Y'know, it's been a long while since I've indulged myself in a good old-fashioned mean spirited rant on this blog, and no one to my mind deserves to feel the brunt of one more than Garrison Keillor, a man who might be considered our generation's Mark Twain, if Mark Twain was a plodding, unfunny huckster intent on shucking a brand of faux Americana homespun cornpone horse manure - a nostalgia that's been so leached of vitality it doesn't even have the decency to stink. Seriously folks, if this man is lamenting the fall of the old publishing paradigm and the rise of
18 million writers with 14 readers each, then I say give me a baker's dozen and a sledgehammer and stand clear. God only knows this tired old industry could use the change.
But I suspect that none of this is really about change, good or bad. It's about money, something Garrison Keillor, Inc. alludes to not once but twice in his mercifully short and almost certainly well-compensated pap piece for the Baltimore Sun. Money. After all, biscuits ain't free, not even those bland, largely indigestible rocks stamped out by a certain copyrighted Midwestern purgatory.
To that I say this: Don't worry, Garrison Keillor, Inc., you're not going to starve. Not, that is, unless you chew at the same agonizing pace that you monologue.
I totally agree with you Don. I think that this has everything to do with money and power. That it has to do with repetitive writers not wanting fresh ideas and new blood on the scene (let alone ruining the mood at such an exclusive party). Your rant is definitely deserved and well said.
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