(GK: Garrison Keillor; TK: Tom Keith; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell; SR: Scott Rivard; SH: Sam Hudson; RD: Rich Dworsky; AK: Arnie Kinsella; PD: Pat Donohue)
(MUSIC)
GK: Today is our last live show before we go on summer break and bring you what we like to call Standing Ovation Encore Presentations and what you like to call Used Shows, or Retreads. Our technical director Scott Rivard does his best to edit those taped shows to make them even more exciting than the originals. (REWIND, HIGH SPEED. STOP. CLICK)
GK (ON TAPE): And that's the news from Lake Wobegon....where all the women are (TK PANTING), and all the men are (TR TARZAN), and all the children are (HEAVY METAL TAPE).
Scott likes to edit out the obscure Celtic and Scandinavian folk groups and edit in musical cuts from tapes sent to him by attractive young women.
(PIANO AND MARIA DOING ENYA VOCAL, BREATHY)
GK: And Scott likes to splice in some little bits of himself telling jokes where he thinks the News from Lake Wobegon needs a little extra juice.
GK: (ON TAPE) Well, it's been sort of rainy this week in Lake Wobegon. My ---
SR: So these two bees ran into each other on a rainy day, and one said, "I can't find any pollen, it's too wet out," and the other bee said, "Listen, fly down that way about five blocks and take a left and there's a bar mitzvah going on with all kinds of fresh flowers and fruit, but here, wear this on your head. So they don't think you're a wasp."
GK: It's a terrific show, those reruns in the summer, and you won't want to miss a single one, especially with the addition of the popular "Sex Tips" segment in each and every one, with U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Extension Sex Agent Harley Peters ---
TR: (PETER LORRE): Let's talk some more about throwing food as a form of foreplay --- mashed food and peas and carrots and pasta of course. And then chasing each other naked into the woods. Always a highlight around our house.
GK: None of us gets to hear the summer Standing Ovation Encore Presentations because we're all off doing other things. I, for example, am spending my holiday in a small dim room (TYPING) trying to finish my memoir, but Andy Stein our fiddler spends his summer playing with his band, the Manhattan Valley Boys, which is doing the Brahms Violin Concerto this summer (ANDY BLUEGRASS VERSION OF BRAHMS CONCERTO) and Rich Dworsky will go north to his lake home (LOON) near Ashram, Wisconsin, and enjoy pure silence (OWL) there among the stately spruce and pines. (WASH OF WAVES ON SHORE)
RD: Finally. I can take off the white tuxedo and the red carnation. Finally, I don't have to go through the audience selling CD's and tapes.
GK: The bass player, Gary Raynor, is doing an album of Count Basie on solo bass. (A FEW BARS OF BASIE)
GK: Our drummer, Arnie Kinsella toes home to isolated, fog-shrouded Staten Island (FOG HORN) and practices for his debut as a dancer. (AK, SOFT SHOE ROUTINE)
AK: I'm gonna get out from behind these drums and let my true personality shine. The Arnie nobody knows. The boulevardier and man about town. The gypsy lover. (LITTLE FLAMENCO SHTICK)
GK: Our guitarist Pat Donohue is a counselor at the YMCA's Camp Piscacadawadaquoddymoggin this summer so he'll be busy....
PD: (SINGING, PLAYING) Hey yup, boy, a Wimoweh, a wimoweh, a wimoweh, hey yup boy, a wimoweh....wimoweh.....(FALSETTO)
GK: Our sound effects man Tom Keith has a big summer planned. Tomorrow around noon, he gets into his limo---
TR (BRIT): Watch your head, sir.
TK: Dulles Airport. And step on it.
TR (BRIT): Very good, sir. (LIMO PULLS AWAY) (MUSIC)
GK: And at Dulles he boards Air Riviera 747 bound for Cannes ---- Tom likes to spend a few weeks on the Riviera (SURF, GULLS) and play high-stakes Parchesi (DICE ROLL) and go to the Club Frank (AF: FIRST LINE OF A SINATRA SONG...) and bet on the horses (BELL RING. TR EXCITED FRENCH, HOOVES) and sit in a cafe late at night with a woman named Sans Merci ---
SS (FRENCH): You're so --- American, so mysterious, so strong, so quiet ---
TK: Right.
GK: And afterward his silver gray Ferrari races west toward the city of Venice.... (SPORTS CAR SHIFTING UP, ACCEL) and there's the sound of insouciant laughter (SS LAUGH, OFF) and the discarding of empty Dom Perignon bottles (SFX) - that's Tom Keith's summer break, and if you're wondering how a guy in the non-profit sector can live high on the hog like that, take a look at our agreement with the International Brotherhood of Sound Effects Men. Union scale is now $10.83 per woof.
TK: TEN OR TWELVE RAPID WOOFS
GK: You work on a script with a dog in it and it adds up.
TK: (RAPID WOOFS)
GK: Panting is $2.83 per pant.
