(PIANO)
GK: I look forward to this show all week, it's a high point for me, because it's been a sort of tough week for me, what with my paintings getting such a raw review ---- it was a retrospective exhibit of my work entitled "Holistic Paradigms: Empowerment and Spirituality," and people who came to the gallery were pretty negative----
TR: What is this crap?
SS: This guy has been posing as cutting-edge for years: the truth is, he can't draw.
TR: It's garbage, pure and simple. It's not abstract, it's not post-modernist, it's not post anything, it's pre-talent.
GK: My face was burning. I knew they were right. I took down all the paintings and threw them in a truck (TRUCK PULL AWAY) and took them out to the country and stacked them in a field and blew them up. (EXPLOSION, REVERBERATING) The sky was full of art for a moment and I watched it burn (FIRE) and went home. After all those years of pretending to be a painter. The mismatched clothes. The ponytail. The obsessive personality. It was a relief to get out of a job I was completely incompetent at. And maybe someday you'll discover what a relief that is. I had to find other work, of course. I tried out for a job as a professional storyteller----
SS: Next----
GK: I'd like to begin with a favorite story of mine, an Ojibway tale, "How Uncle Oak Got His Acorns From Father Sun" ---
SS: I'm sorry.
GK: It's not going to work out, is it.
SS: No. It's not.
GK: Is it that I'm sitting wrong? Maybe I should sit cross-legged on the floor---
SS: No, it's more than that.
GK: You don't like the big hat? Should I get rid of that?
SS: No, it's not the hat. It's you.
GK: Me.
SS: Exactly. ----Next.
GK: Eventually, I was forced to take employment in the arms industry, selling heavy weapons to unstable individuals --- I hate myself for doing it, but I sold howitzers (SFX), rocket launchers (SFX), machine guns (SFX) to people whose eyes are set very deep in their heads ---- How many jet fighters you want, sir?
TK: Ya got six? I'd like six.
GK: Six jet fighters. There you go. (SIX JETS PASS IN RAPID SUCCESSION) How about some boiling oil? You need that?
TK: Ya, I'll take some of that too.
GK: Okay. (BUBBLING OIL) There you go. How about a catapult that flings giant boulders?
TK: Ya. Okay. Looks good. How does that work?
GK: Like this. (SLASH OF KNIFE. BIG BOING. FLIGHT. DISTANT CRUNCH AND CRY OF PAIN) There you go. You can also throw the boiling oil with that. How about a witch? You care for a professional witch?
TK: Okay. Which is the witch?
GK: Exactly.
SS: WITCH CACKLE. (THUNDER, LIGHTNING)
GK: That take care of it for you, then? Or is there anything else?
TK: How about plagues? Ya got plagues?
GK: We've got pestilence. No plagues.
TK: No plagues, huh? How come?
GK: Plagues can backfire on you. So we have just pestilence.
TK: Oh. Well, maybe I'll go somewhere else then. (HE EXITS MUTTERING) (TRANSITION PIANO)
GK: I suppose it's shocking to you that (INTRO TO APRIL SHOWERS) a song and dance man like me is also dealing in death and destruction, but hey, that's life. A guy who loves these old songs, you know there's a screw loose somewhere.
SINGS APRIL SHOWERS
GK: Corny, but true, kiddoes. If you smile, you feel better.
SS: Don't touch me. Leave me alone. You're disgusting.
GK: But I'm your old dad.
SS: Well, don't touch me. I don't like it. Go away.
GK: But I love you.
SS: Just get over it, will ya.
GK: But I'm your father----
SS: Well, get a life---
GK: Where's your brother, by the way?
SS: He's on the couch. Sleeping. What are you, blind? Jeeze....
GK: Trent----
TR: WEREWOLF ROAR
GK: What do you kids say we go for a walk----
TR: WEREWOLF GROWL
GK: It's spring. Kids, listen ---- you're not really demented psychopaths, it's just been a long winter, and you need to get out.
TR: YOU GET OUT---- BEAT IT.
