(WESTERN THEME)
Sue Scott: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS...brought to you by Big Mesa Breath Mints -- even when you're hundreds of miles out on the lone prairie, you never know when you may run into someone and you want to freshen your breath so they won't think you've been eating road kill -- reach for Big Mesa. And now...The Lives of the Cowboys.
(HORSES WHINNY, HOOVES)
Garrison Keillor: Lookit there, Dusty. Volcanos. One over there and one up there-- this is all old lava flow we're riding on. Right up there is the glacier.
Tim Russell: Tell me again why we came to Iceland, Lefty.
GK: Just wanted to get away from everything, that's all.
TR: You're running from Big Messer, aren't you.
GK: Am not.
TR: Came to Iceland cause Big Messer ran you out of Wyoming.
GK: Came here to get me one of them Icelandic horses, Dusty.
TR: Those little horses with all the hair? A cowboy doesn't ride around on a pony!
GK: When you get to be my age, you don't want to fall so far.
TR: You're running from Big Messer.
GK: Am not. Came here to get a horse and also here in Iceland they got the secret of youth.
TR: Where'd you hear that?
GK: Man I met online. Said he'd meet me here in this saloon and tell me everything--
TR: Who is he?
GK: A man named Rocky Sigurdsdottir. (BRIDGE, AND FOOTSTEPS)
TR: Sure a bunch of quiet drinkers in here. (FOOTSTEPS) Look. People sitting reading books and drinking beer.
GK: With history and philosophy sometimes that's the only way to understand things. Clarity would only get in your way.
TR: How you going to recognize this Rocky Sigurdsdottir?
GK: He said his face has bite marks on it. Been in a lot of fights. Excuse me, ma'am-- you speak English?
SS: Yes, of course I speak English. I went to Yale University.
GK: Sorry, didn't mean to offend you--
SS: Everybody in Iceland speaks English whether we want to or not. What can I do for you?
GK: You the bartender?
SS: I'm a playwright. Bartending is what I do evenings and weekends. Most of the time I'm working on a play based on the Icelandic sagas. It's called THE SEA, THE SKY, THE WIND, AND THE RAIN.
GK: Sounds interesting. Hope to catch that someday.
TR: Ma'am, you know somebody by the name of Rocky?
SS: Rocky Sigurdsdottir? Of course. Right over there.
GK: The man with his hat pulled down over his eyes?
SS: That's him.
TR: Looks mighty rough to me.
SS: He's a pussycat. What can I bring you boys to drink?
TR: Whiskey for me.
SS: One whiskey. And what for you, sir?
GK: I don't drink, I just watch him. (FOOTSTEPS) Mr. Sigurdsdottir?
John C. Reilly: Yeah? What you want? You wanna fight? Get in line. I got appointments through next week. If you fight with me, don't forget to bring an extra suit so they'll have something to bury you in, because when I fight, I don't fool around. I am the meanest, roughest, knockdown, head-banging eyeball-gouging, bone-busting, rip-roaring badass hombre you will ever see and it'll be the last sight of your life on earth. Stand up here and meet your Maker. I am Death on a Stick, I am the Avenger, I am the Dark Angel come to gather your sorry soul and throw you into the chains of everlasting torment, I am Death and Pestilence and Cholera and Satan Himself all wrapped up in one --
GK: Hey, hey, hey-- it's me. Lefty. We talked online. Remember?
JCR: Oh, right. Lefty! Hey! Siddown. Lemme get you a cup of tea. You want jasmine or chamomile or eucalyptus?
GK: Jasmine.
JCR: Hey Kristina! A cup of jasmine for my friend here!
TR: You're a tough guy and you drink tea?
JCR: I didn't choose to be a rough guy. My mama made me one. You know how many fights you get in if you grow up in Iceland with the name Rocky Sigurdsdottir?
GK: Lots.
JCR: I've been fighting since I could walk.
TR: How'd you get a name like Sigurdsdottir?
JCR: It wasn't easy. My mama put me in dresses until I was ten. Thought it'd toughen me up. Which it did, but unfortunately I busted my hand so many times I can't play guitar as well as I'd like. (HE STRUMS)
GK: You a songwriter?
JCR: Nope. This is an old Icelandic cowboy song. We sing this to the sheep at night so they go to sleep. (SINGS, TO "HOME ON RANGE")
I love this dear land, the rocks and the sand,
And the trees, there are thirty or so.
I stand and look toward the mountains and fjord
And the slopes of the old lava flow.
Home in Iceland in May
Where the geese and the Arctic terns play.
