Lies, Half-Truths, Myths and Legends
The Completely True Story of the Clydesdale Cowboys

"It all started on an out-of-control washing machine." - JR Clydesdale

JR Clydesdale had all but given up on the music biz. After 20 years of betrayal and failure, he broke up "WhiskeyFinger," his latest in a string of doomed bands, and rented a $7-a-day hotel room in Muddy River, Tennessee. He found work at a local filling station and promptly took to drinking. His daily routine consisted of pumping gas, boozing and whoring - occasionally breaking to indulge his growing scratch-ticket addiction. This "dark time" went on for months.

Kitty, JR's little sister, was meanwhile having troubles of her own. With the ink drying on her 3rd divorce and her career in speech pathology in tatters, Kitty reluctantly took up the gun and began robbing banks. Her MO was simple, keep the scatter-gun pointed in the general direction of the customers - and keep her peace-maker pressed up to the fore-head of the bank manager. She met with little resistance, and towards the end of her spree was generally regarded as a folk hero. Being "Done by Miss Kitty" was becoming bragging rights in the banking world of the rural south-west.

Kitty dumped her emerald green El Camino in a railway yard in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

After 7 weeks of gunplay and overall villainy, Kitty needed to let things cool off and hide her swag. While her trail had led federal, state and local authorities west for weeks, one moonless night she doubled back. She dumped her emerald green El Camino in a railway yard in Fort Smith, Arkansas, hiked through 5 miles of brush country with $270,000 in cash on her back, and hitched a ride on an overloaded poultry truck going east on Interstate 40.

Feeling tired and haggard, Kitty asked to be dropped off at the next a truck-stop diner. After a plate of blueberry pancakes with boysenberry syrup she sat back and signaled the waitress for the check. While rummaging through her bag for cigarettes she came across a post-card. On the front was a picture of Graceland, and scrawled on the back was a message from her big-brother JR. It read - Broke up the band. Living in a flea-bag in Muddy River. 'Least I saw Graceland one last time. All My Love - JR

-----

JR's trip to Graceland was commemorated in this postcard to Kitty.

When JR heard the knock on his door he was drunk, standing in his underwear, eating fried wontons and watching The Beastmaster on TBS. As the door opened, "Jesus JR! What would Momma say?" was all Kitty could muster.

In the weeks that followed, Kitty cleaned out the apartment and got JR more or less straightened out too. After discovering that JR sold his guitar for a Lucky Millions scratch-ticket, Kitty promptly went out one afternoon and bought him new one.

"Where'd you get the money for that?" said JR slyly, taking the black beauty out of its case.

"JR, I've got more money than Colonel Sanders in that duffle bag." she said. "You don't want to know where I got it."

"I watch Hard-Copy like everyone else, I know where it came from," he replied. After a good laugh, JR began tuning up. Just when he had it sounding good, the beat-up old washing machine in the corner began hopping wildly around the kitchen. JR, guitar in hand, jumped up on top of the washer to hold it down. "This thing keeps better time than that last hack I was playing with!" he laughed, and began playing "Six Days On The Road" while the washer drummed-on. When Kitty came in with her harmony, the seed of Clydesdale Cowboys was planted.

With more than a quarter of a million dollars in stolen money, and vowing never to play music with anyone but family again, JR and Kitty set out to put together a band.

-----

Ringo Clydesdale and his cousin Hop-Along were in a jam. Their funk band, "FunkyHonky" had just been dumped from an ill-funded tour of former Soviet-Block nations. Their wallets and passports had been taken from them by a plain-clothes Romanian policeman. The boys had sold him 10 pairs of smuggled Levis, and then cheated him in a game of cribbage to win them back. How were they supposed to know he was law? Making matters worse, they had now run up a $900 bar tab in a Romanian disco, and had only in $37 in Hungarian cash.

A shadowy figure approached the booth they were sitting in.

Ringo ordering another round

"Are you Ringo and Hop-Along Clydesdale?" the man asked. The drummer and bass player exchanged glances and looked back at the swarthy Romanian. "Who wants to know?" they replied in unison. "My name is Gregor Samsa," said the dark man in his thick Romanian accent. "I've been hired by your family to find you."

