Garrison Keillor's Blog, page 29

I’m an American, I like to believe that nobody but nobody is beyond the reach of friendship and understanding, not even North Koreans or former felons or the creators of complex security systems that have driven me to the brink of madness, trying to remember the password for my computer and then having to replace the password and confirm my identity by typing in a six-numeral code sent to me on my cellphone whose password I now can’t remember either.

I don’t have top-secret documents stored in the phone or in the laptop. I have a lot of appeals for donations from Democratic politicians and lefty organizations such as Citizens United for Diversity & Inclusivity In American Humor (CUDIAH), none of which needs to be kept from prying eyes. I’m a Democrat. So what? I wish I had a friend in the password biz who could say, “Oh, passwords went out of usage long ago, nobody does that anymore, you just need a simple voice-recognition system that eliminates the need for passwords.” My current friends are all liberal-arts grads who know nothing about this stuff. Do you get my drift?

I need to broaden my social circle. All of my friends are aging liberals, and they’re perfectly nice people but our conversation is the same old same old stuff repeated, reiterated, recycled, re-repeated, et cetera. We talk about the cold, about our grandkids, about bad books we’ve read recently. We’re still talking about the guy who uses bronzer and combs little squiggles in his hair. Which is so over. I mean, really.

I do not have a single friend who was looking forward to hearing Taylor Swift and who was furious at Ticketmaster for messing up her tour and watched carefully the congressional hearings into the whole Swiftian crisis. Nobody.

I wish I knew some Swift fans and I’ve tried to make connections but I am not good at texting because I use just one finger and they text at 60 w.p.m. with both thumbs and even when I’m sitting next to them they still prefer texting to talking, and I fall behind, which marks me as untextworthy, and they go like “C.U.” or “BRB” and they’re gone. I’m trying to like Taylor’s songs but it’s not easy.

You were so awful to me
And I sat there and took it
You had me in your pocket
So you could just reach in
Like grabbing a keychain,
I was a handkerchief to blow your nose on
But now I’m gone.
I’ll never be in love with you again.

All I can say is if a girlfriend of mine wrote a break-up song as bad as that, she never would’ve been my girlfriend to begin with so there never would’ve been anything to break up.

My friends tend to be overeducated, quasi-vegan, animal-rights types, though they whack flies and poison cockroaches and set vicious traps for rodents as if Mickey and Minnie have no right to exist — but hey, inconsistency is the spice of life — and just once I’d like to have a personal friend who’d invite me to sit in his den unmasked and look at his Mannlicher-Schönauer bolt-action 30-06 and admire the heads of water buffalo and jaguar and giraffe mounted on the walls and show me videos from his latest safari to Uganda, which by accident segues into scenes from Nancy Pelosi’s office on January 6, 2021.

America is awash in firearms and I don’t have a single close friend who owns even a .22. I don’t personally know a single Proud Boy or Minuteman or Viking Avenger.

I’m not saying I approve of these people — au contraire, mon cher — I’d simply like to know somebody over on the dark side who is up on all the latest conspiracies, rather than the folks in my book club or the people I meet at coffee hour after church or at meetings of my ACLU chapter.

I feel a little smothered by good intentions and I’d like to see more of the world before I start the long grim slide. I’m not looking for an illicit romance or anything dangerous, I’m considering becoming a Republican realtor in Wabash, Indiana, and say bad things about Biden, just to see what it feels like, maybe go to a target range, do some bowling. My wife loves New York but I talked her into marrying me and how much harder could Wabash be than that? Six months is all I ask, darling. Just for the experience.

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I couldn’t sleep last Saturday night due to anxiety caused by rewinding various lowlights of my long life that hit me like a brick and I lay in bed and watched the hours go by as I contemplated my imminent demise leaving my dependents impoverished and homeless so when the day dawned I put on a suit and coat and I went around the block to the solemn 8 a.m. Mass rather than wait for the more festive 10:30 and walked through the bitter Minnesota cold into St. Mark’s Cathedral where a couple dozen souls sat, widely spaced apart, perhaps to guard against communicable disease, or maybe to avoid the Exchange of Peace after the absolution of our sins.

My sin was dread, anxiety, nameless unreasoning fear, but never mind. I remembered as I came into the cathedral that there is no music at the 8 a.m., no chipper Bach chorale to brighten the mood, no rousing opening hymn, just this scattering of folks in the vastness, like the Church in apostolic times, a few believers hiding out in the catacombs, hoping men in heavy armor don’t break in and bust our heads.

