A TRULY UGLY AMERICAN
Posted on 12/04/2004 5:06:32 AM PST by ruthles
Garrison Keillor: Homegrown Idiot By George Shadroui FrontPageMagazine.com | December 3, 2004
It is at times remarkable to behold the commentary that attaches to the liberal view of conservatives and Republicans.
One is reminded of an out-of-body experience, as if one is viewing oneself from a ceiling but not quite sure how you got there or how you came to see yourself from that particular vantage point. But if you are a conservative who might enjoy this sensation, I recommend a recent book by Garrison Keillor, Homegrown Democrat.
Keillor is in many ways a national treasure. He is great storyteller. I have read several of his books, but I have relished his audio collections of stories from his National Public Radio Show, A Prairie Home Companion. Keillor is a man with a voice from God, his deep, halting style as recognizable as the Churchill growl or the Buckley drawl.
I used to enjoy his "Lake Woebegone" on NPR, but after this past election, I can't even stand the sound of his voice anymore. He's a liberal-demokkkRAT-socialist-commie-nazi-fascist-America-hating, traitor, as are Franken and Moore.
Garrison Keillor: prototypical gaseous windbag.
He's grown alright. Just like all Liberals. Grown in a vat I swear.
"I used to enjoy his "Lake Woebegone" on NPR, but after this past election, I can't even stand the sound of his voice anymore."
Yep, that's exactly how I feel. I can't listen to that show and all its charms, while knowing how much the host hates America and all it stands for. The guy is like the biggest liar in the world.
I heard Keillor exactly one time on an NPR program while driving. He was giving one of his so-called local color stories and obvoiusly thought it was humorous, but I didn't find it the least bit funny or appealing, so I never listened to him again. There was something about the fact that he could even think that hundreds of thousands of people could find it funny which turned me off.
Keilor is a welfare recipient. He's made a fortune because of public subsidies of the so-called public broadcasting.
NPR should go, too.
I used to love him, we even went to a live show in Houston. But lately his jokes make fun of Republicans all the time. He lost a bunch of fans at this house. We used to buy his books, and we have some Lake Woebegone tapes, too.
I saw him on O'Rilley or H&C maybe 2 months ago, and he seemed bewildered, lost, and unable to put a coherent sentence together.
Not a very impressive guy - maybe he should have hung it up.
Can you provide a link to the article you posted? Thanks. The URL you listed goes to another article.
It's amazing how the same human mind can be simultaneously clever, brilliant, and stupid.
I heard Keillor exactly one time on an NPR program while driving. He was giving one of his so-called local color stories and obvoiusly thought it was humorous, but I didn't find it the least bit funny or appealing, so I never listened to him again. There was something about the fact that he could even think that hundreds of thousands of people could find it funny which turned me off.My reaction completely. I have freinds who adore him and so have heard his stuff over the years (though never voluntarily). He always struck me as astronomically pretentious and bursting to the gills with an inner appreciation of his own clever wit, which I never found all that clever or all that witty.
On NPR on Sat. morning they have some programs like Wait Wait Don't Tell Me... USED to be funny. They use news from the week before and make it into game shows. Last week ALL the jokes about Democrats were fine, but ALL the jokes about Republicans were CRUEL and MEAN SPIRITED> Like which president threw up in the lap of a Japanese leader? Etc. The lines about the Democrats were all innocent and nice. THe lines about the Republicans were made to make us look mean and stupid. I was so angry I turned it off.
It surely isn't pretty. A fairly blatant example is this one:
NPR Reporter Says Christians Should Burn
And, of course, there's more about Garrison:
Garrison Keillor: Homegrown Idiot -- Keillor is stuck in this time warp, when liberal did mean 'nice to black folk' but before the horrors of true leftism (Stalinism, FDRism, Maoism, Ho Chi Minhism) were revealed to the world.
And this:
When it's OK to hate -- This may become a landmark article and really singes and exposes the liberal thought.
...but us folks on the right are the "intolerant" ones...
He used to be funny and witty. When he came to Houston he wrote the transcript for the show after he got here. And the jokes all had to do with Houston local color/customs etc. It was very funny. That was quite a few YEARS ago. He has spiraled downward ever since. He keeps getting divorces, too.
Very flattering photo!
He looks like a cross between Madeleine Albright and Al Franken.
Is it just me or does he have a kind of Gollum thing going on?
Isn't that a prerequisite for getting hired at NPR?
All demonrats that hold close to today's party line really do have a gollum thing going...The trick is to spend a lot of time slowly waking them up! Think about any friends you have that were demonrats in a former life, that are now conservatives. Look how good they look! Hannitization may take a while, but is worth doing conversions on those that choose wisely (the second time around).
Your link didn't open to the story. Here's where the entire column is.
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16198
Prairie
Sorry, you must have meant to say: 'Down there with Al Franken.'
As a Minnesotan, I apologize to the rest of the thinking world. Keillor is an egotistical gas bag well beyond his 15 minutes of fame. His persona on TPHC has nothing to do with his true nature anymore than crisp, smoky bacon is the equivalent of a barnyard of ankle-deep pig sh*t.