As Gregor told his tale, the two if them ordered another round. He went on to explain that if they agreed to put away all this funk nonsense, and came back to the family to play country music, their sister Miss Kitty would settle up all their debts and arrange safe passage for them back to the States. Just when they were ready to tell Gregor to put his kind offer where the sun don't shine, the bill came.

And so, Ringo and Hop-Along stumbled out of the disco behind Gregor, and looked off into the Romanian sunrise.

----

88 Fingers Clydesdale sighed, and stared out onto the shimmering Oklahoma highway. Being on a chain gang in an orange jumpsuit was bad enough. Being chained to his cousin Sidewinder, a man of

Another day for 88 Fingers and Sidewinder

notoriously foul-temper and even fouler aroma, was more than he could stand. He threw down his trash-poking stick in disgust.

Sidewinder Clydesdale shook his head and said nothing. He was thinking about the day they were busted.

They had been riding in a Volvo station wagon on the way to a bat mitzvah gig. The wind was whipping the rain sideways across the car, and the wipers were making a lot of noise, but doing little to improve visibility through the smoke-filled interior of the car. The piano and pedal steel rested in the way-back - amidst three months of Sidewinder's dirty clothes and bedding.

88 had just finished questioning Sidewinder about the meaning of the sticker in his rear window. The sticker said The Nathan Mayhew Seminars. Sidewinder, as usual, was in a moment of quite repose.

After an uncomfortable silence 88 added, "Toby Keith sucks and this tape deck sounds like the belt is all stretched out. Its must be at least 1/8th of a step flat. How can you listen to this?"

A member of the family of nutria that escaped 88 and Sidewinder.

"It was like this when I bought it."
"The tape deck?"
"No."
"The tape?"
"No."
"Well, what the fuck are you talking about?"
"The Nathan Mayhew Seminars."

And at just that moment the car hit a family of nutria, spun out of control and slammed into a state trooper who was busy guarding an empty bulldozer on the side of the road. During the investigation that followed, the state trooper discovered enough marijuana in the car to get them both convicted for "Possession With Intent to Distribute." The fact that the trooper was literally cooked out of his mind on cocaine and Affrin, nor the fact that said cocaine had been lifted from the evidence room, were ever made a matter of public record.

Sidewinder knelt down and picked up 88's trash-poker and handed it back to him. "If the boss sees you throw down that poker again, none of us are gonna get cigarette break."

"Oh fuck him, he's sleeping in the truck again. If we could get unchained, we could be halfway to Mexico before he wakes up for his three o'clock doughnut."

And at precisely that moment, a white van pulled up - and a man wearing a Star Wars storm-trooper helmet, Nudie jacket and faded jeans jumped out of the side door with a pair of bolt cutters in his hand.

"My name is Luke Skywalker, and I'm here to rescue you."

"Holy shit JR! Are we sure glad to see you!" said 88. And with that, JR cut them both free, and ushered them into the van. Kitty (wearing a Darth Vader helmet) slammed the pedal down and hauled ass back to Tennessee. The rest of the chain gang just stood there for a minute, and eventually went back to poking trash.

-----

Bud "Stonewall" Clydesdale's head hung over a vat of steaming grits. The sweat from his saturated red bandanna was beading up on the tip of his nose, and dropping rhythmically into a particularly bland batch.

Bud's Private Hell Shoney's, Goose Creek, SC

How did he come to this? A year ago he was the prize pupil of Black Jacque Shellac at the prestigious Cordon Bleu school in Paris. Now, after a brief but torrid affair with Jacque's 17-year old daughter Chloe, he was ruined in the culinary world - and wanted for questioning by Interpol. Sneaking back into the country using a forged Syrian passport was the easy part. Slinging grits at a Shoney's in Goose Creek, SC? This was his own private hell.

"Hey Bud, customer wants to talk to you," shouted a voice from out front.

"Tell him I'll be refilling the grits at the buffet table - Tout suite!" he said, with little effort to hide the scorn in his voice.

