(WESTERN THEME)
SS: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS....brought to you by American Pharaoh Bath Salts.....after a long day in the saddle, it feels good to sit in a hot bath --- but you don't want to smell like camellias.... American Pharaoh is the bath salt that smells like horses ....and now here's today's story....
(HORSE WHINNIES)
GK: Well, here we are in Lenox, Massachusetts, Dusty.
TR: Massachusetts, the state that sounds like a sneeze.
GK: And Tanglewood is right up there.
TR: I can smell that Channel No. 5 perfume already.
GK: Lots of money around and we have to earn some of it so we can pay off that debt you ran up in Yellow Gulch. You got carried away dancing with that dancehall floozy and forgot that her meter was running. Hundred bucks an hour.
TR: So how are we gonna to earn money, pardner?
GK: We're going to be bounty hunters. Some people have come to the Berkshires to enjoy the arts and then mistakenly became artists and got trapped in lives of frustration and bad choices and their families are offering rewards to bring them back alive. Stockbrokers who became sculptors, corporate counsels who became composers, proctologists who became potters.
TR: What was that last one again?
GK: Never mind.
TR: I noticed a lot of pottery studios between here and Great Barrington.
GK: Yeah.
TR: Man, the American people need more earthenware like they need a longer hockey season.
GK: Anyway, we're here to find them and take them back to the real world. This saloon looks like an artists' hangout.
TR: Yep. The Electric Ferret. (FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL, OPEN DOOR. SALOON PIANO PLAYING NEW AGE CAMPTOWN)
Wait a minute, pardner. (CLOSE DOOR)
GK: What's wrong?
TR: I feel funny.
GK: You look funny.
TR: I better not go in there.
GK: What's wrong?
TR: That coffee I had for breakfast? Along with the beans?
GK: Yeah?
TR: It feels like they're backing up on me.
GK: Oh oh.
TR: I feel like I'm gonna cut one. A bad one.
GK: You mean-----?
TR: That's exactly what I mean.
GK: Well, I'll go in alone then. (A SERIES OF RATTLY EXPLOSIONS) Oh wow. That is rank. You steamed up my glasses with that one.
TR: Okay, I feel better now.
GK: You sure?
TR: Yeah.
GK: Okay, but give me some warning before you do that again.
TR: I will. (DOOR OPEN, FOOTSTEPS. BAR AMBIENCE QUIET. FOOTSTEPS STOP)
SS: Gentlemen---- welcome to the Electric Ferret. What can I get you?
TR: A glass of rotgut whiskey, ma'am. Straight up, no ice, and the water from a pond, not a crick.
GK: Not a good idea, pardner.
SS: We don't have that in stock, mister, but I can order it for you from Amazon and it'd be here by tomorrow at noon.
TR: What you got for right now?
SS: Got a nice Sauvignon Blanc ---- I could put some paint thinner in it and it'd taste like rotgut.
GK: He'll just have a sparkling water and a slice of lemon.
SS: Okay. And you?
GK: The same. Ma'am?
SS: Yes?
GK: We're looking for a fellow by the name of A. Randolph Stubbs. He may be a singer/songwriter of some sort.
SS: Don't know anyone by that name. ---- Hey, Stubby!
DR (OFF): Yeah!
GK: Did you say Stubby?
SS: Yes. That's Stubby Ashworth. The piano player.
DR: What's the question?
GK: Might you, sir, happen to be a man by the name of A. Randolph Stubbs, would you? Former vice-president of Bicker, Barton, Batten, Barker, and Stubbs?
DR: You gotta be kidding.
GK: It's a question. Yes or no?
DR: I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.
SS: Stubby is a piano player. He's a blues artist. Sing your "Passport Blues," Stubby.
DR: Okay. (PIANO, SINGS) I don't care for pasta, give me macaroni,
You can have those pates, I prefer baloney.
I like Mom's Cafe, around the corner,
I don't like food prepared by some forner.
