Notes from the Road, Part 2
May. 18th, 2002 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maradydd(Part 2 in a 4-part series of stuff I wrote during my trip home.)
This should come as no surprise to anyone, but for the record: I hate Garrison Keillor.
My parents have been listening to a lot of NPR on this trip, which is fine by me. All Things Considered is great, and what I don't like I can generally sleep through. But this afternoon I woke up to The Prairie Home Companion, and blessed sleep refused to return.
Some amount of my dislike for this show can simply be chalked up to taste. I like my humour a la Tom Lehrer, urbane and sarcastic and witty and deeply weird. Obviously, there are enough people out there who enjoy Keillor's brand of down-home storytelling to keep audiences full, the CD presses rolling and food on his table. Good for him. I think his jokes are old (stories about bad but exclusive restaurants succeeding because people will try like hell to get into any joint that won't let them in were funny when I read them in Erma Bombeck, but I was twelve then), his delivery ham-fisted (he's going to get a sore throat if he keeps stage-whispering into the mike like that), and his attempts at wrenching, sympathy-inspiring stories full of bathos. And I'm willing to forgive that, because hey, there are a lot of people in the world who like dumb stuff.
What I find unforgivable, though, is the way he enshrines provinciality and demonizes success. "We've met winners in Lake Wobegon," he remarks at the beginning of a segment about a tomato-growing competition. "We didn't like them." He goes on to talk about how both the tomato-contest winner and the recipient of a 4-year scholarship at the local high school are supposed to efface themselves, attributing every scrap of their success to other people. After that, he segues into an extended metaphor about raccoons and their violent struggles for the raccoon version of success, which invariably end a year or two later with the top-of-the-heap raccoon being jumped one night by a pack of young, up-and-coming raccoons, after which he slinks off in defeat, probably to throw himself onto the freeway before an oncoming car. Better to stay home, advises Uncle Garrison; better to stay in Lake Wobegon, where the class of 1943 still lives in peace and simplicity, where you can stay out of that bad old rat race and never become anything more than above average.
Maybe to some people, this hearkens back to a simpler time. (Can anything else be hearkened these days?) I don't know about you, but this frightens the holy fuck out of me. Are there really people in the world who find success so reprehensible? Who only want to hear that Hometown Boy has Made Good if he's willing to pretend away the responsibility for all his achievements? Sure, we all have influences. No man is an island, quoth Mr. Donne, and behind both him and every other genius stands an unbroken line of other geniuses, devoted teachers and just plain damn hard workers who laid the foundations on which all of us stand. But genius alone doesn't do it all, as we geniuses have discovered to our great regret. Someone has to get out of bed in the morning and get their ass in gear, and if that someone isn't you, no one else is going to do it for you. Many people have pointed me at new ideas or given me chances, and I love these people. But no one -- no one -- does my work for me. I earn my honors.
I also reject the idea that success means backstabbing or that competition means that somoene has to die alone. Every day every one of us sees counterexamples to these "truisms", yet here they are presented as gospel to an audience which I'm sure doesn't adhere to these views in daily life, yet which applauds anyway.
And you wonder why I'm bitter.
Maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe this is all a big private joke that I'm not in on, and I'm standing off to the side like one of Paul T. Riddell's stereotypical sci-fi nerkers, whining "I didn't think that was funny at all." But it bugs me, because goddammit, if it's satire, it should be more over-the-top if he really wants no one to believe it. Yeah, Jonathan Swift recoiled in horror when people took "A Modest Proposal", clearly one of the most outlandish pieces of satire in history, seriously. (And just what kind of sick motherfucker do you have to be to think that eating Irish babies is a legitimate solution to overpopulation?) So maybe the rest of y'all are quietly pointing and laughing at this persona and I'm the only one who doesn't get it.
But I still don't have to like it, and I'm still bitter.
This should come as no surprise to anyone, but for the record: I hate Garrison Keillor.
My parents have been listening to a lot of NPR on this trip, which is fine by me. All Things Considered is great, and what I don't like I can generally sleep through. But this afternoon I woke up to The Prairie Home Companion, and blessed sleep refused to return.