"Don't think he wants grits. He says he wants a steak sandwich, and a steak sandwich, and wants to talk to Stonewall Clydesdale. I figured that must be you."

Bud stood upright, lowered the bandanna from his head to his neck, and took off his apron. He walked deliberately to the time clock and punched himself out. At his locker, he kicked off his black, grit-crusted sneakers and slipped into his snakeskin boots. He put on his Stetson hat and went out to find his little brother JR waiting for him in the parking lot.

JR's Ride: Black '57 Chevy.

Black '57 Chevy. Motor running. "Come on Stoney," the driver said, "I already booked us some gigs." They drove to the closest pawn shop, and paid $150 for a $1,200 electric guitar. SG. Custom.

JR and Stonewall hopped into the car and headed back to Muddy River to join up with the rest of the family.

-----

While it seemed that all the pieces of the Clydesdale puzzle were in place, darker forces were at work.

"Hey Stoney, do you know those guys behind us?" said JR, examining his rearview mirror.

"Beats me."

"Well they've been on our ass for about 5 miles, and that's about 5 miles too many as far as I'm concerned."

"Well I gotta take a piss anyway. Pull over, and we'll see what this is all about."

So JR let the '57 glide off to the side of the road and came to a stop near a huge combine in the middle of an endless wheat field. The Lincoln Town Car slowed and pulled over right in front of them. An elderly couple got out of the car and headed towards them holding a road atlas.

Elderly French assassins.

"The old timers just need directions JR. Roll down the window and see what they want."

The old man walked over to the driver's side. The woman came up beside Stonewall.

"Pardon me," the man began, "but do you have any Grey Poupon?"

JR and Stonewall burst out laughing uncontrollably, and while they were doubled over the man pulled a pistol out from beneath his atlas and shot each of them with a tranquilizer dart.

As they faded in and out of consciousness, all JR could remember hearing was the old woman saying, "This has nothing to do with you Mr. JR, but Black Jacque Shellac has unfinished business with Mr. Stonewall..."

When JR woke up the Lincoln was gone. He looked over and so was Stonewall. He looked out the window to his right and saw everything. The churning combine. The tattered boots and hat. The 15 foot crimson spray-pattern across the top of the freshly cut wheat. The word Chloe was written in blood across the side of the harvesting machine.

Bud's final resting place.

"Dust to dust," he said - to no one in particular. He took a slug of Jack Daniels and pulled out onto the highway. "Bushwhacked by a Frenchman! Damn, but that's sad. At least Daddy ain't alive to see this."

But JR knew in his heart that Stonewall wasn't long for this world. Robbing banks, cheating at cribbage, nearly killing a State Trooper - that was all stuff Clydesdales had been doing for ages. But stealing the heart of a Frenchman's daughter? That was a death wish.

"I suppose I'll have to get down on my knees and beg Uncle Jessie to play guitar now."

So JR headed south, and began the long drive to New Orleans.

-----

Jessie James Clydesdale put on his black mullet wig, and took his red and white striped Kramer guitar out of its case. He stood and looked at himself in the dressing room mirror. Tank top, tattered acid wash jeans and poofy white sneakers. He nearly vomited.

"Dude! Where are your striped overalls?"

Jessie hits rock bottom.

Jessie looked over his shoulder to see a man in a blue leotard with an outrageous tan doing splits on the floor. This horrific spectacle was capped by a blonde flowing mane that would have made Farrah Fawcett retire.

"Look Irving, I really don't feel like wearing the overalls tonight."

"I've told you a thousand times, on days when we have a gig, call me David! It helps me get into character."

"Ok David, I don't feel like wearing the overalls tonight."

"Eddie, I thought we agreed that the overalls had star power..."

"God-damnit, my name is Jessie, and YOU agreed that the overalls had star power. I think they suck ass!"

The debate raged on for several minutes and was terminated when Irving "David" Schwartz grabbed, and then threw, a hand full of green m&m's into Jessie's face. As he exited the room he turned on his heel and yelled, "Hot For Teacher is MY band and when I say jump, you might as well jump!"

"Jump," muttered Jessie, to no one in particular. He plopped down on the moldy couch, took a swig of bourbon, and thought about the good old days, and how it all went wrong...