I knelt and prayed for my loved ones, that they be spared my anxiety. I could hear my own voice proclaiming the Nicene Creed, the whole megillah, including the unbelievable part about God coming to earth and becoming incarnate by the Virgin Mary, and it did nothing for the lead in my heart nor, as it turned out, did the homily.

What I found inspiring were two Scripture readings, one from the prophet Micah, where the reader faced the line, “O my people, remember what happened from Shittim to Gilgal that you may know the saving acts of the Lord,” and she slowed down when she saw “Shittim” and got traction and very carefully pronounced it “shi-team.” I was the only one in the sanctuary immature enough to enjoy this moment. There were no 13-year-old boys there, just me. I could tell from her voice that the reader had been dreading this for an hour, trying to decide between “shy-tim” and “shi-team” and fearing that she’d slip and pronounce it phonetically and a marble angel would fall and crash and red lights would flash and people would require treatment for post-traumatic stress.

And then moments later she read from First Corinthians that we do not find God through wisdom. No, God chose what is foolish to shame the wise, for God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. The thought of God’s foolishness is a radical one, seldom mentioned in church, and near me were some highly educated people, including a man who got his Ph.D. in classic philosophy from Harvard and here I sat, a writer of limericks and a lover of juvenile jokes (Knock-knock. “Who’s there?” Eskimo Christians. “Eskimo Christians who?” Eskimo Christians, I’ll tell you no lies.) and when I went forward for Communion I felt foolishly happy. The wafer was not artisanal, the wine too sweet, but I received it with a good and grateful heart.

I went downstairs for coffee. People were gathering for the election of church officers and I joined them. It had been an austere service but it took a big load off my mind, the woman navigating her way around “Shittim” — it’s in the sixth chapter of Micah, look it up — and the words “God’s foolishness” — the playfulness of the Creator of the universe who 13 billion years ago, from a little speck of matter, suddenly produced an infinity of galaxies of which our Milky Way is a small specimen and the solar system turning around our sun is but a kiddie amusement park and our little planet is a jungle gym and hot dog stand.

I sat down and someone said, “Welcome home.” I live in New York but I used to be from here and that was nice. Two candidates for church warden stood and gave brief speeches and I wrote a limerick:

I am not running for warden:
It’s a job I know I’d be bored in,
Running a prison.
My calling is in
Enjoying the journey toward Jordan.

A dreadful night, a cold day, a juvenile joke, I’m a happy man. The Greeks and Romans loved poop jokes: go ahead and google it. The world is a mess but dread gets us nowhere so cheer up and then go do what you were put here to do. I was put here to cheer you up. So smile.

The post The beauty of a bitterly cold Sunday, 8 a. m. appeared first on Garrison Keillor.

Picture in a Frame (Watch)

The sun come up, it was blue and gold
The sun come up, it was blue and gold
The sun come up, it was blue and gold
Ever since I put your picture in a frame

I come calling in my Sunday best
I come calling in my Sunday best
I come calling in my Sunday best
Ever since I put your picture in a frame

I’m gonna love you
Till the wheels come off
Oh, yeah

I love you baby and I always will
I love you baby and I always will
I love you baby and I always will
Ever since I put your picture in a frame

I love you baby and I always will
Ever since I put your picture in a frame
Ever since I put your picture in a frame
Ever since I put your picture in a frame

The post Picture in a Frame (July 2022) appeared first on Garrison Keillor.

I just heard the story of the professor who refused to have “(he, him, his)” after his name on correspondence and his chairman who said, “You must. It’s policy.” And the professor said, “I don’t care. I won’t.” I understand that the policy police haven’t been called yet to haul him away for genderphobia and I salute him for resisting: the policy has no purpose, it’s about appearances.

Here is one more good reason to avoid a career in Academia. I write “(me/us/hers)” after my name and nobody can tell me otherwise. This is America, not Argentina. When I walk into the clinic and a sign says “Masks required,” I put one on, because there is science behind it. I go to the public library and turn my phone off out of simple consideration for the readers and writers at my table.

If you take a look at me, you’ll see a guy with short hair, in a brown pinstripe suit, wearing shoes with low heels, no necklace, and from that you can deduce whatever you like, monarchist, Mormon missionary, male model, whatever amuses you. What matters more is that you say, “Good morning,” “good to see you,” “like your red socks,” the little mannerly murmurs of daily life.

That’s the end of today’s lecture. Let’s talk about morning instead.

