SCENE: CATCH THOSE CHICKENS

The screen turns dark after the opening scene of  WEST and then these words appear on the screen “some place somewhere west sometime early 1930s…”

 

Ether noises. Sounds of bad equipment turned on. Water cooking (coffee) etc. Screen then comes up again and shows a radio studio or something that looks like it. Man on mike, and other big guy is with him.

 

Behind the studio glass some there are 5 people with bluegrass instruments.

 

MAN: Howdy y’all. Are we making history today! For those of you able to hear us, this is the first broadcast ever of WMCN Radio. I know some of you are listening –  we’ve been advertising it for some time now – and before we start we would like to do some greetings. First we like to say our special thanks to the man we are now  in great debts with making all this modern communication….

 

- Ah scrap that shit. Let us do the music!

 

MAN: That, folks, are the Parries they are my special guest for today and of course they are dying to do their thing in WMCN’s studioos’ I can double you em see ‘m behind that big glass window tuning up, being nervous and all. Are we gonna get some great music! But first the shit. The shit is paying, the shit should be heard,

 

- “Make him shut up, Willy! He’d better turn on the mike”

- You hear ‘m sayin’. Scrap the shit and let ‘m sing. If not, I have to cut off your ear.

 

MAN: Alight, alright. Okay okay, you win. Sorry, folks, for all this disturbance. Seems like we have some sort of well difference in opinions over here. I’ll do the shit later but let’s first let’s do the Parries. Where y’all from?

 

- Yells.

- From the priaries – we told you already? Who cares anyway!

- Where the tumbleweed blows, dickhead!

 

MAN: I’m just trying to be nice and get a conversation going. People may wanna know, you know, just being interested… Can’t say you succeeding…

 

- Dickhead! Dickhead!

 

MAN: This folks, is all of course rehearsed. I told you this was going to be a historical day.

 

- Reharsed, my ass. I’ll rehearse YOU if you don’t let us sing.

 

MAN: Okay okay, no need to get angry bout it. I’ll will let you sing. And so folks here they are the Parries!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!! On WMCN radio!!! Alright!

 

- Shouts from studio.

 

MAN: And they will do this nice little barn dance song that is… hey Parries what’s the song called?

 

- Catch Those Chickens, dickhead.

 

MAN: You hear ‘m sayin, ain’t it? Catch Those Chickens! Parries, the mike is yours! Go break a leg!

 

- o yes we will as soon as we’re finished – yours…

- Catch Those chickens – yeah – take it away Sunshine….

 

Song CATCH THOSE CHICKENS sets in. One of the Parries family does the opening words and then another one starts singing the verse. Miracously a wall of the studio opens and gives us a look at the priaries and the little farm they are singing about. The song’s clip is the singing of the Parries in the radio studio mixed with scenes of what happens at the little farm on the prairies telling the story of the song as you can hear below…

 

The scene ends with the Parries leaving the radio studio with the music fading out. They scream and jump of joy. There’s an old Ford car in front of the radio studio which is theirs and there’ is a main road that seems to lead to nowhere on both ends, left and right. From the right a man on a horse is slowly approaching.

 

- (very loud) That’s a whole lot of nickles we got just singing ol’ grannies song, Pa. Perhaps she ain’t so stupid after all.
– Yeah she gotta give us more of those, if ever she is gonna speak again.
– Last time she spoke was when you were born.
– (very loud) So? What did she say?
– Couldnt hear, you were screaming too loud already.

 

The man on horse is now passing. It’s a cowboy that seems to be from another time, a hundred years earlier at least.

 

- Hey cowboy, don’t go that way (points left), go that way (points right).  Where you’re heading?
– West, always just west, say any of you guys knows what these signs mean? (points to signs along side the road).
- They are the time, cowboy, that way (points left) is way back, up there (points right) is the future. I wouldnt go there (points backward to the left), its’ getting more rough, go the future(points to the right) like us, much more nice.
– Nah been there already, didnt like it that much, I try backwards (points ahead of him, to the left)
– (spreads his arms both ways) Okay its’ your ride, see ya.

 

The Parries go off in their old car still yelling and singing of joy because of the money they have earned with singing the song at the radio studio, they go to the right where the future is; the cowboy rides on, to the left,  heading backwards into the past, a sign at road says 1910, music HARD BEING HORSE starts.