This is an exception to the two-week no posting promise. I promise.In this week’s Prairie Home Companion [RealAudio], a truly standout edition, including:

@ 01:25:30: A tribute by Garrison Keillor to Ray Charles: A wonderful monologue followed by a lovely rendition of “Hallelujah I Love Her So”.

@ 01:34:54: One of the best “The News from Lake Wobegon”s in years — a bittersweet remembrance of drinking and smoking days long gone that meanders towards a country song about Richard Nixon and ends with strident political commentary on current affairs. Hilarious and yet quite moving.

The whole show is worth listening to. It was recorded in Ocean Grove, an old Methodist settlement on the Jersey Shore that I once managed to visit with Anna and her Betty, a white 1984 Cadillac Coupe Deville that was then disintegrating gracefullyLater that summer, Anna and Anna manged to drive her all the way to Texas before she perished completely.. We were on a pilgrimage of sorts to Asbury Park, just up the shore, where Bruce Springsteen first played gigs at the now legendary Stone Pony, right by the ocean at the end of a dilapidated parking lot. Anna had spent many a teenaged Swedish winter locked in her closet listening to Bruce, so this trip had a very special meaning to her.

In Asbury Park, we learned that Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, old pals of Bruce, were playing at the Stone Pony that evening, so we went and listened for a while, but it was getting late and so we left before the end of the show. The next day, the papers screamed how Bruce Springsteen had joined Johnny onstage in a surprise ending, only the second time in 25 years Bruce had played at the Stone Pony. Anna was sick to her stomach. It ruined her summer. She has not listened to Bruce Springsteen since.