Minnesota State Fair
Saint Paul, MN«archive page
GK: It’s Labor Day weekend in Minnesota, the end of the Minnesota State Fair and the start of fall and the end of frivolity and leisure and the start of the fall harvest season when the police set up speed traps on the freeways (POLICE RADIO) and drivers are ticketed for all sorts of infractions (TR: Your left turn signal is flashing too slowly. TK: You were texting while driving. TR: You were tailgating. TK: You changed lanes without signaling. TR: You were driving one-handed. TK: I’m giving you a ticket for poor posture.
SS: Poor posture????
TR: Summer’s over, lady. Shape up. Pay attention.
GK: Law enforcement does a sweep through the suburbs and homeowners whose grass is too long or their lawn is unraked are put under arrest----- (TR: Forgot to prune your perennials. Into the car. Watch your head.) (SIREN AWAY)
GK: And the penalties are harsh.
TR: The defendant is sentenced to fourteen days of hard labor. Send him to Moorhead. (GAVEL) Next! (STING)
GK: Moorhead. The Red River Valley. They’re sent up there on buses. Speeders, careless homeowners, library borrowers with overdue books (SS: I’m not done reading it. Please. TK: In the car, lady. Rules are rules.) ----- they’re sent to Moorhead to harvest sugar beets----- white-collar workers with delicate hands (FN: Oh. Ouch. That hurts.), teachers, ministers, liberal arts graduates, thousands of them moving slowly (CHAIN GANG, GROANS, WHIMPERS) across the sugar beet fields, roped together,
FN: Stay in line. You! In line! (WHIP) Keep moving!
TK: Pick up the pace!!!! I’m talking to you!!!! (WHIP) Move! (WHIP)
GK: They thought they’d be spending September hanging out, sipping pumpkin lattes, talking about the movie they saw……but instead, they move, bent low, putting sugar beets into gunny sacks……
ALL SING (DOWN BY THE RIVERSIDE): Gonna pick all these sugar beets. HEY YUP. Until the harvest’s done. Until the harvest’s done. Until the harvest’s done. Gonna work until winter comes. Until the harvest’s done. And then we go back home.
GK: That’s fall in Minnesota. The end of hedonism and the start of responsibility.
TR: Shape up! Do your work! Meet your goals! Play by the rules! Be on time! Pull your weight! Don’t slack off! That means you!
GK: That starts Tuesday. Meanwhile, it’s the State Fair where you can ride the Human Sling Shot and get shot high in the air. (STRETCHING RUBBER, RELEASE, SCREAMS INTO DISTANCE). Ride the rides that go up and down. (ROLLER COASTER RATCHET UP THEN DESCENDING SCREAMS…UP, THEN DOWN). Ride the rides that go suddenly back and forth. (CHEEK WOBBLES: AAH-eee, AAH-eee, AAH-eee, AAH-eee, AAH-eee, AAH-eee). Ride the rides that go down, way down. (TR DEEP: “Welcome to the Giant Plummet. All Adults and children must have a ticket. AND NOW----- LET’S GET DOWN. (DESCENDING, ROLLING SCREAMS, BIG SPLATS.) And don’t forget the minidonuts. (SPLORT, SPLORT, SPLORT, SPLORT). It’s the big blowout before the day of reckoning arrives. That day is Tuesday.
FN: You. You’re under arrest.
FN: Look at ths. Look at this. Is this your work?
GK: It’s only an email.
FN: Look at what you wrote. “I’m just laying around here, irregardless.”
GK: Okay, okay.
FN: That should be “I’m LYING around here.” LAYING is a transitive verb and it takes an object. A HEN lays an EGG. You were lying around, not laying.
GK: Okay, okay.
FN: And there is no such word as IRREGARDLESS.
GK: Okay. Whatever.
FN: What???? Did you say “whatever”?
FN: OFF TO THE SUGAR BEET FIELDS. SEND HIM TO MOORHEAD. (TK, TR ECHOES) (BUS REVS UP)
TK: This way. Watch your step. Into the bus. No talking. Eyes front and center. Let’s go.
GK: But that’s not until Tuesday. We still have tonight.
Lovingly selected from the earliest archives of A Prairie Home Companion, this heirloom collection represents the music from earliest years of the now legendary show: 1974–1976. With songs and tunes from jazz pianist Butch Thompson, mandolin maestro Peter Ostroushko, Dakota Dave Hull and the first house band, The Powdermilk Biscuit Band (Adam Granger, Bob Douglas and Mary DuShane).