Dallas Blog

I couldn't help but think after watching the film version of "A Prarie Home Companion", where the Texan had no interest in art, music, culture or community, that Garrison did not have the highest opinion of us. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong.

Well, I think we all recall this incident:

http://blog.kir.com/archives/003501.asp

The National Geographic article is very clever and fun. Read it before slinging arrows. He clearly loves state fairs and has attended many. The quotation does not aim at "our State Fair".

I read the article yesterday. It was cute. But Garrison is "awfully goddamned condescending", especially to Texans. I met him two years ago in Minneapolis, just two weeks after his article in the Chicago Tribune that talked about his visit to Dallas where he wrote:

"I got some insight last week into who supports torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park Methodist Church. It was spooky. I walked in,was met by two burly security men with walkie-talkies, and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bushes’ church and that it would be better if I didn’t talk about politics. I was there on a book tour for”Homegrown Democrat,” but they thought it better if I didn’t mention it. So I tried to make light of it: I told the audience, 'I don’t need to talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics–I’m a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least 12 years away from being eligible for military service.' And the audience applauded! Those were their sentiments exactly. We’ve got ours, and who cares?"
The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantanamo Bay, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2006/oct/04/news/chi-0610040035oct04

Basically Dallasites, Methodists in particular, are spooky, insecure, torture supporting yahoos who don't care about anything but themselves.

He's a great entertainer and PHC is a great show, especially to watch but when I met him, I was with a leftie environmental group with representatives from around the country and world. And I was wearing a big ole burnt orange sweatshirt with the big letters TEXAS emblazoned across the front. He shook my hand (ans he is a huge guy) and said, "Well hello, Texas," and I quipped, "Dallas to be exact." He said, "Oh no, I hear I have some folks upset down there". I just said, "Well thank god I don't go to HPUMC", and proceeded to introduce him to the rest of our group. He was very gracious and funny and I think that he really does live to entertain.

After talking with the locals, it seems Minnesotans have the impression that all Texans are loud-mouthed, poor-mannered, swaggering, bad-tasted braggadocios. I think they're all a bunch of condescending Norwegians.

"After talking with the locals, it seems Minnesotans have the impression that all Texans are loud-mouthed, poor-mannered, swaggering, bad-tasted braggadocios. I think they're all a bunch of condescending Norwegians."

And why do you think they have that impression? That they just pulled it out of their asses?

You just proved his point, CP, and then some.

Ten reasons to ignore Garrison Keillor when he even mentions Texas

1) His head is shaped like a kind of squash we don’t grow here.
2) His voice is not as good as Big Tex.
3) His books are not absorbent enough to make good coasters.
4) He thinks ‘Mexican Food’ is what people in Mexico eat.
5) He (allegedly) eats pizza with chop sticks.
6) His first kiss was (allegedly) from a dolphin at Sea World. He was 29.
7) His (allegedly) claims his chest is like a ‘wash board’; ‘Wash board’; a once utilitarian household item that today is archaic with no useful purpose.
8) He (allegedly) has pictures of Meg Ryan in his Bible.
9) His favorite Spam recipe is (alegedly) rhubarb quiche.
10) His handlers think George Bush is a patriotic nursery near Duluth.

Garrison Keillor is far too boring to get upset about.

Anonymous- Did you bother to read any other part of my post?

Seriously people, it's a joke article written by an entertainer who loves to point out hypocrisy. As for the State Fair of Texas, Keillor is a Mid-Westerner and all of his stories are centered there. We were lucky to get a picture in the article.

We 'get' the 'joke' because we played with it. Sorta like a mongoose with a squid.
What we of many political persuasions and other mtations don't 'get' is Keillor.
It's a bonding thing. Kumbaya, y'all.

@anon-

My point is that I look at and judge "local yokel from middle of nowhere", and he looks back at me and says "big city sissy". And then we both go back to eating our chicken fried bacon. I think we probably both imagine that we have the superior lifestyle to the other though.

Also, I certainly wasn't implying that he should have confined his topic to the Texas Fair (or any other specific state). There were just a lot of stupid postings about how he had talked poorly about Texas when he had actually ignored our part of the country for the most part. He also ignored my hometown state fair up in the Northeast. Less fried food than Texas, but just as many hot tub salesmen.

I just cannot imagine that you are a native Texan.

The rep is earned, but lazy stereotypes just don't cut it. Dallas County is blue, don'tcha know. Our cultural failings are those of the nouveau riche, moreso than those of retrograde rustics. It's not an exaggeration to say we're a state in transition.

Have New Yorkers earned the reputation of being rude? I've never found them particularly so, nor have I ever heard the second-person plural "youse" deployed there (although you certainly hear "y'all" here, even from people whose speech is otherwise not Southern).

Unfortnately for us, Bush and his library are a-comin'. So. Never mind.

Daniel says:
"The rep is earned, but lazy stereotypes just don't cut it. Dallas County is blue, don'tcha know......."

I agree. A lot of hard working folks around here.