YouTube, July 7, 2012

Interlochen Center for the Arts

Interlochen, MI

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Listen (MP3)

GK: So you were laid off from your job as a mid-level manager at a carwash in Detroit. And you've decided to be a singer songwriter-----


Why did you take my mobile phone
And read my email to Ramon?
That's no business of yours.
No, no, no, no, no.
You touch my stuff, you've got to go.

GK: It's hard work and you Google Carole King to pick up some inspiration and you find a YouTube video of a humpback whale who sings her song (SFX WHALE "YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND") and you find a video of a seal who plays the All Things Considered theme on a set of horns (FN SEAL ATC) and a video of Kermit the Frog doing impressions (TR KERMIT: Okay. Here's my impression of Mitt Romney. ---- Hi. I'm Mitt Romney. ----- Okay. Now I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is how I talk. Pretty neat, huh? Ever hear a frog do impressions? Okay, next I'm going to do Joe Biden.) And that's kind of disturbing so you try to get back to writing that song---- (PIANO)

I woke up this morning and you were there,
I felt your breath and I touched your hair
And I don't care that you're old and fat----
You're still my cat.


GK: It's just not happening for you. You click on a video of "J. Alfred Prufrock: The Musical:

I've measured out my life with coffee spoons .
And shall I wear the bottom of my trousers rolled?
Or part my hair or dare to eat a peach?
I grow old . . . I grow old . . .)

and there's a video of the Pope on a pogo stick (SFX & TR GERMAN SINGING) and a video of a man hitting his thumb with a hammer (WHACK, YEOW) --- a video of President Bush reading Dr Seuss (TR BUSH: I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues, And I'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs"—He was very upset as he shouted and puffed – What's that THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?) and you make one more attempt at writing that song----- (PIANO)

What is the chance---- tell me, what is the chance
You would ever remember to water my plants?

GK: But it's no use ---- you've got to look at that video of the humpback whale again (WHALE SINGS "YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND") and the chainsaw in the bowl of Jell-O (SFX) and the man with the toilet plunger trying to unclog a drain (SFX). And now the sun has gone down and you've written just four sentences. (MD DESPAIR) You've been on YouTube all day. The Internet is ruining you.

MD: Help! What should I do?!

GK: Maybe it's time you head for Michigan's Upper Peninsula. On the U.P., it's sort of like 1979 all over again. And that means, no internet.

TR U.P.: Yeah, we thought about getting wireless but then we figured, hey, we got radio, shouldn't that be enough for anybody, so that's the deal now. No big whoop.

GK: It's the U.P. and that spells UP and when you're feeling down because you can't write, you need the Upper Peninsula.


For years I tried and tried
To be a writer, smart and witty
I thought to be a writer I should live in New York City
But I got nothing done
I ran around, just making whoopee
Thank God I moved away back to the U.P.

Old Sweet Songs: A Prairie Home Companion 1974-1976

Old Sweet Songs


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