Or to have relations with women of other nations
I got the passport blues.
The best lover you ever saw ---- you're lookin at him, moi, I been all around this world.
GK: This gentleman, Mr. A. Randolph Stubbs was involved in the export business and he got burnt on a deal with the Chinese. And you, sir, bear the marks of a lifetime of neckties.
DR: Neckerchiefs. Not neckties.
GK: I see the mark of a Rolex on your right wrist.
DR: Got that in a bar fight. A man bit me on the wrist.
GK: I doubt that. What about you, young woman?
SJ: Who? Me?
GK: You in the denim skirt and the black turtleneck. Your name is Sara Saran, isn't it.
SJ: My name is Salter. Sara Salter.
GK: I believe you are Sara Saran, heir to the SaranWrap fortune, and you came here to be a potter.
SJ: Nope. Came here to smoke pot in a pipe, raise peapods and plump pumpkins, papaya, pippins, peppers, paprika, and pulpless pimentos on my property.
GK: And you don't make pots out of pulverized peach pits?
SJ: That's preposterous.
GK: Does the name Pope Pius mean anything to you?
SJ: My people are Presbyterian.
GK: From Pompano?
SJ: The Penobscot peninsula.
GK: And you have a propensity for what purports to be poetry----
SJ: I write poetry. On paper. I am a poet.
GK: Prove it.
SJ (RECITES): Shadows of ignorance cross the garden of my art
And the sticks and stones of critics. I feel every poison dart.
TR: I feel it coming.
SJ: And in the darkness of prejudice I feel it smart.
And though I don't want to, I am just about to----
TR: Oh boy.
GK: Hold on.
SJ: ------------------------------------------------depart
On a journey for which I have no chart
Except the writings of Rene Descartes
Who said that one must always stand apart
TR: Look out. Here it comes.
SJ: And so I shall. I feel a burning in my heart
And here it is. I can't prevent it. I must-----
TR: Oh no.
SJ: -------------------------------------start. (BRIDGE)
GK: Well, I guess if people want to leave home and be artists, there isn't much that can be done. No law against it.
TR: Some art there maybe should be.
GK: Oh?
TR: I mean, how many more Western landscape painters do we need?
FN: Hey. I'm a landscape painter.
GK: Western?
FN: No, Southern. Georgia
TR: Well, that's different.
GK: Not that many artists down there, are there.
FN: No, and maybe that's why it took them so long to see that the Confederate flag is ---- I mean, aesthetically ---- a big X? And the red is hideous. It's no wonder the South lost the war. Dreadful songs and very poor graphic design. ---Say, is there a wet dog in here? It sure smells like it. Or else rotten eggs.
TR: Sorry about that.
FN: That's you??
TR: I'm afraid so.
FN: Maybe some cigar smoke would clear the air.
GK: Don't do that, sir.
DR: Yeah, mask the smell. Here's a light. (SCRATCH OF MATCH. BIG BOOM) (BRIDGE)
GK: The concussion knocked Sara Saran to the floor and gave me time to look for the distinguishing tattoo on her left middle knuckle and when she came to, I put the handcuffs on her.
SJ: Please don't make me go back to Park Avenue. I don't want to have a chauffeur and uniformed doormen and go to galas in designer gowns. I love it here.
GK: Nothing personal, ma'am. We're only doing it for the reward.
SJ: It's miserable being rich. People in the arts always begging you for money. I want to live in a teepee and write poems.
GK: Well, we're in the arts. Performance artists. We perform rope tricks. How much money you got on you?
SJ: Twenty bucks.
GK: A pittance.
SJ: I know. Pitiful.
GK: Keep it, sister. Good luck. Let's go, Dusty. I don't think we'll be invited back here soon. Let's head for Yellow Gulch.
TR: What happened? Where am I?
GK: A terrorist set off an explosion and it was you. Come on, pal. (THEME)
SS: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS......brought to you by American Pharaoh Bath Salts. Be clean and smell like a horse.