(MUSIC)
GK: It's National Satire Month, time to come out of this long winter when people are owly and we go through a period of over-sensitivity.
SS: Sir: If you had ever gone through what a woman has to go through, you would not use the phrase "going through a period" in that cavalier way.
GK: I'm sorry.
SS: The insensitivity of it is just beyond my comprehension.
GK: After a long winter, people have this tendency to take trivial things and blowing them up into a big symbolic moral issue.
TR: How do you think the victims of terrorism feel when they hear your casual reference to "blowing things up"? Hmm? Did you ever stop to think about that?
GK: No, I didn't. The end of winter: it's when people get absolutely bent out of shape over the smallest things.
TR: Or people who suffer from physical deformities.
GK: People get so touchy at the end of winter. You want to tell them to lighten up, but---
SS: As someone who suffers from weight problems, I could not believe your saying that people should lighten up --- (FADE) believe me, if I would, I could, but to you, it's just a joke....
GK: Here in the Midwest, we have a tendency toward self-righteousness anyway, looking at everything as black and white, with no gray areas whatsoever....
TR (GEEZER): As a senior citizen, I take exception to your use of the word "gray" to mean "indistinct" or "muddled". We seniors are just as definite in our opinions as anybody else.
GK: You absolutely cannot say anything on the air without stepping on somebody's toes.
SS: That remark could be very hurtful to individuals in the foot fetish community, you know.
GK: And without satire, these folks would drive you nuts, let me tell you.
TR: Mental illness is a tragic affliction, touching the lives of twenty million Americans. The term "nuts" (FADING) is a dismissive and marginalizing term that has no place in broadcasting.....
GK: A satirist is a man who discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says them about other people. That's all satire is. When we make fun of people, we're making fun of ourselves ---- there's no need for all this harrumphing----
SS: Did you say something about a harem?
GK: I said harrumphing.
SS: I find a reference to harems denigrating to women.
GK: I said harrumphing. Not harems.
SS: You said "harems" right then.
GK: So did you.
SS: I'm a woman. I can say it without being denigrating.
GK: I was talking about harrumphing.
SS: So who's stopping you?
GK: Self-righteous people won't just go away --- they will stick around until the cows come home, until the last dog is hung. We have to do something to fight them.
SS: Your reference to the strangulation of dogs made me feel physically ill.
GK: It's up to each one of us to deal with self-righteousness on the spot whenever it rears its ugly head.
SS: Do you ever stop to think, how do people with congenital abnormalities feel about the term "ugly head"?
GK: The next time you meet up with self-righteous people, here's what to do. Reach out and press them on the nose and go beeboop. It's a shortcut to understanding. Friends don't let friends be sanctimonious. The next time some pious hypocrite---
SS: Did you say "gypped"?
GK: Hypocrite.
SS: Who are you calling a hypocrite?
GK: I didn't say "gypped".
SS: You did right then. Don't you realize how it makes gypsies feel to hear you say that? Huh? (BEEBOOP)
GK: April is Satire Month. Let's all lighten up and tell the Pharisees where they can go.
TR (CLINTON): I personally feel that satire is one of our most precious national resources, and I feel that every American child, by the third grade, should be given an opportunity to develope his or her own satiric abilities, and I think this should be a nationwide (BEEBOOP).
GK: Satire month. If it goes well in April, maybe we'll make May one too. (SEGUE INTO "A MINOR DRAG")
(c) 1997 by Garrison Keillor