(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)
(HORSE HOOVES, WHOOPS. CATTLE.)
(WESTERN THEME)
SS: The Lives of the Cowboys....brought to you by Las Vegas Moisturizing Skin Cream, the cream made from the hormones of lizards ---- it softens leathery skin (SQUIRT). Side effects may include rapid flicking of tongue, consult your doctor as necessary. And now, THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS.
(OUTDOOR DESERT AMBIANCE, NIGHT. PAN RATTLE, CLINK OF UTENSILS. POURING. CRACKING OF EGG. ANOTHER EGG. SHAKING OF SPICE. POURING. CRACK OF EGG. ANOTHER EGG. CHOPPING OF VEGETABLES.)
GK: What is that I smell out there, Dusty? Is that a skunk?
TR: I don't smell anything.
GK: Smells like a skunk backed up and expressed himself.
TR: I don't smell a thing. What you fixing for grub there, Lefty?
GK: I don't know. I was thinking of making a souffle and then I forgot how it goes.
TR: How come you poured hair mouse in there?
GK: Hair mouse! You put that stuff on your hair? That's vegetable shortening.
TR: Thought it was hair mouse.
GK: No wonder you attract flies to the extent you do. (RATTLE OF PAN)
TR: You gonna bake bread? Looks like bread dough.
GK: No, no. Thinking about maybe a risotto of some sort. Except wait. You need rice for that. Never mind. Maybe I'll add a cup of cornstarch. (HE STIRS RAPIDLY) While I'm making this whatever it is, you might think about going down to the creek for a bath, pardner. It gets painful once it freezes over.
TR: Who says I need a bath?
GK: Remember last month when you weighed 210? Then you took a bath-and you weighed 150. What does that tell you?
TR: It tells me I don't need a bath-not if I just took one a month ago.
GK: Dusty, if I looked as bad as you, I'd go to the undertaker and ask for my money back. Genetics you can't help, intelligence is out of your hands, but at least have a clean face. So we can head into town and vote.
TR: Vote! Vote for what??
GK: Don't worry, I'll tell you once we get there.
TR: Ain't no sense in voting, what difference does it make?
GK: It's our patriotic duty, Dusty. And if you don't vote, then how can you rise up in righteous indignation and denounce the rascals for their abandonment of high principles if you never voted for em in the first place? Huh?
TR: Who you voting for?
GK: None of your business.
TR: You're gonna vote for that two-bit prissy-lipped tippy-toe Sunday-School chicken buzzard Al Gore, ain't you. I can't believe it!!! Al Gore is the one who is proposing the Clean Trail Act. You know what that means??? Huh? It means cowboys'd have to walk along behind the cattle and pick up their poop! (HAWKS AND SPITS)
GK: Yer cowboy candidate, Mr. W., Dusty ----- have you been listening to this guy? The porch light's on but there's nobody home. The "W" stands for Witless Wonder if you ask me. This guy is all foam and no beer. If he said what he really thought, he'd be speechless.
TR. Al Gore is somebody who'd put seat belts on saddles! How can you even think about----- what are you putting in there?
GK: Maple syrup.
TR: Maple syrup. With eggs and cornstarch and potatoes?
GK: Just an idea.
TR: Well, I'm a gonna vote for the governor. Yessir. A Texan through and through. A man who tosses his empties where he pleases. And he's gonna win, too! George W. don't know the meaning of the word defeat.
GK: For crying out loud, Dusty, he don't know the meaning of he word "cat"!
TR: When things were rough for George W, he didn't go whining and bellyaching like some mealy-mouthed crybaby liberal. No way. He put his shoulder to the wheel, rolled up his sleeves and borrowed another two million dollars from his Daddy.
GK: That's fine. You go ahead and vote for him. Vote for a tree if you want to. I don't care.
TR: So we'll cancel each other out. So what do you say we just forget about it and go up to Wyoming and go hunting? Get us a deer and forget all this nonsense.
GK: Why don't you go take a bath, Dusty? You smell like you died a long time ago and somebody dug you up.
TR: This is the smell that attracts deer. (CHOPPING SOUND) What's that?
GK: Putting onions and snake meat in it. And some rickety cheese. (CHOPPING)
TR: I tell you, I wouldn't vote Democrat if they paid me. Anything any body gets any pleasure out of, those liberals'll find a way to regulate it to death. All those signs in bus depots, "No Spitting" ----- those were liberals who wrote those laws. A law against spitting is an abridgment of free speech. I'm surprised you can't see that.
GK: See what?
TR: How they take the fun out of everything. Guns, for example.
GK: What about em?
TR: Al Gore is somebody'd who'd put a warning label on the barrel of your pistol.
GK: Dusty, your pistol ought to have one, it ought to say, "For safety, stand directly in front of pistol, not down and to the left."
TR: These liberal tendencies of yours, Lefty ----- it all started when you hung out with that liberal schoolmarm in Butte. The one who took you to the Butte Ballet and made you wear a jacket and tie.
GK: It was a good ballet.
