(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)
Tonight's show brought to you by Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
GK: You're trying to write the Great American Office Novel (TYPING) and it's going pretty well, you have your hero confront a villainous manager(TK: What? you're dissatisfied? But -CRY AND MAN FALLING FROM WINDOW)
and he wins a promotion and a large office and he falls in love with another vice-president -
TR: Was that meeting good for you?
SS: Yes, it was. It was wonderful.
TR: Was it really?
SS: Yes. Really.
TR: Good.
SS: Why do you ask?
TR: I just wanted to know.
SS: It wasn't good for you, was it.
TR: It was.
SS: It wasn't, was it. It was a terrible meeting. You hated it.
TR: No, it was great, really.
SS: You're only saying that. You don't mean it. You're faking.
TR: I'm not.
SS: I'm selfish. I took over that meeting and used it for my own
gratification.
TR: That's not true.
SS: It is true.
TR: It isn't. That meeting was an incredibly joyful experience for me.
SS: Do you really mean that?
TR: I do.
SS: It's important to me. Tell the truth.
TR: I am.
GK: It's a good novel, but it's only thirteen pages long - you make the mistake of introducing an identity crisis too early -
TR: What's it all about anyway? Who am I? What's really important?
GK: And it goes into a long interior monologue -
TR: What's real? why am I here? is there a God?
GK: But having a lot of questions doesn't make for a great story. So you put the novel aside, and you go to work at your day job waiting on tables -
TR: My name is Frank Weston Ricketts and I'll be your waiter tonight. Can I bring you something from the bar?
GK: And years go by, and one day your girlfriend Wanda has something to tell you -
SS: Frank, I have something to tell you. There's someone else -
TR: WHAT???? HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME???
TR (ELVIS): Siddown, chief. Cool your engines. Here's a five-spot. Go get us some ice, wouldja.
SS: I'm sorry, Frank, but -
(MUSIC)
GK: (TR SOBBING) She's leaving you and she wishes you the best and she hopes you'll stay in touch and then -
TR (ELVIS): Never mind about the ice, chief. (DOOR CLOSE)
GK: - She's gone.
TR: Gone!
GK: Gone. And suddenly you're filled with feelings you've never had before, feelings of desperation (TR CRY) and passion (TR CRY) and anger (TR CRY) and pain (TR SIGH) and you sit down to rewrite that novel (HIGH SPEED TYPING) and before you know it, you've finished 458 pages of white-hot (STEAM) prose full of action (CAR CORNERING, TIRES SQUEALING, MACHINE GUN, CAR EXPLODES, ROLLS, BIG BLOW UP) and yet also full of sensibility (TR CRY OF TREMBLING YEARNING) and full of sex (TR BARK AND HOWL, SS HOWL IN RESPONSE) and also it has foreign people (TR FRENCH) and helicopters (CHOPPER) and a chainsaw (SFX) and it has 250-pound men with shaved heads and earrings (TR JESSE: I'm too busy to bleed) and owls (SFX) and it has a meteorite headed toward the earth (KLAXONS) and it has a crazed scientist (TR GERMAN) and it has bison (SFX), two of them (SFX), and a cougar (SFX), and it has controversial violence (THUMP AND SLICE OF KNIFE, TR GROAN) and dismemberment (SWOOSH OF SWORD, SQUISH OF CUT) and a lot of incredibly gross things (BIG FAT FART) and when you give it to a book editor (SS SCREECH OF DELIGHT) she rushes it into print immediately and it gets fantastic reviews
(TR READING: Delightful...keenly observant.... gorgeous emotional clarity....truly great writing....a feast....though the dialogue is occasionally somewhat shallow. SHALLOW??? MY DIALOGUE??? SHALLOW???)
GK: The book is a huge hit and yet that one phrase in one review eats at your guts....
TR: Shallow - if the book is a feast and it has gorgeous emotional clarity, how can it be shallow? Huh? EXPLAIN THAT!
GK: Your work is loved by thousands of people, but that one review is like acid in your heart.
SS: Mister Ricketts - excuse me, I am just, like, a huge huge fan, and I just want to say that, I mean, like, I love your work -
TR: You don't think I'm shallow?
SS: Huh?
TR: A lot of people think I'm shallow -
GK: You're successful, you have every reason to be happy, and yet you're consumed with self-pity ...
TR (A LITTLE DRUNK): My dialogue??? Shallow? (A GLASS IS DROPPED ON THE FLOOR)
TK: Sir, I think you've had enough -
TR: What are you saying? That I'm too shallow?
GK: You become obsessed with that one review.
TR: Shallow!
GK: And in your obsession you write a second novel, a short powerful novel about a deaf circus freak with no arms or legs named Omar the Living Lawn Ornament whose immobility triggers a rich surrealistic inner life in which he falls in love with Dixie the Circus Fat Girl and writes her love letters in the persona of an English nobleman named Nigel, love letters that no critic could possibly describe as -
TR: Shallow ...
GK: And yet, the very same critic who wrote the poison-pen review of your first book also shafts this book -
TR (ELVIS): You'd think that a love affair between a circus freak and a fat lady would make for exciting reading, and for a few pages it does, but I'm afraid this book is rather ... tepid.
TR: Tepid! TEPID!!!
(RHUBARB THEME)
Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of rhubarb pie? Yes, nothing gets the taste of humiliation out of your mouth like Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor