|
Bad Week: Spring Madrigals (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 WOMEN: Now is the month of Maying GK: Now I shall sing falsetto MEN: SHEEP FA LA LAs GK: They feed beside the brooks MEN: SHEEP FA LA LAs WOMEN: As soon as it stops snowing, MEN: The mower will not start, WOMEN: Oh do you realize, sir, ALL: Come every nymph and Druid So let me barbecue Now is the time for greening WOMAN SOLOIST: How nice to take a choir MALE SOLOIST: How lovely to extinguish 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 It's been winter so long, I don't remember trees when they were green, It's been winter so long, I can't remember what it feels like to feel The snow got so high, that I haven't seen the sky since fall |
|
|
|
|
An Interview with Heather Masse
In a 2009 interview, Heather Masse tells us about her earliest influences, auditioning in a women's bathroom, and a few memorable moments from A Prairie Home Companion.
Old Sweet Songs: A Prairie Home Companion 1974-1976
Lovingly selected from the earliest archives of A Prairie Home Companion, this heirloom collection represents the music from earliest years of the now legendary show: 1974–1976. With songs and tunes from jazz pianist Butch Thompson, mandolin maestro Peter Ostroushko, Dakota Dave Hull and the first house band, The Powdermilk Biscuit Band (Adam Granger, Bob Douglas and Mary DuShane).