And often is heard the cry of this bird
And at night it is lighter than day.
Oh winter is fierce, it goes on for years,
It's a sickness like flu or lumbago.
And the Icelander yearns for the sound of the terns
Returning from Tierra del Fuego.
(ALL) Home in Iceland in May
Where the geese and the Arctic terns play.
And often is heard the cry of this bird
And at night it is lighter than day.
They scream and they shriek, they have a sharp beak,
They will dive down and peck at your head.
These birds are a blast, they say winter has passed,
And we for some reason aren't dead.
(ALL) Home in Iceland in May
Where the geese and the Arctic terns play.
And often is heard the cry of this bird
And at night it is lighter than day.
And at night it is lighter than day.
GK: Lovely song, Rocky. So what about this secret you were going to tell us? The secret of youth?
JCR: Oh right. The shark meat.
TR: Shark meat? That keeps you young?
JCR: I've been using it for the past sixty-three years. Ever since I was 18.
SS: Okay, here is the jasmine tea and here is the whiskey.
GK: You don't serve shark meat in here, do you, ma'am?
SS: Fermented shark's meat wrapped in a fisherman's socks and soaked in motor oil--? Yes, of course. You want the appetizer portion or the full dinner?
JCR: Kristina here is a playwright. Did she tell you? Wrote a play called THE SEA, THE SKY, THE WIND AND THE STARS.
SS: I changed the title. Now it's THE SEA, THE SKY, THE WIND, AND THE RAIN.
JCR: Why? I liked the other one better.
SS: You really think so?
GK: Sounds like a sort of a big play.
JCR: It goes on for three and a half weeks. It's an epic. It's in Icelandic and it calls for a cast of 100,000 which only leaves 100,000 for an audience.
TR: I thought Iceland had 300,000 people.
JCR: The other hundred thousand are writers too -- and they're busy writing their own stuff, they can't go see somebody else's.
SS: I still think I oughta cut it down to one week.
JCR: A week! It's a masterpiece. There's nothing like it.
SS: It's never going to be produced.
JCR: Don't compromise. Art is art. You can't cut corners.
GK: Anyway, about that shark meat-- I'd take the appetizer portion.
JCR: This is a shark that's been cut into pieces and buried in the sand for six weeks and hung up to dry.
TR: You bury it in the sand? But it'd get ants and bugs all over it.
JCR: Not a problem. You just pee on it.
TR: On the shark meat?
JCR: You drink a quart of beer and wait ten minutes and --
TR: And that keeps the bugs off.
JCR: And gives it its flavor. Look at me. I've been eating it for 63 years.
GK: You mind if I take a look at your driver's license?
JCR: Got it right here. (FN UNINTELLIGIBLE DEEP VOICE)
TR: Oh boy. Big Messer--
GK: Followed us all the way from Wyoming. (FN UNINTELLIGIBLE DEEP VOICE)
JCR: What does he want?
TR: Nobody knows.
(FN UNINTELLIGIBLE DEEP VOICE)
GK: Nobody can understand him.
TR: He just talks vowels. No consonants.
GK: He's from Wisconsin.
(FN UNINTELLIGIBLE DEEP VOICE)
JCR: Well, maybe a good sock in the jaw'll help him. (JR SWINGS, KONK. FN UNINTELLIGIBLE DEEP VOICE) Lemme try the other side of his jaw. (JR SWINGS, KONK)
FN (DEEP): Hey thanks. That was just what I needed. Had a piece of caramel in my mouth. Teeth were stuck together.
GK: Why didn't you say something?
FN (DEEP): I tried.
GK: You could've written it down.
FN (DEEP): I don't know how to spell caramel.
TR: C-a-r-m-e-l.
FN (DEEP): Anyway I'm okay now. Hey, what country are we in, anyway? Utah? Colorado?
TR: This is Iceland.
FN (DEEP): Iceland. It's beautiful. I never saw anything like it.
GK: Hey, waitress-- cancel that order of shark's meat--
SS: That's okay. We're all out anyway. And I'm not a waitress. I'm actually a dancer.
JCR: I thought you were a playwright.
SS: That's in the winter. In the summer I'm a fabulous dancer. (MARACAS, SHE DANCES, WITH LATIN CRIES) SEGUE INTO THEME)
TR: The Lives of the Cowboys...brought to you by Reykjavik Natural Steam Baths. When you haven't had a bath for a very long time and you really need to get clean, come to Reykjavik and look for the clouds of steam. (THEME OUT)