Friday, December 17, 2010

Vic & Sade and Garrison Keillor. Seperated at Birth? - OTR Friday

From the head of Paul Rhymer come two more episodes of the funniest frickin' radio show ever, "Vic and Sade"!

Continuing in our chronological listening to the surviving shows from this humbly epic series (remember, Proctor & Gamble had all the shows buried in a shallow grave behind their corporate headquarters in what I can only imagine was a quasi-Satanic ritual), we more right along into 1940 with two classics.

The first, from January 22, features more of Sade's grating against the money making schemes that fome from the Chicago Headquarters of Vic's lodge "The Sacred Stars of the Milky Way", as they try and sell Vic on a new IMPROVED portrait of their exhalted ruler "R.J. Konk". You remember the old portrait had electric eyes which followed you around the room. The new one is fitted with a newly discovered plastic material, which allows by electric current, the portrait's visiage to "wink, grimace, gleam and smile" and his eyes to glimmer in happy greeting to the viewer.

Creepy.

Sade's disdain for the scheme and her hastened reaction by initially hiding the letter from Vic, only aggrivates Vic and his love for the formality and pomp and circumstance of his lodge.

Rush meanwhile reads aloud from his newest tome of The Adventures of 3rd Leiutenant Stanley, a teenage boys fondest hero.

Enjoy!




Our second show of the day is from 2 days later, January 2, 1940. Vic is prompted by a counterpart in his lodge, Mr. Y.Y. Flirtch. Y.Y. has recently won the honor of being named "The Handsomest Man on the West Side of Lester, Nebraska" and has asked Vic to write a promotional article stating so. Vic is "busy as a horse" trying to meet his deadline.

There's some great sideline comedy as Rush takes phone calls from his friends.

Pure genius dialogue.

Enjoy.



OK, YY. Bye bye, YY.

CHRISTMAS BONUS:

I've said it before, the lineage of the master humorists of the American condition can be linked from Mark Twain to the aforementioned Paul Rhymer to Garrison Keillor.

If you're not familiar with Keillor's writing, you should be ashamed of yourself...and if your unfamilar with the radio show he's done nationally on a weekly basis for the last (almost) 40 years....what the hell?

Not technically OTR (OldTime Radio) in the sense of when, "A Prairie Home Companion" began in the early 1970's, doing a type of radio that had been pronounce dead for 20 years. Now 40 years after OTR's death knell, Keillor's still at it and it always brings me great comfort knowing that.

Here's a nice snippet of Keillor re-telling the Christmas Story, with all the dry humor and wry understanding of the human condition he's known for.

Most of the time humans are not noble or wise. We're all just people, no matter where or when we are. As the motto of Lake Wobegon goes, "Sumas Quod Sumas" (We are what we are)...and so it was in Bethlehem.



Talk to you soon.

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