There was a brief time when the name Jessie James Clydesdale was mentioned in the same breath as some of country music's greatest guitar players. Now it was all but one of those dreams you have trouble remembering in the shower. Jessie's meteoric rise was only slightly slower than his catastrophic demise.

It was dress rehearsal for the Super Bowl half-time show. On stage was the enigmatic Shania Twain and her band of Nashville hot-shots. Jessie had agreed to fill in for Shania's regular guitar player, although he found the gig somewhat beneath him. Oh well, ten grand was ten grand, and two pints of Old Grand Dad had helped him into a zone of relative complacency.

Jessie just seconds prior to the Shania incident.

The musicians were on multiple risers, and Jessie's was one step lower than Shania's. One might say he had a stellar view. Then, right in the second verse of "Man - I Feel Like a Woman," Shania's greatest asset began to sway back and forth dangerously close to the eyes, ears, nose and tongue of old Jessie. Being an ass man, and drunk as a skunk, Jessie suppressed the urge for several seconds before giving in, and plunged his face into Shania's bottom.

After a 40 minute tirade, the diva issued her final sentence, "And if you think you're ever gonna play guitar on this PLANET again, you've got another thing coming!!!"

"Does that mean I can still play with Judas Priest?" shouted Jessie, as Shania's personal security guards man-handled him from the stage. He sang, "You've Got Another Thing Coming" all the way to the parking lot where he was deposited in a pile of fried dough and soggy paper cups.

Jessie opened his eyes, and he was once again back in the mullet wig, on the moldy couch, in the shabby dressing room. He was being poked in the chest by a man in a black cowboy hat.

"Uncle Jessie, what a disgrace - what would momma say?"

"Christ JR, what are you doing here? Don't look at me....don't look at me!" Jessie covered his face in his hands.

"I came here with the idea that I was gonna have to beg you to come play music with the family again. I see now that you'll be the one who's begging me to even let you ride in my car, looking like that. Jesus, you look right outta Flashdance!"

"Oh JR, I've hit rock bottom, please take me outta here."

"No worries. Hell, everyone in the damned family has hit rock bottom. I see you still have both hands?"

"I'm ready to play."

"Good. Let's motor."

As the boys were rolling north along I-59, Jessie changed into some sensible clothes. An hour later they pulled over at a Stuckey's and threw the wig, the jeans, the sneakers and the Kramer into the dumpster out back. Jessie kept the tank top, noting that it made his arms look big. They wolfed down some burgers, got a pecan log roll for the road, and resumed their northern voyage.

"I'm psyched to play with the family again," said Jessie, "But I figured you would have got Doc to be your lead guitar man."

"Now that's a long story," JR wheezed through a mouthful of whiskey and pecans.

"Well I ain't goin' anywhere," said Jessie.

And so JR began to tell his Uncle Jessie the story of Doc Clydesdale.

-----

Robert "Doc" Clydesdale was once one of the most respected plastic surgeons in the world. He was also JR's cousin, and a one hell of a guitar player. It was often said that his steady guitar hands were what made him the crack surgeon he was. He would be flown all over the globe for emergency facial reconstructions for only the most severe cases. The mere mention of his name would calm worried families in waiting rooms everywhere. His cause was noble, he was making a good living, and all was well with Doc's world. Then he met Brenda.

It was Gatlinburg in mid-July, and Doc was enjoying himself at Gatlinburg's State Fair.

Brenda!

There she was.
Brenda.
The maiden in the dunk tank.

"Hey douche-bag," she barked from her swinging chair, "Why don't you put that corn-dog up your ass?"

Doc was stunned. No one had ever spoken to him this way before. (Even the rest of the normally foul-mouthed Clydesdale family curbed their tongue in Doc's presence.) He dropped his corn-dog into the sawdust at his feet.

"What's the matter? Your ass still sore from last night?" she cackled.

Now something took over Doc. The same type of feverish determination that enveloped him when his was in a 12-hour surgery, or when he was taking an extended guitar solo. His eyes glazed over, and his conscious mind left his body. His one singular purpose in life was to dunk that bitch in the tank.

