SS: The Lives of the Cowboys. Brought to you by Horse Wafers. The light cookie snack for your horse, that's low-calorie and sweetens your horse's breath. It's Horse Wafers. (HORSE NICKERS) And now, The Lives of the Cowboys.
(HORSES WALK)
(GK INHALE)
GK: Lenox, Massachusetts, Dusty. Beautiful little town. And just up the road is Canyon Ranch.
TR: What kind of ranching they do at Canyon Ranch?
GK: It's a ranch where people go to lose weight and get in shape and meditate and it's sort of a spa.
TR: A spa! What do they want with us?
GK: We're gonna run their trail ride program, Dusty. And at night I am going to sit by the campfire and sing traditional songs and practice the ancient art of oral narrative improvisation which the fundamental values of the culture are passed along from generation to generation.
TR: I hope that refreshments will be provided.
GK: Anyway, it's a good job and we'll get rooms and a good healthy high-fiber diet and be able to do yoga for free and take creative writing.
TR: So we're gonna take fat people on trail rides and then we have to listen to their poetry too?
GK: It's only for six weeks.
TR: Well, I happen to know that high-fiber and poetry is not your motivation for taking this job, pardner?
GK: Oh yeah?
TR: Yeah, you dragged me all this way halfway across the country to Massachusetts so that you could meet up with your old heartthrob Evelyn Beebalo who is teaching the creative writing class.
GK: I don't know what you're talking about. She gave up on me a long time ago.
TR: I doubt that.
GK: Poor mail delivery out on the trail, Dusty. Took weeks to get a letter and by that time you'd lost the train of thought. E-mail or a chat room -- we'd still be together.
TR: Oh, I'm sure that when she lays eyes on you, she'll -- well -- now that I look at you, maybe you're right -- maybe e-mail would be better.
GK: I look that bad, huh?
TR: Pardner? One small favor?
GK: What is it?
TR: Before we go to this high-fiber yoga poetry spa -- could we stop at a saloon and have a good stiff drink?
GK: Okay.
TR: How about this one up here? Arlo's Dew Drop Inn.
Looks like a real saloon. No bicycle rack out front. No Volvos.
GK: That sign though.
TR: --No Smoking Depending On What It Is----
GK: Guess we better not inhale too deeply.
TR: Let's go. (FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPEN, CHATTER INSIDE)
GK: Nice friendly place.
TR: No piano playing --Camptown Races-- --
GK: You miss that?
TR: Not so far. (FOOTSTEPS) Looks like there's entertainment though.....
GK: Man with a guitar.....
AG: Okay folks-- I'm gonna get up here and sing a song but first I gotta tell you the policy here at Arlo's and that is: No Singing Along. You hear me? You want to sing, go home and get in the shower. Anybody who sings on this song is gonna-- well, just don't. (STRUMS)
(HE SINGS) This song is my song
It is not your song
So don't sing with me
It's for one person
I don't like choirs
Or harmony
This song is sung by only me.
(GUITAR CONTINUES, UNDER)
FN: Howdy gentlemen. Pull up a stool. What can I get you?
TR: Is this what they call a wine bar?
FN: We've got wine here. But only red wine. And it's from grapes that I pounded the juice out of with the butt of a revolver. And you've got to armwrestle me for it.
TR: Sounds good.
FN: You want some red wine?
TR: Nope. A glass of single rotgut whiskey for me. No ice, no water.
FN: How about you, sir?
GK: You wouldn't happen to have an iced chamomile tea?
FN: You want an iced chamomile tea?
GK: If it's not too much trouble.
FN: Gonna take me a minute. Have to go out and get some boiling water out of the radiator of a --37 Ford pickup truck and then I'll have to chop the ice out of the freezer up at the funeral home.
GK: Well, while you're doing that, I'm wondering if you've got wireless here so I can go online with my laptop.
FN: We got wireless but the only place you can get it is right here. Where this gentleman is.
GK: This barstool is the only place in this joint where you can get wireless internet?
FN: Right here.
GK: Excuse me. (TYPING)
MS: What do you want?
GK: Want to go online and check my email. Mind moving over, I can't get that wireless signal over here.
MS: Move over where?
GK: Just slide over two feet so I can get online.
MS: I'll move over when I'm ready to move over.
