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A Prairie Home Companion Segment 20 for April 12, 2014
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ARTISTS

GK: Sometimes good people do bad things. Here's a public

service message from Artists Serving Time In Schools.

(MJ UN BEL DI, THEN....)

MJ: I was singing the role of Madame Butterfly at an opera

company out west and the idiot conductor did not know

how to give a downbeat ---- he was down there in the pit

waving his arms with his eyes closed and the orchestra was

wandering around like lost sheep and finally I picked up the

tenor and I lifted him over my head and hurled him into the

pit and I didn't mean to kill the maestro but that's what

happened. I was charged with homicide and my attorney

plea-bargained that down to singing with intent to cause

harm, a misdemeanor, and instead of serving time, I did

300 hours of community service in a wonderful

organization called Artists Serving Time In Schools.

TR: At Artists Serving Time In Schools, we enable talented

individuals who've committed heinous crimes to share their

talents with young people rather than sit rotting in prison.

Such as J.R. of San Francisco.

DC: I was a Lutheran church organist and one day the

president of the church council came in while I was

practicing a Bach toccata and he said, "Starting next

Sunday we won't be singing from the hymnal, we'll be

singing praise songs and instead of the organ there will be a

guitarist" and I said, "Get out of here" and shook my fist at

him, not realizing there was a loaded pistol in it. Now,

thanks to ASTIS, instead of going to prison, I teach music

theory to third graders. It makes me feel useful. (PIANO

SCALES, UNDER...)

TR: If a public school near you is lacking an arts program,

maybe we can help. We have a long list of brilliant and

gifted writers, artists, musicians, who need a place where

they can pay their debt to society.

SS: I worked eleven years on my novel and finally turned it

in and my editor read it and he said, "How about I take out

about 100,000 words ---- I mean, it's as long as Moby Dick

but there's no white whale in it" ---- and the next day I was

at the YMCA and I saw him getting out of the swimming

pool. He was all white and dripping wet, all 320 pounds of

him, and I happened to have a long barbecue fork in my

hand and-----

TR: Prison would've done no good for Sarah and luckily

we found a place for her teaching creative writing in middle

school. She's a wonderful teacher, gentle and loyal and

inspirational with children.

FN: I was an actor on a radio show and instead of getting

roles with real substance, roles I could sink my teeth into,

they had me do sound effects, mooing and woofing and

honking like an idiot, and finally after twenty years of this

treatment, my mind snapped----- (WHAP-P-P-P-P-P-P-P).

GK: Easy, Fred. Artists Serving Time In Schools. For good

people who do bad things.