(GK: Garrison Keillor; TK: Tom Keith; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell)
(MUSIC)
GK: Our sound-effects man, Mr. Tom Keith, has announced that he won't be traveling with the show this season when we go on the road in December to Ann Arbor, Buffalo, Grand Forks ----New Orleans? ---Honolulu in January.
TK: Nope. Sorry.
GK: And New York in April?
TK: No.
GK: Tom, as many of you know, is not a professional entertainer, radio is only a hobby with him, his true love is animal husbandry ---- his herd of free-range ostriches (SFX, RUNNING PAST) and his natural organic free-range chickens (CHICKEN RUNNING PAST) and his free-range trout (SFX) and his herd of caribou (SFX) which he is mating with wapiti (SFX) and Pekinese (YIPS) to produce an animal called a peekabou (SFX) ---- anyway, it's a lot of responsibility, and Tom used to have a hired hand (TR SWEDISH), an old guy named Lars, who could manage things for a couple days, but (SQUEAK OF CORK IN BOTTLE, AND POP) Lars got into the bottle and got schnockered which isn't easy to tell if you're Swedish (TR SWEDISH), those folks look pretty much the same drunk or sober, except Lars started leaving the pickup running all night (PICKUP IDLING) and the free-range chickens would get in (CHICKEN) and go riding around the countryside (PICKUP ACCEL) and sometimes take an elk with them (ELK, GOING BY FAST IN PICKUP) and when Tom got back from New York or wherever we'd been, he'd find animals wandering around miles from home, confused (ELK), and some of them schnockered themselves (ELK HICCUP) and Lars trying to round them up (TR SWEDISH) and the pickup stuck in a snowbank somewhere (WHEELS SPINNING) and chickens all upset about it (CHICKEN FLURRY) and so Tom had to lock them up, for their own good (SERIES OF LOCKS), and put them on tranquilizers (CHICKEN, RELAXED)
and then of course they weren't free-range chickens anymore, and animal rights activists came and surrounded the farm (ANGRY MOB) and they fired off a barrage of damp sponges (MORTAR, FLIGHT OF SPONGE, SPLAT. REPEATS.) and one of the sponges hit Lars (TR SWEDISH, SPLAT OF SPONGE) and who knows how these things happen, but he went berserk with a chainsaw (CHAINSAW START AND REV), though it's hard to tell with Swedes, when they go berserk, they do it so calmly (TR SWEDISH), but he ran around cutting down fences (CHAINSAW, CREAK, CRUNCH, AND FALL) and all of the elk (SFX) and wapiti (SFX) and caribou (SFX) and peekabou (SFX) got loose and Lars was heading for the house to cut down the porch when Tom got back from a show in, I believe it was Cleveland-----
TK: Casper.
GK: Cleveland. I'm sure it was Cleveland.
TK: Casper, Wyoming.
GK: No, it was Cleveland. I remember. The Rock n Roll Hall of Fame is there.
TK: It was Casper. I remember. I was there.
GK: Whatever. It's not important.
TK: It was Casper.
GK: It doesn't matter. He was getting back from a showf..
TK: In Casper.
GK: In Cleveland or Casper..
TK: In Casper.
GK: And he was in his private helicopter (CHOPPER) and he came in low over the trees and there was all this destruction and desolation and (BIG SPLASH) he landed in the trout pond and had to swim to shore through a lot of panicky trout (FISH FLOPPING, SPLASHING) and he had to get out the tranquilizer gun and (GUNSHOT) shoot Lars with a hypodermic (POP) and calm him down, though it's hard to tell with Swedes whether they're tranquilized or hysterical, they sound much the same (TR SWEDISH), and then he had to calm down the chickens (CHICKEN FAST CLUCKS) and quiet down the rooster (CROW) and get the elk to go to sleep (ELK SNORING) and he had to get the pickup out of the snow (TIRES WHINING, THEN TRACTION, THEN SQUEAL OF TIRES ON ASPHALT) and he had to winch the chopper out of the trout pond (RATCHET, SUCKING OF MUD) and he had to rebuild the fence (SAW, HAMMERING) and he had to sit down with Lars and have Lars talk through his feelings.
(TR SWEDISH)
TK: Right. Of course.
(TR SWEDISH)
TK: No, I can appreciate how that must have been for you.
(TR SWEDISH)
TK: Your mother said that, huh?
(TR SWEDISH)
GK: So anyway, it was weeks before things returned to normal on the farm, and that's why Tom can't travel with the show anymore.
TK: It's just too much.
GK: It's not that we don't treat him well, we do, we've lavished all sorts of privileges on him. A huge dressing room with marble floors (FOOTSTEPS ON MARBLE) and a private steam room (SFX) and a wine cellar with the 1988 Grand Marais (CORK OPEN, POP) that Tom is especially fond of (POURING) and a lava lamp (OILY BUBBLES) and a mister to mist his throat (MIST, TK VOCAL WARMUP) and a big friendly dog (WOOFS, COLLAR JINGLE) and a regulation ping-pong table (PING PONG) where Tom and Lars enjoy a game before the show (PING PONG CONTINUES, THEN NET. TR SWEDISH).
It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with looking after the farm.
TK: Exactly.
GK: And if he changed his mind, we'd be the happiest people on radio, but I doubt that he will.
TK: Probably not.
GK: Even if we offered him a bucket of money.
TK: No, no, no, no---
GK: Like fifty grand. Even if we offered him that much money, Tom would say no.
TK: How much?
GK: Because he needs to live his life as he sees fit and do what he needs to do......
TK: Are you serious? Fifty grand?
GK: And he feels that he needs to devote himself to that farm and those animals.
TK: Could we talk?
GK: And I respect that.
TK: Are you serious?
GK: And I hope our listeners do too.
© Garrison Keillor 2001