(THEME)
SS: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS.....brought to you by Ay Yi Yi Yi-Headache Powder----- clear up headaches brought on by stress and over-stimulation------ just tell your pharmacist "Ai Yi Yi Yi". And now, here's today's story.
(HORSE WHINNIES, OUTDOOR AMBIANCE, CATTLE, DISTANT TRAFFIC, SHIP'S HORN)
GK: San Francisco. Hard to see how we're going to get these cattle into the city over that bridge. We may have to charter a barge.
TR (GROANS): You do it. I can't move.
GK: Gotta get em down to the Cow Palace for the livestock show. And I gotta find someone who can paint their nails and curl their hair.
TR: Paint their nails?
GK: Nobody in the city eats meat anymore, Dusty. Livestock are just for show. How's your hangover?
TR: Ohhhhh. Can't handle the joie de vivre like I useta, that's for sure. Went in to Fishermen's Wharf and I got hooked on the Irish coffee. You get real drunk and you're unable to sleep it off.
GK: Haven't you read about the dangers of drinking?
TR: I have. And it made me decide to give up reading.
(FOOTSTEPS APPROACH)
GK: Who's this coming? (FOOTSTEPS) Morning, ma'am.
JC: Morning. I see by your outfits that you two are cowboys.
GK: Yep. M'name's Lefty, and this here is Dusty. He's got a hangover so speak softly and no sudden moves.
TR (GROANS HELLO)
JC: My name is Andromeda but you can call me Andy.
GK: Pleased t'make your acquaintance, Andromeda. What brings you up here to the rolling hills of San Rafael?
JC: I'm running away from home.
GK: Oh? Is that a good idea?
JC: Well, I'm 34 years old. I thought it was time. I got an MFA in creative writing ten years ago and I got myself all tangled up in social media. Texting and tweeting and uploading, downloading, hashtagging, blogging ---- and now it dawns on me that that's why I haven't written even one page of the novel I was going to write, so I came out here in search of adventure and I saw you and I thought, There's my adventure.
GK: Well. No woman ever said that to me before. (STING, BRIDGE) A cowboy is obligated to help out a young woman in search of adventure and so we left Dusty with the herd and we rode up into the Berkeley hills (HORSES GALLOP) and a little town just over the crest called Institute Butte, and we rode down the main street (HORSES TROT)---- and we saw ahead of us the Saloon Salonen. (GUNSHOT)
FN: HOLD IT RIGHT THERE! Get down off your horses and drop your guns.
GK: Who are you??
FN: Don't make me repeat myself. Ma'am, drop your gun.
JC: I don't have a gun. Don't need one. My weapon is this laptop computer. And the freedom to use it.
FN: Aha. Sounds like a liberal to me.
GK: You must be one of the Cheney gang.
FN: And I take it you hang out with the Stanford gang.
GK: What's your gripe, mister?
FN: I believe that Western tradition is all about enlightenment and civilization, and you Stanford people are out to teach that Western civilization is bad, that primitive cultures are superior.
SS (OFF): Who are you calling primitive, you blazing idiot?
FN: Shuddup, Stanford. I see you hiding over there in that alley. You people have destroyed higher education by eliminating the canon --- Aristotle and Shakespeare and Tolstoy- in favor of your own feminist Marxist agenda ----
SS (OFF): You want to see the canon, Mister, how about this one? (GUNFIRE, BOTH SIDES, BULLETS FLYING, RICHOCHETS. THEN SILENCE. HORSE WHINNY)
JC (to GK): Did they kill each other?
GK: Nope. They're violent angry people but they're terrible shots.
SS (OFF): You wouldn't know the Western tradition if it came up and kicked you in the rear end, Cheney. It's all about dissent and diversity and it's not terrified of aliens and outsiders. It welcomes them in. It's about tolerance and getting along with all sorts including ones who you disapprove of and to stand up for the weak against the strong and not bow down to authority.
FN: OH YEAH??? (VOLLEY OF GUNFIRE)
GK: Let's get out of here, Andromeda.
JC: I want to stay.
GK: Why?
JC: There's material here. Material for a novel.
FN: YOU TWO WHISPERING ABOUT ME??? Who is that woman?
JC: I am a liberal arts graduate and a writer!
FN: Liberal arts. HA! (HE HAWKS AND SPITS) Go ahead and major in gender studies, but there ain't no jobs there. So you're gonna wind up living with your parents! Am I right??? Am I??
(GUNSHOT)
FN: Aieeeeeeeeeeeeee. Ohhhhhhhhh. She got me. Shot me in the leg.
GK: I thought you didn't have a gun-----
JC: I made it up. It's a fictional gun.
GK: Oh.
JC: "She walked over to where the old gunslinger lay and she kicked his six-gun away from his outstretched hand. He trembled.
FN: Please don't shoot me....
JC: He whined piteously. She laughed. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I don't go around shooting the wounded. That's your specialty, not mine." She glanced at her dumbfounded male companion.
GK: Who's that? Me?
