The True Cowboy!



I attended my first Western Writers of America conference because someone told me they'd heard Sam Elliott might be there. When I think of cowboys, I think of the actors that played them well. I think of John Wayne, I think of Henry Fonda, I think Tom Selleck and I think of Sam.

Looks like a cowboy to me.

But what is a cowboy, really? They don't always have the perfect mustache or the perfect kerchief around their neck. They don't always ride a tall horse with a tooled leather saddle. They sometimes don't even ride a horse at all. The F350 pickup truck looks like a mighty fine cowboy rig anymore. I drove a King Ranch edition Ford Expedition for awhile and called it my cowboy car. Even wrote a poem about it and called him Clem. But that didn't make me a cowgirl, or even close. Here's what Wikipedia says.

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of special significance and legend. A subtype, called a wrangler, specifically tends the horses used to work cattle. In addition to ranch work, some cowboys work for or participate in rodeos. Cowgirls, first defined as such in the late 19th century, had a less-well documented historical role, but in the modern world have established the ability to work at virtually identical tasks and obtained considerable respect for their achievements. There are also cattle handlers in many other parts of the world, particularly South America and Australia, who perform work similar to the cowboy in their respective nations.

And below is a painting by Russell that is said to portray perfectly, the true cowboy.



I didn't get to meet Sam at that WWA convention. I think my friend told me he'd be there just so I'd go. But that's okay, I met someone much better. The western writer. Since that first WWA I've learned a lot about the west through the books of the many friends I've made who write about it. I've learned about guns and horses and cattle drives. And I think that most of these writers are the true cowboys of today, even though 75% of them don't own a cow or a branding iron. They travel the narrow back roads of America's western states in SUVs and Cadillacs now. They browse through the dusty book shelves of junk shops in the hopes of finding a rare edition western novel or a book on writing the west written by one of the first to the genre, or perhaps an old history book with descriptions and photographs of how it used to be. They're keeping the west alive, and in my opinion keeping the cowboy alive.

I sold Clem and bought Tootsie, a little red Mustang convertible. I thought maybe she'd make me young again. She's in storage now, and I'm traveling in my boring black little SUV to the Western Writers of America this June. Someone told me Tom Selleck might be there.



Hollywood, Here I Come...Again

I'm still fuming over the bad review in Sunday's paper about the movie, Cowboys and Aliens. It beat out every other movie this past week-end in box office receipts. People like it no matter what the talking heads that write the reviews say. (And you know who you are.)

When I was in Hollywood a few years ago pitching a western screenplay, they all talked about high concept movies. Heck, I was so green I didn't even know what they were talking about. But fortunately my screenwriting partner, Pat Smith, had been around the industry for awhile, and she knew exactly what they meant. That's why we had written a different kind of screenplay hoping it would be high concept enough for them. Instead of a straight western, we wrote a time travel western. A young reporter from 2003 ( is that how long it's been?) travels back in time to 1876 where he becomes friends with Wild Bill Hickok right before the famous gunman is killed in The Number 10 saloon. Many of the characters in Deadwood are the same people he knew in New York, although they don't know they are. Think Wizard of Oz. The screenplay is terrific and got a lot of attention, even being requested by a production company headed up by Paul Haggis, Mathew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock. Then because of their read, it was requested by Tom Selleck, who asked that it be turned back into a straight western because he "doesn't do Sci/Fi." Although nothing has happened with either screenplay, yet, there's still hope because apparently they are now producing "high concept westerns." So Pat, get that Academy Award Dress out of mothballs, there might be a phone call any minute.

And just so we're completely ready for that phone call, I guess we'd better decide who we want to play Wild Bill. Here are my two choices. Although they're both probably too up there in age, Hickok led a wild life and probably looked a whole lot older than he was.