TK: (RAPID PANTING)
GK: And that's just the minimum. There's a bonus for small dogs (YIPS), big dogs (DEEP WOOFS), howling is extra (HOWL), and there's a big snarling bonus (SNARL). You wouldn't believe what these guys take home in the pay envelope. (SNARL) Nothing personal, but Tom Keith is the highest paid person per hour on this show. (SERIES OF WOOFS) --- As for Sue Scott, she is off to her summer home on Nantucket (SURF, GULLS) which is next door to Julia Child's summer home.
TR (JULIA): We absolutely must get together and have a big bouillabaisse supper together and steam ever so many clams and I'll bring the wieners.
SS: Yes, let's do that.
GK: And on the other side of Sue's summer home is the home of a famous children's television host.
TR (MR. ROGERS): I absolutely love you on that show. I love it when you do that little girl voice. Yes, I do.
SS (GIRL): You mean this voice, Mr. Rogers?
TR (MR. ROGERS): I love that voice. Say, "I like you just the way you are when you unzip your sweater and take off your shoes."
SS (GIRL): I like you just the way you are when you unzip your sweater and take off your shoes.
TR (MR. ROGERS): Do you think of me in a romantic way? You don't, do you?
SS: No, I don't.
TR (MR. ROGERS): I got that feeling from you. Yes, I did.
SS: I think I need to go back inside now.
TR (JULIA): Bouillabaisse is ready!!! (MUSIC)
GK: Sue summers on Nantucket so she can do summer theater there and get into more demented and spooky roles than what she gets to play on our show.
SS (DEEP VOICE, SMOKER, SOUTHERN): I sure hope my little old Harold is doing okay in the freezer. I hope he's finding it nice and cool in there. Thirty-five years of marriage, he just gradually started to get on my nerves with his complaining about the heat and the food and what all. The man wouldn't shut himself up. But cold'll do that to a person. Oh yes. Cold'll make a person real nice and quiet.
GK: Meanwhile, Tim Russell is on a plane bound for Burma. (ENGINE, PLANE)
TR: There it is. Just off the starboard wing. The Valley of the Hundred Smokes. And at the east end, tucked into the rain forest, the Forbidden Temple. What I've searched since I was an Explorer Scout. (STING) (FOOTSTEPS THROUGH THICK UNDERBRUSH) All my life I've read about it. The temple of the thousand-year curse. Overgrown with vines. Guarded by ferocious chimpanzees. (APES) But within its crumbling granite walls lies the sacred casket of the Great Orm. Containing thousands of rare opals.....enough opals to buy me a four-room condominium near Dupont Circle. (APES) (MUSIC)
GK: That's where we are this summer, while you listen to our Standing Ovation Encore Presentations of old Prairie Home shows, edited by Scott Rivard.
SR: So I go to this hotel, and the clerk says, "I have no rooms left, but I could let you share a room with this guy in 602, but he snores so loud, you'd never be able to sleep." Fine, I say, and I go to the room, and get into my pajamas and climb into bed and I say to the guy, "Good night, beautiful," and when I wake up in the morning, he's still awake, sitting in the chair, watching me. (MUSIC)
GK: And what about our sound man, Sam Hudson, you ask, what's he up to? Is he traveling this summer? Is he going to Nantucket? Is he writing his memoirs?
SH: I'm doing okay.
GK: You're okay this summer?
SH: Got it all scoped out.
GK: You leaving town?
SH: Leaving town, going fishing.
GK: Where you going?
SH: Going up where the fish are.
GK: Where' that?
SH: I'll let you know when I get there.
GK: You have yourself a good summer.
SH: No doubt about it. (MUSIC)
GK: And when my memoir is done, I'll be attending Tom Keith's Sound Effects Camp on Lake Piscacadawadaquoddymoggin, just down the road from where Pat Donohue is (PD MORE OF WIMOWEH) --- Tom trains young people in the craft of sound effects, starting out with simple things like kittycats (MEOW) and moving on to horses (WHINNY) and helicopters (CHOPPER) and elephants (ELEPHANT) and elk (SFX) and wapiti (SFX) and eland (SFX) and caribou (SFX). And chickens. Did you know that the new contract with the International Brotherhood of Sound Effects Men gives them $8.47 per cluck---?
TK: RAPID SERIES OF CHICKEN CLUCKS.
GK: $8.47 per cluck? Does that seem excessive to you? And $15 for flapping? (CHICKEN FLURRY) And $20 for a rooster? (ROOSTER CROW) Anyway thanks for listening this season and hope you enjoy the Standing Ovation Encore Presentations and stay cool summer.
SR: Speaking of cool, there was this penguin standing on an ice floe and another penguin standing next to him, and the first penguin said, "You look like you're wearing a tuxedo" and the second penguin said, "What makes you so sure I'm not?"
And now here's a little bonus for you, a song called "The Solstice of My Soul" by Megan LaCroix, who's 21 and from Sedona, Arizona. Thanks, Megan, and good luck with your music. (MARIA ENYA VOCAL, WITH PIANO AND TINKLY PERCUSSION)
GK: And we'll be back with a new season of shows in October.
© Garrison Keillor 2001