The only redeeming value Keillor has today, is that he provides entertainment in an unintended format. He is periodically locked in a vicious feud with another local leftist columnist (Nick Coleman) over whose head is truly the biggest and whose gaseous anecdotes and phony wit ought to dominate the local Left cotillions and the endless pink fund-raisers to buy cat litter for the poor.
If Keillor didn’t have a cushy stage at MPR/NPR (your tax dollars at work, BTW), he’d been a goner back when he pulled up stakes from Minnesota for the big lights of New York. Nowadays, it’s only the talent of the booked musicians is worth a listen.
I believe CBS has found the next Andy Rooney.
Compare: http://www.asu.edu/asunews/university/univ_images/andy_rooney_103103.jpg
NPR/MPR/Keillor ping.
The Japanese pronunciation of that name is right on.
The whole "Prarie Home" thing is just another attempt by leftists to cloak themselves in Americana. 80% of those real prarie homes like their guns and their sleds, and would prefer to be left the hell alone by the government that funds this toad's podium.
Humor is a weapon for Keillor, as it is for so many professional jokesters, but beneath the smiles, his battles are deadly serious. Garrison threw off his very strict Plymouth Brethren upbringing decades ago, but he retains a lot of the tensions and strains of a puritanical outlook that he's come to hate and despise. Keillor's is a still very sectarian and "fundamentalist" mentality: for him, the Democratic party is the raft and all else is a raging sea of iniquity.
In recent years the NPR cocoon has hurt his work. Mark Twain was as bitter a man as Garrison Keillor -- probably more so and, by the end of his life, with far more reason to be angry. But Twain had to handle and hold a large and diverse audience, so he had to conceal his disappointment and resentment and hide his bitterness beneath the surface of his work, rather than simply rely on partisan jabs. It improved his work and made him a unifying and at times uplifting force in the country.
Keillor has subsidies so he doesn't have to worry about losing listeners whatever he does. Consequently he plays to a small niche audience -- or sometimes, no audience at all. He avoids the danger of being swallowed up by a mass audience, but he doesn't grow as a writer or performer. It's a pity, but past humorists, like Twain or Will Rogers were able to bridge the gap between North and South, East and West, city and country, in a way that Keillor, a very talented man, doesn't and can't.
Think Garrison is bad. Think of people who imitate him. Am a Ham operator and this guy gets on the net every evening and talks with the same "inner appreciation of his own clever wit." Eh gadds...
Maybe he is back on the booze. He had quite a problem for a while.
by the way, he failed to divorce his first wife, before he married wife #2. I think that is cleaned up now.
What did it for me was listening to one of his tales from Lake WoebeGon after the election and hearing about some woman who refuses to die until Bush is out of office.
Down-home corny stuff like his Lake Wobegon stuff works when you don't make it political. In my opinon the later Mash or All in the Family shows does not view as well today because they had a political agendia feel to them. On the other hand Andy Griffin Show back in the Black and White days or I love Lucy or the Honeymooners is humor that will last because it is nonpolitical
umm, the dirty little secret of the "elite" regions north of the Mason-Dixon is that there's as much inbreeding going on there as their is in Appalachia.
Is that why they call it "hamming it up"?
HA HA HA THAT IS FUNNY GOOD JOB !!!
I get so tired of NPR only making fun of Republicans, and never making fun of Democrats!
I listen to NPR rarely--maybe Whad Ya Know?, and even then the liberal "humor" can be a bit much. (Maureen Loud
was on there recently--yuck.) Speaking of NPR stations
(or similar ones):
--on a folk show on an NPR station (locally produced):
"some music to brighten you up, perhaps, on this sad
day for our country"--the DJ, referring to the fact
the Clinton had been impeached earlier that day.
On another folk show on a non-commercial station, a folk
group was live in the studio and they prefaced one of their songs by telling of how "we wrote this after someone was nice enough to give us a copy of 'Dude, Where's my
Country?' by Michael Moore, for Christmas." They go on
to sing a song about "thieves" in "the House that
was White". Gag me!
Harry Shearer's "Le Show" airs on many NPR stations. It can be funny at times (he'll probably soon do another
media satire with "Brother Rather" and "Brother
Wallace") but he is definitely a big lefty. (Frequently
bites that hand that feeds him, too, savaging his
employer ("Simpsons") Rupert Murdoch.)
You remain one of my favorite posters of all for your always excellent and on-target analyses of just about any subject under the sun.
I still find him more effective than chloroform ...
"Well, this week in Lake Woebeg ...."
ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Something about the voice, I guess.
Spot on, Swiss.
HAHAHA Nailed it.
I'm so pretty!
I'm so pretty!
First time I heard that clown, my skin crawled. And that was before he deep-ended. If you tried to manufacture a more pretentious person, you couldn't come close.
And his fake-hominess is so sickening. An elitist trying to sound like a farm boy. Kind of like listening to sports on NPR, though infinitely worse.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