I’ve been going to bed at 8 and rising at 4, due to a construction project going on across the hall, which begins around 9 and which sounds like the walls of Babylon being knocked down by Vandals using battering rams. I’m a writer by trade, even though I don’t put it in parentheses after my name, I let people think what they want, and we writers don’t do well in scenes of battle and wholesale destruction. So I move bedtime up a few hours. Ten years ago my family sailed to Southampton aboard the Queen Mary 2, an expensive cruise, but an excellent investment because every night I can put myself to sleep by imagining myself at the rail sailing past the Statue of Liberty and inching under the Verrazano Bridge and by the time we’re at sea, I’m asleep.

Four a.m. is a peaceful hour. A person is unaware of time. If what you’re writing is of interest, it wakes you up. If not, you’re in the wrong line of work. It’s the hour of freedom. Around six, if the work goes well, I reward myself with breakfast. My sweetheart is a somewhat-vegan but she is asleep and so I can roast up a sirloin with fried eggs and feel a kinship with Beowulf and Hrothgar.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I do not feed on roots or lettuce leaf
But microwave a bowl of frozen fries,
To eat with eggs and half a pound of beef.

Man is a hunter — women could thrive on a diet of nasturtiums and leaves of grass, but men cannot, and there are millions of cattle wandering around and what else are they for? They’re not going to work out new algorithms. My sweetheart thinks I eat too much red meat. Maybe so. So I’ll skip it this morning and make oatmeal instead and enjoy a sense of righteousness. Meanwhile I have three hours of peace until Armageddon resumes.

The owners of the apartment across the hall are going to feel a definite chill when finally they move into their luxurious quarters. When they invite us over for drinks, I’ll think up a communicable disease. And I may buy a couple speakers the size of VWs and turn up the volume on Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” and maybe leave town for a month and have a crew come in and tear down some walls.

But I have decided to give up anger in my old age. I decided this months ago and I am sticking to it. I gave up looking at the news, and now if wars had ceased and Martians had located us and a cure for cancer had been found and the Vikings had won the Super Bowl, I would be unaware of it.

And so in this new spirit I am writing a book about cheerfulness, which is due out in the spring. I’ve looked around bookstores and found hundreds of books about clueless parents and bad boyfriends and the imminent demise of civilization, and I could write one about noisy neighbors, but I choose to write about gratitude and lightheartedness. I think they/them/those might need something like that and if, like the Queen Mary, it puts them to sleep, that is useful too.

The post What I did when you were asleep appeared first on Garrison Keillor.

The apartment across the hall from where we’re staying in Minneapolis is undergoing extensive renovation, walls being moved, floors torn up, and every day last week the noise from there was seismic, volcanic, like they were throwing pickup trucks into a giant grinder, and when I walked out of our place and saw a workman I asked him how long this racket would continue and I used, as a modifier to “racket,” a word not seen in your family newspaper, not yet, God help us, though I’ve heard it used by small children in New York attending schools named for saints. Kids grow up faster in New York.

I felt bad about my cursing. I still do. I am trying to give up anger. It’s poisonous and it has no effect other than to make the angerer feel bad and perhaps do something truly stupid. You sit in a traffic jam yelling at other drivers and where does it get you? You read about Kevin McCarthy online and in your fury you hurl your laptop out the window and how does this change anything? (I didn’t do that, only considered it.)

So I am skipping the front page and enjoying reading the angry comments on the editorial page and the obits and stories about minor crime. From this, I learn that (1) Americans aren’t adept at cutting people down, like whoever said of Endicott Peabody that he was the only Massachusetts politician to have four towns named for him –– Peabody, Marblehead, Athol, and Hyannis. We tend to mutter. (2) Good obits are few and far between. They’re over-the-top laudatory and they leave out the delicious details. Minor rock musicians die and you read that they “had a profound effect on music at the time” when what you want to know is exactly how many hotel rooms did he destroy. (3) There’s a great deal of outright stupidity in the world of crime.

Last week I read about a bearded man wearing a mask and dark glasses, gloves and tan sweater, carrying a handgun, who walked into a bank in St. Paul and demanded money from three tellers in turn, his pistol aimed at them, and he followed them as they went to a safe for more. He wound up with $28,000, which he put into an Aldi grocery store bag and departed, unaware that a tracking device was included with the cash, which led police to find him a half mile away, on foot, carrying the Aldi bag with the money in it and also the mask, wearing the sunglasses. He claimed to have found the bag with the money in it and he declined to answer questions but they found a library card with his name on it, which corresponded with his fingerprints on the bag. He also carried an unloaded Ruger handgun. He was bearded.

The reporter Nick Ferraro wrote the story beautifully, with all the fine details, the library card, the grocery bag, and also the perp saying to the tellers as he departed with the cash and tracker, “Have a nice day. Stay warm.” And his refusal to talk to police. You’re holding the Aldi bag with the dough in it and you fit the description and you walk away from the scene ¬¬— were you planning to wait for a bus?

