Daylight fades. The evening sun burns low casting long shadows. Flames lick up the side of a cast iron pan and coffee kettle.

Muffled voices gather ’round the campfire.

George Strait (warmly): Glad y’all could make it.

Pernell Roberts: Thanks for the invite.

Perry Como: Name your game.

George: Song tag – pick a tune an’ pass the guitar. So, who wants to bat lead-off?

Reggie Jackson: Ahhh, a rawhide reference – sweet. Style?

George: Is there more than one?

Reggie: Well, Where I Come From there’s at least two. Country…

Pernell: …and Western.

Pope John Paul II: Your invitation was warm and generous, but uhmm… I’m feeling a little out-of-place.

Pernell: Confession’s good for the soul, Padre.

Pope John Paul II (reluctantly): Can’t say as I know many Country ballads.

George: Not to worry. Cowboy croonin’ is as natural as.. uhh… well, let’s just say it’ll come to ya. Here… lose that lid and flip this Stetson on for size.

John Paul (clearing his throat): ♪ Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, get their wings and fly around. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go now.

George: Nicely done, Pop. How ‘bout this? ♪ If Heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie, then I don’t wanna go. Perry?

Perry: ♪ Someday when I die and my soul is called home, high on a white
horse I’ll ride up on. At that golden chute will stand ol’ St. Pete. He’ll tip his hat and welcome me…

Reggie: …to Cowboy Town. Hey, I’ve got one. ♪ I Shoulda been a Cowboy, shoulda learned to rope and ride, Wearing my six-shooter riding my pony on a cattle drive. Stealing the young girls’ hearts…

Pernell: ♪ …just like Gene and Roy.

Reggie: ♪ …singing those campfire songs, oh, I shoulda been a cowboy.

Frank Capra: ♪ Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys. Don’t let ‘em pick guitars and drive them ol’ trucks. Let ‘em be directors and movie producers and… .

Tina Fey: Mama, He’s Crazy.

George: I’ve Always Been Crazy.

Tina: ♪…Crazy for feeling so lonely. Ah’m crazy, crazy for feelin’ so blue.
Ah knew you’d love me as long as you wanted.
Then some day, you’d leave me for somebody new.
Worry, why should Ah…

Reggie: ♪ Like a Rhinestone Cowboy! Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo.
Gettin’ cards and letters from… .

Tina: You hafta let me finish!

Reggie: Oh, you’re finished aw-right. I’ve heard you sing.

George: No, wait! Tina! Not with my guitar!

John Paul: Guitars, Cadillacs, hillbilly music…

Perry (cheering): Go, John, go!

John Paul: ♪ …lonely, lonely streets that I call home. Now it’s Guitars, Cadillacs and
Hillbilly music …they’re only things that keeps me hanging on.

Pernell: Yee-haw!

Reggie (handing off the guitar): Here y’go, Frank!  …a hanging curve: Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?

Frank: Well, other than It’s A Wonderful Life   ♪ …True Grit’s the only movie I’ve really understood in years.

Pernell: ♪The Movies are great medicine, thank you Thomas Edison…

John Paul: ♪…for giving us the best years of our lives.

Frank Capra (singing to Tina): ♪ Oh, and if you see Burt Reynolds, would you shake his hand for me? And tell old Burt, I’ve seen all his movies. Well, I hope you make the big time, I hope your dreams come true…

Tina: Ohh, why aren’t you just The Sweetest Thing.

Frank: ♪...but if Hollywood don’t need You, honey, I still do.

Tina: Now I feel like a Girl in a Country Song.

Perry: How about… A Midnight Girl in a Sunset Town.

Tina (quickly passing George’s guitar back to him): ♪ But it’s aw’right, cause it’s midnight, and I got Two More Bottles of Wine.

George (hesitates then sighs): Ohhhh… I’ve got nothing.

[Tina squeals with delight]

George: Okay, you got me. What’s your pleasure?

Tina: A duet.

George: What?

Tina: You heard me, Tex.

George (reluctantly): Fine. But I pick the tune.

Tina (gratified): I can live with that.

George: ♪ A long time forgotten, dreams that just fell by the way…

Tina: Waylon and Willie?

George: ♪ …the good life he promised ain’t what she’s livin’ today.

