Keillor will watch the curtain from the back of the Fitzgerald Theater.

​After Garrison Keillor drove himself to the ER in 2009 in the early stages of a mild stroke, and then came home to the joy of self-administered belly shots of blood thinners, there was a lot of chatter about whether maybe it was time for the "Prairie Home Companion" host to hang up Guy Noir's shoes.More >>

Garrison Keillor, Homegrown Democrat

​Congresswoman Michele Bachmann once described herself as a fan of Garrison Keillor. But the Bard of Anoka isn't returning the compliment.

In a fundraising letter sent out today to supporters of Bachmann's DFL challenger, Tarryl Clark, the laid back St. Paul humorist took a serious swipe at the sixth district incumbent for "grandstanding" on Fox News.

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What? Me worry?

​"Prairie Home Companion" host and erstwhile St. Paul bookstore owner Garrison Keillor was nowhere near Lake Wobegon Saturday night.

No sir, he was taking in a Broadway show near Times Square in New York City when the guy he cheerfully refers to as the "Incompetent Bomber" failed in his effort to blow up a car.

"I was at a show on 43rd Street two blocks away, unaware of any threat, and I maintained unawareness for the next several hours, catching a taxi on Sixth Avenue and proceeding to a Chinese restaurant on 65th and packing away some giant prawns and fried wonton in the company of others," he writes in a column today on the New York Times website. "We ate freely and jabbered about all sorts of things, and nobody came running up to ask if we'd heard about the car bomb. People in Williston, North Dakota, probably got the news before I did."

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​The American Society of Magazine Editors' annual National Magazine Awards are out for 2010, and 'Prairie Home Companion" host and author Garrison Keillor took home the first-place award in the essays category.

The award,"Recognizes the writer's eloquence, perspective, fresh thinking and unique voice."

Keillor's essay on the Minnesota State Fair, "Top Ten State Fair Joys," appeared in the July 2009 edition of National Geographic.

An excerpt:

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​The John Birch Society, long thought a relic of a darker time in America for its communist conspiracy theories and its opposition to civil rights for blacks, has been making a comeback of late with Republicans, if its co-sponsorship of this years CPAC meeting is any indication.

Now, Garrison Keillor has been added to their list of communist threats:

"How should we categorize the new Lake Wobego-going-gone Keillor?" asks Linda Schrock Taylor on the organization's Web site. "Joseph Sobran once explained that 'Socialism is Communism with patience; that Communism is Socialism in a hurry.' Everyone from Bo, Pelosi, Reid, Keillor, and all of their ilk, phrases everything as an emergency; a must hurry, hurry, hurry; a need to force, force, force."

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​Labeling the Bard of Anoka "Pro-Abort Garrison Keillor," a right-wing Christian news Web site is getting worked up about the "Prairie Home Companion" host being asked to deliver the keynote address to the National Catholic Education Association's annual convention in April.

Keillor himself might say that what these folks at LifeSiteNews.com need is more ketchup. Ketchup, he'd tell them, contains natural mellowing agents that keep the impossible questions at bay. Maybe with a little ketchup on their table, they wouldn't write stories that begin like this:

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Look at this guy. What's not to love?

​It's hard to imagine a more odd coupling: Shoot-from-the-hip, say-anything-to-Sean-Hannity congresswoman Michele Bachmann, and oh-so-errudite-in-red-shoes, author-of-Homegrown-Democrat radio host Garrison Keillor.

Here's a woman, after all, who made Minnesotans blush when she couldn't keep her paws of former President George W. Bush on the floor of the House of Representatives. Meanwhile, Bush became a staple of Keillor's newspaper columns and Prairie Home Companion monologues, cast primarily in the role of a dolt.

But Bachmann tells Tim Budig of ECM that it's true, she adores the Bard of Anoka.

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​Bunnies shoot arrows, fireworks explode, chickens choke and fish dive deep as Garrison Keillor sings about hate being OK in an ad for Honda that was named Commercial of the Decade by AdWeek Media. What does the Bard of Lake Wobegon hate? Noisy, dirty diesel engines clogging the pure air and water of a very trippy CGI landscape. Check out the video:

(The full list of nominees is here.)

He's here to pump you up

​Whoa. How in the heck did we miss this? Not only did The Bard of Anoka serve as one of the grand marshals for the Gopher's 2009 homecoming parade (we knew that part) but Garrison Keillor also gave a pep talk to the football team the night before the big win against Purdue.

"I was there to do a pep rally the night before the Purdue game," Keillor told the San Jose Mercury News. "I gave a pep speech, which was an odd pep speech because it was mostly about growing up in Minnesota with an inferiority complex. Anyway, they went out and beat Purdue the next day, so I guess it was worth something."

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