NAKED COWBOYS

A Screenplay and a Novel —-

—- Introduction: Serialise Me

I enjoy reading screenplays, often more than I enjoy watching whatever rubbish they devolve into after the people with cameras and makeup have their way with them. Sorry… that was harsh. It’s one of the great lessons of my life: to be less critical, or critical in a less pointed and judgemental and—yes, I dare say it—cruel fashion. The world and I would be better served by temperance of every sort, in every measure. Certainly, to temper the judgey, snarky critic with kindness and compassion would be a blessing of (indisputably tautologically) bounty fecund. To see the world as full of nongs is to be a nong. People do their best. Or at least, I’m prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. Assumption may make an ass of you and I but I’m happy to be an ass and this is my website so I’ll ramble and publish sentences that pay no heed to subject, predicate, or aplomb. You can skip all this drivel and go to the section below that might be entitled: Naked Cowboys, Chapter One.

I haven’t read many screenplays. I enjoyed some of those Russell T. Davies wrote. He wrote a good book about the process of writing for TV—Doctor Who specifically. Vince Gilligan writes scripts that read like literature. Breaking Bad was top knicker telly. Better Call Saul was good telly too. Scripts for both shows are easy to find; some can be read for free, even without resort to the torrent. I might prefer to read a Vince Gilligan script than watch A Fistful of Dollars for the dozenth time. Though that would depend on the weather, hunger or lack thereof, and other variables. In truth a fourteenth or even fifteenth helping of A Fistful of Dollars would still be titilating… I think. I never watch telly. It would have to be at a cinema. What are the chances?

I do watch, usually listen, to YouTube—strictly for educational purposes.

I wanted Naked Cowboys to be a TV show or a movie or a book, or all three, at different times. Prevarication was part of the reason it remains unfinished. Other reasons were fear of success, lack of discipline, and laziness. I’d almost forgotten: Naked Cowboys was a film before it was a screenplay. It was my major work in my third and final year of film and video production at uni. It wasn’t a terrible film. It wasn’t brilliant. It was odd. It was funny. It was a road movie I made with mates. There’s a lone copy of it floating around in a box on a mate’s farm somewhere in NSW. Buried in the back of my mind is the intention to track it down and put it up here with everything else. And then Naked Cowboys was a band. After uni Paulie and I decided we’d be rock stars. I insisted our “band” be called Naked Cowboys; Paul didn’t disapprove.

Naked Cowboys is words, lots of them. One of the functions of this website is to facilitate publication of some of them, to serialise the story, to get it “out there”. Coz it’s not bad. Bits of it, at least. I want to know how it ends, how it’s going to change. Join me for the ride. I’ll be doing the same thing with The Grey Horse, with the gazillion songs I’ve written, maybe with Alpha House - The TV Show. Maybe not. I fancy there’ll be a video vlog via YouTube too.

I always thought “The world is my oyster” was an unfortunate metaphor. Even when I ate other beings I thought oysters were gross. And when I was an omnivore, many moons ago, I gladly ate most anything. Though not lamb, of course.