I got to see Garrison Keillor perform his Prairie Home Companion Show at the Hollywood Bowl last Friday.
\nKeillor has been doing his show since I was a child, on National Public Radio. There were three radio stations I was permitted to listen to as a kid: the two Christian radio stations and NPR.
\nThe one Christian radio station was very very old fashioned and heinous. The other Christian radio station would play Amy Grant and her ilk, and was therefore close to acceptable.
\nNPR has mostly heinous, but sometimes it was ok. Prairie Home Companion was ok. He told stories and was silly.
\nIn the media desert that was my teenage years, Garrison Keillor was worth listening to on Saturday and Sunday. He talked about the people in his fictional town of Lake Wobegon, I saw a real humanness that was completely missing from my church. Forgiveness, sadness, soft delight, all the feelings that ordinary people feel in ordinary life.
\nHe was a staple. I still enjoyed listening to him as an adult, although I was not such a loyal listener as I had been.
\nI live here now, close to Hollywood. I\u2019ve been to the Hollywood Bowl. As a teenager, it was inconceivably sophisticated (literally inconceivable. I had never heard of the Hollywood bowl, and would have thought it was a football stadium that could house a super bowl).
\nI understand how Garrison Keillor would chose to have his show at the Hollywood bowl. It\u2019s lovely, with an amazing history of entertainment.
\nJust like him. Prairie Home Companion is so authentically Keillor that\u2019s it\u2019s inconceivable to imagine someone else taking.
\nJust as inconceivable to imagine it ending.
\nSo I sat and watched (WATCHED!) this radio show. And I realized he\u2019d made it, and he\u2019d kept making it. Just the way he wanted to, like nobody else, for more than 40 years.
\nI thought, Hey! I am like him. I have made my blog just the way I wanted to, like nobody else, for years and years. I haven\u2019t stopped doing it! We are alike. I\u2019m 14 years in, not 40. But give me time.
\nI watched him up there, with his team. And I realized he does something I do not do.
\nHe showcases other people. He invites musicians and artists to participate in his creation.
\nAt one point, he was talking with one of his singers. She said \u201cYou are singing lead. I know you like to sing harmony, but you are the lead on this one.\u201d
\nHe did like to sing harmony. Even when he was SUPPOSED to be the lead, he fell into harmony.
\nPerhaps because of the upbringing that demanded self-denial to the extreme, I am afraid to harmonize.
\nIn this Hollywood area I live in, \u201cacts\u201d abound. I am friends with directors who do great work, and I am amazed at their ability to lead a team of people to realize their vision.
\nI don\u2019t trust the team. I have a vision of what I want to create.
\nEven this blog post, I know what I want it to be, and I don\u2019t want anybody else tainting it.
\nI also know that it\u2019s possible
\nJust possible
\nThat contributors could add to the outcome. Collaboration can mean the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
\nIt\u2019s just
\nIt\u2019s just that collaboration has meant that I have to cut pieces of myself off and leave them behind to fit the mold.
\nIt\u2019s too high of a cost.
\nWatching Garrison Keillor work with his team, I was so struck at his longevity. He did it.
\nHe showed up and did it for years until decades until it is his legacy. He said this was his last performance but I don\u2019t believe it.
\nHe loves to harmonize.
\nI would love to find some collaborators. I have to crack open my tight doors and see if I could find some trust to extend.
\nIt\u2019s so powerful to be generously creative. Probably the greatest power there is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got to see Garrison Keillor perform his Prairie Home Companion Show at the Hollywood Bowl last Friday. Keillor has been doing his show since I was a child, on National Public Radio. There were three radio stations I was … Continue reading