GK: (FOOTSTEPS) I'll meet you kids under the arbor, okay? (SS, TR ANGRY MUTTERS. DOOR OPEN, CLOSE. END SS/TR. OUTDOORS AMBIENCE. BIRDS) They're wonderful kids, they're just at that stage now where they have a hard time managing their anger. (FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL) How beautiful the garden is. The flowers about to bloom. The earth so rich and damp. The trees putting forth their green buds. You walk outside and you can imagine maidens in white dresses with wreaths of daisies in their hair and men in linen suits smoking cigars and playing croquet ---- (PIANO INTRO TO MADRIGAL) ---- And I sort of get into the mood for a madrigal. Normally, as an American male, I despise madrigals, because they're so tiny and precious and British, they bring out something violent inside me ---- whenever I hear British part- songs, I feel an urge to put the singers on a bus and push it over a cliff, but for a few days in the spring, you get into that fa la la mood.
CHOIR:
The Spring clad all in gladness
Doth laugh at winter's sadness
Ha ha ha ha----
Each with his rake and hoe
A gardening we go---
Fa la la.......
WOMEN:
Now is the month of Maying
When all the hens are laying
(CHICKEN FA LA LAs----
Each sitting on her nest
Somewhere in the Midwest
(CHICKEN FA LA LAs)
GK: Now I shall sing falsetto
The sheep are in the meadow...
MEN: SHEEP FA LA LAs
GK: They feed beside the brooks
And give us sheepish looks.
MEN: SHEEP FA LA LAs
WOMEN:
As soon as it stops snowing,
It's time to start lawn mowing
Fa la la......
MEN:
The mower will not start,
I'll take it all apart.
Fa la la la...
WOMEN:
Oh do you realize, sir,
You need some fertilizer?
Fa la la la la.....
That's why the grass is dead.
Did you hear what I said?
Fa la la lala.....
ALL:
Come every nymph and Druid
And bring some lighter fluid...
Fa la la .....
So let me barbecue
A hamburger for you
Fa la la......
Now is the time for greening
And vacuuming and cleaning.
Fa la la......
We'll pick and push and pull
And fill the dumpster full....
Fa la la......
WOMAN SOLOIST:
How nice to take a choir
And tie them up with wire.
Fa la la.....
And push them on a bus
Over the precipUS.
Fa la la.....
MALE SOLOIST:
How lovely to extinguish
A choir that is English.
Fa la la....
And death's almighty jaws
Shall end their fa la las
Fa la la.....
CHOIR: No-----
What are you doing?
No----- (BUS ENGINE REVS UP AND PULLS AWAY)
CHOIR: TINY MUFFLED HELPLESS SCREAMS
FALL OF BUS AND EXPLOSION
TR (PEROT): And now here's how an American type of singer sings about spring. It's as simple as this.
(SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD)
It's been an awful hard winter, and my mind is about to crack
I'm sitting in the dark and there's a mountain of beer cans out back.
I feel like a bucket of lard living in an old graveyard
But after six months of winter, I'm ready for spring to start.
It's been winter so long, I don't remember trees when they were green,
I don't remember grass except as pictures in a magazine
But today the sky is clear, and the snow has almost disappeared
After six months of winter, it looks like spring might be here.
It's been winter so long, I can't remember what it feels like to feel
We've been living in snowsuits, riding on a snowmobile
But my hands don't seem to be numb, I can almost move my thumb,
After six months of winter, it looks like spring has come.
The snow got so high, that I haven't seen the sky since fall
And it got so cold that I frostbit my left eyeball
But I've been taking off long underwear until I'm finally down to two pair
After six months of winter, it looks like spring is in the air. My hair is dead and dry like moss on a tree,
And my face is so white you'd think I had leprosy.
But one of these days pretty soon, we're gonna come out of the cocoon
After six months of winter, it's supposed to get warmer in June. It was the longest and hardest winter that we ever had,
Everybody I know was driven stark raving mad.
White snow, black trees, gray sky, so lonesome you think you could die
But after six months of winter, it ought to get warm by July.
© 1997 by Garrison Keillor