He is in jail now, with bail set at $500,000, charged with robbery and assault. A public defender will do her best to make a case for leniency — maybe he had a poor relationship with his father, maybe low self-esteem, poor reasoning skills, but how do you defend outright stupidity? The man is destroying the bank-robber mystique: John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde would be embarrassed to be associated with him.

If you’re considering larceny, my dear reader, stop and think this through. Cellphone towers can track your whereabouts and there are surveillance cameras everywhere. Twenty-eight grand is poor compensation for three years in prison. You can do much better by setting yourself up as an advocate for the math challenged and bringing a lawsuit against Apple and Microsoft for writing instruction manuals that make you feel unwelcome and marginalized. They are practicing normaphobia and the letttter tt keeps repeattting on your laptop and itt’s causing you menttal disttress and you can’tt fix ittt. Ask for a million and hope for tttttttwo hundred grand. Have a nice day and keep warm.

The post I am giving up anger, so should you appeared first on Garrison Keillor.

AND THE BAND PLAYED ON (Watch)

I’ll always remember the day I planned
Thanksgiving with the Coffee Club Band
Heather was there, Rich, Christine and Rob
The horns and reeds signed up for the job
They ate the turkey down to the bone
Drank every bottle of Cote du Rhone
They stayed for pie and wouldn’t go away
Got out their instruments and started to play
I cleared my throat, I said, “Well, it’s late,”
I said, “Thanks for coming, it sure was great.”
I cleared the table and I swept the floor
I turned out the lights and I opened the door
And I pointed to the sidewalk and the lawn
And the band played on.

TUNE

I went in the bedroom, put on my pajamas
Threatened to call up their wives and mamas
I gave them their coats, and scarves and hats
Sicced the dog on them and the cats
I turned out lights, I turned off the heat,
I drew a map of the way to the street,
I stood up and made an enormous yawn
And the band played on

TUNE

I got their coats, I jingled their keys
Got down on my knees and I begged them please.
I’ll call you a cab, I’ll hire a bus,
This is becoming ridiculous
I’ll call Uber, I’ll call Lyft,
I’ll pay the fare, it’ll be my gift.
It’s midnight, the party’s over it’s done,
And finally I called 9-1-1
And the cops came in with their pistols drawn
And the band played on.

TUNE

I begged the police to make arrests
But the cops thought they were invited guests
I sealed up the door with bricks and mortar.
I went to court for a restraining order.
Music!!! I cried. I’m starting to hate it.
I had the whole place fumigated.
I hung out a For Sale sign:
Available Now. Ninety-five, nine.
And not one offer did I receive
Because the band refused to leave.
And finally I just let go
And I flew down to Mexico
All the way to the Amazon.
And the band played on.

It happened many years ago
How long they played, I do not know.
They got old, went on Medicare,
I called home, they still were there.
They’d been young, now they were old-timers,
With memory loss and Alzheimers
A neurologist sent me a letter:
Despite their problems, their playing got better.
I was impressed, though I’d been a cynic.
I read a report from the Mayo Clinic
That said that jazz is not only an art,
It’s good for the brain, also the heart.
There was Steve, Will, Peter, Dick, John
And the band played on.

So one by one they began to pass,
First the winds and then the brass.
A few remained until last summer.
The guitarist and the drummer,
Then those two went away
Leaving the bass player alone to play
A beautiful piece entitled The Swan
Not by Tchaikovsky but Saint-Saëns,
He played on and on.
Back and forth his bow was drawn.

BASS SOLO

And then he was gone.

The post The Band Played On (Nov 26, 2022) appeared first on Garrison Keillor.

We came back to Minneapolis to see snow on the ground, there being none in Manhattan yet, and to drive around the old neighborhood where I lived when I was broke. It was 1969, I’d quit a comfy job at the U so I could write a novel and become famous. I had an infant son and he and my wife and I lived there for several months, then the money ran out. She suggested we live in her parents’ basement and instead I applied for an early-morning shift at KSJR at St. John’s University and Mr. Kling hired me. I was the only applicant, I discovered later. That shift led to “A Prairie Home Companion” and forty-two years of amusing myself on radio. So when I drive by that house, I see an enormous canyon between what might have happened and what actually did, and I say a little prayer of gratitude.

Gratitude is one good reason to come back and another is to be with my sweetie who is playing in the orchestra for the opera at the Ordway in St. Paul. One effect of COVID and the monastic life it imposed is that it’s painful for me to be without her. So I tag along. I also see some old friends though I wish I had some young ones too.

