(WESTERN THEME)
Sue Scott: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS....brought to you by Trailblazer Table Napkins......if a pioneer family or the schoolmarm should happen to drop in at your campsite, you don't want to be caught with grease dribbling down your chin -- always keep Trailblazer table napkins on hand (SMOOSH OF GREASE)....also useful as hankies (BIG HONK) and now, here's today's exciting adventure.....
(PIANO, UNDER, SOME COFFEESHOP CLATTER)
Garrison Keillor: Nice little coffee shop here in Akron, Dusty. Peloponnesus Coffee. We must be near a college or something.
Tim Russell: Can't wait to get out of the Midwest. Too dang many people. Time to head west, hit the trail.
GK: Well, that shopping mall in Cuyahoga Falls paid us good money to appear at their grand opening.....
TR: Riding a horse around a parking lot and roping shopping carts in front of thousands of wretched children throwing corn dogs at us-- it was a dark episode in my life, pardner.
GK: Well, it paid well, and that's what counts.
TR: The shame of doing dumb things and people standing around watching you do them.
GK: Well, that's what show business is, Dusty. It's got nothing to do with dignity, that's for sure.
SS (WAITRESS): So what can I do for you, boys? You want coffee?
TR: I'd like one of them lady coffees--
SS (WAITRESS): You mean the latte?
TR: Right.
GK: I'll have one of those too.
SS (WAITRESS): You want the proportional, the plentiful, or the prodigious?
TR: How about large?
SS (WAITRESS): That's the prodigious. Any flavorings?
TR: I'd like mine coffee-flavored.
GK: Same here.
SS (WAITRESS): Those for here or to go?
TR: Here.
SS (WAITRESS): Okay. Be right back. (FEW FOOTSTEPS) --Two big honkers!
Fred Newman (OFF): Two honkers! (ESPRESSO SEQUENCE STARTS)
SS (WAITRESS): What can I bring you for breakfast, boys?
GK: Sort of trying to choose between the Herculean and the Amazonian.....
SS (WAITRESS): Well, they're both steak and eggs and hash browns but the Amazonian comes with a corsage.
GK: I'll take the Herculean.
TR: Same for me.
SS (WAITRESS): Thank you......(SHOUTS) Two pigs in the gutter!
TR: So-- we leavin' right after breakfast?
GK: Well-- I was thinking of stopping by Kinko's and faxing a couple of these songs off to that music publisher in Chicago.
TR: Oh for pity's sake.
GK: Just because he didn't go for those songs doesn't mean he might not like one of these. (HE STRUMS)
TR (SOTTO VOCE): Put that guitar down! People are turning this way and looking at you!
GK: That's the whole point of it, Dusty. To get them to look at you. (HE STRUMS)
Riding cross the prairie
In the month of June
I stopped into a coffeeshop one morn.
The smell of good strong java and the fresh croissants
I like them though they sure are forn.
I sat and drank my coffee
As the waitress brought my eggs
I was hungry so I hoped twould not be long
And as I was waiting
I glanced at my guitar
And thought that I would write a song.
TR: That is the dumbest song I ever heard in my life and I am over fifty years old, Lefty.
GK: It needs some work-- I admit that--
TR: It's stupid. I never heard one as -- yechhhhh -- put the guitar down--
GK: I'm not done, Lefty. (STRUMS)
TR: I may move to a different booth.
GK: Sitting drinking coffee
And looking at the sky
I sometimes wonder what life's all about--
What could be the purpose
Of the suffering and strife?
And is there a God? Frankly, I doubt
That there is, though some philosophers say yes.
An idea that some others may denounce.
But I just say there's nothing like a couple nice poached eggs
With steak and toast and good hash browns.
FN: Hey! Which one of you ordered the Amazon breakfast?
GK: We ordered the Herculean.
FN: Order says, one Amazon, one Herculean. (HE CLEARS THROAT AND SPITS......)
TR: You can give the Amazon to my pardner here.
FN: You're his partner?
TR: Not in that sense.
FN: Oh.
TR: Pardner. With a "d".
FN: Right. Gotcha. Here's your eggs. Hey-- you look like you're writing a song-- you a songwriter?
GK: I am, yes.
FN: Well, ain't that a coincidence. So'm I. Just wrote a song called "I'm In Your Car Pool and I'm a Fool For You" -- want me to sing some of that?
TR: No, thanks.
FN: I got another one called "All My Troubles"-- (HE SINGS)
All my troubles
Some are old and some are new.
But in the middle of trouble
Is U.
GK: Interesting.
FN: "In the middle of trouble is U" -- get it?
GK: Got it.
FN: "Trouble" is spelled "t-r-o-U-b-l-e" -- seven letters and U is the middle letter.
GK: Very clever idea.
