Note to all cowboys and cowgirls: HOWL!

What else can one do?

If it were up to me, I would add wild eyed shrieking. Depending on the day, of course. Today I am good with howling because it really let the universe hear what my inner cowgirl is feeling expecially after i read that $50 million dollars for the NEA was finally approved by both houses on Friday.

"It's a great opportunity for the cultural work force to be dignified as part of the American work force," said Patrice Walker Powell, the Endowment's deputy chairwoman and someone I consider an elegant, eloquent advocate for the arts. I personally think its because of the message blitzed by the arts world that culture contributes 6 million jobs, $30 billion in tax revenue and $166 billion in annual economic impact.

Well, "Ah-hooooo!!" that's coyote for, "HellOOOOO!?!! Where there is culture, there is a buzz, then people are intrigued, they spend money to have this arts experience and there you go. It is headbangingly clear that some government people simply cannot do the math.

Anyway, getting back to howling. I wrote, actually rewrote the story of the American tall tale hero, Pecos Bill, with black and white cutout illustrations as a commission from a Silicon Valley producer this year wondering all along what kind of original spin I could put on such a well known character. Me, a wannabe cowgirl who grew up in Queens, NY.

As my writing progressed, I became more captivated by how this boy raised by coyotes reinvented himself to be the greatest cowboy the wild west had ever seen. But with all of the amazing feats of strength he performs, my Pecos Bill is slightly neurotic and vulnerable, painfully aware of how helpless he is without the power of love. Howling at the moon helps.

Does it help you?

If you want to hear more, I will narrating "Howl!", my original retelling of Pecos Bill at the Cornelia Street Cafe on Sunday, March 8, 2009, 6:00 - 8:00 pm. I expect to see all of you there and to hear the howl from deep down in your cowboy/cowgirl soul.

Oh, by the way, this week's top movie is Friday the 13th which brought in $42.5 million. Now that is something to go wild eyed shrieking over.

What makes you wild?