m driving).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family!

Best,
Patricia McCormack

Patricia, you just made my day and my day is not easily made, but do be careful out on the road. The Grim Reaper is always hoping to catch a McCormack. GK

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Garrison,

Thanks for another lovely PHC reunion Saturday night at the iconic Town Hall in NYC! We were at the first reunion show in Denver last year and were glad to get tickets for the New York performance. We hope that you are able to continue to bring the gang around the country so that even more people can learn about Lake Wobegon.

We’d love to have you bring Heather Masse back to Maine and get a show scheduled here — preferably in the Bangor region — in 2024! How do we get your team to look at that? 

Dave and Ellen

The McDermott Family

Dover-Foxcroft, Maine

My team is ever on the watch for venues and promoters and Heather is a Mainer at heart so it’d be a natural. We’ll do the PHC 50 shows through the summer of 2024 and then maybe do a Christmas show tour. GK

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Dear Garrison,

A while back you commented on the Minnesota State Flag kerfuffle, you stated that the flag bore an image of an Indian and a farmer waving at each other, how I wish that were so. Someone was triggered by the thought that the two were regarding each other with suspicion and hatred, the Indian bearing his spear and the farmer usurping the tribal lands. It has been my contention that the “problem” could be solved by changing the image to one exactly as you said, albeit incorrectly, both parties waving to each other in friendship, instead we have a gaggle of abstract images that look like they were created by AI or a Freshman Abstract Art class.

Merry Christmas! 

Bill Stein

I agree with you about the new flag/seal but this is dangerous ground and there’s no reason to venture into it. The old flag was fairly meaningless and the new one even more so. But this is what happens when you appoint a commission: mediocrity. GK

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Garrison, Garrison,

You missed the point on your life’s work. (How is that for a hubris-filled statement?) You were lamenting that a transcript of an old radio show did not read funny. Of course not, it was not designed to be read out loud, by you. It was delivered by you from your heart to ours. The words are of moderate importance. The delivery is where the material became and still becomes salient and alive.

You reflect our humanity for us, and specifically, the nature of what it is to live a life in this country in these changing tumultuous times. Back then, as well as now. The humor, if I may, is intrinsic when your words are delivered by you with your unique voice and personality. Thank you very much. And please stop beating up on our friend Garrison.

Robert Eash

Port Angeles, Washington

Self-deprecation comes with a Midwestern upbringing, sir. We compete at modesty. But I can understand if it annoys you and I’ll try to tone it down. Anyway, it’s not that important. The world gets bigger and bigger and each of us gets smaller and smaller until we disappear. I walked down Columbus Avenue today and passed a woman with a cellphone as she said, “Well, everything has a reason,” and I’m just going to hang my hat on that. GK

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Mr. Keillor,

Two things I can relate to in this column: I, a Yankee, also need winter, and tend to look down on those who need every day to be sunny and warm. And my desk is also a mess. But what a misogynistic column! I don’t know what women you hang out with, but they sound like pills. And I assure you most women, pills or otherwise, don’t want to be “worshipped” or put on a pedestal. This is the kind of talk that leads to men wanting to “protect” us, e.g., relieve us of the burden of having to make decisions about our own bodies. If you are having these thoughts, I’d advise you to keep them to yourself.

Another thing on which we can agree: that was a good Taylor Swift joke. She seems a decent, intelligent person. But as a singer/songwriter? “Meh” is all I can muster. Maybe the world is so wanting for decent, intelligent leaders right now, that people lose it when they see someone exhibiting these qualities on the national stage. 

Sincerely,

Elaine

Mount Desert, Maine

I respectfully disagree that my admiration of women indicates a desire to control or protect them. They’re beyond needing that and that’s part of what I admire. I admire their compassion, their social smarts, their humor, and independence. Also their courage. As for TS, I still haven’t sat myself down and listened to her. Just waiting for the right day. GK

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A termite jumps up on the bar and asks, ''Where is the bar tender?''

That classic and others are available in this treasury of hilarity, A Prairie Home Companion Pretty Good Joke Book, from Garrison Keillor and the PHC cast.

CLICK HERE to buy today, and enter the new year laughing!