Garrison Keillor: It's the week before Christmas there in Kansas (COWS) and you're out in the feedlot (MUD) slogging around in mud up to your knees and (STRAIN) tossing bales of alfalfa into the feed bins (COWS) and it's cold and miserable and the sheep are sick (SICK BAAAS) and the TV reception is lousy (STATIC) and your wife is mad at you (DOOR SLAM) and then (POOF, GLISS) --
Fred Newman (WOMAN): It's me, your fairy farm Godmother. Remember that goose who was in pain last night. Here's why. (DING)
TR: A Golden Egg!
FN (WOMAN): Go to New York my child, and have a wonderful time.
TR: Wow!!! (GLISS AND BRIDGE) So you and the missus head for New York for the holidays-(
SS: Oh gosh. Pinch me. I must be dreaming.
TR: We gotta be careful out there, Marge. Lots of nudity going on in New York.
SS: Oh for pity sakes.
TR: I mean it.)
GK: The plane makes its descent into LaGuardia (JET) and you land and the limo is there-- (FN: This way, sir. Let me take your bags.) and you head for the Mandarin Regal Royal Prestigue DeLuxe Crown Jewel Hotel in midtown (MURMURS OF EMPLOYEES) where the employees are trained to emit cries of joy as you pass and strew flowers in your path (EMPLOYEE OBSEQUIOUSNESS) and up you go to your suite on the 89th floor--with a view of all of Midtown.
TR: Oh wow.
SS: Look at that, wouldja.
TR: Boy o boy.
SS: Take a picture. (CLICK) Take another one from this window. And you go to Radio City for the Christmas show to see the Rockettes as dancing shepherds (TAP DANCING TO "GLORIA") and you go to a Broadway show --
Sue Scott (ANNIE, SINGING): The sun will come out-tomorrow! Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow (FADE)--
GK: A carriage ride in Central Park (CLIP CLOPS, TRAFFIC PASSING FAST) and a night at Birdland (JAZZ SAX) and back to the hotel and you soak in the Jacuzzi (BUBBLING), with a little champagne (POP) and you lie down on the 4,000-thread-count Egyptian sheets, and you fall asleep (SNORING). And you have a dream that you're caught in a blizzard (BLIZZARD, TR SHOUTING: Shep!!! Shep!!! Where am I, Shep????) and you wake up with the sheets around your neck (CHOKING) and you call down to the front desk and they send up a therapist-- (SS BREATHY: Close your eyes and bring all of your energy together in your solar plexus. SITAR SS: Release all anxiety into the air. FART.) and she wraps you in hot towels (SIZZLING) and gives you a comfort cat (MEOW) and you eventually go back to sleep and the next day you go to the Museum of Modern Art (SS: The emotional vocabulary of grayness is particularly rich in this work entitled SKY No. 44.....) and then to a kung fu movie (TR CHINESE, TWIRLING, SLASHING) and a walking tour of Chelsea (TRAFFIC, SS: This is where Andy Warhol took 3000 snapshots of an English Sheepdog) and a French restaurant (TR: FRENCH) and the Circle Line cruise (BOAT HORN) you're off to the opera (TR: TENOR) and then to a cabaret for a late nightcap (SS TORCHY: It had to be you, it had to be you....) then back to the hotel, the champagne (POP), the Egyptian sheets (SNORING) and sure enough (BLIZZARD) you're back in that same dream and there are (WOLVES) carnivores chasing you and (CRIES OF TERROR) and you run into the blizzard and down the mountainside (TR: TERROR, WOLVES SNARLING) which as it happens is the emergency staircase of the hotel and you wake from the dream as you burst out onto Sixth Avenue (TRAFFIC PASSING) and into a group of Rockettes, posing for a publicity photo (TR RUNNING, BAREFOOT) and you run right into them (SS SCREAM, FN: Hey!-- where's your clothes? TR: My clothes??? Oh my gosh). You're naked. It's cold. And very tall women are laughing (SFX).
GK: Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of rhubarb pie? (MUSIC THEME) Yes, nothing gets the taste of shame and humiliation out of your mouth like Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
(SINGS)
One little thing can revive a guy
And that is a piece of rhubarb pie.
Serve it up, nice and hot,
Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought.
ALL:
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.