FN: Want me to sing you the rest of it?
TR: (REVOLVER, COCK HAMMER, AND SPIN CYLINDER) You see what's in my hand, mister?
FN: Looks like Mr. Samuel Colt.
TR: That's him. (FOOTSTEPS APPROACH)
SS: You got trouble over here, boys?
GK: We're just trying to eat our breakfasts, ma'am.
FN: I was singing them my song, Mary Lou.
SS: You care for more coffee? (POURING) Oh my gosh, he's got a gun!! (BIG SPLOSH OF COFFEE) Oh, I'm sorry!!! I'm sorry!!!
FN: Let me get a sponge--
GK: You just spilled coffee all over my song lyrics, ma'am--
SS: I am terribly sorry-- (MOPPING)
GK: The ink is smearing something awful--
SS: Let me mop it up for you--
GK: They're wrecked-both of them--
SS: I'm doing my best--
GK: Well, I wish you wouldn't-- you just destroyed weeks of work--
FN: Here, I got a sponge--
GK: Get away with that.
FN: What's wrong??
GK: My song lyrics-- they're destroyed.
TR: Which ones were they?
GK: The one about "When we've gotten in the corn and beans, I will show what romance means" -- and the one that goes "Lord In Heaven, I sure hate to trouble you but I wouldn't mind a new BMW" --
SS: Well, you made a copy of it, didn't you?
GK: I just wrote it.
FN: You can rewrite it-- just think of the lines--
GK: I'm trying--
SS: It's all in your head. All you have to do is concentrate.
FN: Right.
TR: I heard that Johnny Cash -- he lost "Ring of Fire" in a campfire and then he sat down and rewrote it on the back of an envelope and it came out better -- the original was about curtain rings --
FN: Lots of writers have lost material--
GK: I'm trying to think-- Shut up.
FN: Roy Orbison-- same thing happened to him, with "Crying" -- lost the whole song when his girlfriend spilled battery acid on it -- the original version was called "Trying" -- he rewrote the whole thing as "Crying" -- you know that song--
GK: Would you both just shut up? I'm trying to think of my song about -- I can't even remember what it's about--
SS: Heard a similar story about "Great Balls of Fire" -- Jerry Lee Lewis--
GK: Could I have some peace and quiet?
SS: Somebody flushed it down a toilet. So they sat down and rewrote it. Did a better version. The original was called "Heavens To Betsy" --
GK: I'm going outside. Excuse me. (FOOTSTEPS, THEN STOP) Hey. Where's the horses?
FN: What horses?
SS: Were those your horses?
GK: The sorrel and the gray--
SS: I'm sorry. Sheriff came and got em. There's no parking on that side of the street on alternate Saturdays except from 8:45 to 3:15.
GK: Oh for mercy sakes-- (FOOTSTEPS RETURN, HE SITS)
TR: Finish your breakfast. We'll deal with it later.
GK: They destroy your songs.......they steal your horses-- (WOOD CRUNCH, SCRONGGG OF STRINGS)
FN: Sorry-- didn't see your guitar there. --- Sorry. ---- Mind if I sit down?
GK: You are sitting. You're sitting on my guitar.
FN: Very sorry. I'm just excited. We don't get to meet many cowboys in Ohio. I'm curious-- you cowboys use your pistols a lot?
GK: Not as often as we'd like.
TR: Sometimes when we're drunk, we'll shoot em at the Milky Way, or what looks to us to be the Milky Way. Otherwise, no.
FN: How about e-mail? You have Internet connections out there on the trail?
GK: No, we don't.
FN: How about the food? --
TR: It's wretched.
FN: How come you do it?
GK: You want to know why we stay out on the lonesome windy dustblown forsaken prairie?
FN: Why do you?
GK: Nobody ever spilled on me out there. That's why.
TR: His horse stepped on him. He's stepped in various stuff. It's rained on him. Snowed on him. Hailed. Sometimes boulders fell on him. Once a cougar jumped on him. But nobody ever spilled on him.
SS: Excuse me-- sir-- you got the Amazon breakfast and we forgot to give you the corsage. -- Here it is. -- I take it from the look in your eye you'd prefer not to have it. -- Okay, how about I put it here on the table beside you? -- No? -- Okay. Have a good day.
GK: Go get the horses, Dusty. I'll settle the check.
TR: Don't hurt anybody, pardner.
GK: I won't. I'll just sit here and grit my teeth.
SS: How about more coffee??
GK: No thanks. (STRUM BLUE CHORD) Ah. Guitar isn't broken. Just bent.
(STRUM)
Trouble in mind, and I'm blue
But I won't be blue always.
I'm gonna be in Wyoming one of these days.
People confuse me.
And sometimes they drive me insane.
But I'll be fine just as soon as I hit the plains.
(THEME)
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