GK: I'm asking you polite, mister.
MS: Oh? I don't believe I heard the P word.
GK: Please.
MS: Buzz off. (TYPING)
GK: It'll only take a minute.
MS: I'm busy here. (TYPING)
GK: Pardon me but it looks to me like you're just messing around looking at pictures and stuff. I check my email, then you can have it right back.
MS: I was here first. (TYPING)
GK: Just for a minute.
MS: What is it about NO that you don't understand? This is my spot. You want it you're gonna have to put up your dukes and fight me for it.
GK: Don't think I won't. That is a public signal, sir, and you're piggybacking and I have as much right to that signal as anybody in this room.
MS: Says who? You? You pusillanimous pipsqueak.
GK: Back where I come from, a man who calls another man a pusillanimous pipsqueak had better be ready to back that up.
TR: C'mon, Lefty, let's not get into this.....
MS: Back where I come from, a man waits his turn to get onto the wireless, you pretentious pissant, peon, poltroon and pantywaist.
GK: A man who calls another man a pantywaist ought to know that this is something he might come to bitterly regret.
MS: Oh yeah? So make me regret it.
GK: I'm asking you for the common courtesy of moving your butt a couple feet to the left so I can go online, ya big weasel.
MS: Weasel?? HA!!!! Weasel!!!! You think that's something? You're a lowdown nogood dirty cheatin flimflammin, fourflushin shortchangin, deckstackin, dicemarkin airhead, bozo, crumbbum, dork, eunuch, feeb, guttersnipe, has been, imbecile, jackal, kretin, lulu, meathead, numbskull, oaf, peabrain, quack, rascal, stoopnagel, turkey, upchuck, vulture, weasel, yahoo, and zero.
(PAUSE)
TR: Go after him, Lefty.
GK: I been writing too many love songs. I forgot how to insult somebody.
TR: Try.
GK: You big aardvark. Boob. Creep. Dodo.
TR: Keep going.
GK: Egotist. Fruitfly.
TR: Don't stop.
MS: Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! Stumped you.
(STRUMMING)
AG (SINGS):
You want to sing, go join the Lutherans
Join the Kiwanis, but let me be
I had to sing with you in grade school
You sang this song a-way off-key.
These words are my words
Because I wrote --em
And those are mine
Down in my scrotum
And if you hit them they start ringing
And thanks for not singing along with me.
SS (EVELYN): Lefty? Lefty is that you?
GK: Evelyn'I can't believe it. It's been so long. I sent you letters and never heard back.
SS: I wrote to you.
GK: Somehow the mail never caught up.
SS: It's so good to see you. You're looking good.
GK: So what brings you in here to a saloon?
SS: Came to meet Billy Bob and have some supper.
MS: And here I am, darling. My my my, you look fetching tonight. (BIG MWAH KISS)
GK: Him? He's your boyfriend?
SS: We like to get together now and then and--
MS: Don't tell him everything, Evelyn. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Let him guess.
SS: I guess I thought that you had gone away--
Found somebody else.
GK: No. Just riding the trail, like always. The cowboy life. You know. You're out there for weeks and you get lonely for people and then you come to town and after two hours you can't stand --em anymore.
MS: I sure am hungry, Evelyn. How about we go tie on the feedbag and then we can head over to your house and sit on the porch. Huh? Whaddaya say?
GK: I've been writing poems to you for the past two and one half years.
SS: Well, I'd love to see them sometime.
MS: C'mon, darlin. Let's you and me go find a quiet corner, huh? I got some sweet things I want to whisper in your ear.
SS: See you later, Lefty. (FOOTSTEPS OUT)
TR: Well.
GK: Yeah.
TR: Still want to go to Canyon Ranch?
GK: Why not?
TR: Maybe sort of painful for you, seeing her with him.
GK: What's pain to a cowboy?
TR: Good point.
(A BEAT)
(STRUMMING)
AG (SINGS):
As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
Heard Frank Sinatra sing --I Did It My Way--
If you're from Norway, then you did it your way
But this song is sung by only me.
This song is my song
So please don't join me
Your singing's bound to disappoint me
Go find Pete Seeger and sing with him
Thanks for coming to Arlo's Dew Drop Inn.
(THEME)
SS (ANNC): The Lives of the Cowboys. Brought to you by Horse Wafers.