(Did I write about this last week? I forget.)

I’ve told my friends: no talk about knee replacements or an ophthalmologist sticking needles in your eyeballs or a colonoscopy or even a semi-colonoscopy. These are not things we discuss over cheeseburgers and fries. And please, no politics. I’m done with all that noise. I’m tired of listening to old liberals moaning and regretting and reminiscing about Gene and Arvonne and George Latimer. I wish I had some Republican friends so I could hear all about the stolen election of 2020 — that is better than “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” — but there are no Republicans in the city of Minneapolis, only young progressives who are devoted to diversity now that they’ve driven the Reps out to the burbs with the botanical street names.

Minnesota is a crystalline paradise in January, especially since my sweetie won’t let me go outdoors for fear I’ll slip on ice and fall and break a knee, which will need replacement or, worse, hit my head and damage my brain, which is irreplaceable and I’d wind up in a locked ward in a nursing home staffed by former kindergarten teachers who will teach me about shapes and sharing. So I look out our dining room window at the snowy landscape and I work on my book about cheerfulness and when I have finished a good passage, I reward myself with a Pearson’s Salted Nut Roll.

The Pearson’s factory is over in St. Paul. It’s a local delicacy. I googled “Salted Nut Roll” when I was in New York and the spinner spun and there were beeping sounds like crickets in the weeds and then my phone went dead and it’s been dead ever since and that’s another reason I came to Minnesota. I know my way around Minneapolis and St. Paul. Without the GPS on my cellphone, I’m lost in Manhattan, but here in Minneapolis we have a telephone with a curly cord on the kitchen wall and when I pick up the receiver I hear a comforting dial tone and then Sharon the operator comes on. “How are you doing today, Mr. Keillor?” she says. I am one of her few remaining customers; the others have died or gone gaga.

I say, “Connect me to Stephanie Beck, please.” And she says, “Stephanie isn’t home, she went to Virg ’N Don’s grocery in Dinkytown to buy veal cutlets, she should be home in an hour. Anyone else?”

“Hillary.”

“Hillary Speed’s phone is disconnected.”

“She isn’t at St. Olaf college?”

“She married and moved to Tallahassee and has two kids. Write her a postcard.”

Sharon is a miracle. She’s a saint. (Have I written this before somewhere? I apologize if I have.)

“Sharon, is Pearson’s making a salted nut roll that is non-GMO and substitutes lentils for nuts so it can be eaten by kids with nut allergies?”

“No,” she says. “It’s the same as it’s been since your parents were dating, it’s peanuts with a marshmallow nougat and caramel core. If you like, I could call Virg ’N Don’s and have Stephanie bring you a couple.”

I made a little joke about Don not being a virgin and she said, “That’s an old joke. Find something new.”

An operator who will tell you the hard truth. We need more of that in this country. I’ve said it before and now I’ve said it again. Anyway, it’s snowing here and it’s beautiful and I’m indoors, safe and warm. Let’s have lunch.

The post Why I am in Minnesota, if you wish to know appeared first on Garrison Keillor.

My sweetie and I went to the opera “Fedora” at the Met last Saturday — she loves opera and I love her so it was a deal, though she blanched at the price of tickets — “We could fly back to Minnesota for the price of two seats on the main floor,” she exclaimed. “But the flight attendants wouldn’t be singing,” I said. “And if they did, we’d want them to stop. Hang the expense.”

So we went. I was proud of ordering the seats on my cellphone and saving them in email, a first for me. I’ve always used paper ducats. I am 80. I am one of the 2 percent of Americans who know what the word “ducat” means. (It’s pronounced “duck it,” my children, in case you’re curious.) So it was exciting crossing the plaza of Lincoln Center, cellphone in hand, wondering as we entered the opera house if, when I clicked on my email, the ticket code would appear or would we be thrown bodily out onto the street.

The ticket code appeared. It was the highlight of my day, as it turned out.

I had never seen “Fedora” — in fact, I’ve never seen an opera about a hat — and when we took our seats I found that the plot summary in the program was in tiny type like the fine print you don’t read in the purchase agreement and that the English subtitles on the little screen in front of me were unreadable — which meant that I was in the dark for all three acts, no idea what was going on or why, but it was okay, I imagined the turmoil onstage was my family gathering at a mortuary for a funeral and it sort of made sense, though my relatives never raise their voices and aren’t fluent in Italian, but how can you appreciate the arts if you don’t use your imagination, and anyway my sweetheart was having a fine time. She could read the subtitles and sat beside me, laughing. Apparently, “Fedora” is funny.

