Talent contest

Taylor the Latte Boy; Kristin Chenoweth, vocal

When I was in the sixth grade, Mom entered me into a talent contest in Brookings. It was associated with the Snow Queen contest.

Now, allow me to say right here, so as to nip in the bud, right here, right now, any jokes that you are forming … and you are … concerning me and the Snow Queen contest. I was not entered in the Snow Queen contest. Do you understand? I was entered in the talent contest. The Snow Queen contest was a qualifier for young women to participate in the Miss South Dakota contest. If a young woman won the local Snow Queen contest, she got to participate in the State Snow Queen contest. And that’s really all I know … and all I want to know about the Snow Queen contest.

Well, I won the talent contest. That meant that I went on to compete in the state talent contest at the … aforementioned … {ahem} … Snow Queen contest. Well, guess what. I won the state contest!! I came home with a trophy; the only trophy I’ve ever picked up. And I still have it.

Mom had actually entered me in the same talent contest the year before. The local coordinators had set up a junior division and a senior division in the talent contest. I won the junior division, but the winners of the senior division were given the opportunity to go to the state contest.

It was blizzard conditions during that first contest. We had talked about stopping for a bite to eat at evening’s end. But Dad said, “Let’s get home.” It’s a good thing that we did, too, because, after we got home, the blizzard turned itself up to eleven and socked us in for five days.

Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” on National Public Radio has the atmosphere of a talent or variety show. It harkens back to the brief but brilliant Stan Freberg Show from 1957 when the crafty host would feature acrobats, jugglers and skating penguins on his radio show. Mr. Keillor has a virtual encyclopedia of sound effects (in the form of soundman Tim Russell) to create the acoustic atmosphere suitable for his skits, poems and stories.

When Mr. Keillor brings musical talent on board, I would guess that he encourages material that would respond well to both a live and a radio audience. And it is under these circumstances that I once heard the refreshing soprano Kristin Chenoweth since a campy little song called “Taylor, the Latte Boy”. With her classically trained, yet child-like, voice, she plays the part of a young, grown-up seventeen-year-old who stops to get her double latte from the boy who works at Starbucks.

So today at 8:11 when he smiled and said, “How are you?”

I said, “Fine, and my name’s Kristin”

And he softly answered, “Hey.”

And I said, “My name is Kristen, and thank you for the extra … foam …”

And he said his name was Taylor,

Which provides the inspiration for this … poem …

Rhyming “foam” with “poem”. Brilliant. It reminds me of the song “Old Joe’s Place” by the Folkmen when they sang:

There’s a puppy in the parlor

And a skillet on the stove

And a smelly old blanket

That a Navajo wove

Now, that’s inspired.

Credits: To Tim Russell, a latter day Jonathan Winters. I remember you from WCCO radio in Minneapolis. I love your Julia Child impression.

This is my normal Saturday individual track posting.