TR: I ain't never understood the ballet. Why do they have to dance on their toes anyway? Why can't they just get taller dancers?
GK: Well I enjoyed it. We saw something called Less Syphilis.
TR: Less Syphilis! How do you get less syphilis?
GK: By wearing tight pants, I guess.
TR: You know something---- If Al Gore came out against death and pestilence, I'd have to reconsider my position.
GK: Fine. Just take a bath, wouldja? You're beginning to wilt the sage brush.(PLOPS OF CHUNKS DROPPED IN LIQUID)
TR: Is that pineapple you're putting in there?
GK: Yeah, thought we should use it up.
(GALLOPING HOOVES APPROACH)
TR: Who's this? Somebody you know?
GK: Could be. (SS WHOAS, OFF, AND HORSE STOPS, WHINNY.) (SHE DISMOUNTS AND WALKS TOWARD THEM)
TR: A liberal. Look at her riding helmet.
GK: How do, Miss Sara Beth? Nice of you to come out on a chilly night like this.
SS: Don't mention it. Grub smells good. Sorta like Crisco.
TR: That's my hair mam.
SS: What you making?
GK: Not sure. I was thinking frittada and now I'm thinking some kind of casserole. It's just missing something.
SS: I got some Rocky Mountain oysters in my saddlebag.
GK: Fine, let's put em in. (FOOTSTEPS AWAY)
SS: (OFF) You put oregano in it?
GK: Some. And a little tarragon and rosemary. And some blue cheese and hearts of palm . It just seems to be missing something. (FOOTSTEPS TOWARD)
SS: Here's the oysters. Who's the old funky butt, your pardner?
GK: This here is Dusty. Dusty, say hello to Sara Beth, one of those tax-and-spend Democrat dance hall floozies.
TR: Hmmmphhhh.
GK: (PLOPS IN THE OYSTERS) Don't mind Dusty. He's thinking about the election, getting himself worked up into a fever of ignorance so he can go pull the Republican lever.
TR: I ain't even going to dignify that with a response.
GK: Good. Don't.
TR: A law against spitting, for heaven's sake! Against spitting! The Clean Trails Act. You want to walk along collecting cowpies? By George, I ain't going to stand for it! (HAWKS AND SPITS. PAUSE. DISTANT BIRD FLUTTER.) Hit me a spotted owl.
SS: Well, you got to have rules in any decent society-----
TR: Decent society is what I became a cowboy to get away from, ma'am.
SS: I mean, people weren't meant to live alone and make their own rules.
TR: Cowboys were. And now Al Gore wants to make a law requiring us to walk along behind the cattle with a burlap bag----- and they've got this Affirmative Poker law requiring that any bunch of cowboys playing poker include at least one person who doesn't know the ace of spades from a hole in the ground.
GK: You just go on ranting, don't mind us.
TR: When we going to eat?
GK: I don't know. It still needs something----
TR: Well, I'm hungry.
GK: I don't know. I ain't a train, I don't operate on a timetable. (HAWKS AND SPITS)
TR: Did you just do what I think you did? I coulda sworn I saw you spit in the supper.
GK: Just felt like it needed something, I guess.
TR: You never spit in the supper before-----
GK: Never felt like it before.
TR: Well, I ain't going to eat supper that's been spat in.
GK: Suit yourself.
TR: And I ain't going to speak to you until I hear you apologize.
GK: Fine. I can use the quiet. Sara Beth and I can talk. She's more interesting anyway.
TR: I'm waiting.
GK: You can wait for weeks or months, as you wish. Suit yourself. Sara Beth and I are going into town, have us a steak dinner and afterward head up to the Unitarian church for a panel discussion.
TR: You ain't staying here for supper?
GK: Nope.
TR: You're gonna leave me out here alone with this blue cheese/pineapple/onion/maple syrup/eggs and potatoes concoction?
GK: Dusty, when it comes to a choice between you and a beautiful woman, it's nothing I have to think hard about.
TR: So you are going to go off with this liberal woman and leave your pardner out here alone in the cold?
GK: You got that right.
TR: You are going off with this affirmative-action spit-prohibiting helmet-wearing woman and leave your pardner who has looked after you and defended you and gotten drunk with you for twenty years ----- you going to leave him out here in the cold? is that right?
GK: Yes, sir.
TR: A liberal woman who believes that in poker twos and tens ought to be wild and the pot oughta go to the loser.
GK: Yes, sir.
TR: You would abandon principle for the love of someone who wants to keep reshuffling the deck.
GK: I would, sir.
TR: How can you do this?
GK: Let me show you. (WALKS TO HORSE, MOUNTS. SS MOUNTS, HORSES WHINNY. GIDDUPS. GALLOPS AWAY)
(THEME)
SS: The Lives of the Cowboys....brought to you by Las Vegas Moisturizing Cream (SQUIRT). Made from genuie lizard hormones. Remember our motto: Iguana Make You Feel Good.(WHINNY)
DUSTY: Void where prohibited by those animal rights kookoos.
(THEME OUT)
(c) 2000 by Garrison Keillor