It's never too late to be normal

The lust for world domination does not make for the good life. It’s the life of the male raccoon who battles for preeminence and winds up in a ditch being pecked at by crows. It’s not for sensible people. Be at peace, read books, cherish your friends, take walks, love life until the first coronary walks up and slugs you in the chest. Charisma is pure fiction, and so is brilliance. It’s the dummies who sit on the dais, and it’s the smart people who sit in the dark near the exits.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I know something about elitism, having grown up in the
exclusive sanctified Brethren who refused to commune with ninety nine
point eighty five percent of Christendom, who looked down on
Baptists and Anglicans, you name it. We found fault with them,

(00:32):
and if a Lutheran guy made off with one of
our young women, we forced ourselves to attend the wedding,
although it felt more like a funeral. And then I
got a job in public radio, where I got to
see elitism from below. I didn't fit in public radio

(00:58):
was entertainer. I was there in the midst of serious
journalists and scholars, and I was looked down upon by
many people who income from my show was supporting paying
their rent. But then parents of teenagers have you know,

(01:21):
come through the same thing and they survived, and I
did too. I sort of regret that I didn't become
truly elite when Minnesota almost became part of New France,
this territory having been discovered in quotes by French explorers,

(01:43):
and France battled the English for dominance in the Midwest.
But then Louis the fifteenth was more interested in sugar
from the Caribbean than fur from the north, and so
he withdrew Voltaire said all we lost was a few

(02:03):
acres of snow, which kind of a cruel remark. Centuries later,
now we could have grown up speaking French in Minnesota
and say guid avive with real Ei Lain and place
change Plue, se lemme chasse and se Levi, instead of saying, well,

(02:31):
that's life, which doesn't have anything quite like the savoon
faire of se Levi, and with se Levine you don't
need to stick the well in front of it sound casual. Now,
French is an elegant language, and we envy it. And

(02:55):
if a fellow American tosses off a French phrase such
as silver play, we see him as an elitist, and
we take it as a cue to drop our own
pretensions and admit that we don't like Burbogignon nearly so

(03:16):
much as we like meatloaf, that a French label does
not make the wine superior. What brings us all to
mind is a movie called A Complete Unknown, which gives
Bob Dylan fans the chance to be even more fascinated

(03:37):
by their own obsession about the man as a poet
and prophet, visionary genius, and the voice of a generation.
But to me, a Minnesotan of his era, it's all
sort of amusing. We knew plenty of male undergraduates in

(03:58):
the sixties just being oblique and self contradictory and who
affected mystery. It was a style. There was one at
every party in Minneapolis, sometimes too, and then one of
them would have to leave. They wanted to be considered poets, prophets, geniuses,

(04:21):
but you need more than ambiguity to get there. The
prophet Bob did not get where he got by being cryptic.
He practiced some classic Minnesota virtues, such as steady hard work.

(04:42):
There was no writer's block for Bob Dylan, and industrious
touring and being on time for gigs, and avoiding addictive
substances that make you stupid and then dead, so tolerating jerks,

(05:02):
including jerks who happened to love you. He had to
work to become iconic. In some of his early recordings,
he sounds a lot like Ray Benson of Asleep at
the Wheel, and he had to learn how to sing
through his nose so he could be a Bob instead

(05:24):
of a Ray. And there he is today, a self
invented object of fascination. Minnesotans are not big on fiction,
though there probably are people in hibbing Minnesota who think,
you know, if Bob Zimmerman had really applied himself, he

(05:48):
could have become a terrific neurologist. As I proceed through
my eighties, I go back to a Minnesota point of view.
Life is complicated, take it one day at a time.
The urge to be top dog is not a useful ambition.

(06:10):
Be grateful for what you have and learn to cherish
your portion. And as the French would say, carpidium, the
lust for world domination does not make for the good life.
It's the life of the male raccoon who battles for

(06:33):
pre eminence and winds up in a ditch being pecked
at by crows. It's not for sensible people. Be at peace,
read books, cherish your friends, take walks, love life until
the first coronary walks up in sogsy in the chest.

(06:57):
Charisma is pure fiction, so is brilliance. It's the dummies
who sit on the dais and it's the smart people
who sit in the dark near the exits. I had
to make many mistakes to learn all of that, and

(07:17):
now I've saved you the trouble of doing. Likewise, you're
welcome