​From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion."  I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie."  It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there.  But, like any other job, there were...things...

PHC would do these little musical vignettes from time to time, a series of black-out type scenes alternating with a song.  I gathered a series of jokes and opinions I had and cobbled them together using "Grandmother's House We Go" as the thread.  I even had to add a few verses of my own to pad it along.  Uncle Al's rant I lifted from a prose piece I wrote about the pilgrims.  I shoved that in there as well.  It did not make the cut.  So, here it is, as some Thanksgiving leftovers...

​From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion."  I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie."  It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there.  But, like any other job, there were...things...

Okay, this is one of those scripts I totally forgot about.  It's like I was reading it for the first time when I pulled it off the hard drive.  I'm trying to think back to the time...TV book clubs were starting to become a thing, with Oprah's leading the way.  Then there was a big book, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" that was making the rounds, which must have been the inspiration for the title of the skit.  And guess I was hitting back at this wave of pretentious writing that was going on at the time.  People weren't writing books, they were writing tomes,  these very thick and very prestigious works of fiction that were all the rage.  I remember an author turning down a chance to be Oprah's pick, but I don't recall if that was before or after my sketch.  And there were a book, a memoir, I believe, that was discovered to be a fraud.  It was a strange time in the publishing business.  And I had to think, "Pretentious books?  Garrison Keillor would love to see a sketch about that, I bet!"  Turns out, not so much.  So, let's drag this bit out of the comedy carbon chamber and  post it here...

Yes, I had a recent successful sale with Bag o'Leaves so, naturally, I would try to go for a sequel and maybe create a running bit.  I came up with Box o'Pumpkins.  Maybe it's a little less ridiculous than a bag of leaves, but really, not much less.  Another goofy, fun idea, right? And this time I tried to follow the rhythms of the produced version of my last sketch. Since it got rejected, I didn't bother trying to follow it up with "Box o' Dandelions" or "Pail of Clover" or "Bucket of Sand."  Perhaps I should have kept pushing the concept.  But, then, as now, I'm easily discouraged.

I had written this for one of my other outlets and it didn't get used, so I rewrote it for PHC.  I knew it wasn't going to get picked.  Too TV for Keillor.  They did do a Bill O'Reilly character at times on the show, but this was pushing it.  But, some weeks it was hard to come up with something new, so I'd recycle.  I believed if they stopped seeing something from me every week they might forget about me, even if it was something I didn't fully believe in.  That is a reason which makes it really hard to stay motivated.  

What with Halloween approaching, I was obligated to come up with a Halloween sketch.  What I did here was take a lot of bits and pieces, jokes and routines along with some one-liners and observations I've had over the years and cobbled them into a radio bit.  Garrison talking with some Trick or Treaters, who really don't get it.  I thought it was a solid PHC bit.  No one else did.  I may have worked some things into another long form piece, I don't recall right now, but here's my tribute to Halloween 2002...

With Halloween coming up and all the cable stations offering their versions of Fright-Fest Horror Movie-thons, I took the opportunity to record and watch some movies that I’ve been aware of but never actually watched.  For example, the Scream films- the boomers version of what they thought 90s kids were like growing up on 80s horror films.

Scream was a horror film nerd heaven, with pop culture references flying faster than sharp knives.  The twist? Having the two craziest characters, BOTH be the killer.  That was nice but they did as much scenery chewing as body stabbing even before the big reveal. Ultimately, the real villain was the press, pushy reporter Gail Weathers, who annoyed everyone trying to get her "big story," but winds up saving the day in the end and then cashes in on her fame in Scream 2.
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All the classic horror movies are represented; Psycho, Halloween, Friday the 13th, to the point the final confrontation in Scream is scored by the music from Halloween because that’s the movie playing in the background when all the plasma hits the fan.  But it does poke at the trope that the killer seems to be in two places at once, because here he’s two people.
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I noticed one unusual thing about their take on the killer; while the Jasons and Michael Meyers of the movies were unstoppable supernatural lugs who just bulldoze their way through the mayhem, Ghostface is a klutz. He’s easily flipped, thrown and knocked out.  A beer bottle to the groin stops him cold.  He slips, crashes and stumbles.  So at least the victims seemingly have a chance which adds to the suspense.

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion."  I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie."  It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there.  But, like any other job, there were...things...​

I have no idea where this bit came from.  Obviously it was inspired by The Amazing Kreskin, but why here, why now?  Was the Amazing Randy in the news uncovering psychic scams?  I don't recall.  I do remember that Kreskin made a point of announcing he was neither clarvoyent or psychic; that he was a mentalist!  He was a magician with a schtick.  Anyway, it seemed like a decent premise.  And it kinda fit into  the whole Halloween season.  I wrote it up and sent it in.  It didn't get picked, so now we are delighted to present: 

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion."  I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie."  It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there.  But, like any other job, there were...things...

This is actually a sketch tale and not a skit happens post, as this sketch made it in.  I got a lot of nice feedback on this one.  It's my homerun.  Granted, they rearranged it a lot; GK is out and a regular announcer is in.  The annoyed husband is now the wife.