Garrison Keillor's private tango obsession

Editor’s note: Writer and radio humorist Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home Companion fame will play the North Charleston Coliseum on Monday, March 12. He sat down recently -- with tongue planted firmly in cheek -- and answered 10 e-mail questions from Friday 5 guy Dan Conover...

Q: There's a soothing quality to your on-air persona, which makes me wonder: When long-time listeners meet you in person, do they seem either comforted or alarmed by your actual personality?

A: I wasn't brought up to expose strangers to my actual personality. In public I am calm, unfailingly polite, soft-spoken, and modestly intelligent. My actual personality is rather different and involves velvet bellbottoms, heavy oak furniture and torches in wall sconces, the consumption of absinthe, and an obsession with the tango.  That is all I care to say about it at the moment. Tall languid olive-skinned women are attracted to me for reasons I can't fathom, and I am putty in their hands. Hours, days, pass in a whirlwind of passion before we return to our senses and for that reason, I am way behind on home maintenance chores.