May Madness from 2002

featuring Al Franken and another 50th Anniversary celebration

NORSK HØSTFEST: September 28, 2024

The 50th Anniversary celebration continues with a show from the North Dakota State Fairgrounds in Minot, North Dakota, on September 28th at 5;00 p.m. Tickets go on sale today.

NORSK HØSTFEST EXISTS TO CELEBRATE SCANDINAVIAN HERITAGE BY PROMOTING AND PRESERVING TRADITIONAL FAMILY, CULTURE, AND COMMUNITY VALUES FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE GENERATIONS.

So with all the Lutheran and Scandinavian humor Garrison has provided over the years, who could be more appropriate to anchor the final evening of Høstfest? Joining Garrison will be Christine DiGiallonardo, Rich Dworsky, Howard Levy, Chris Siebold, Larry Kohut, Tim Russell, and Fred Newman. Let’s bring back the “I’m a Lutheran” song and many of your favorite Lake Wobegon characters for a fun-packed evening to mark 50 years of the radio show. Get ticket information.

Listen to the May 18, 2002, show

This week, we revisit a show from May 2002, performed live from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, with humorist Al Franken, singer/songwriter/guitarist Paul Geremia, and Jo Serrapere and the Willie Dunns.

Highlights include “Songs my Mother Taught Me” and an ode to Studs Terkel called “Studs’ Song” by Garrison and the band, “The Panic Is On” from Andy Stein, a winning version of “Still a Ghost” by Jo Serrapere and the Willie Dunns, “The Truth Is on the Streets” from Paul Geremia, a reading by Al Franken, plus Monback Brothers, Beer, English Majors and the latest News from Lake Wobegon. It’s a jam-packed show that you will want to hear. Listen »

In 1975, Saturday Night Light premiered, and Minnesota native Al Franken was one of the original writers for the show. He wrote for and performed on Saturday Night Live from 1975 until 1980 and then again from 1985 to 1995. Franken’s writing for SNL earned him four Emmy Awards and his producing garnered yet another Emmy. And fans across the nation recognize Franken for his Saturday Night Live sendups of Pat Robertson, Paul Simon, and Paul Tsongas, and for his characters: his “Al Franken Decade” persona, his constantly struggling one-man mobile uplink unit, and, of course, Stuart Smalley, the New Age cable-TV host. Smalley and his self-confidence mantra — “You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you” — provided the subject for Franken's first book, his Grammy-nominated comedy album, and for a 1995 movie, Stuart Saves His Family. Al Franken moved into the political realm with his book about Rush Limbaugh then ran and became a Senator from the state of Minnesota before returning to the stand-up world and delivering lectures.

PAUL GEREMIA has been around and he’s lived the life — like in the old song, he’s qualified. He was born in 1944 in Providence, Rhode Island, recorded his first acoustic blues album, Just Enough, in 1968, and followed with many more.

He is a blues historian as a matter of course, but more than keeping alive the music of such greats as Skip James, Big Bill Broonzy, and Reverend Gary Davis, he expanded upon it, taking it where it would naturally go. He wrote half the music he performed on stage, and his own fits seamlessly into the blues classics and covers. His guitar and harmonica delivered musicianship of the highest order, fresh and innovative, no mean trick for an East Coast guy who was knocking around the country in an old car, tending to the roots of the American musical experience.

Detroit’s JO SERRAPERE was the Songwriting Winner at the South Florida Folk Festival in 1999 for “Dream My Girl”; she also won the Detroit Music Award for Best Vocalist in Acoustic Music, and the year before was the Showcase Artist at the North American Folk Alliance Conference. She has taken the diverse elements of Mississippi John Hurt, Tom Waits, Nat King Cole, Louie Prima, and Bessie Smith, added her own original work and put together a great band to play it.

The band, the WILLIE DUNNS: John Devine on dobro, mandolin, electric and acoustic guitar; Motown session player Jef (it’s not a typo) Reynolds on acoustic and electric bass, mandolin, cello and guitar; and Stuart Tucker, a long-time professional drummer who also teaches English at the University of Detroit. The departed jazz guitarist Willie Dunn, who was also known as Eddie Lang, is in the band in spirit — a clever way to add a band member without having to pay him. They’ve been performing at festivals and halls all around the country, from Memphis to the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, and a lot in between.

Friendship Notecards:

Petrarch to Shakespeare, John Milton to John Berryman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Longfellow to Langston Hughes — poets across centuries have found the sonnet to be a compelling form of poetic expression.

Garrison Keillor has too. Now eight of his uplifting sonnets — echoing aspects of friendship or kindness — are printed on quality card stock, each poem paired with a handsome photographic illustration.

Make someone’s day.

SET 1 (horizontal format: approximately 5" x 7") $15 - CLICK HERE
Four different poems paired with four different photographs — 2 cards of each, 8 envelopes.
Themes: Lost Glasses; Good Workers; Secret of a Good Life; Chairs.

SET 2 (vertical format: approximately 7" x 5") $15 - CLICK HERE
Four different poems paired with four different photographs — 2 cards of each, 8 envelopes.
Themes: Walking; Summer’s Bounty; Quietude; Friends — the most valuable acquisition.

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