A Prairie Home Companion: October 25, 2003

Darkness
Saturday, October 25, 2003
Listen

GK: This is the weekend when we go around setting all of the clocks back an hour, including the ones on our VCRs which we don't know how to do, which can cause stress marriage…

SS: Here, let me do it.

GK: What are you doing?

SS: Let me help you.

GK: I'm doing it.

SS: The numbers are flashing.

GK: I can see that.

SS: I know how to do it.

GK: Are you saying that I don't?

SS: Why do we need to argue about this?

GK: I'm resetting the clock on the VCR, okay?

SS: You've been working on it for an hour.

GK: I didn't know I was in a race.

SS: I'm only

TR:ying to help. (CHORDS)

GK: Winter is a dark hole of suffering. You ride to work in the dark and come home in the dark, and if you're in the dark about what you're doing with your life, it makes for some real depression.

SS: (CHILD): Daddy? Why don't we sing and dance the way people do in the movies?

TR: (SWEDISH)

SS: (CHILD): Oh. I see. So that's why.

GK: It's a grim time, especially for children. They didn't ask to be born in Minnesota, but here they are. In Florida and California, children are playing tennis (TENNIS) and they're swimming in the luxurious pools that their loving parents have provided for them (DIVING BOARD, SPLASH) while here in the north our children huddle for warmth in front of the TV ------ (TV AUDIO) and they plunge into a downward spiral of despair that leads them into substance abuse……

SS: (CHILD): I keep eating library paste. I don't know why. Why can't I stop? (SLURP) It makes me feel so good…….

GK: If only their parents could see what's going on, but their parents are too depressed, what with the sun coming up in the late morning and setting in the early afternoon.

SS: Morning.

TR: Morning.

SS: Night now.

TR: Ya.

GK: A dark time. In the darkness, blind people have an enormous advantage suddenly and they prey on the sighted------

TR: Okay, hand over your billfold, mister. I mean it. (DOG BARKS) This here isn't just a seeing eye dog. He's also a biting mouth dog. (DOG SNARLS)-----

GK: I can't believe it. I'm being mugged by a blind person. Why? Why are you doing this?

TR: Why? Because I'm sick of it. You work your fingers to the bone reading books. Just cause I'm seeing-impaired doesn't make me a Boy Scout, mister. Ain't you ever heard of being robbed blind? (DOG LAUGHS) My dog loves that one.

GK: Winter. (WOLF) It's a time of desolation and despair. (CHILL CHORDS)

TK (CHILD): Mr. Radio Man?

GK: Yes, Tommy.

TK (CHILD): Why are we here in Minnesota? Why don't we live in the South?

GK: Good question, Tommy. Long ago, when the Vikings discovered America (TR: SWEDISH), they left behind runestones, enormous stones with writing on them, which it took us years to

TR:anslate, and when we finally

TR:anslated them----

TR: Do…..not……settle here. There are good places south of here. Go south.

GK: It was too late, we had already built giant cities and invested in infrastructure and we couldn't just walk away from it. So we had to stay. (SHIVERING) Those old Vikings knew something we don't and that is that when the gods are irked, they send the curse of darkness and cold. (SHIVERING) I would say that maybe the gods are irked. (TR: BELLOWING, REVERB) Why? Look around you. The name of this city: St. Paul. Why wasn't it named for Odin or Freya or Thor? Why a Christian name? (EARTHQUAKE) Maybe we need to abandon the Christian faith and devote ourselves to pagan pleasure. They are making some progre

SS: on this over in Minneapolis. St. Paul lags behind.

TK (IRISH): Hedonism, you say?

GK: Yes, Father.

TK (IRISH): You say if we threw over our Christian faith and embraced paganism, we could have a warm January and February.

GK: It's been getting warmer in recent years.

TR (IRISH): And you think it's due to people using pagan spices in their cooking and going to pagan movies and engaging in pagan practices such as ---- well, you know the ones I'm referring to-----

GK: I just think we should give it a chance. (BIG RITE OF SPRING CHORDS) Paganism. (CHORDS) Maybe we've been careful too long. (CHORDS) We weren't that good at being Christians anyway. (CHORDS) Maybe hedonism is more our thing. (CHORDS TO BIG FINISH)