Prairie Home Companion: Lives of the Liberal Cowboys

National Public Radio is a constant in my home on the weekends, and once Car Talk and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me play, the radio just stays on through Prairie Home Companion.  It’s a show that I find annoying as often as I find it interesting, but one recurring sketch that always gets me is Lives of the Cowboys.

Lives of the Cowboys is about two middles aged, English major cowboys, Lefty and Dusty, who ride across the wide open prairie ruminating on love, life, and the difficulty of being liberal cowboys.  In a recent episode, the two cowboys were riding into Texas to renew their cowboy license, which apparently modern cowboys must do every ten years.

“What are you worried about, Dusty?” asked Lefty.

“I’m worried about riding into to Texas with a guy named Lefty carrying an ACLU card!” said Dusty.

“Don’t worry, Dusty, ACLU is my Arizona Cowboy Life Underwriting policy card.”

Once in Texas, the two line up for their cowboy tests, consisting of the "Six S"es- Sweat, Spit, Saunter, Squat, Stand Your Ground, and Saloon Fight.  All goes well until Lefty hits Saloon Fight, at which point he comes face to face with an honest to god Valkyrie, complete with a winged helmet, breast plate, and mad mezzo soprano opera skillz.  Mayhem and lust ensue, as it often does, leaving Lefty with a broken heart. 

There is something great about introspective, literate, hetero life mate cowboys riding the range, talking philosophy, and getting into adventures.  In fact, gather round the fire, younker, and let me tell you about the time that Thomas Jefferson and me invaded England…

Caine's Reckoning: Oh So Rugged

I do a lot of my "reading" with audiobooks.  Usually I will spend months debating the merits of a particular book, reading reviews, listening to sample chapters, then buy something completely different on the spur of the moment.  This is how I came to download Caine's Reckoning by Sarah McCarty from Audible. 

Caine's Reckoning is the first of the Hell's Eight books, an ongoing romance series about tough cowboys and gunslingers with manly hands and sensitive hearts in a part of Texas called Hell's Eight.  At least I think that is what the series is about.  Mostly I just keep coming across descriptions of cowboys with tough manly hands which stray over the supple skin of emotionally wounded women who are not at all whores despite their past professions as prostitutes.

Perhaps this is what I should have expected going into this book.  In my opinion a good western should contain at least a few scenes appropriate for "adult westerns" between shootouts and high adventure, so a book specifically called an "erotic adventure" with a pistol packing cowboy on the cover seemed like a good idea.  The novel did open in a ruggedly adventurous way, but moved quickly into long detailed descriptions of how dangerous, honorable, and rugged the main characters and his compañeros are.  I listened to the big seduction scene while on a long run, and by mile six of the run the hero was just getting around to rubbing his manly and rugged thumb over the heroine's sensitive feminine core- what the heck, McCarty comes right out and calls it her pussy, so I guess I can say that, too.  That is a lot of slow buildup for my tender sensitivities on a run.  Did I mention how rugged they all are?

While Caine's Reckoning isn't going to be my perfect western, I can see where this series would be popular.  McCarty certainly can write, giving her characters and setting life.  It may not be overly original, but folks who like their cowboys running rough yet tender hands over their heroines will probably enjoy this book.