JC: "Come on in the saloon and I'll buy you a drink," she said, blowing the smoke from her gun barrel and ramming Mr. Colt back in his holster. With an insinuating air, she turned toward the saloon and opened the door....
GK: Wait. Are you sure you mean "insinuating"?
JC: Why not?
GK: "Insinuate" means to suggest indirectly.....do you mean "insensitive air" ----
JC: No, I mean "insinuate"-----
GK: But insinuate what?
JC: Insinuate strength---- she knows what she wants and she's gonna get it.
GK: How about insistent?
JC: Okay. Whatever. "With an insistent air, she turned toward the saloon and opened the door and----- (PIANO, CAMPTOWN RACES) she fired three shots into the piano. (THREE GUNSHOTS, PLINKS OF KEYS) "Cut out the Doodah Doodah, piano man, and play me some R-E-S-P-E-C-T," she said insistently.
RD: Yes, ma'am, w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-whatever you w-w-w-w-want, m'am.
(HE PLAYS "RESPECT")
JC: "She strode to the bar and laid her pistol on it. It was smoking hot. The bartender looked her up and down and got an eyeful. He gave her an incipient smile and her eyes flashed. "I know what you're thinking," she snapped----
GK: Hold on. I don't think you mean "incipient" --- incipient means that something is beginning to appear ----
JC: No, it means stupid.
GK: No, that's "insipid"--- what do you want to say here?
JC: I mean something that doesn't look dangerous but it is.
GK: That would be "insidious" ----
JC: Oh, you're right. "He gave her an insidious smile and her eyes flashed. "I know what you're thinking," she snapped----"And don't say it, or there's going to be trouble. Big trouble. Just bring me a glass of Pinot Noir, a spicy Pinot with a supple earthy texture with notes of raspberry and a complex floral aroma." He could not help but sneer.
TR: "A complex floral aroma??? HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW. How about this for a complex aroma??"
JC: And he bent over and cut one. (FART) And she did not hesitate for one second. "Let's see you dance, mister." (GUNSHOTS, DANCING FEET) "And now go get me that spicy supple earthy complex Pinot that I was asking for. And don't come back without it." (FAST FOOTSTEPS OUT, DOOR SLAM)
(PAUSE)
GK: Is that the end?
JC: I don't think so. I don't know. What do you think?
GK: I don't think you can leave it hanging there.
JC: What comes next?
GK: Well, he could bring back the spicy Pinot and you'd fall in love with him and marry him and ----
JC: No, she's going to ride out of town solo.
GK: Solo is tough. You want conflict and you need more than a solo for that.
JC: A person can be conflicted----
GK: But then your story is going to go all introspective and flashbacky and moody and the reader's going to feel cheated because you already gave him gunfire and now he is expecting more of it----
JC: So what should I do?
GK: I think that she should go bad.
JC: Really?
GK: Women's literature has brought in a whole long string of noble heroines ---- I think the readers are hungry for a really bad woman. A rotten mean lowdown one.
JC: I don't know. I don't think I can.
GK: I think you can. Have her shoot a man just to watch him die.
JC: Oh my god. No.
GK: Go ahead.
JC: You want me to?
GK: I think you have to. She's walked into a man's world and she has to establish dominance.
JC: Really?
GK: It's do or die.
JC: "She heard a foot tapping and turned ---- it was him, the man who had come with her into the saloon, the one who kept correcting her English. "Cut out the humming," she said. "And the humming. I don't need that right now."
GK: "Was I humming?"
JC: He said in an insinuating way.
GK: I don't think I'm insinuating....
JC: Inseminating.
GK: Not that either.
JC: Insecure?
GK: No. Maybe "insincere".
JC: He said in an insincere way. "You are humming," she said, "and if you don't stop doing it, I will shoot you down dead."
GK: "You'd shoot a man just because he hummed?"
JC: She gave him an insouciant look. "You want to see me do it, go right ahead, punk."
GK: "Insouciant" means nonchalant. I think you mean something stronger, like "insolent" ---- meaning arrogant, cruel.
JC: I meant insouciant.
GK: I really don't think so. It's too light. Insolent is how you'd describe a killer.
JC: I say "insouciant" and I mean it. (GUNSHOT)
GK: (GROAN) You're right. You were insouciant. And I've been.....
JC: Insensitive.
GK: (GROAN)
JC: "She walked out of the saloon, through the crowd of awestruck men.
SS: "Thanks, sister."
JC: Said a dance hall floozy. They embraced and she gave the floozy the bottle of spicy Pinot that the bartender had just found.
SS: "Thanks. It isn't easy to find complex floral aromas in this town."
JC: She mounted her horse (WHINNY) and she rode out of Institute Butte. (HORSE TROTTING) She rode alone. She had ridden with the Stanford gang before but now she was an outlaw, a writer, an artist, with no allies, no colleagues, just her and her insolent determination to live her life freely and to create great literature about it.
(THEME)
SS: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS brought to you by liberal arts graduates the world over. When you say "gender," smile.