(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; FN: Fred Newmann)
(WESTERN THEME)
SS: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS....brought to you by Trailblazer Table Napkins...use
em as napkins (SMOOSH OF GREASE)....as hankies (NOSE HONK)....or use em
to tie up guys' wrists and gag em (GAGGING) and now, here's today's exciting
adventure.....
(OUTDOOR AMBIENCE, DISTANT CATTLE)
GK: Beautiful evening, Dusty.
TR: Yep.
GK: Smell that air.
TR: All I smell is cattle and cattle by-products. Where are the cattle, by the way?
GK: I'm watching em right here on the screen. Those little blips, those are our cattle.
TR: Man, cowboying sure ain't like it used to be.
GK: Thanks to this laptop and those chips they taped to the cows rear ends, we just (BEEPS) punch in the Locate Herd program and there they are. Transponder thing, this COWCHIP. Stands for Cowboy Out With Cows Hiding In the Prairie. Nifty thing.
TR: Using a screen to herd cattle??? It's an insult to any cowboy with a lick of self respect.
GK: Helps you do your job.
TR: I miss back when we were regular cowboys, riding for the Lazy B.
GK: Well, the Lazy B was bought up by Beefex. Now we're corporate cowboys with cell phones in our holsters.
TR: Don't remind me. (HAWKS AND SPITS. DISTANT MOO) Oh shuddup! (DISTANT MOO) Go to sleep! (RING) Sounds like the golderned fax machine.
GK: (OFF) Yep, I think you're right. (PHONE RING) (WHINNY) Easy, big girl. It's just a fax coming in. (FAX)
TR: Probably another one of those idiot memos from the Beefex vice-president for corporate branding telling us how to tell the rear end of a cow from the front.
GK: Nope. They want us to count the cows again. The computer says we got 160 cows, not 40.
TR: We got forty head!
GK: Well, you know that and I know that, but----
TR: Well, the computer is wrong. It counted all their legs and forgot to divide by four. Doggone it, Lefty, this goldanged corporate cowboy life is just plain not for me. (HE PACES OFF AND TURNS) I gotta be a free range cowboy! (HAWKS AND SPITS)
GK: Relax. Tomorrow we'll be in Kansas City. Deliver our cows to the stockyard and I'll go and look up Miss Evelyn Beebalo.
TR: You still carrying a torch for her? She must be fifty, by now.
GK: Some flowers never lose their fragrance. She hasn't forgotten me. She sent me an e-mail out on the trail, she said, "Are you coming to Kansas City soon?"
TR: Don't sound like a romantic proposition to me.
(STRUMS)
TR: Would you mind not doing that?
GK: (STRUMS. TUNES LAST STRING A LITTLE SHARP. STRUMS AGAIN.) When a man has strong feelings, he must express himself through music, Dusty.
TR: I've got pretty strong feelings about your music, but never mind.
GK: She is in love with me, Dusty. (TUNES AND STRUMS) Longing for the day when our paths converge and I'll be able to quit this lonely filthy cowboy life and find happiness with her in a little cottage in the golden West.
TR: She is planning how to get out of town before you arrive.
GK: I'm not even listening to you.
(SINGS AS HE STRUMS)
You're the cream in the cream cheese
The oysters in my stew
You will always be my necessity, I'd be lost without you.
You're the gin in my tonic,
You are my MSG,
You will always be my necessity, I'd be lost without thee.
When men ride hosses,
And they get nauseous,
They love their sauces,
And you're my Worcestershire, dear.
You're the words of my mantra,
You're my Buddhe and Tao,
You will always be my necessity, I'd be lost without thou.
I've got to say, dear,
I've lost my way, dear,
Don't need an -ism,
Need a trail and you're my Chisholm.
You're the zip in my zipper,
You're the lace in my shoe.
You will always be my necessity, I'd be lost without you.
TR: Spare me the yodel, Lefty.
GK: Yodeladiyodeladi----
TR: Ahh. It feels so good when it's over. So how you planning to find Miss Beebalo?
GK: Go to the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum.
TR: Art Museum???? (HAWKS AND SPITS)
GK: That's where I met her ten years ago. Looking at the French paintings. The Monets and Manets and the Renoir.
TR: I prefer Remington myself. Made good razors and made good paintings. Of cowboys.
GK: Yeah, but it's around the French ones where you meet a higher class of women. You stand looking at a painting and sorta tilting your head and holding up a thumb and a pretty woman walks up and stands there and you say something like, "I love his vocabulary of shadow. And the brushwork is so ---- neoclassical." And she agrees, and before you know it, you're sitting down to a cappuccino with an intelligent woman who smells good, and has the capability of supporting you financially if you play your cards right. (HAWKS, SPITS)
TR: I'd rather just walk up to a dance hall floozy and say, "Here's a dollar. Let's dance."
GK: Those were the old days ----(PHONE RING) ---- is that you or me? (PHONE RING)
TR: Sounds like it's you.