Tina: ♪ But she never complains of the bad times or the bad things he’s done.
She just talks about the good times they’ve had and all the good times to come.

Tina & George: ♪ She’s a Good-hearted Woman in love with a good-timin’ man.
She loves him in spite of his ways she don’t understand.
Through tear drops and laughter, they’ll pass through this world hand in hand.
A good-hearted woman loving a good-timin’ man.

George: Okay. It’s my play. Jump ball! The Bluest Eyes in Texas are haunting me
tonight. Like the stars that fill… .

Reggie: ♪ If you’re Gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band… .

John Paul: Cherokee Fiddle!

Frank: ♪ Cherokee Maiden, I love her so, and though we’re far apart… .

Perry: ♪ Still. Though you broke my heart, still. Though we’re far apart, I love you still.

George: ♪ Still Doin’ Time.

Tina: Time Don’t Run out on Me.

Reggie: ♪ Hey! Look at me, I could be Centerfield.

Tina: Centerfield? You’ve got t’be kidding me! I’m calling that one “foul”.

George: She’s right, Reg’. The style is country. Or, should I say… Country Is.

Tina: Ha, haa.

Reggie: So, what happens now? …shipped off to the showers?

Frank: Worse… the minors.

George (handing the six string to Tina): Tagger’s choice.

Tina: A love song.

Reggie (taking the Gibson from Tina): Well, okay – but all that comes to mind is… Good Golly, Miss Molly.

George: Ah’ll start ya off. ♪ Put Another Log on the Fire…

Reggie: ♪ …cook me up some bacon and some beans.

Tina: Wait! I said love song!

[George joining Reggie] ♪ Go out to the car and change the tire.
Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans…

John Paul, Perry, Frank and Pernell (chiming in): ♪ Come on, baby!

Reggie: ♪ …you can fill my pipe, and then go fetch my slippers.
And boil me up another pot of tea.
Then put another log on the fire, babe…

George and Reggie: ♪…and come and tell me why you’re leaving me.

Tina (rolling her eyes): You guys… .

Perry: My turn.

George: Now, Perry, no holiday tunes. Christmas is outa season.

Perry: Not even some country guitar pickin’ East Tennessee Christmas?

George: Ahhhh, Chet Atkins. Bring it, son!

Perry: ♪ It might snow but don’t you know that I don’t care. It’ll be the best of the
Christmases if you are there. Too long without you…

George & Perry: ♪ …too much on my own. East Tennessee Christmas and I’m goin’
home.

The fire was burning low.
Grayish wisps of smoke and smoldering embers sifted into a darkening sky
revealing tiny pinpoints of light.

Tina: There’s someone we haven’t heard from yet.

Concrete Cowboy: Oh, no. You really don’t want to do this.

Reggie: Hey, listen here. If they can make me sing… .

Concrete Cowboy (rising to his feet): Okay, but remember… you asked for it.

♪ In his sleep he rides the range on a saddle that has seen its better days.
And ya hear the coyotes call. They sing the sun to rest as evenin’ falls.

♪ Well, make a pot of coffee boys, so strong you taste the grain.
Stretch out on your blanket, as he clears his throat to sing.

♪ Keep your eyes upon him with his Gary Cooper grin.
It doesn’t take much sense to see, that he was simply born to be…
A cowwwwww-boyyyyyyyyyy.

Stars, thousands of them, shimmering in the heavens,
silently raining down through the clear night sky.

George (taking back his guitar): Well, folks… this is where The Cowboy Rides Away.

Pernell: Movin’ on?

George: Gonna Ride Like the Wind.

Reggie: Same here. I’m a Midnight Rider. May I take you home?

Perry: Only if she’s on my arm. We’ll be Walking After Midnight.

Tina: …love to. Like Shadows in the Moonlight.

Perry: Then You can Tell Me Goodbye.

Frank: Oh, no. We’ll Never Have To Say Goodbye Again.

Tina: Now and Forever?

John Paul: Forever and Ever, Amen.

---

High Noon: May 18th
Years ago I sent a man to prison – he was supposed to hang. But they commuted his sentence to life, then gave him own TV show.

Robin Hood: May 18th
I only impressed upon the sheriff that no self-respecting outlaw would be caught dead prancing about the forest in green tights.