Some amount of my dislike for this show can simply be chalked up to taste. I like my humour a la Tom Lehrer, urbane and sarcastic and witty and deeply weird. Obviously, there are enough people out there who enjoy Keillor's brand of down-home storytelling to keep audiences full, the CD presses rolling and food on his table. Good for him. I think his jokes are old (stories about bad but exclusive restaurants succeeding because people will try like hell to get into any joint that won't let them in were funny when I read them in Erma Bombeck, but I was twelve then), his delivery ham-fisted (he's going to get a sore throat if he keeps stage-whispering into the mike like that), and his attempts at wrenching, sympathy-inspiring stories full of bathos. And I'm willing to forgive that, because hey, there are a lot of people in the world who like dumb stuff.
What I find unforgivable, though, is the way he enshrines provinciality and demonizes success. "We've met winners in Lake Wobegon," he remarks at the beginning of a segment about a tomato-growing competition. "We didn't like them." He goes on to talk about how both the tomato-contest winner and the recipient of a 4-year scholarship at the local high school are supposed to efface themselves, attributing every scrap of their success to other people. After that, he segues into an extended metaphor about raccoons and their violent struggles for the raccoon version of success, which invariably end a year or two later with the top-of-the-heap raccoon being jumped one night by a pack of young, up-and-coming raccoons, after which he slinks off in defeat, probably to throw himself onto the freeway before an oncoming car. Better to stay home, advises Uncle Garrison; better to stay in Lake Wobegon, where the class of 1943 still lives in peace and simplicity, where you can stay out of that bad old rat race and never become anything more than above average.
Maybe to some people, this hearkens back to a simpler time. (Can anything else be hearkened these days?) I don't know about you, but this frightens the holy fuck out of me. Are there really people in the world who find success so reprehensible? Who only want to hear that Hometown Boy has Made Good if he's willing to pretend away the responsibility for all his achievements? Sure, we all have influences. No man is an island, quoth Mr. Donne, and behind both him and every other genius stands an unbroken line of other geniuses, devoted teachers and just plain damn hard workers who laid the foundations on which all of us stand. But genius alone doesn't do it all, as we geniuses have discovered to our great regret. Someone has to get out of bed in the morning and get their ass in gear, and if that someone isn't you, no one else is going to do it for you. Many people have pointed me at new ideas or given me chances, and I love these people. But no one -- no one -- does my work for me. I earn my honors.
I also reject the idea that success means backstabbing or that competition means that somoene has to die alone. Every day every one of us sees counterexamples to these "truisms", yet here they are presented as gospel to an audience which I'm sure doesn't adhere to these views in daily life, yet which applauds anyway.
And you wonder why I'm bitter.
Maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe this is all a big private joke that I'm not in on, and I'm standing off to the side like one of Paul T. Riddell's stereotypical sci-fi nerkers, whining "I didn't think that was funny at all." But it bugs me, because goddammit, if it's satire, it should be more over-the-top if he really wants no one to believe it. Yeah, Jonathan Swift recoiled in horror when people took "A Modest Proposal", clearly one of the most outlandish pieces of satire in history, seriously. (And just what kind of sick motherfucker do you have to be to think that eating Irish babies is a legitimate solution to overpopulation?) So maybe the rest of y'all are quietly pointing and laughing at this persona and I'm the only one who doesn't get it.
But I still don't have to like it, and I'm still bitter.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2002-05-22 12:03 pm (UTC)I read her at about the same age. <g>
No speeches when I got home, only a half-assed attempt to weakly tell me it was "all a joke" when my hypsical demeanor came through the door screaming, "I am so getting the fuck out of here ASAP." Grrrr...
I had a lovely time with you all though. Hope your painting is going swimmingly.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-05-22 12:41 pm (UTC)Kiellor's whole schtick is gentle satire. A statement like that goes right along with his closing statement, "...And that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average."
Ok, it is funny 'cause it's true. Small town folk don't like showoffs, but small town folk are Kiellor's targets, and most of the small town folk who enjoy Kiellor do so because he's poking fun at something they recognize in their neighbors and even in themselves.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-05-22 08:11 pm (UTC)I'm familiar with the closing statement; that's why I alluded to it. It reminds me of Kingwood, where I grew up, and the dozens of bright, bright kids I knew there who succumbed to Kingwood Disease; they were all above average, and none of them have moved beyond the potential they had when they were 17.
It angers me when I see smart people get stuck, and it causes one hell of a knee-jerk reaction whenever it even looks like someone might be advocating an attitude that gets smart people stuck.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-05-23 07:14 am (UTC)I like that example, even if the show itself is not always enjoyable.