(MUSIC)
Garrison Keillor (SINGS):
Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose.
Il me dit des mots d'amour
Des mots de tous les jours
Dont je connais la cause
(FOOTSTEPS APPROACH, EIGHT STEPS, STOP) (PAUSE)
Sue Scott: Hi.
GK: Hi.
SS: You speak English?
GK: A little.
SS: Whiskey?
GK: No, thank you.
SS: A drink for me-- please?
Tim Russell: (FRENCH QUESTION)
SS: Pernod -- please.
TR: (FRENCH SHRUG)
SS: I've been listening to you sing.
GK: I know.
SS: I was sitting in the corner.
GK: I noticed.
SS: Were you aware that you have no pants on?
GK: Yes. That's my trademark. I am the Singer With No Pants. Chanteur sans culottes.
SS: Hmmmph. To sing with no pants -- it must feel -- weird. (TR APPROACHES, FRENCH, SETS DOWN GLASS. COINS ON TABLE. TR FRENCH, FOOTSTEPS AWAY)
GK: Well, when I was young I imagined that style and talent would carry me through-- so I sang to a lot of empty tables and chairs. And then one night, I came onstage and I accidentally stepped on my pantleg with the other shoe -- you know -- and tore my pants right off and -- I was cool about it, I just sat down and sang and people came in, the place got crowded, and it's been busy ever since.
SS: You needed a gimmick, huh?
GK: It sure helped. This and the chicken.
SS: You use a chicken in your act?
GK: Tonight is her night off.
SS: What does she do?
GK: Dances.
SS: Hmmmm.
GK: (SINGS)
Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose.
Il me dit des mots d'amour
Des mots de tous les jours
Et ca m'fait quelque chose.
Il est entre dans mon coeur
Une part de bonheur
Dont je connais la cause
SS: Are you French?
GK: Not exactly.
(PAUSE FOUR BEATS)
SS: How so?
GK: My parents were. They were French trapeze artists, on tour with the circus, and they worked without a net, and one night in Minneapolis they fell and hit their heads and it changed them, from artists to Baptists, and everything changed in our home, for one thing we got a home -- we'd lived on the circus train before, and now we bought a house in Richfield with a yard and a garage, and we lived in fear that God would punish us. If He discovered that we ever had been French. I ran away from home and I moved to St. Paul.
SS: You ran away and you only got to St. Paul?
GK: I ran away but my mom was still doing my laundry.
SS: And you became a singer?
GK: Yes. A singer with no pants.
SS: With a chicken.
GK: Sorry she's not here tonight. She's very good. Her name is Coquette au Vin.
SS: Are you happy?
GK: I wouldn't know how to answer that.
SS: Do you have what you want?
GK: I wish I could sing with my pants on, but--at least I don't have to worry about my fly being open. Are you happy?
SS: I guess so. I grew up in South Dakota. Lived in a little house with my Ma and Pa.
GK: A little house on the prairie?
SS: Right.
GK: Laura?
SS: So you know who I am.
GK: I loved those books.
SS: It's nicer reading about it than it was to live it. Believe me.
GK: So you've done okay here?
SS: I'm an investment banker.
GK: Really.
SS: I always was fascinated by the stock market, even as a child.
GK: I don't remember reading that. I just remember you and Carrie and Grace and Mary sitting outside the cabin with your dog Jack while Pa played the fiddle.
SS: I left a lot out of the books.
GK: I see.
SS: Pa played the bassoon. They made me change it to a fiddle.
GK: Really--
SS: Editors do that. They said, "Nobody will believe that a homesteader in South Dakota plays the bassoon." So I changed it. And I took out the part about getting into wheat options when I was ten.
GK: Interesting.
SS: But the books earned me a bucket of money and I've invested it well and my plan is to retire in two years and move to Paris. I'm 65--
GK: You don't look 65--
SS: That's the nice thing about being rich, you can afford surgery.
GK: Well-- good luck.
SS: Same to you.
TR: FRENCH, TO GK-- TELLING HIM TO GET BACK TO WORK
GK: I've got to get back to work.
SS: See you around.
GK:
C'est lui pour moi.
Moi pour lui, Dans la vie,
Il me l'a dit, l'a jure pour la vie.
Et des que je l'apercois
Alors je sens en moi
Mon coeur qui bat