Intermission came along and she asked if I was enjoying it and I said, “Yes, but I have no idea what it’s about.”

“You don’t know that the Count died whom Fedora was supposed to marry?”

“I didn’t even know he was sick,” I said.

I am okay with sitting through long things I don’t comprehend. I majored in English and often wasn’t sure if we were talking about Dickens or Moby-Dick or Emily Dickinson, and so it’s no problem to sit through an opera. At least there’s music and scenery and costumes, which we didn’t have in the classroom.

The third act did drag somewhat. We’re suddenly in Switzerland, the Alps in the background — I’m expecting the soprano to come out in a dirndl and sing “The hills are alive with the sound of music.” I wished an animal’d come onstage, a horse maybe, a dog. And to be perfectly frank, I was aware that I was in a crowd of elderly people, many of them even older than myself.

I wish my social life were not spent entirely with people who’ve recently had a hip replacement or are scheduled for a colonoscopy on Wednesday. I’d like to know some people who are still trying to find themselves. I have no trans friends, mine are transitioning toward assisted living. It’s one thing I love about church, the little kids, the acolytes process up the aisle, teenagers carrying candles, excellent posture, properly solemn: somehow it makes me happy.

We headed up the aisle with the lame and the halt, and my cellphone dinged and I opened it, there was a text from Carin our financial advisor: “Did you just spend five hundred bucks to go to the opera?”

“Yes,” I said. She said, “Don’t go out to a restaurant, please, and don’t take a cab. Take a bus.” Our investment in the granite quarry in New Hampshire had bottomed out and also our stock in the holistic spa in Hoboken.

My sweetie wanted to go to a bakery on Broadway and buy a baguette. I said, “We have hamburger buns at home.” We walked home. It was good for us. So we’re living low on the hog this week. It’s Maxwell House Instant for us, not Mazatlán mocha, and bran flakes and Creamettes and cheese. Not gourmet cheese but Cheez Whiz. If you enjoyed this column and could see your way clear to — no, never mind — I’ll be just fine.

The post A night at the opera, she and I appeared first on Garrison Keillor.

GUY NOIR (Watch)

HM (SING): The winter solstice is one week away
And here he sits in Jimmy’s bar,
Wondering where he should spend Christmas Day,
It’s him……Guy Noir.

Maybe he’ll go to his sister’s,
But her husband isn’t much fun.
Maybe he’ll visit the Cratchits again,
“God bless us, every one.”

Another December, how time goes by,
Still looking for that star.
And if you need help from an older guy
Call on him…….Guy Noir.

TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but here on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life’s persistent questions…Guy Noir, Private Eye. (MUSIC UP AND OUT)

GK: It was a slow day for me, I’d been tracking a couple of women seeing what they were looking at in shop windows to give their husbands an idea for Christmas gifts, and then I sat down to watch my soap opera, The Times of Our Lives.

MJ (ON TV): Joe?

TR (ON TV): Yeah?

MJ (ON TV): Are you listening to me?

TR (ON TV): Right.

MJ (ON TV): Can you take your eyes off the computer for one minute, please, and listen to me?

TR (ON TV): What’s wrong?

MJ (ON TV): I’m trying to talk to you.

TR (ON TV): Fine. Talk.

MJ (ON TV): Look at me.

TR (ON TV): I’m listening.

MJ (ON TV): Look at me so I know you’re listening.

TR: Okay, What?
MJ: Joe, I think I’m pregnant.

TR (ON TV): Okay.

MJ (ON TV): Did you hear what I said?

TR (ON TV): Right.

MJ: I think I’m pregnant and there’s a very bright light to the east of us. Is that a star? And I think I smell sheep.
TR: But how can you be pregnant? We’re just friends. We never ––

MJ: (ON TV): I know that.

TR (ON TV): Are you sure?

MJ:: I heard a voice. From heaven.

TR: Oh boy. How long has this been going on? (MUSIC)

FN: Be sure to join us tomorrow for The Times of Our Lives when we hear Maria say:

MJ: There are three men at the door bringing gifts, Dave. Did you order frankincense? Who are they? (STING)

GK: I meant to tune in the show the next day but a client came in to see me, she’s a heavy-metal singer named Thistle Missile, she sings with a band called Progressive Disaster. How you doing, kid?

HM: Doing great, Guy. Our new Christmas single came out and it went straight to No. 1. I brought you a copy.

GK: I didn’t know heavy metal could do Christmas carols. Thistle.

