Wow; who'd a'thunk that a letter poking Garrison Keillor for his audacity at playing "cool"--whether it be serious, or feigned and tongue-in-cheek--would generate so much invective? Either his fans are a lot more rabid than I thought, or I'm a much bigger jerk than even I ever knew. (Maybe some of both; I'll ask the wife and get back to you.)

Keillor's article admits of two interpretations: he was serious, or he weren't. (I acknowledged both possibilities.) It seems liklier to me that he was being at least partly serious since his article wasn't all that funny, in my opinion. You start out by insulting your audience, even in a tongue-in-cheek way, and it's not something that's designed to up the yuck factor. Maybe some folks like being called "lumpen," "sad," "pathetic," "a stiff," and "a drone," but it kinda bugs me, even in fun. Certainly not as bad as kike or mick or pied noir or macaca or some such, but distasteful. And unfunny, in my view.

Other's milage, obviously, varies.

But it does strike me as strange that Keillor can do that, and it's considered to be "in fun" and ironical, while when I merely point out the obvious--how silly it is for an old, white, midwestern guy to be defining what's cool-- I'm accused of attacking Keillor. He called folks who choose not to celebrate Christmas "humorless" and "legalistic," and told them to "get a life;" but hey, it's only a humor column! You take yourselves too seriously, non-Christians! I suggest he might be losing his touch, and I'm printing a "screed."

Um, yeah, OK. Seems kind of double-standardy to me. (The twelve year-old boy in me wants to yell, "He started it!")

And before you get all medieval on me, I have indeed been know to praise Keillor, rather than bury him: http://letters.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/03/01/keillor/view/index17.html, for example. I'm hardly a fan, obviously--I only read his stuff when it looks like the topic might be interesting to me--but I certainly don't click on his links just to become outraged at my Hate Object. Life's too short, and my blood pressure's already too high, and there are a lot better candidates for Hate Objects around. (Our Decider-in-chief comes to mind, for example.)

So to sum up: for me, he was either wildly off target with his humor, or he was being serious and thereby, frankly, condescending and obnoxious. And either way, demonstrating a slackening of his writing touch, in my view.

But hey, since I'm just a drooling, pathetic, stiff, legalistic, humorless dork sour puss who blows his cool at the least provocation, who cares what I think, anyway?

Let the anonymous sniping recommence!

No, I wasn't trying to take "credit" for anything. Pedantic, yes, probably; it's a bad habit of mine. It's like all those geometry proofs you did in High School, you know; gotta establish the basic facts before moving on to the main points. So pile on for me being pedantic; you'll have plenty of company. [laughter] But credit? Naw. Hence the "fish in a barrel" comment; I thought that would make it clear I knew how obviously silly it was.

Nope, what bugged me was Keillor's tone. I discussed why I found it unfunny below; I won't belabor the point. But that, on top of his "get a life" Christmas post, irked me. I didn't blow my top--believe me, when I do, you'll know--but I was irked. I don't like to be called names, and definitely not twice in less than a month. And I certainly don't like it when taking a few mild pokes at a sacred cow causes me to be accused of "attacking" someone. I mean, yeesh! And people called me humorless! Keillor is a b'zillionaire; I think he can withstand a few mild observations by an obscure tech writer toiling away in Texas, don't you?

And while you weren't anonymous, exactly--you used an alias (there's that damn pedantic thing again!)--I have never found it a "great thing" that folks can toss invective from the safety of anonymity. I mean, there's my name, down there at the bottom. Garrison Keillor puts down his. Folks dump on online columnists who don't include their email addresses. Hiding behind "no name given" doesn't seem reasonable to me.

But then, as my wife said, "Yeah, you can be a jerk sometimes," so what do I know?