GK: Excuse me. ---- Hello---- this is Lefty, how can I help?
SS (ON PHONE): It's Evelyn, Lefty. Evelyn Beebalo We met at the museum. You were explaining to me about brush strokes.
TR: Probably another one of those idiots at Beefex.
GK: Well, it's wonderful to hear you say that, Evelyn. I feel the same way.
TR: Oh, it's her.
SS (ON PHONE): You sure knew a lot about the Post-Impressionists.
GK: Well, a cowboy knows that a post had better make an impression, otherwise it's not going to stay in the ground, is it?
SS (ON PHONE): I called to tell you something.
GK: Yeah?
SS (ON PHONE): I'm married, Lefty. Married a computer programmer.
GK: Well, that's wonderful.
SS (ON PHONE): So I won't be able to see you while you're in town, Lefty.
GK: Well, I feel the same way about you, Evelyn.
SS (ON PHONE): Bye, Lefty. Have a nice life. (CLICK)
GK: Well, I'm glad you feel that way, Evelyn, and I'll be looking forward to lunch tomorrow. Bye, sweetheart. Love you a whole bunch. Bye. (KISSES)
TR: Guess that's not somebody from Beefex, huh?
GK: It was Evelyn. She's still wild about me. Wanted to see me today. I put her off until tomorrow. Best to keep a woman waiting, I say. Helps build interest.
TR: (BEEPER) Doggone it.
GK: Somebody's beepin' ya, pardner.
TR: Let em go beep somebody else for a change.
GK: It's only a pager.
TR: I'm gonna ignore it. (BEEP)
GK: They're not gonna quit till you answer it.
TR: We'll see about that. (BEEP)
GK: Maybe it's about something important.
TR: That'd be a first. (BEEP) That does it. (HE FUMES AND FULMINATES)
GK: What you doin, Dusty?
TR: I'll show you. (TOSSES PAGER IN AIR. THEN WHIPS GUN FROM HOLSTER, FOUR SHOTS)
GK: Pretty darn good shootin, pal. I believe that pager has been terminated.
(HORSE HOOVES RIDE UP AT GALLOP)
GK: Hey! Hey! Take it easy.
SS: I'm mad at you guys! I hear that you're from Beefex.
TR: What'd we do? We ain't done nothing to you.
SS: Who else am I goin to be angry at? Ain't nobody else around here for miles. You're my only opportunity. (SHE DISMOUNTS. HORSE WHINNY) Whoa. (FOOTSTEPS) Did you read this in the paper yesterday?
GK: What's this?
TR: (READING) Nabisco Investigated by Govt. for Shredding Wheat.
SS: Not that one. The other one.
TR: "BEEFEX STOCK DROPS TO TEN CENTS A SHARE AS COMPANY PREDICTS SECOND QUARTER LOSS OF $1.2 BILLION"----Oh well.
GK: What do you mean, "Oh well?"
TR: Don't affect us. Just the stockholders. Is something wrong? ---- Huh? What is it? Oh no. Tell me it ain't true. Tell me you didn't. You didn't. You couldn't have.
GK: I did.
TR: You agreed that we'd get paid in the form of stock options.
GK: Right.
TR: So we got nothing, essentially. Flat broke. The old story.
GK: About what we started out with.
TR: I'm goin' to town, pardner. Get me some rotgut. Look up a floozy or two. (WHINNY) Giddup. (HORSE HOOVES, AWAY)
GK: You had your supper yet, Miss-----?
SS: Babaloo. Dorothy Babaloo. You wouldn't happen to have some cheese
and crackers, would ya?
GK: Got some right here. Brie and sesame seed, okay?
SS: Mighty fine.
GK: I bought em for a gal who it appears I'm not going to be seeing after all.
SS: Well, I'm sure you'll find someone. You're a pretty good looking guy.
GK: You think so?
SS: I think you're pretty attractive. I daresay most women would.
GK: Well, I'm not taking a poll or anything.
SS: Even as I come riding in here shooting off my pistol in blind rage, I did think in the back of my mind, hey, I wouldn't mind if that fellow there brought me my orange juice in the morning.
GK: Well, the moment you came riding in, I started to think of a song.
SS: Is that right?
GK: (STRUM) It ain't finished yet, but it starts out something like this.
You're the cream in my coffee
You're the salt in my stew
You will always be my necessity, I'd be lost without you.
SS: I hope there's a yodel. I am strangely thrilled by yodeling.
GK: It's coming eventually.
(THEME)
TR: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS......brought to you by La Casa Grande Brand Placemats for the Trail. Why set your grub down in the dirt when you can use a handsome place mat from La Casa Grande? Your choice of six patterns: Manhattan At Night, Tropical Fish, Butterflies, Poker Hands, Presidents of the United States, or the Christian Science Monitor Swimsuit Calendar. (WHINNY) (MUSIC OUT)
© Garrison Keillor 2002