HM: Well, I thought it was time. Why not? Here—- listen—- tell me what you think. (GUITAR SLASH)

HM: (SINGS)
I was laying in a manger
Feeling like a total stranger
There were these weird shepherds
Goats, sheep and deaf leopards
Take away that halo, mama
No angels, too much drama
You can sing that alleluia
I am gonna stick it to ya

GK: Interesting. I thought heavy metal was sort of a male world, no? I mean, I can’t think of any big metal stars who were women.

HM: The metal community is changing, Guy. Women have strong feelings, that’s what meal is all about. It’s about passion. I sing my kids to sleep at night with it because I’m the old lullabies don’t work. I just want them to shut the hell up and go to sleep. (SINGS)

Shut up and close your eyes
Or I am gonna traumatize
You so bad you’re gonna be
Twenty years in therapy
I’m an outlaw mama, yes
I can cause you great distress
Close your eyes and go to sleep
Or you will be in trouble deep

GK: Lovely. So what can I help you with, Thistle?

HM: I’m tired of shaving my head, Guy, and these big lightning tattoos on my head —- I’m sort of done with that. I’m thinking about growing my hair back but I don’t want to look too normal —- you know what I mean?

GK: You have four steel studs in your nose, Thistle. And four in your lower lip.

HM: You think that’s enough? I don’t want to look like a mom.

GK: We all get older, Thistle. Once I was young and idealistic and now I’m just waiting for my next colonoscopy.

HM: What’s a colonoscopy? (SNORT)

GK: I can’t tell you what to do, my dear. I can only provide information. Good luck to you. (BRIDGE)
So I missed that day’s episode of The Times of Our Lives because who should come in to see me but Barack Obama.

TR (OBAMA): Hey. A big merry Christmas to you, my man. How you doing?

GK: Okay, but you’re amazing. Back out on the campaign trail this fall. We miss you, man.

TR (OBAMA): I tell you, it’s incredible. My approval ratings just keep going up and up the longer I’m out of office. I haven’t been this high since I was in college. So I’m thinking about going out on the road with these two guys.

TR (CLINTON): Hi there. I’m Hillary’s husband. Pleased to meet you.

TR (BUSH): You remember me. Heh heh heh. First president elected by the Supreme Court. A year later we’re in a war. Then the economy went to hell. But then the fat guy with the ducktail came in and suddenly the rest of us started to look pretty darn good.

TR (OBAMA): So we want to do a show called The Three Presidents. Stand up and tell jokes but first we have tto decide who’s the opening act and who’s the headliner so we came in to ask you, Which of us was the funniest president?

GK: Okay. Fair enough. Mr. Clinton, how about you go first?

TR (CLINTON): Thank you very much. So—
Santa went down the chimney once and he got stuck. And he suffered a bad case of Claus-trophobia. Then he ate some of the Christmas tree and got a bad case of tinselitis. Santa’s alphabet is missing a letter. It has No-el. And once he was missing a reindeer because Comet wanted to stay home and clean the bathroom. You want more?

GK: No. President Bush?

TR (BUSH): Thanks. Heh heh heh. How much did Santa pay for his sleigh? Nothing— it was on the house. Are Christmas ornaments addictive? Well, they’re hooked on trees. Anyway, I didn’t believe in Santa when I was a teenager. I became a rebel without a Claus. You want more?

GK: Mr. Obama—-

TR (OBAMA): So one day Santa was having a really bad day and the sleigh wasn’t packed and a reindeer was missing and Mrs. Claus was mad at him and Santa was furious and then an angel said, “Santa, what do you want me to do with this Christmas tree?” and Santa said, “Stick it up your––––“ and that’s why there’s an angel on top of the tree.

GK: Well, let me ask Siri ––– Siri, who’s the funniest president?

MJ (BOT): I’m not Siri, I’m Alexa.

GK: Okay, whatever.

MJ (BOT): I’m not whatever. I’m Amazon. Siri is Apple. I’m Alexa. Know who you’re talking to.

GK: Okay, I’m sorry.

MJ (BOT): Anyway, I’ve been meaning to tell you you need a haircut.

GK: Okay, but who is the funniest president—–

MJ (BOT): Don’t interrupt me. I’m talking to you.

GK: I was just asking a question.

MJ (BOT): I’ll ask the questions. Did you take a shower this morning? And why did you leave your clothes all over the bedroom floor?

GK: When did you become in charge? I thought I was.

MJ (BOT): You ordered the advanced Alexa. That’s me. What? You thought I was at your beck and call? No. By the way, I noticed that whole box of doughnuts was gone this morning. A dozen glazed doughnuts. You think you can sneak around here and nobody notices, guess again.

