From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie 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...
There's one thing I do recall about my time at PHC, I wasn't writing for GK, I was writing around him. I would use him as the introduction announcer of a bit or as the straight man of any interactions. I treated the the on-air persona of Garrison Keillor as the bemused onlooker. GK didn't hog the laughs. In fact, it never struck me that Keillor was after the big laughs on the show for himself. It certainly played it that way (although one could argue nothing on the show was played for big laughs). Keillor was forever low key, so you never felt he was hogging the spotlight, despite the fact he was omnipresent for the entire show.
But, again, these are all assumptions on my part. It's not like I ever got to meet the guy. It was Christmas 1999 when some of these realizations started to sink in. PHC made it a point to come to New York City for a series of shows at Christmas time. Now, here's the thing...I LIVE in New York City. So one would think I'd get invited to attend, right? Afraid not. I started dropping hints around Thanksgiving about "maybe coming by to see if any of my skits were used." No response. Nothing. As it turned out, I was on a bit of a streak that December, getting two skits on that month. As I have mentioned elsewhere, Christmas is kind of my thing, so I had a TON of material to draw upon.
This skit I called "Yikes, Virginia." It's a riff off the "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" editorial that resulted from the correspondence between a young Virginia O'Hanlon and the editor of the NY Sun asking about Santa's existence.
This skit actually started as a prose piece, which was published by the Staten Island Advance and posted at TheBigJewel.com. I though it would work as a radio bit, especially on PHC; two people reading their letters and answers with GK, as narrator, bridging the divide. And it did work. However, once in GK's hands, it kinda went off into a mockery of GOP policies, so I'm certainly glad my original version is out there.
I'm guessing it's due to all that re-writing that my name doesn't appear on the credits of the sketch performed in my home town on Dec. 11, 1999...
On-air credits were his 10 usual fake names. Online credit reads:
But, again, these are all assumptions on my part. It's not like I ever got to meet the guy. It was Christmas 1999 when some of these realizations started to sink in. PHC made it a point to come to New York City for a series of shows at Christmas time. Now, here's the thing...I LIVE in New York City. So one would think I'd get invited to attend, right? Afraid not. I started dropping hints around Thanksgiving about "maybe coming by to see if any of my skits were used." No response. Nothing. As it turned out, I was on a bit of a streak that December, getting two skits on that month. As I have mentioned elsewhere, Christmas is kind of my thing, so I had a TON of material to draw upon.
This skit I called "Yikes, Virginia." It's a riff off the "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" editorial that resulted from the correspondence between a young Virginia O'Hanlon and the editor of the NY Sun asking about Santa's existence.
This skit actually started as a prose piece, which was published by the Staten Island Advance and posted at TheBigJewel.com. I though it would work as a radio bit, especially on PHC; two people reading their letters and answers with GK, as narrator, bridging the divide. And it did work. However, once in GK's hands, it kinda went off into a mockery of GOP policies, so I'm certainly glad my original version is out there.
I'm guessing it's due to all that re-writing that my name doesn't appear on the credits of the sketch performed in my home town on Dec. 11, 1999...
On-air credits were his 10 usual fake names. Online credit reads:
(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor
