The Lives of the Cowboys script
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Listen

(THEME)

SS (MIDWESTERN): The Lives of the Cowboys. If your pants are as tight as they need to be, you're going to need something to carry your stuff in and that's this Cowpoke Clutch Purse. Loose change, a pocket flask, doo-dads — it all fits in your purse. And nobody's going to give you a hard time about carrying a purse because you're carrying a gun in it too. (GUN COCKS). And now, The Lives of the Cowboys.

(BLIZZARD, DOGS BARKING IN DISTANCE)

TR: Boy. Winter in St. Paul. Whose idea was this? My face hurts, Lefty. And yours hurts to look at.

GK: Keep moving, Dusty. That's the secret.

TR: I thought the secret was alcohol. I liked that secret better. Just don't see why had to come out to this Siberian outpost just so you could enter some crazy contest—

GK: This is a very lucrative contest, Dusty. Ten thousand dollars. St. Paul is trying to rebrand itself as a destination city and come up with a new slogan, a new identity—

TR: I got a slogan for you. "Don't Come Here." How's that?

GK: People hear St. Paul and they naturally think about the Bible and the epistle to the Ephesians and all those warnings to avoid temptation and telling women to stay in their place and so forth. Minneapolis does not have that problem. (TOBOGGAN APPROACH) Look out. Toboggan load of dogs. (TOBOGGAN WHOOSH, BARKS PASSING)

TR: Here's a slogan for you. How about "We Live Here So You Don't Have To? "

GK: I don't think so, Dusty. Say fellows, you wouldn't happen to know where the song contest is, would you?

TR (HIGH): Got no idea.

TK: Probably in one of those big blue tents over there.

GK: Over there—

TK: Right. That's the hot dish tent. And over there is the ice carving area. And that's the pup tent.

GK: Kind of big for a pup tent.

TR (HIGH): It's where the dogs sleep. Rescue dogs.

GK: Oh. Okay. — Let me take a look in there. (FLAP OPEN, SOME LIGHT CANINE SNORING) Wow. (FLAP CLOSE) Hundreds of dogs all curled up and sleeping. Shepherds and huskies and Labradors. Poodles. Terriers. Must be tiring being a dog out here. (STRUMMING) Well, I got three songs about St. Paul....which one should I enter in the contest?

For music and theater and an orchestra hall
Beautiful paintings hung on the wall
And espresso with or without alcohol
You'll find it all in St. Paul.

(DOG SNORING, SOME GROWLING)

A Lutheran upbringing is like antifreeze
You'll never get hypothermia
You're probably good down to fifteen degrees
After the Lutherans confirm ya.

TR (DUSTY): Hey, pardner. The song contest is over in this tent.

GK: Oh. Okay. I was just warming up. — So I headed toward the big blue tent where a man (FOOTSTEPS IN SNOW, CHAINSAW) was making a giant ice sculpture of a fish of some sort —

TR (MINN): Stand back there— not too close.

TR (MINN): Gonna carve his tail now— (CHAINSAW REV)

GK: (FOOTSTEPS IN SNOW) Is this the songwriting contest in here? You know, to rebrand St. Paul as a destination city. The one with the ten-thousand dollar prize.

SS (MIDWESTERN): We cancelled it.

GK: What?

SS (MIDWESTERN): Well, actually we decided to spend the money to hire a gentleman from Georgia to write us a slogan.

RB: That's me. Howdy. The name is Suttle. Roy Suttle. Used to be Roy Blunt but I changed it.

GK: You shipped him in?

SS (MIDWESTERN):Spent our whole budget to do it, but it was worth it.

RB: Wanna hear the slogan? It's really good. St. Paul: Life Goes On. Get it?

(A BEAT)

GK: Life goes on?

RB: It's about survival.

GK: Life goes on?

RB: Continuity. The Great Parade of Life.

GK: They paid you money for that?

RB: Of course. I'm a professional writer. Member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

GK: How much they pay you?

SS (MIDWESTERN): Mr. Lefty, I think that is a private matter—

RB: Paid me ten thousand bucks.

GK: I don't believe it. Ten grand! For that????

SS (MIDWESTERN): Could we talk about this someplace else— gentlemen—

GK: Ten thousand dollars for a cliché?

RB: Not cliché. Idiom. You're just envious that you didn't think of it.

SS (MIDWESTERN): Gentlemen, please—

GK: I came here expecting to compete for a prize and you gave it away to this cracker who never even set foot in St. Paul.

RB: Well, don't throw a big hissy fit over it.

TR (MINN): Look out— we're gonna be carving another walleye outta ice here. Two thousand pounder. (CHAINSAW)

GK: You don't know a thing about St. Paul. You never set foot here—

RB: I Googled it. It's on Wikipedia.

SS (MID): You know, you are creating a scene here, Mr. Lefty— people are looking—

GK: Good. Let em look. You advertised a prize and then you gave it away— that's unfair.

RB: Oh go soak your head. Get a grip.

GK: I ride hundreds of miles across the windswept prairie to sing a song and maybe win a few bucks and I get here and find that some cracker just collected the jackpot for a dumb slogan.

RB: Dumb slogan: "Life Goes On"? What should it be? The World Is Coming To An End? Huh?

GK: I guess someone should just shoot me-

SS (MINN): We have another event that's taking place now— let's move this—

TR (DEEP): Walleye sculpture— (CHAINSAW) stand back— first I do the dorsal fin. (CHAINSAW)

RB: So what did you write that's so great?

GK: I wrote songs. That's what the contest was. It wasn't to write a three-word cliché.

(CRACKING, OFF)

SS (DEEP): Look out!!!! Look out!!!!

TR: The walleye's falling! (LOUD CRACKING, CRIES OF PANIC. BIG THUMP, RB OOF)

SS: Mister? Wake up, mister. (SLAPS)

TR: Boy, that ice sculpture clunked him right square on the noggin.

TK: The chainsaw slipped. I don't know what happened.

SS: I told him to move. Told him twice.

TR: Mister? (SLAPS)

TK: Anybody know mouth-to-mouth?

SS: Is he breathing?

GK: He looks sort of expired to me.

SS: Kind of tragic. He comes all the way up here to write us a new slogan, "Life Goes On," and he winds up getting killed by a fish.

GK: Person could maybe write a song about that.

TK: Call 9-1-1.

TR: I think he's a goner. Three hundred pounds of ice just bounce off your cranium, you don't just get up and walk away.

SS: Wait! His eyelids flickered! His mouth is moving!

TR: He's trying to talk.

SS: What is it, mister?

TK: Stand back— give the man some air. RB (WEAKLY): I wish I was in the land of cotton
Good times there are not forgotten
Look away, look away, look away,
Dixie land.

GK: You okay?

RB (WEAKLY): Where am I?

SS: You're under a 300-pound walleye, sir. We're gonna have to chip it off you.

TR: Do you know what day of the week it is?

RB (WEAKLY): Christmas?

TR: Do you know who's president?

RB (WEAKLY): Don't tell me. I don't want to know. (SINGS)

Look away....look away.....away down south in Dixie.

SS: So what song did you write for the contest, Mr. Lefty?

GK: Well, I'll sing it for you —

Let other cities make their claims
To greatness and publicize their names
We don't care to be premier
Cause we don't want you moving here.
We're modest folks in the Midwest
And of course we know we're best
Don't want visitors from afar
We like ourselves just as we are
That's why we talk about wind chill
And that St. Paul is Nowheresville
Trying to keep you out of paradise.
And when global warming melts the ice
And floods LA and NY
Guess who'll be sitting high and dry,
Cool as can be, king of the hill, belle of the ball?
St. Paul.

SS: Interesting.

GK: Interesting.

SS: Interesting.

(THEME)

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