© Adam Granger
MADAM WANDA'S ROAD MAP OF LIFE
ADAM: The radio script is a major part of the history of radio. Exciting, action-packed Mini-Dramas of the Air were a tremendous influence upon the legions of red-blooded American youth who flopped down on the living room floor in front of the old Zenith on a Friday or Saturday night in early twentieth century America, closed their eyes, and let their imaginations take them on journeys and adventures they'd never even dreamed of.
Having experienced the thrill of the radio script from their earliest days as a band, the Powdermilk Biscuit Band has been no less affected by this wondrous, addictive and uniquely American form of entertainment.
Join with us, then, as we offer our tribute to the American radio script with the following program: The Powdermilk Biscuit Band starring in "Madam Wanda's Road Map of Life", a special edition of. . .
[MANDOLIN THEME MUSIC STARTS]
. . .The Toilette Zone.
ANNOUNCER:
It is a (looks outside or toward outside) balmy (or blustery, or chilly, or warm, etc) fall evening in Minnesota.
[MARY, BOB, DICK AND ADAM MAKE THE HUM OF A CAR FOR A FEW SECONDS. FADE OUT]
ANNOUNCER: A car pierces the pitch black night as it races south on Highway 61. A quartet of not-particularly-young-but-on-the-other-hand-not-so-old-either-musicians is motoring toward the picturesque town of Redwing to play a concert. They've done this before: There is a comfortable and familiar old sameness about this scenario and yet, tonight, there is something different in the air. The silence is broken by Fiddlin' Mary DuShane, the best-looking member of the band, and always the best-dressed, even in her sleep. . .
MARY: Are we there yet?
ADAM: No, Mary, we've got quite a way to go--
ANNOUNCER: Meet Adam Granger, driving, mumbling, squinting and trying desperately to think.
BOB: Say, Adam, I've got to go to the bathroom.
ANNOUNCER: Bob Douglas, mandolinist, guitarist, singer, family man, voter, drinker of lots of fluids.
ADAM: Well, Bob, I think we'll be there in about forty-five minutes--
DICK: It's been two hours since dinner. I sure could use a snack. . .
ANNOUNCER: Dick Rees, multi-instrumentalist, polylinguist, honorary Norwegian and frequent user of colloquial nouns.
ADAM: If this doesn't stop, I'll turn this car right around. . .
BOB, MARY and DICK: (all complain at once)
ADAM: Now wait: I anticipated this restlessness--after all, it is an hour drive--so I brought along a game for us to play.
MARY: Not another game!!
DICK: Yeah, last time you had us playing charades and I got a ticket for sticking my leg out the window. . .
BOB: I still don't see why that was supposed to make us think of "The Last Picture Show". . .
ADAM: I think you'll like this game. I found it in an antique store. Here, Bob, take a look:
BOB: It's an old deck of cards. Let's see, "Madam Wanda's Roadmap of Life: As the Cards Go, So Goes Your Life".
MARY: Sounds kind of like virtual reality.
DICK: I like it already! I've been trying to attain virtual reality all my life.
BOB: Really?
Dick: Well, virtually all my life. . .
ADAM: Hey, come on. At this rate, we're gonna be there before we get a chance to play.
BOB: Okay, okay. Here are the instructions: "Shuffle and stack the cards. Players take turns drawing cards and reading them. The cards combine to make a story. Wherever and however the story goes, so shall the players' lives go."
MARY: I don't like this.
DICK: Hey, it's a crapshoot. You might end up with a better life.
BOB: Or you could end up with a worse one. Count me out, fellas.
ADAM: Oh come on, you guys. It's just a game!
MARY: Yeah, and they told Ollie Waldorf it was just a waterfall. . .
DICK: Who's Ollie Waldorf?
MARY: He's a guy from my home town who went over Niagara Falls in a washing machine.
BOB: Wow! What happened to him?
MARY: He survived, but he never wore clean clothes again.
ADAM: All right, all right. Do we want to play or not?
MARY, BOB and DICK: Okay, all right, sure.
DICK: Aren't you going to play with us, Adam?
ADAM: No, I've got to drive. You three play without me.
BOB: Okay. I'll shuffle the cards.
[SOUNDS OF SHUFFLING]
BOB: Okay, Mary, you go first. Draw a card and read what it says.
MARY: All right. (clears throat) "You are possessed by a strong feeling of childishness. . .AM NOT!"
DICK: Are too!
MARY: Am not!
DICK: Are too!
MARY: Am not!
BOB: Adam! Make them stop fighting.
MARY: Oh shut up!
BOB: No, you shut up!
MARY: No, you shut up!
BOB: No, you shut up!
ADAM: Dick! Please! Take your turn! Read the next card!
DICK: Okay. "A sense of foreboding fills you, you see visions, and an ill wind blows around you. . ."
