Steve and the Cowboy

I recently visited my friend from college, Steve, in Los Angeles. We had a great time! We even talked him into Disneyland, which is like at the bottom of the list of places you want to go to when you live in L.A.

One of the funniest things about Steve is that he doesn't watch television and doesn't really pay much attention to who sings what or who's in what movie. So, while he lives in L.A., and knows famous people, he has absolutely no idea that they're famous. Here are a few examples:

Example #1 (relayed to me by Patrick):
Steve: My friend, Neil, is on some dance show that I think you like.
Patrick: WHAT DANCE SHOW??
Steve: I think it's called So You Can Dance or something?
Patrick: Are you KIDDING me?? You're friends with 2007 So You Think You Can Dance Third-Place finisher Neil Haskell??????
Steve: I guess so.

Example #2 (after I saw Steve tagged in a facebook photo with one of my favorite actresses, Lizzy Caplan):
Me: Are you seriously in a facebook photo with Lizzy Caplan?
Steve: She's a friend of a friend. How do you know Lizzy?
Me: Are you seriously asking me how I know Lizzy Caplan?

Steve rarely cares when I let him know who these people actually are. But, on this visit, I was finally able to excite him about someone he had encountered in his past, that he didn't know he had encountered. While Steve, my sister, Stacy, and I were lounging around in the Roosevelt hotel lobby, Steve told us a story about something that had happened with him there one night.

It had happened the weekend of the Country Music Awards. Hollywood had been overrun with men in cowboy hats and boots and puffed out chests hanging out with women who were way too pretty to be hanging out with them. It also happened to be Steve's birthday, so he and his friends had gone out for drinks at the Hollywood version of a local dive. Steve, being the generous guy that he is, decided to buy one of the cowboys (let's call him Yosemite Sam because that's who I'm picturing in this story) and his way too pretty girlfriend a drink, stating excitedly, "It's my birthday! I'm buying drinks! I'll buy YOU a drink and YOU a drink!!" Yosemite Sam and PG acted grateful and wished him happy birthday and accepted the drinks. But, then while Steve was in the bathroom, Yosemite Sam exclaimed to the guys next to him (who happened to be Steve's friends), "Can you BELIEVE that guy??"

Now, rightfully, Steve's friends were bothered by this. Here was Steve, nice enough to buy Yosemite Sam and his girl a drink, on his own birthday, which they accepted. But, then the moment, Steve walks away, Yosemite Sam starts badmouthing him? So, they began to call him out on his assholery. Steve, coming back from the bathroom, is wondering why his friends are being mean to his new buddies. And, Steve and his friends leave.

Out on Hollywood Boulevard, Steve and friends are being followed by Yosemite Sam and a disinterested gigantic black man, who is most likely Yosemite Sam's bodyguard and probably has been through this song and dance before, even earlier that night, and who is just kind of lacklusterly watching the scene unfold. Steve's friends had explained to Steve, in the meantime, what Yosemite Sam had said, and now Steve is thinking "what in tarnation is that lily-livered bowlegged varmint thinking?", or so I imagine. So, Steve also starts getting in Yosemite Sam's face. Yosemite Sam is inexplicably hopping mad and throwing gibes at Steve and friends, hoping to insult their patriotism, but not being very good at it. Gibes like, "How many things do you have memorized?" "I bet you can't even name all the states." "My boots cost more than your HOUSE, City F*cks". Steve and his friends just looked at him in blank disbelief. At this point, Yosemite Sam started naming off books of the Bible (to prove how Christian American he is??)...and I mean, not like the ones that we all know, like Genesis and Matthew. Books like "the book of Habbakkuk" and "Zephaniah".

Steve and friends, by this point, have made it to the Roosevelt Hotel and enter it by bypassing the locked side door and going through the back. As Steve's milling around through the hotel, he hears yelling. He goes to the locked side glass door, and there's Yosemite Sam outside on the other side. The door was still locked from the outside, but Steve could have opened it from within. Yosemite Sam starts banging on the glass, yelling "LET US IN!" And Steve, with his face inches away from the glass, yells, "No! You were MEAN to me!" And Yosemite Sam's biscuits were burning. He begins to threaten to kick Steve's ass.

At this point, it finally dawns on Yosemite Sam that Steve and friends must have been able to get inside somehow. At the same time, Steve and friends are amped up and ready to "take it outside". So, both parties hightail it to the back door at the same time, and almost pass each other as Steve and friends run out and Yosemite Sam runs (and bored bodyguard saunters) in. *cue Benny Hill Yakkety Sax music* It should have been "go-time", but Steve and friends started to see the humor in the situation with all the chest-puffing and bemusedly decide to go off laughing into the night, leaving Yosemite Sam with smoke coming out of his ears outside the Roosevelt Hotel.

At the end of this tale, I asked Steve the real identity of Yosemite Sam. He responded, "Some country singer guy named John something or other."

I replied, "John who?"

Steve texted his friend to find out the answer..."John Rich. I don't know who he is."

I said, "Steve! You know who he is! He's in that Big & Rich group."

Steve just shook his head.

I said, "You know that song? 'Save a horse, ride a cowboy'?"

Steve's eyes grew wide. He exclaimed, "That song??!!! I chest-puffed with the guy who sings THAT SONG??!!"

All in all, I find this story and Steve's realization of who his attacker was hilarious. Hopefully, Steve has learned that sometimes situations are better when you "know people"...and that the Roosevelt Hotel is a good place to "ride a cowboy"...wait, that didn't come out right.