The Keillor question
Posted at 11:42 AM on December 13, 2012
by Bob Collins
(15 Comments)
Filed under: Icons
It's been awhile since anyone has waded into the "is Garrison Keillor going to retire?" discussion. Keillor invited it some years ago when he indicated he'd retire in 2013. Then a year ago he said "maybe not."
Keillor was on PBS with Charlie Rose this week.
"I think retirement is a beautiful thing and I think about it a lot," he told Rose. "But then I think how lucky I am to have this show and it's two hours every Saturday. Nobody tells me what I have to do and I work with these wonderful people. and I have all of these listeners and when I walk down the street and people recognize me, they smile, and that's really all you need in a world."
Go on...
"In New York if a woman gets on a (subway) car with you and looks at you and smiles, they're not supposed to do that... I sat on a subway once... I got on a Broadway express and I was sitttng across from a woman reading a book of mine... and she was African American and she sat and read this book and she never smiled, but she kept turning the page... and I rode with her ... and it was too much tension. I got off."
"Someone from the Midwest who is used to traveling in a steel box... and the art of standing away from three other people... without making eye contact... it gives you a different..."
Well... enough of that. And on they went talking about subways and grandmothers and family, and the lack of Republicans in Saint Paul.
And that's how Garrison Keillor avoids answering the question.
He did say he might move to New York, which makes sense since his show often originates there these days.
Here's the entire interview.
Comments (15)
Snoozefest.
The people are ready for the next big thing.
Maybe a lady? Who doesn't talk about hotdish?
Manufactured nostalgia is clearly a profitable market.
He's not wrong about the eye contact. I grew up in Queens and moved to Minnesota when I was 13. I remember walking down the street thinking "Is there something on my face?" That's because Minnesotans who passed you would look at your face and smile, and in New York the only time that happened is if you had food on your face or something.
Oh, you guys.
Minnesotans cheer on our native sons and daughters during their ascendancy, deride them when they're at the top, subject them to public disgrace in one way or another, and then - when we're sick of feeling like a second-rate lot from Flyover Land - apotheosize their life stories and their influence on broader American culture.
I, for one, hope Mr. Keillor sticks around for a few more years. I have a 16-month-old daughter whom I'd like to introduce to the show.
If he retires........
.........maybe he will find the moral character to give back to the taxpayers the millions and millions and dozens of millions of dollars he has taken from them over the years.
But then, he is a raving liberal Democrat (and proud of it, too), so don't hold your breath, taxpayers.
Gary Moneybags has left the barn.........
Har
// That's because Minnesotans who passed you would look at your face and smile
Someday i'd like to live in *that* Minnesota
// the millions and millions and dozens of millions of dollars
Not sure, specifically what you're talking about but I suspect it doesn't have an accurate source.
But let's just say it does. What sort of value would you place on the free marketing Minnesota has gotten out of it in the rest of the world?
If not for Lake Wobegone -- and frankly Prairie Home Companion -- the rest of the world would know Minnesota as the place with a really big shopping mall.
Yahoo.
I'm really puzzled. How has Garrison Keillor taken millions of dollars from taxpayers over the years?
I'm sure Minnesota's gotten waay more PR bang for the taxpayer's buck from Garrison Keillor than they have from the Vikings. But at least the Vikings and the Twins generate *some* nation-wide PR, unlike the Lumberpuppies and the Mild.
I could care less how much money GK makes doing his radio program. However, I'll be sad when that show goes off the air. Life always seems to slow down and become relaxing when it comes on every saturday night.
What is the public portion of the Vikings stadium? About 400 million.
MPR, with more than a half century of the efforts of Bill Kling and Gary Keillor relieving the taxpayers of as much of their money as they possibly can, has received more than twice the 400 million given to the Vikings.
And yet, the Vikings have given this State thousands of times more "free marketing" than MPR or PHC ever will, and have brought in vastly more money to the State.
I suggest you follow the money. From the first Taxpayer money given to MPR right on up to the present day. Not a difficult thing to do.
Are you aware that APMG has 140 million dollars in Mutual Funds? They could give that little sum back to the Taxpayers they took it from.
But they won't. Kling and Keillor have a death grip on it.........and many times more.
Gary has a popular and successful Capitalist enterprise. As does MPR. And yet, both continue to feed at the public trough, not content to reap the profits provided by successful Capitalism, but both feel the need to continue getting free money they don't need, just because they can. Just because the Taxpayers wallet is in front of them, wide open, the greenbacks just spilling out into the same old pockets. Greed is good.........eh?
If Bill and Gary had normal morals, they would give back what they have taken. Come on, boys, it isn't so difficult. Just open your bank accounts and empty them back into the common Treasury. It only hurts for a little while. Then you will feel really really good about yourselves.
I appreciate your passion, but I'm not sure it's equaled by your knowledge on the issue.
If the "$140 million in mutual funds" is what I think you're referring to, it's the MPR endowment, the bulk of which came from the sale of Rivertown Trading Company, which was a for-profit subsidiary that started with Powdermilk Biscuits posters and grew to a catalog operation that raised money for many public radio operations, which is something many of you who legitimately point out flaws in the public broadcasting funding structure insist is what you want public broadcasting to do instead. So which way do you actually want it? Of course an endowment is going to be managed in a professional way, as any business would.
