Any Garrison Keillor fan here? I don't understand why he and his "Prairie Home Companion" show have become so popular?

If a woman likes him, it makes a bit sense because he is a guy with a voice that sounds so sensitive and sentimental. But from a guy's perspective, his sentimental voice sounds so incredibly PHONY & PRETENTIOUS. It sounds an amateur actor just took a bad voice class.

He always starts his show with his own singing on stage. His singing seems to drive the audience wild. But I consider his singing noise pollution. Garrison Keillor DOES NOT have a singing voice. He should get some honest opinion about his singing from Simon Cowell of the American Idol. He can best demonstrates his singing talent in shower stall at a health club. Any where else would be grossly inappropriate.

Ladies and Gentlemen, why do you like Garrison Keillor?

WhatsUp wrote:

Any Garrison Keillor fan here? I don't understand why he and his "Prairie Home Companion" show have become so popular?

If a woman likes him, it makes a bit sense because he is a guy with a voice that sounds so sensitive and sentimental. But from a guy's perspective, his sentimental voice sounds so incredibly PHONY & PRETENTIOUS. It sounds an amateur actor just took a bad voice class.

He always starts his show with his own singing on stage. His singing seems to drive the audience wild. But I consider his singing noise pollution. Garrison Keillor DOES NOT have a singing voice. He should get some honest opinion about his singing from Simon Cowell of the American Idol. He can best demonstrates his singing talent in shower stall at a health club. Any where else would be grossly inappropriate.

Ladies and Gentlemen, why do you like Garrison Keillor?

I dobn't really listen to him, but to me it beings back childhood memories--my parents used to listen on weekends. Some of them are funny, but he has sort of a historical place in many mid-westerners lives. And yes, his singing is not that good.

I heard someone called Keillor the modern-day Mark Twain. I call that an insult to Mark Twain and American literature.

Keillor is a wonderful storyteller and at times, a very funny man. I saw him give a reading from his book "Lake Wobegon Days 1954" (I think that's right).

Seriously, it was almost as funny as the time I saw David Sedaris at the Orpheum. Which was very funny.

But at other times I get very tired of his heavy breathing and jokes about Lutherans. There's something comforting about his show on a wintry afternoon. But yes, it can get old.

The music is also fantastic sometimes. When it's not, it's really not.

The sketches I also think are very funny....

OK now I'm confusing myself. There are plenty of reasons why I should love the show, but why don't I? I think it comes down to the need for a change of format once in a while, maybe. Also I probably get a little annoyed by the local hero worship. When someone is fawned over so heavily by the local public radio community -- and when his presence at Barnes and Noble creates an undue murmur -- I suppose I start expecting them to live up to the presence.

But maybe that's just jealousy. I think hosting a radio show, getting to tell stories and make jokes and publish funny books -- to have lived in New York, and to have traveled extensively -- and to be asked regularly to submit your ideas on key cultural issues, is probably something I envy.

Does anyone else envy his lifestyle? Or am I just lame? Is this nerd worship?

FrankB wrote:

Does anyone else envy his lifestyle?

Envy him of what? You mean he can afford 2 lbs of Viagra a day to make him feel like a man?

GK was part of my Sunday. I would give the kids the Funny Papers... read the news with my first cup of coffee... do a number with my ex and make love... make waffles or pancakes and bacon for the family... sit out on the back porch, sipping coffee, smoking another number... Listening to Prairie Home Companion, for the Folk Music and Old Timey feel...

Easy on the nervous system

That was in Seattle... I'm a San Franciscan... not a Lutheran... culturally more connected to Woody Guthrie than anything or one, around here...

In time, GK becomes like Iowa ditch weed... barely enough to give you the munchies and only enough buzz to be confused with a headache... His appreciation of Roy Acuff and the like, are his only saving grace.

I would compare Keillor to Will Rogers before Mark Twain because of Rogers' affection for humanity, but Rogers' affection was genuine. GK's affection for "his people" is clearly feigned and a function of "Minnesota nice." Toss in an Iowan inability to "get" or use sarcasm, and you have him. In both comparisons the same deficiencies glare. Twain was a satirist with an honest eye and searing wit... Rogers had a worldly wisdom born of pain and real human experience. Keillor has none of these attributes. He is all tinsel and no show... a caricature of himself, lacking substance and wisdom.

If you bought GK a beer, he would consider it his due. You'd get the bum's rush, and be two bucks the lighter.

If you need a Minnesotan with a genuine affection for people, an honest eye and regional wit... listen to John Prine, and have a nice day.

Howard Stern asked Phil Donahue, regarding Rush Limbaugh, "You've seen him in person Phil. Is his head really THAT BIG? It looks like a Damn Pumpkin."

RE GK: His head is a physical metaphor of his character.... It looks like a fuckin Jack-o-Lantern in December.

Free

you may quote me if you like.

I don't care much for Garrison. He seems a bit overdone and pretentious to me...too folksy to be real.

free wrote:

In time, GK becomes like Iowa ditch weed... barely enough to give you the munchies and only enough buzz to be confused with a headache...

Garrison Keillor is at best a newspaper columnist for a 3rd class local paper. Yes, he DOES have his own column on the 4th class Star Tribune every Sunday. That is the section (Opinion Exchange) I throw to the recylce bag first.

Garrison's long time fans tend to be ultraliberal urbanites, not the rural types he creates his town around. While his bits are sometimes quite funny, underneath it all is a palpable contempt for the rubes he sees all around him- and that includes you.

As a real world commentator and writer, it's quite clear that some life trauma has turned GK into a very bitter and angry man, reminiscent of Ragin' Nick Coleman. More importantly, like Al Franken, GK has failed to understand that once your commentary becomes stridently partisan and one-sided, you lose all credibility as an honest broker on social and political issues. You become just one more partisan hack, and should at least have the honesty to go on the payroll and shorten your drive to work rather than go through the charade of researching issues and people you talk about.

I don't like him. Don't know anyone who does. His popularity is a creation of MPR, not genuine interest.

Keillor has gone on record saying he hates America; Garri, the feeling's mutual.

CraigInTwinCities wrote:

Keillor has gone on record saying he hates America; Garri, the feeling's mutual.

He said that? Thought I saw him on PBS singing "America the Beautiful" last summer. That must be some phony patriotic b.s.

thrice wrote:

As a real world commentator and writer, it's quite clear that some life trauma has turned GK into a very bitter and angry man, reminiscent of Ragin' Nick Coleman.

I agree. His bitterness bleeds through his face. You barely see Garrison Keillor cracks a smile in public, even when he talks about a happy topic. Perhaps he wants to demostrate he is so deep.

thrice wrote:

You become just one more partisan hack, and should at least have the honesty to go on the payroll and shorten your drive to work rather than go through the charade of researching issues and people you talk about.

Don't all those cheap Hollywood entertainers do that? I think Garrison Keillor is looking up to someone like Ben Affleck deep in his heart. I hope someday people will realize behind all the stupid jokes by Garrison Keillor, he is the biggest joke of all.

I liked him a lot when I first moved here from India, about 12 years ago. But then he started getting monotonous, repetitive, and now I just find him plain old boring. Apologies to those who enjoy him - different strokes for different folks, I guess. I'm having more fun with the Special Reports on the BBC website, and Mother Jones.

Like Ferhari, when I first heard PHC many years ago, I was pleased. But with time, I have come to despise the show and the man. The main thing I cannot stand is his pretentious,
overly dramatic, breathy was of saying the most mundane things. I mean, if he were to say
something like: "I woke up at 7 this morning" it would come out like this:

I woke up!.........dramatic pause... heavy exhalation... at THHHREEE ( whispered) ....pause..
" THISSSSSS........ pause........... Morning"

You would think he was announcing a sighting of the second coming of Christ.

I also agree he is angry. Didn't he fail to establish himself as a real artist in Scandinavia and
had to return to the USA ( knowing that the cultural standard in the USA is low enough to tolerate him?) I think at some level he knows he is a fraud and so despises the audience as rubes for tolerating him.

When he came to Spartanburg, I listened to enough of it to hear him ridicule the population
of Boiling Springs,a suburb to the north. He pronounced it, " BAAAHHLING springs", a
rendering of the name I have never heard spoken here. It was accompanied by a witless
monologue, rambling and pointless,intended to emphasize the stupidity of people who live in this area.

What does it say about America that this guy is still on the air?

marco wrote:

What does it say about America that this guy is still on the air?

We all heard of "The Emperor's New Clothes" story, but a lot of people don't seem to realize that we are living in it as well. Haven't we heard enough of those know-nothing literary critics raving about Garrison Keillor? Have their raves skewed our real opinion about this literary fraud Garrison keillor?

Garrison Keillor will not be Garrison Keillor without the biggest non-profit scam company called Minnesota Public Radio. Garrison Keillor is smart enough to know that MPR's listeners will listen to whatever the station is putting out. MPR's listeners are too nice to point out he is a fraud. If Garrison Keillor does his show anywhere else in the country, people would see right through him and his show wouldn't have lasted for 2 weeks. From Garrison Keillor, you can see the power of the Minnesota Public Radio.

Don't understand why Star Tribune would waste a value space for Garrison Keillor's rants every week. His anger with his neighbours bleeds into his columns all the time.

Quote:

What happened to Garrison Keillor? He used to be funny. Now his column keeps repeating itself, as if we, his readers, still miss his point after the last 15 iterations. The "Old Scout" has turned into the "Old Curmudgeon."

Unfortunately for himself, and for his former fans, Mr. Keillor demonstrates what so many people find offensive about liberalism: He comes across as elitist, knowing better, scornful, sneering, supercilious, bitter: looking down at the "little people" -- conservatives, churchgoers, bowlers, fat people and motorcyclists -- who can't seem to understand that we need to be governed and ruled by people like him.

Not all of us loathe President Bush -- whom Mr. Keillor calls "the Current Occupant" -- the way Mr. Keillor appears to. We might not like some of what he's done, but as liberals like to remind us, "Hate is not a family value."

MICHAEL W. BIRD

ST. ANTHONY
http://www.startribune.com/local/north/27974819.html

Often overlooked is the fact that Kellior has created his whole shtick using characters and scenes from a small town that people find amusing and charming, and that his loyal fanbase is composed of urban liberals who hold such people in contempt and join him in mocking them.

thrice wrote:

Often overlooked is the fact that Kellior has created his whole shtick using characters and scenes from a small town that people find amusing and charming, and that his loyal fanbase is composed of urban liberals who hold such people in contempt and join him in mocking them.

Oh please. Can we get past the whole "liberals hate people from small towns" thing? Fabrication and absurdity.

Maybe you could make the case to the townies yourself.

From what I hear, they're probably out behind the shed cleaning their guns, and getting ready to attend services at Our Lady of The Clinging Bitterness. They might have a few moments to spare for the discussion.

Conservatives are the ones who love to sneer about "urban elites" and people who learn things, like other languages, or science. Show me the places in Obama's convention speech where he sneers about rural Americans. I can show you dozens from the RNC that condescend to urbanistas...including some nuggets from Giuliani, which is the height of hypocrisy and ridiculousness.

But I believe Obama's comments about bitter rural Americans clinging to their guns and religion was made in oh-so-urbane San Francisco.