Like a motorized automaton he marched over to the booth, laid down a five-dollar bill, and walked out to face down Brenda with three baseballs in his hands.

"Hey look everybody," Brenda yelled, "Douche Bag is gonna put baseballs in his ass now!"

Without warning, Doc hurled his missile at the target - and before Brenda new what was happening, she was flailing about underwater.

"Hey that's Doc Clydesdale," an onlooker shouted, "He's a respected plastic surgeon!"

"Well he should give himself a penis enlargement," ragged Brenda, as she climbed back on her swing."

But before she could get settled, Doc aimed and fired. And again, down Brenda went into the murky carnival pool. Cheers emanated from the onlookers.

"Hey Doctor Douche Bag," Brenda gasped as she again tried to climb into her seat, "How's about we put a little wager on the line here?"

Now at that time, Doc's only known vice was gambling. A Clydesdale family curse.

Doc came out of his Zen-like trance at the thought of a wager, and shouted back, "The only thing I'm interested in right now is more baseballs - you vile woman!" A crowd was gathering now.

"Okay Douchey - If you dunk me on the next throw you get all the baseballs you want. You can have me swimming all weekend. But if you miss, you'll have to use those famous hands and give me the breast enlargement I've always wanted."

Doc had never done a breast enlargement before, but he figured he could handle it. Besides, his steady guitar hands made him a crack shot. He couldn't lose. And he could watch that vulgar woman spit up chlorine 'till his heart was content.

A hush had fallen over the now sizable crowd, and it let out a collective gasp when Doc said, "You're on...you...you...Strumpet!"

Doc took a moment to regain his composure.

Now you'd have to be in the exact right spot to notice this, but as Doc dug in, Brenda gave the quickest glance and a wink to Earle - the man behind the baseball booth. Brenda and Earle had been working this scam for years, and as he subtly reached down below the counter and slowly pulled "the lever" a wry smile crept into the corner of his mouth.

Doc reared and fired. The baseball flew true to its mark, and smashed soundly into the target's bull's eye. Doc was celebrating halfway up in the air when he realized...

Nothing had happened.

"Looks like you've got a new patient, you douche-bag!" Brenda laughed.

Now we all know Doc had been cheated. Hell, Doc knew it too. But he was a man of honor, and two months later Doc was checking in on Brenda - two days after the surgery.

"Let me take a look at my work," Doc said, not making eye contact, "If everything goes well you can check out tomorrow, and we'll never have to see each other again."

"Fine by me, Doctor Bag." Brenda had shortened up Doctor Douche Bag to just Doctor Bag to save time. "Just give me the a-ok and I'm gonzo."

They stood in front of a full length mirror and Doc slowly removed her hospital gown. All four eyes locked onto Brenda's new breasts.

Doc's breath was taken away. He was speechless. His mouth was agape.

"They're beautiful," whispered Brenda.

Doc turned Brenda's head toward him and gazed into her eyes.

"Oh Brenda," he said.

"Oh Robert," she replied as their lips met, and slowly melted into each other.

Their passion was so intense and so pure, that to see them together was to believe in the coexistence of God and magic.

-----

"...God and magic," finished JR. Jessie looked out the window of the '57 to hide the tear in his eye.

After a moment of silence, Jessie turned back. "You still haven't explained why he's not playing guitar with you?"

"Oh hell, he so damned smitten by that carny trash, that he's given up his practice! He works as a vet for the carnival animals so he can be with her all the time! He says they've got a horse with chronic hemorrhoids for Chrissakes!"

"Damn, he must really be in love."

"Yeah. But he says he can sit in with us whenever the fucking carnival is in the same town as one of our gigs."

"Well jeez JR, that's awfully nice of him."

"I guess so," sighed JR. "Oh well, cherchez la femme."

-----

And that's the totally, all true story of the formation of the Clydesdale Cowboys. They are currently on the run from the law, playing gigs in small towns and big cities across America. If you see 'em, give 'em a hoot n'holler. But please don't call the authorities.

Have a question? Contact the Clydesdale Cowboys at TrailBoss@ClydesdaleCowboys.com