BOB: Oh no! This is like that Dungeons and Dragons game. I heard about a kid who played Dungeons and Dragons, and he ended up sauteeing his family!
DICK: Oh great! I know for a fact that I don't sautee well.
BOB: Well, at least he didn't come from a blended family. . .
DICK: There's a salamander on my face! There's a salamander on my face!
MARY: We're all going to die!!
ADAM: Bob, read the next card!!
BOB: "A thoughtful and curious mood overtakes you. . ."
DICK: You know, if I really concentrate, I can feel my eyeballs moving in their sockets.
MARY: So, how many roads must a man walk down, before they call him a man?
BOB: Why are the stems of mint plants square?
DICK: How come everybody gives the bass player such a hard time?
MARY: I wonder how many brain cells I have. . .
ADAM: Hey, guys! It's just a game. It's just a stupid pack of cards I got at an antique store. It's not real! Don't let yourselves be affected by the simple power of suggestion. You're buying into this whole thing tooth and nail!
BOB: Funny phrase: "Tooth and nail". I wonder where it came from?
DICK: I think it comes from Kierkegaard. . .
[BISCUITS DECRESCENDO TO A MURMUR]
ANNOUNCER: And so the evening went. Things got worse and worse as the quartet got closer and closer to Redwing. But then, just when it seemed as though the situation was unsalvageable, fate tiptoed in and stacked the deck with the only card that could have saved them. . .
[BISCUITS CRESCENDO]
MARY: Do you think hair cries?
DICK: I wonder how long my nose would burn. . .
ADAM: For the love of Mike, draw a card Bob!!
BOB: Hmmm. Here's an interesting one: "You are an acoustic quartet called the Powdermilk Biscuit Band, traveling to Redwing, Minnesota, to play a concert. You are just regular old musicians."
ANNOUNCER: A rush of fresh air fills the car, and serenity returns.
MARY: Are we there yet?
BOB: I've got to go to the bathroom.
DICK: I could sure use a snack.
ADAM: Thank heavens! Back to normal!
[MANDOLIN THEME MUSIC UP--GUITAR AND FIDDLE JOIN EVENTUALLY]
ANNOUNCER: Who--or what--placed that card in Madam Wanda's Road Map of Life Game on that dark fall night in Minnesota? What hand of fate intervened to save our frolicsome foursome from a life of confusion, uncertainty, trauma, fear, and general all-around lunacy? And does our quirky quartet have any idea that they have stepped to the very brink of—but not over the line into—The Toilette Zone.
[MUSIC ENDS WITH FLOURISH]
ADAM: The radio script is a major part of the history of radio. Exciting, action-packed Mini-Dramas of the Air were a tremendous influence upon the legions of red-blooded American youth who flopped down on the living room floor in front of the old Zenith on a Friday or Saturday night in early twentieth century America, closed their eyes, and let their imaginations take them on journeys and adventures they'd never even dreamed of.
Having experienced the thrill of the radio script from their earliest days as a band, the Powdermilk Biscuit Band has been no less affected by this wondrous, addictive and uniquely American form of entertainment.
Join with us, then, as we offer our tribute to the American radio script with the following program: The Powdermilk Biscuit Band starring in "Madam Wanda's Road Map of Life", a special edition of. . .
[MANDOLIN THEME MUSIC STARTS]
. . .The Toilette Zone.
ANNOUNCER:
It is a (looks outside or toward outside) balmy (or blustery, or chilly, or warm, etc) fall evening in Minnesota.
[MARY, BOB, DICK AND ADAM MAKE THE HUM OF A CAR FOR A FEW SECONDS. FADE OUT]
ANNOUNCER: A car pierces the pitch black night as it races south on Highway 61. A quartet of not-particularly-young-but-on-the-other-hand-not-so-old-either-musicians is motoring toward the picturesque town of Redwing to play a concert. They've done this before: There is a comfortable and familiar old sameness about this scenario and yet, tonight, there is something different in the air. The silence is broken by Fiddlin' Mary DuShane, the best-looking member of the band, and always the best-dressed, even in her sleep. . .
MARY: Are we there yet?
ADAM: No, Mary, we've got quite a way to go--
ANNOUNCER: Meet Adam Granger, driving, mumbling, squinting and trying desperately to think.
BOB: Say, Adam, I've got to go to the bathroom.
ANNOUNCER: Bob Douglas, mandolinist, guitarist, singer, family man, voter, drinker of lots of fluids.
ADAM: Well, Bob, I think we'll be there in about forty-five minutes--
DICK: It's been two hours since dinner. I sure could use a snack. . .
ANNOUNCER: Dick Rees, multi-instrumentalist, polylinguist, honorary Norwegian and frequent user of colloquial nouns.
ADAM: If this doesn't stop, I'll turn this car right around. . .
BOB, MARY and DICK: (all complain at once)
ADAM: Now wait: I anticipated this restlessness--after all, it is an hour drive--so I brought along a game for us to play.
