A Cowpoke’s Take on Budget Rustlin’

I saw Mike Bradbury recite some of his cowboy poetry last weekend in Thousand Oaks. It was the district attorney’s first reading in public, and he was as skittish as a sow outside a sausage plant.

I would have been too. The acts that preceded him at the third annual Conejo Valley Day of Cowboy Poetry and Music were professional, top-quality buckaroo-circuit bards--seasoned old hands who could rhyme “pico de gallo” with “you’re from Ohio” and think nothing of it.

Bradbury did well. His poems were ruggedly eloquent. He wrote about his friendship with a dying ranch hand, about his young sons, about how he’s changed his mind about his dad’s stern reminder that cowboys don’t cry.

The next day, I read a newspaper commentary by Bradbury. I could hardly believe it was written by an accomplished cowboy poet! The D.A. was trying to make a case against the budget cuts proposed by Harry Hufford, the county’s chief administrative officer. Bradbury would lose nearly 2% and Sheriff Bob Brooks would lose more than 4%--the first cuts faced by either office in at least seven years.

Threaten law enforcement officials with budget cuts and they’ll respond with a panorama of chaos, of blood loosed upon the land. Yet, over the years, Bradbury has not only prosecuted killers, but also shut down church raffles and sued candy manufacturers for too few sweets per box. Strange that, come budget time, you never hear about that?

Instead of a stirring call to arms against budget-rustling, Bradbury produced a standard, government-issue bureaucratic treatise, with an opening quote from Winston Churchill, no less. It was unconvincing, at least in part because it was tough to navigate.

That’s why I translated it into a cowboy poem, free of charge. It’s not as good as what Bradbury can do when he’s wearing his cowboy-poet hat, but I think it conveys the pungent aroma of a roundup just about as well:

When the fire dies and the embers are glowin’

And the coyotes howl, and the cold winds are blowin’,

A grizzled old cowpoke lets loose with a wail,

And takes a long swig before launching his tale.

“Boys, I’ll tell you clear, the way that I do

‘Bout the things in the West that are sacred and true--

A good horse, of course, and an ol’ yaller mutt,

And a D.A.’s budget that can never be cut.”

*

The wrangler stares up at the starry black sky.

His tears he don’t hide--he don’t even try.

“My bones have been picked, and Lord I have suffered,

The plundering ways of a buzzard named Hufford.

The dude wants my dinero, but that just ain’t fair,

Oh, the West will be lost, right then and right there.

Cause fences need mendin’ and dogies need tendin’--

And roundin’ up outlaws needs government spendin’.”

*

Amen, said the hands as they sat on the range.

Take them big-bucks away, and things will get strange.

The gangs will come pourin’ up over the hill,

Skinheads will skin and killers will kill.

Then the D.A. shrieked, with a glint in his eye:

“Safest towns in the U.S.? Kiss ‘em goodbye!

From Ojai to Simi, they’ll bruise and abuse you:

The foul and the felons--they sure won’t amuse you.

*

“It’s the code of the West, and the people have spoke--

They’re for law ‘n’ order, I’m not blowin’ smoke.

They don’t want to find severed heads at the beaches,

Or trainloads of drugs in the county’s far reaches.

My mouth’s not just flappin’, cause all that will happen

No gun-totin’ cowboy can afford to be nappin’!

Our budget is holy, and that goes for the sheriff--

We can’t lose a nickel or the county will perish.

*

“And boys, we’ll see worse -- when we’re left in the lurch,

I won’t have the funds to stop raffles in church!”

*

Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.