Rivertown Trading was not, contrary to your assertion, funded with "taxpayer money." And the endowment isn't either. People have made bequeathes to it and their wishes are respected accordingly.
So it would be really helpful in your dissertation on the facts of public radio financing if you would provide the source of your data, which appears faulty so far.
In fact, at present 9 percent of MPR operating expenses come from "the government," in the form of grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It gets a couple of million from the Legacy Amendment which the voters approves and last time I checked -- via a David Brauer article -- MPR's original BIENNIAL line item was in the neighborhood of $400,000.
I would guess -- and it's only a guess -- that that may well among the higher appropriations in state history but let's just assume it's the average biennial amount. MPR started in 1971, so that's 41 years. That's 20 state budgets, so that would be $8 million over that time..
Using your Vikings example, the state is contributing something on the order of $450 million. I'm only doing napkin math her but $8 million
There's certainly a debate to be had on how public broadcasting should be funded, but a hash of AM Talkradio allegations is a very poor substitute.
It has nothing to do with Rivertown Trading.
It appears that you are in need of knowledge about MPR and APMG.
I appreciate that you must defend the company providing you with a paycheck, but it would be more informative to study the past histories of MPR and APMG.
The 140 million is just surplus money Kling doesn't know what to do with. So it sits.
Knowledge comes from public required filings by non-profit orgs.
You perhaps are unaware that not many years ago, according to legal filed documents, in one year Bill Kling made more in salary ($630,000) as CEO of MPR than was brought in by all the MPR fund raising drives combined that year ($625,000).
But Bill did provide value for his pay. He brought in 28 million dollars from the Taxpayers that year. So, he was cost effective. Was worth his salary, you might say.
My point is, MPR has a viable product, as does PHC. I have been a fan of both since the very first days of each. (The music is still good on PHC, but Gary hasn't had anything funny to say since sometime in the mid 1990's).
The problem is, Bob, that even though both are commercially profitable in the Capitalist economy, that is, they have a product people will pay for, yet both insist on taking Public Funds they do not need, when they could be content to reap their profits in the real world and leave the Taxpayer alone. Quit ripping him off.
Double dipping. Taking profits from successful Capitalism, and taking free taxpayer money just because it is there to be had. Such lack of honor should be shocking.
We shouldn't use any taxpayer money for these kind of things at all, but, seeing we do, the least we can require is that once a show is making money, it MUST pay back the People out of its profits.
Do you know Sesame Street makes hundreds of millions of dollars every year from the sale of mechandise? And yet they take funding they don't need. This shameful practice must stop. Only insane people would allow it. Sesame Street could fund the entire NEA, but, instead, the owners/producers of that show are wealthy, like bankers, and put the money in their own pockets, where it benefits only themselves. Greed. Ugly greed.
Why would anyone think the Klings/Keillors/Sesame Streeters are honorable and Bankers are not? Both bunches are the same kind of thief. Condemn them both.
Keillor could come clean. And pay back those he abused over the years. It would be good for his soul. Buy it back........buy it back.......sold it long ago...........now, buy it back.......before it's too late.
// The 140 million is just surplus money Kling doesn't know what to do with. So it sits. Knowledge comes from public required filings by non-profit orgs.
You're talking the 990 forms, yes? Which specific ones (they're online) show "$140 million in surplus funds" and which show this is not the endowment.
Here's the 2009 990 form. Which line specifically are you referring to?
I get that you don't like the funding mechanism. I understand that. I wouldn't even think of talking you out of it. At my age, I can't get worked up about either argument any more.
But I do get worked up about unsourced or questionably sourced assertions. Here on NewsCut we try to keep discussion of issues to specific facts so that people can make up their own minds. I don't really care about the company line or the arguments against government funding. I'm interested in specific, verifiable facts that people can use to make up their own mind.
BTW, Kling left the job last year.
I'm not all that worked up about MPR's taxpayer financing, but I do wish that Keillor would have had the integrity to realize that his incessant GOP bashing\Democrat cheerleading deprived some of us a return on our investment.
I used to love PHC, and I have pretty thick skin, but his Bush Derangement Syndrome made the show completely unlistenable to me, haven't bothered to listen again for years and I'm sure I'm not alone.
| December 2012 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | |||||
Master Archive
Recent Entries
- God and the Oklahoma tornado
- Enough with the Hiroshima atomic bomb comparisons
- Justices fume over MN Supreme Court ruling in sexual harassment case
- What happened in the basement? (5x8 - 5/22/13)
- Mary and Bob (5/21/13)
- If the tornado had hit MSP
- A 2018 Super Bowl for Minneapolis?
- Even if people quit smoking, state will reap plenty from cigarette tax hike
- Tornadoes, coincidence, and the spring we didn't have
- Tornado shows value of media's weather obsession (5x8 - 5/21/13)
Categories
- Arts
- Aviation
- Crime and Justice
- Disasters
- Economy
- Energy
- Five by 8
- Floods
- Floods 2011
- Health
- History
- Icons
- Life
- Marketing and advertising
- Mary and Bob
- Media
- News
- People doing good
- Politics
- Race
- Regional history
- Religion
- Schools
- Science
- Sports
- Surveys and trivia
- Tech
- The jobs we do
- War
- Weather
- You Should Meet...
Services
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock