Scribble, scribble, quibble, quibble, ishkabibble It’s okay by me that the Cleveland Indians will be the Cleveland Guardians even though “Guardian” is a colorless term and they might’ve done just as well with Employees or Tenants. And “Indians” is hardly a slur. I grew up admiring Indians as a boy and trying to imitate them — I had no desire to be a cowboy, I was an Indian, and I can see how my Indianness was a natural step in wanting to be a writer and not a cog in a corporation. To me, then as now, the real insult is the title “vice president.” My Ojibwe friend Jerry uses the word “Indian” freely because, as he says, “There are too many tribes for even an Indian to keep track of.” I’ve never heard the words “native American” come out of his mouth. Go to Garrison Keillor and Friends on Substack
for THE COLUMN >>> Did you know that you can read Garrison's column in the LA Progressive & other small newspapers? Contact your local paper and let them know you'd like to see Garrison's column there, too! |
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This week on A Prairie Home Companion Trek with your favorite cowboys as we travel to Billings, Montana, for a classic show from 1996 featuring writer/humorist Ian Frazier, cowboy poet Wallace McRae, music from the Jo Miller/Laura Love Connection, The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, and The Royal Academy of Radio Actors … honey, could you ask for more?
Highlights include Ian Frazier reading from Great Plains, some cowboy poetry that includes “Blue and Lonesome” from Wallace McRae, and “My Dear Old Southern Home” from the Jo Miller/ Laura Love Connection, “Honeysuckle Rose,” plus a few words from your favorite Cowboys, a trip to the Café Boeuf and some uses for Duct Tape, plus a bit of “Nothing” from Pat Donohue, and the latest news from Lake Wobegon. The link is posted on Saturdays at 5 p.m. CT each week on our Facebook page. Listen to the Show >>>
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More about this week’s featured guests
Ian Frazier received a warm welcome for his debut book, 1986’s Dating Your Mom, when Newsweek magazine estimated that Frazier might be “the best master of gentle laid-back befuddlement since [Robert] Benchley.” The next year, his second book, Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody, received rave reviews that compared Frazier to some of humor’s heavy hitters: Twain, Thurber, and Waugh. Then in 1989, Frazier made his nonfiction debut with Great Plains, which became a bestseller. The New York Times Book Review said that Frazier, “with wit and style, writes about tumbleweeds, Bonnie and Clyde, the weather, café conversation, tepees, [and] MX missiles.” As research for Great Plains, he drove 25,000 miles, spanning and crisscrossing the region between Montana and Texas. Not a Montana native, Frazier was born in the Midwest, outside of Cleveland, Ohio. He moved east to attend Harvard, where he wrote for the Lampoon and earned the attention of national television with the Lampoon’s parody of Cosmo, featuring Henry Kissinger as centerfold. Frazier was graduated from Harvard in 1973 and within a year became a staffer at The New Yorker, where his pieces appeared for two decades. “Lamentations of the Father” >>>
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Wallace McRae began writing poetry in the 1960s. At that time, he had just returned to Montana after serving in the U.S. Navy, which he entered right after college. While in uniform, McRae traveled around the world, but he began to long for the culture and traditions of Montana. So, he and his wife moved back, and soon the muse struck. McRae says, “I was just sitting in the house waiting for a heifer to calve, so I wrote a poem.” McRae continued to write, and his first volume of poetry, It’s Just Grass and Water, was published in 1979. He is now considered among the finest writers of ballad-style verse: in 1990, McRae became the first cowboy poet to be given a National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. However, fame has not separated McRae from the Montana land he grew up on. Like four generations of his family before him, McRae ranches on land overlooking Rosebud Creek, south of Colstrip.
“Reincarnation” >>>
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More from Pat Donohue:
Grammy-nominated Pat Donohue (guitar) is a native and resident of St. Paul, Minnesota. He is a National Fingerstyle Guitar Champion and an innovative songwriter, with more than a dozen albums to his credit on Red House Records and Bluesky Records.
His songs have been recorded by Chet Atkins, Suzy Bogguss, and Kenny Rogers. He performed on A Prairie Home Companion as a regular member of The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band for almost two decades.
What did a workweek for The Guy’s All-Star Shoe band look like? When do you start discussing and rehearsing the music for each week’s show?
While we all work on our own aspects of the show throughout the week, we generally get together on Friday afternoon and rehearse what we’ve brought in for a few hours. Then Garrison joins us and we rehearse the songs he wants to do with us. If there is a guest artist making use of our band, we will also rehearse their tunes with them. Then on Saturday, we go through the things that are likely to be on the show for most of the day. Then the scripts are rehearsed, dinner is eaten, and the show goes on. Read our full guest interview >>>
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| "Keillor is 78 now, sharing with readers a lifetime of success and regrets. His book is funny, sad, poignant, and sometimes wistful, especially when he recalls good times on the PHC tour bus, traveling to performances all over the country." - Pioneer Press. Read the review >>> |
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| Radio Blues by Pat Donohue The late Chet Atkins called Prairie Home house guitarist Pat Donohue “one of the greatest fingerpickers in the world today.” This spirited album of blues classics and originals showcases Donohue’s virtuosity in songs recorded live with the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band during A Prairie Home Companion broadcasts. Cuts include “Frisco Town,” Mudslide,” “Statesboro Blues,” and the highly requested “Sushi-Yucky.”
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