Garrison Keillor II

Alright. Now I'll tell you about seeing Garrison Keillor. I don't know how well known he is to people. He does a show called Prairie Home Companion on radio. They made a movie about it a few years ago with him and Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan. Lindsay was really good in it. They were able to find a window of opportunity in which Lindsay wasn't insane, so it worked out for them. Garrison is kind of a Will Rogers/Mark Twain kind of guy. Its hard to explain if you don't know him. I'm not sure exactly what the difference between a humorist and a comedian is, but I'm pretty sure he would be classified as a humorist.

I had seen him once before, so I wasn't all that into going again. And certainly not sitting in the second row, but that's what I get for not selecting the seats myself. Usually seats like that are a lot more expensive. In this case they weren't that bad. Anyway, we must have been like ten feet from him. It was disconcerting. I was worried he might be the type to call someone up onto the stage at some point. I would not have liked that at all. I knew somebody that got called up onstage by Don Rickles. Rickles: "What do you do for a living?" The guy I knew: "I'm a potato farmer from Malin, Oregon". Rickles must have had a field day with that.

While disconcerting, it was also kind of cool having seats that close. I don't have a big need to be close, so I always get the cheap seats. I'm used to getting to the venue, having to set up base camp and make the long trek up to my seat with my sherpa guide. I've thought, someday I should spring for good seats. Well, this time I guess I did.

It was amazing that he talked for about an hour and a half without any notes. I don't know how he does it. He was really good and really funny. I would think he has it all planned out ahead of time, but maybe not. I saw Art Linkletter do that once. Amazingly, he did a show in the podunk town where I live. I turns out one of his grandkids lives here, so he came a did a show for a charity. Anyway, he did the same thing as Garrison. They seem so natural that it doesn't seem rehearsed at all, but how do you pull that off for an hour. I know people that are impressed with themselves and can easily talk for an hour, but nobody is going to pay money to listen to them. Art talked about his life and adventures with Presidents and Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra, etc. He wasn't all that funny, but it was fascinating.

Anyway, Garrison was great. Two thumbs up.