Garrison Keillor tells the Seattle Times his worst-ever show was in Reno, Nev.: "Every time I turned around in Reno, I just saw pathological behavior." In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune he offers a dispatch from a cruise ship: "Were I a resident of paradise, I'd defend it to the skies, but I'm a northerner and we believe that adversity and the struggle for truth and honor are the key to the good life, not the 77-degree swimming pool."

Clear Channel is donating $25,000 to KBEM-FM, a financially troubled noncom in Minneapolis, reports the Star-Tribune. (Reg. req.)

The profile of KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, Calif., is growing nationally among offbeat bands, "the smaller record labels that promote them and the music consumers who want to be surprised," reports the New York Times.