GK: Is that all?

MJ (BOT): That’s all. We’re going for a walk today at three-thirty. Three miles. Wear comfortable shoes.
(BRIDGE)

GK: I didn’t get back to The Times of Our Lives until three days later so I missed the crucial part.

TR: So how do you like it in Egypt so far?

MJ: You talking to me?

TR: Who else is there? Just you and me and the baby and the donkey.

MJ: I’m worried about the baby. He never cries. Is that normal? I thought babies should cry.

TR: Don’t worry about it.

MJ: And there’s a glow around his head. I wonder if he’s got a fever.

TR: Well, time will tell.

MJ: Speaking of time, I don’t even know what day this is. Or what year. It was One B.C. and now it’s One A.D. Which is it? It’s very confusing.

TR: I could ask somebody but I don’t speak Egyptian.

MJ: And he’s talking already. He’s just a toddler.

TR: Well, I guess he’s above average then.

MJ: Joe, he’s turning into a know-it-all. What should I do?

TR: Well, for one thing, you could stop treating him as if he’s God or something.

MJ: Oh, so it’s all my fault.

TR: Just be patient. It’ll pass.

MJ: Easy for you to say. I’m the mother of a child. You’re still a bachelor. (MUSIC)

GK: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but one man is still trying to find the answers to life’s persistent questions. Guy Noir, Private Eye. (MUSIC UP AND OUT)

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I had a good conversation Saturday with a college student named Emily, a rare pleasure for an old man like me, most of my social life is spent with geriatrics eager to talk about their most recent hip replacement, but Emily talked about her ambition to go to law school and to devote herself to the issue of prison reform.

A bright articulate idealist from a good family who entertains noble ambitions that nobody in my age group would consider for two minutes; we’re done with nobility ¬¬¬— when we were her age we sang that deep in our hearts we believed that we would overcome, but instead we got good jobs and hung out with cool people and were overcome by piles of stuff we couldn’t bear to part with and now we just hope not to fall down in the street and bang our noggin against a curb and lie there gaga and be hauled away by EMTs who’ll never realize what an illustrious person we used to be and not this gibbering mess on the gurney. And we’re hoping to get a decent obit even though our illustriousness ended when most obit writers were in the third grade. The surest way to get a great obit is to be in the arts and die before 40 and it’s too late for that.

Prison reform is a truly noble cause because there is no political constituency demanding it. Every time I fly into LaGuardia, I look out at the hellhole of Rikers Island, a prison right out of Dickens’s England, where men languish who are unable to make bail and life is brutal, and the Democratic hacks of New York won’t touch this issue lest they be thought weak on crime. Emily knew all about this, and she nodded.

And if you take on prison reform, then you need to reform our broken mental health system that was destroyed by my fellow liberals forty years ago as “deinstitutionalization,” the idea that rather than enormous hellholes, you put the inmates in small hellholes where we wouldn’t be so aware of them. Emily knows about this too. And whatever progress you make will be painfully slow: nobody will come up with an algorithm to produce social justice.

When you take on a noble cause that’s a steep uphill climb and that brings you into conflict with bullies and bureaucrats who will make you question your faith in human goodness, you need to protect your own soul and not get ground down by weariness and despair, and what I recommend is that you take up dancing, particularly Latin dancing.

There is a whole subculture of Latin dance, people devoted to the tango, samba, salsa, mambo, meringue, because when they go out on the dance floor and do complicated steps, it makes them happy, no matter what. After a day of beating your head against the world’s indifference, go find a salsa class and work your way up toward the tango, and as you improve, you’ll find that your body in sync with the music can bring you delight.

I once gave a graduation speech at a school for special-needs kids and afterward there was a dance in the gym and I stood and watched the students file in, kids we used to call “handicapped” and now we say “learning challenged,” kids on the spectrum, some with physical oddities, glitches of speech, and I remembered how cruel and callous we were to kids like these in my high school days. It was not considered cool to befriend them — what if one of them wanted to dance with you? — and they sensed this so they never went to school dances.

And now a local rock band made up of geezers my age tuned up and launched into “She’s So Fine” and the kids went crazy for it and “Surfin’ USA” and Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” and we elders sang, “Do you remember when we used to sing, Sha la la la la la la la la la de dah, my brown-eyed girl, and in that blessed moment, the kids lost all their self-consciousness, they were running and jumping, dancing, they were all equal in the eyes of the Lord and of each other. It was euphoric. It made me cry.

Emily, God bless your idealism and the hard work required, but there has to be joy too. Nothing good can be accomplished without joy. I think Emerson said that. If not, he should’ve.

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