{"id":4397,"date":"2009-03-16T12:03:34","date_gmt":"2009-03-16T17:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4397"},"modified":"2009-03-16T12:03:34","modified_gmt":"2009-03-16T17:03:34","slug":"a-prairie-home-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4397","title":{"rendered":"A Prairie Home Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

As much fun as I have dinging on Garrison Keillor (I mean, it did <\/em>put this blog on the map), I gotta confess, I do love A Prairie Home Companion. I listen to it as often as I can, usually live (because, due no doubt to copyright issues, the only part you can actually get via podcast is the “News from Lake Wobegone” segment; it’s good, but it’s not the whole show.<\/p>\n

Still, the show has its downsides – parts that make me tune out.<\/p>\n

So, due to popular demand, I present – A Prairie Home Report Card<\/em>: the top and bottom five things about APHC:<\/p>\n

The Five Persistent Questions A Prairie Home Companion <\/em>Gets Wrong:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

5. Keillor’s Relentless Upsucking To The Dems<\/strong>: Goes without saying; just wanted to get it out of the way.
\n4. The Guy With The Knock-Knock Joke Song Every Year<\/strong>: Ka-nock, Ka-knock. Who’s there?\u00a0 <\/em>Tawanna.\u00a0 Tawanna who<\/em>? Tawanna eat a Beretta when I hear this song!
\n3.\u00a0<\/strong>Garrison Keillor Trying To Sing Harmony With Opera Singers<\/strong>: What did the sage once say about ordering a tuna sandwich at a steak joint? <\/strong><\/p>\n

2. BeBopAReeBop Rhubarb Pie<\/strong>: Perhaps it’s because I have a viscerally bad reaction to the term BeBopAReeBop from childhood – but please, for the love of almighty Vishnu, give this bit a rest.
\n1. Pat Donohue’s Songs<\/strong>: Donohue’s a great guitar player.\u00a0 But do we need to have a different fake “blues” song about the mundanities of Minnesota life every episode<\/em>?<\/p>\n

OK, there’s the yang.\u00a0 Now, the yin:
\nThe Five <\/em>Things About A Prairie Home Companion <\/em>That Are Strong, Good Looking and Above Average:<\/strong><\/p>\n

5. Fred Newman’s Sound Effects<\/strong>: I do <\/em>know, basically, how he does it – but it’s still friggin’ amazing.
\n4. Real Lives Of The Cowboys<\/strong>: Better than Guy Noir.\u00a0 And that takes some doing.
\n3. News From Lake Wobegon<\/strong>: Whatever Keillor’s other flaws, he’s got small-town Scandinavian-America dialled in.\u00a0 And even though he’s been doing the same bit, really, for almost forty years, it still never gets old to me. <\/strong><\/p>\n

2. The English Major<\/strong>: Yes, it cuts too close to home.\u00a0 Who cares?
\n1. The Ketchup Advisory Board<\/strong>: Funniest fake commercials ever. Funnier even than the Bud Light “Real American Heroes” spots.<\/p>\n

That should settle any issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As much fun as I have dinging on Garrison Keillor (I mean, it did put this blog on the map), I gotta confess, I do love A Prairie Home Companion. I listen to it as often as I can, usually live (because, due no doubt to copyright issues, the only part you can actually get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-n-e"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}