Garrison don't get it

In Lake Woebegone, says Garrison Keillor, there were, when he was growing up, boys like that also. They were a great success with the ladies on accounting of being able to send 3 feet long tongues of flame from the exhaust pipes of their cars while accelerating. This, he suggests, stopped working because as we all grew up, it turned out that sending 3-foot long tongues of flame from the exhaust pipes of their cars while accelerating was the only thing they could do. By which he means presumably, that those fellows are not on the radio, or in the Library of Congress, or teaching at some liberal arts college.

Keillor is mistaken. Those guys are not quite so helpless. It turns out they have other tricks – Blackberrys, for example. Their tricks still work with the ladies, even if Keillor does not notice. That he does not notice tells you that Keillor doesn’t understand the game. To get the ladies – that’s success. Who wants to have their own radio program?

To them, Keillor’s success is like that of the fellow who used his superior brain to hack a Coca-Cola vending machine. A successful feat of skill and intellect, no doubt, but – who wants a bunch of canned soft drinks.