Paul Zarzyski -- Musings from Planet UniPoet:

Leaving tomorrow for The Monterey Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival. Love the setting—the sea. I forgot until a friend, Quinton Duval, emphasized in a poem recently that the word pacific means "peaceful—not warlike; conciliatory; peaceable; mild; calm; tranquil." As bellicose as the world is these days, I’m in dire need of a Pacific Fix. Yup, you got it—Popeye-The-Cowboy-Man! " I’ve had alls I kin stands, I can’t stands no more!" I plan to inhale that pacific "Left Coast" air with deliberateness and revel—probably hear a flashback or ten of that ‘60s Bay Area chant, "one-two-three-four, we don’t want your friggin war!" Did you know that the Pacific Ocean covers 70 million square miles. Never was much good at geography, but I’m guessing even Texas plays second fiddle in size to The Peaceful Ocean? And speaking of The Lone Star State, as closely as I watched the November election results, I lost track of the Texas Governor’s race. Did Kinky Friedman get a few votes? Hope so. I briefly met The Kinkster at a White House breakfast fandango a few years ago when I was in D.C. for The National Book Festival. We were the only two sportin’ wide-brimmed hats. I’ve been a distant admirer of his writing over the years, mostly because he, as do I, hunts-‘n’-pecks ‘er all out on a manual typewriter. Me, Kinky, and Kaczinsky—the last three Luddite Neanderthals on Planet Internet. WHAT!? You thought I—The UniPoet—was entering these scribblings? Are you nuts? WHAT!? You don’t believe I crossed trails at the Bush White House with candidate Friedman, whose platform was "to fight the wussification of his great state"? Oh yeah! Then thou shalt feast thine eyes on this unretouched snapshot and go and doubt no more:

(photo by Barbara March)

All politics aside (NOT), I’m pondering, as we speak, the Monterey Festival lineup and taking a mighty delight in the number of women reppin’ for The Cowboy Tribe at this event: Jill Jones (and Lone Star), Yvonne Hollenbeck, Jean Prescott, Denise Withnell, Belinda Gail, Juni Fisher, Doris Daley, Karen Ross…. "Way to go," Mick Vernon and Board. My good friend, Wally McRae would ditto my salute, I’m sure, and then, by way of upholding his Curmudgeondom Throne, would protest…"but too many damn musicians and NEVER enough poets." Whatever your take on the situation, hear once again—at the risk of risking ad nauseam—my adulation, my gratitude, for the committees, the volunteers, who invest time, money, energy, faith-hope-‘n’-charity into the year-long orchestration of such grand festivals. As I told the Monterey reporter who phoned last weekend to document my sensibilities on their 8th annual Gathering, …the real heroes aren’t the performers, they’re the presenters. The Heroic Hierarchy, in The Book According to CZARzyski, goes thus: 1. Organizers; 2. Audience; 3. Performers. Oh, sure, the relationship, at its very best, is symbiotic/synergistic, BUT, in the case of the Cowboy Poetry renaissance, the goose most definitely comes before the golden egg (with apologies for the "fowl" rather than "cow" metaphor here).

The Monterey Festival occurs every December during the National Finals Rodeo. I remember to cheer-on from the stage those cowboys and cowgals competing in Vegas. As I mentioned in a recent bio note, I missed—by merely just a jillion light years—qualifying for the NFR a time or two during my roughstock career back in the ‘80s (1980s, damnit). I go on to say that I consider qualifying for 21 consecutive National Cowboy Poetry Gatherings in Elko (not all that far from Las Vegas, right?) a comparable honor. Never forget my first Elko go-‘round in 1987. Two weeks prior, I’d competed at the Montana Pro-Rodeo Circuit Finals in Great Falls, where I took one of my greatest falls ever off my second, of three, head, after placing on my first draw, Whiskey Talks, a Marvin Brookman NFR bareback horse. A friend helped pull off my ridin’ boots after I made the tooter, but went checkless, the third night on Reg Kesler’s Grubstake. I was 37, had a bum back, and knew it was over. And, you bet, I recall fightin’ back tears as I left that arena for the last time. Then, however, the Ol’ Cowpoke Cosmos dealt me the 3rd ace, turning my two pair dead-man’s-hand to a full boat. "From Missoula, Montana," the Elko Convention Center main stage host for the evening show announced, "Paul Zarzyski." Just like shaking my face for the chutegate, I strode out from behind the curtain and directed that rodeo TRY into spurring the words wild. Everything had changed and nothing had changed, all in the same breath. Once again, the title to my first chapbook of poems rang true—CALL ME LUCKY.

I continued to follow closely the rodeo contestants and NFR perfs throughout the ‘90s—especially pulled for the dynamo bareback rider, AND personality, Deb Greenough. Deb came on strong in the mid-‘80s, so we got to know one another behind the chutes at a number of pitchings. The rude crude truth be known, I donated a saddlebag of entry fees to his annual winnings that got him to his first Finals.

The past few years, however, I’ve begun to lose interest. It’s been purt-near a decade and a half since I deliberately forked a buckin’ horse. That old saw—"distance makes the heart grow fonder"—echoes falsely in this case. Out of habit, I tuned-in a couple nights this week to the NFR broadcasts. Although I shook my face aboard some of the champeen broncs of my era, including Kesler’s Three Bars and Linger’s Strawberry, from where I’m spectating in my living room at age 55 ½, those ponies didn’t pitch with HALF the horsepowered torque of today’s broomtails. Or, likelier, I’ve just crossed over to the pacific side; maybe I’ve finally become the speaker of that marvelous S. Omar Barker poem.

RETIRED BRONC RIDER

These tame ol’ plugs you ride these days (remarks ol’ Baldy Bill),
They maybe buck a little, but they just ain’t got the will
To throw a man or bust a gut a-tryin’, like the kind
We used to ride when I was young. I calloused my behind
On rank ol’ mustang outlaws that was born to buck and pitch
The way that some cowpokes are born to scratch it when they itch.
I used to comb the mane hair of them mustangs with my spurs
Until both wheels was all gobbed up with hair and cockleburs.
Meanwhile I’d roll a cigarette, and with my other hand
I’d wave my hat at all them folks a-cheerin’ in the stand.

I win a heap of ridin’s when the broncs was tough as hell,
But had to quit bronc bustin’ back yonder quite a spell,
Because, although them buckers was the wildest ever born,
My ridin’ broke their spirit till they wasn’t worth their corn.

Yessir, these broncs you youngsters ride (Ol’ Baldy kinder grins)
They ain’t got what it takes to make you sorry for your sins!
Seems like they lack the dynamite them old ‘uns had inside ‘em—
But just the same, I’m glad I’m old—so I don’t have to ride ‘em!

(from S. Omar Barker, Rawhide Rhymes, 1968)

I better pack my warbag of poems for Monterey and batten down the hatches around the place. I’ll be thinking of you as I’m washing down a heaping bowl of cioppino (shellfish stew) with an Anchor Steam brewski and soppin’ up the rich red broth with a crusty sourdough baguette. Out on the wharf. Surrounded by the pacific.

MERRY CHRISTMAS. HAPPY HOLIDAYS. PEACE IN THE NEW YEAR.