Cowboy poet’s schedule
5:15 am: Wake up with the sun.
5:16 am: Begin drinking.
5:20 am: Brew cowboy coffee, extra strong. Joke to hired man that “I’ve got a case of the zactlies.” Even though you’ve told this joke every morning since he started working here, he’ll still ask, “What’s that?” Reply: “It’s when you wake up, and your mouth tastes ‘zactly like your ass.”
5:25 am: Bowel movement.
5:30 am: Eggs.
5:45 am: Some kind of cowhand work.
11:00 am: Corn whiskey, neat.
11:06 am: Throw empty bottle at Cookie’s head; cuss him out for falling asleep before making lunch.
11:07 am: Write first poem of the day, “Cookie is a good-for-nothing layabout.” His sloth is emblematic of America’s long-term decline from greatness, for which this poem is the obvious antidote.
11:45 am: Take call from lawyer re: next week’s custody hearing.
11:52 am: Send embittered text messages to estranged wife using busted-ass, circa-2006 Nokia T9 phone.
12:35 pm: Finish texting.
12:36 pm: Write second poem of the day, “Cookie, I deserve better.”
12:53 pm: Truck.
1:05 pm: Eat the lunch that Cookie finally finished preparing. Constantly refer to it as “dinner,” not as an insult to Cookie’s tardiness, but rather because “dinner” is a regionalism that means “lunch.”
1:30 pm: Third poem of day, “Cookie, you done good.”
1:45 pm: Lament lost way of life, drink to excess.
2:35 pm: Drunk drive to post office.
3:15 pm: Black out in McDonald’s parking lot.
5:00 pm: Don’t know.
7:00 pm: Don’t know.
10:00 pm: Don’t know.
Bonus cowboy poem!
“Windmills”
I remember Dad’s windmills.
And Grand-dad’s windmills.
They looked like windmills should.
Standing proud, like oil wells
with oscillating fan hats.
Not like today.
The windmills are too damn tall!
Global warming is a myth!
What ever happened to our way of life?
Safety conscious
Dept. of Laryngology
In retrospect
1981 was a mixed bag for me. It was good, because the space shuttle flew, and I had worked really hard on it. But it was bad, because Toyota rejected my design for a new and improved Celica.
“It flies,” I explained. “Just like the space shuttle.”
The executives sat there looking confused, so I tried to help them understand. In addition to its airworthiness, my design looked “angrier” than past model years. Plus, the car could talk to you and be your friend.
“After all, Celica is the Japanese word for human-car brotherhood,” I lied, forgetting that Japanese was my audience’s first language.
I was kindly thanked for my hard work. Shortly thereafter I received in the mail the last check Toyota would ever send me.
The design never saw production. “We have decided to go in a different direction,” said the voice on my answering machine. But the money was enough to finance an extremely lateral career transition. The events of 1981 inspired my first two films.
Neither Gung-Ho, starring Michael Keaton, nor Space Camp, starring someone else, is regarded as a classic. But they performed reasonably well at the box office. It keep me on my feet. Nothing of value was gained, and nothing of value was lost.
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