NAKED COWBOYS

A Screenplay and a Novel

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. I haven’t read many. I enjoyed some of the scripts Russell T. Davies wrote. He wrote a great book about the process of writing for TV. TV is what Russell T. does. As far as I’m aware he hasn’t written anything for the movies. TV is also what Vince Gilligan does, notably Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Breaking Bad was outstanding telly, top knicker, probably more enjoyable than the scripts. Better Call Saul was pretty good telly, suffering somewhat under the long shadow of its predecessor. The scripts for both shows were poetry, marvy. You can find them on the intranetty, some of them you don’t have to pay for. Read one. I’d sooner sit down and read a Vince Gilligan script than watch A Fistful of Dollars for the dozenth time.

I can no longer imagine Naked Cowboys as a TV show or a movie. The idea(s) disturb me. Probably something to do with ego, vanity, control, insecurity and madness—the usual evils. I intended it to be a TV show or a movie, or both, at different times. Part of the reason it never got finished was this very prevarication. Insert here some rubbishy quote about the need for guiding vision and a mission statement. Such things aren’t rubbishy crap, obviously. Hang on! I’d almost forgotten: Naked Cowboys was a film BEFORE it was a screenplay, a film based on a handful of notes scribbled on a few scraps of paper (not napkins: we weren’t that couth). It was my major film work in my last year at uni. It wasn’t bad. 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 me and Paulie decided we’d be rock stars. I forced the name on him. He liked it. The fact that Naked Cowboys was/is a movie doesn’t change the fact that to me it’s a screenplay and a novel best not filmed or tellied-up. Naked Cowboys is words. Whatever pictures are attached to it, or are born from it are those in the mind of the reader (or in the mind of the telepath next door when you sit down to read it). Of course, if you offer me lots of money you can do with the scripts whatever you like. As long as I get to choose what shirts the characters wear.