MARY: Not another game!!
DICK: Yeah, last time you had us playing charades and I got a ticket for sticking my leg out the window. . .
BOB: I still don't see why that was supposed to make us think of "The Last Picture Show". . .
ADAM: I think you'll like this game. I found it in an antique store. Here, Bob, take a look:
BOB: It's an old deck of cards. Let's see, "Madam Wanda's Roadmap of Life: As the Cards Go, So Goes Your Life".
MARY: Sounds kind of like virtual reality.
DICK: I like it already! I've been trying to attain virtual reality all my life.
BOB: Really?
Dick: Well, virtually all my life. . .
ADAM: Hey, come on. At this rate, we're gonna be there before we get a chance to play.
BOB: Okay, okay. Here are the instructions: "Shuffle and stack the cards. Players take turns drawing cards and reading them. The cards combine to make a story. Wherever and however the story goes, so shall the players' lives go."
MARY: I don't like this.
DICK: Hey, it's a crapshoot. You might end up with a better life.
BOB: Or you could end up with a worse one. Count me out, fellas.
ADAM: Oh come on, you guys. It's just a game!
MARY: Yeah, and they told Ollie Waldorf it was just a waterfall. . .
DICK: Who's Ollie Waldorf?
MARY: He's a guy from my home town who went over Niagara Falls in a washing machine.
BOB: Wow! What happened to him?
MARY: He survived, but he never wore clean clothes again.
ADAM: All right, all right. Do we want to play or not?
MARY, BOB and DICK: Okay, all right, sure.
DICK: Aren't you going to play with us, Adam?
ADAM: No, I've got to drive. You three play without me.
BOB: Okay. I'll shuffle the cards.
[SOUNDS OF SHUFFLING]
BOB: Okay, Mary, you go first. Draw a card and read what it says.
MARY: All right. (clears throat) "You are possessed by a strong feeling of childishness. . .AM NOT!"
DICK: Are too!
MARY: Am not!
DICK: Are too!
MARY: Am not!
BOB: Adam! Make them stop fighting.
MARY: Oh shut up!
BOB: No, you shut up!
MARY: No, you shut up!
BOB: No, you shut up!
ADAM: Dick! Please! Take your turn! Read the next card!
DICK: Okay. "A sense of foreboding fills you, you see visions, and an ill wind blows around you. . ."
BOB: Oh no! This is like that Dungeons and Dragons game. I heard about a kid who played Dungeons and Dragons, and he ended up sauteeing his family!
DICK: Oh great! I know for a fact that I don't sautee well.
BOB: Well, at least he didn't come from a blended family. . .
DICK: There's a salamander on my face! There's a salamander on my face!
MARY: We're all going to die!!
ADAM: Bob, read the next card!!
BOB: "A thoughtful and curious mood overtakes you. . ."
DICK: You know, if I really concentrate, I can feel my eyeballs moving in their sockets.
MARY: So, how many roads must a man walk down, before they call him a man?
BOB: Why are the stems of mint plants square?
DICK: How come everybody gives the bass player such a hard time?
MARY: I wonder how many brain cells I have. . .
ADAM: Hey, guys! It's just a game. It's just a stupid pack of cards I got at an antique store. It's not real! Don't let yourselves be affected by the simple power of suggestion. You're buying into this whole thing tooth and nail!
BOB: Funny phrase: "Tooth and nail". I wonder where it came from?
DICK: I think it comes from Kierkegaard. . .
[BISCUITS DECRESCENDO TO A MURMUR]
ANNOUNCER: And so the evening went. Things got worse and worse as the quartet got closer and closer to Redwing. But then, just when it seemed as though the situation was unsalvageable, fate tiptoed in and stacked the deck with the only card that could have saved them. . .
[BISCUITS CRESCENDO]
MARY: Do you think hair cries?
DICK: I wonder how long my nose would burn. . .
ADAM: For the love of Mike, draw a card Bob!!
BOB: Hmmm. Here's an interesting one: "You are an acoustic quartet called the Powdermilk Biscuit Band, traveling to Redwing, Minnesota, to play a concert. You are just regular old musicians."
ANNOUNCER: A rush of fresh air fills the car, and serenity returns.
MARY: Are we there yet?
BOB: I've got to go to the bathroom.
DICK: I could sure use a snack.
ADAM: Thank heavens! Back to normal!
[MANDOLIN THEME MUSIC UP--GUITAR AND FIDDLE JOIN EVENTUALLY]
ANNOUNCER: Who--or what--placed that card in Madam Wanda's Road Map of Life Game on that dark fall night in Minnesota? What hand of fate intervened to save our frolicsome foursome from a life of confusion, uncertainty, trauma, fear, and general all-around lunacy? And does our quirky quartet have any idea that they have stepped to the very brink of—but not over the line into—The Toilette Zone.
[MUSIC ENDS WITH FLOURISH]