Garrison Keillor: I have my complaints against St. Louis. It produced a number of writers who became famous and influential in ways that led younger writers down the wrong path in thinking that unhappiness is the mark of true talent.
William Burroughs was born here, who wrote Junkie and Naked Lunch. He believed that drug addiction was a metaphor for the human condition. Oh. Really. One of the problems with being an addict, though, is that the only people you hang out with are addicts, so that's your world. Sometimes Baptists have the same problem. Or Democrats. Or writers. So we look on writing as a metaphor for the human condition. You know something, though? It isn't.
T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, the man who was most responsible for making modern poetry as whiny and unreadable as most of it is. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Waste Land" have been inflicted on students for fifty years and discouraged most of them from ever reading another poem in their life. People always say in his defense that the 20th Century was a troubled time of horrible war and injustice and so naturally poetry couldn't be light or funny. But T.S. Eliot wasn't in the war. He didn't suffer injustice. His dad was the president of a brick company. T.S. went to Harvard. He spent his summers at the family cottage in Gloucester, Mass. His whininess came from within himself.
One problem was that he had old parents. He grew up with people complaining about their bowels and their back problems. What inspired those dreary poems of his was that he married a woman he didn't love and was unhappy with her.
Okay, fine, but why torture us?
The man wrote poetry to work out something you could solve by going to a lawyer. (PIANO)
This is Prufrock after the break-up.
When the evening is spread out against the sky,
Let us go together, me, myself and I.
And walk together on the beach
And eat a peach.
And I dare to wear my trousers rolled
After all I'm twenty-five years old
I'm going to roll my trousers and I'll rock
And I'll go into those rooms and talk
To those women as they come and go
Talking about Michelangelo.
What do you think of Michelangelo?
Baby.
What do you think of Michelangelo?
Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams grew up here, too, who inflicted his own miseries on millions of people through "Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" and "The Glass Menagerie" and "Night of the Iguana" in none of which will you find anybody who enjoys food and knows how to tell a joke. The heroines are fragile, haunted, whimpery people. You would hardly know they were American, they seem more Russian. Where did St. Louis go wrong with Tennessee Williams? His problem was that he was alcoholic and homosexual. Okay, but why make us suffer for it?
Many of these plays could have been cured with the help of pharmaceuticals. And they would've been a lot shorter too. Here's Tennessee Williams after he got help.
(PIANO)
Sue Scott: Oh, hi, Blanche. It's so good to see you. How are you?
Fred Newman (WOMAN): Never been better, darling. Thanks for asking, bless your heart. And Belle Rive has never looked lovelier. We've renovated the main house and we're turning the slaves' quarters into condos.
SS: You remember Stanley, don't you?
FN (WOMAN): Why of course. Stanley-- (AIR KISSES) how are you, sweetheart?
Tim Russell (RICO): Doing okay, Blanche. You sure look nice in those frilly clothes.
FN (WOMAN): Well, bless your heart, Stanley. I'm all dressed up because Shep Huntley and I are going away on a trip. I need a vacation, darling. These plantations! It's just work, work, work! I love your apartment. It's so cozy. And what lovely colored lights.
TR (RICO): Thanks. We like it. Care for a drink?
FN (WOMAN): No, I'm in recovery, Stanley. I was becoming all fragile and haunted and whimpery so I gave up the juleps and I got myself on a regular exercise program and I've never felt better.
TR (RICO): Speaking of exercise, you want to go bowling?
FN (WOMAN): I'm a little weary from driving down from Belle Rive. I think I'll have me a hot bath and freshen up. But first-- I brought this for you--
SS: Why-- it's a check-- for a quarter-million dollars-- what is it for, Blanche?
FN (WOMAN): It's your share of the fourth quarter earnings of the Belle Rive Corporation.
TR (RICO): Hey. This came at just the right time. Stella is expecting a baby.
FN (WOMAN): Really!!!?? That's wonderful. (MORE AIR KISSES) Oh, I am so happy for both of you.
SS: We found out at Christmas and Stanley hung up all of those colored lights.
FN (WOMAN): I wondered what those were for.
SS: And soon as I can travel again, Stanley and I are leaving New Orleans and moving to St. Louis. Stanley found a job there.
TR (RICO): Yeah, I'm gonna be in software.
FN (WOMAN): Well, bless your hearts. Both of you. . Oh my-- look at the time! I'm supposed to meet Shep Huntley at the train station in half an hour.
SS: I'll run your bath water for you, Blanche.
(PAGER)
FN (WOMAN): Oh Excuse me. Someone's paging me.
FN (WOMAN): I have always depended on the kindness of pagers. Thank you. (AIR KISSING)
(PIANO THEME)
GK: You see how that works? Instead of three hours of emotional roller-coaster, you've got a short pleasant play that works nicely in dinner theater, after the entree and before dessert. Most plays -- there's no reason for any of them to be more than twenty minutes long.
Thank goodness Miles Davis learned that. He was from just across the river and he made his share of long turgid recordings, downer music, but he came around and made his Blue Hair On The Trail album, a tribute to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and this was side two, band five.