Sounds a lot like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid doesn't it? Yes, it does. In fact, it is a smashing and seminal film really.

But this is not about that. Not entirely at least. This is a bit and a lot about change. About entire cultures transmogrifying into something entirely else. Like magic. The story is told in the context of a Western. With cowboys and fair maidens, wild horses and wilder hormones.

So go ahead. Giddy up.

“Here’s your malt, Sir. Mindfully plentiful. And reassuringly single, of course. In fact, virtually wanton if you will.”

Aah, Hooch. Sweet dreams are made of this kind of sweet words. Especially when all you get to drink is country, with lemon that you have to buy from the counter to squeeze into that country.

Hooch is a dreamer, though. He dreams with his eyes open, half open and even closed. All he ever does is dream.

He lives with his rotting liver and his constant companion the One Dance Kid, in a dusty western parody of Shanti Town. He isn’t gay or anything. Just a bloke in the wrong cloak. Anachronistic cloak. Punny business, this cloak business.

Let me rewind. Narrate how things were (often the best way to understand how things are …)

There was a time when Westerns were beautifully crafted from the romance of the millions. Chivalry was not mistaken for a whiskey brand and valour was a virtue. Pretty maidens were whisked off their feet by plug chewing, chiseled men with week old stubbles and year old desire. Little shots of dark amber were poured out for them to throw their heads back and six shooters were really neckties. The one trick pony and the one horse town were regular metaphors that were not just turns of phrases; they were turns of events. Mud was a rite of passage, not a spa stock in trade. Horses were basically manes and attitude, with muscle and man on top. The lasso was the powerpoint and the bucking bronco was the SUV. There were men with more man in them than there ever could be now and the best show in town was a duel or a hanging. Whipped scream was just desserts and honour was gold.

Hooch was a young, strapping wahoo in those times. He growled, he spat, he ducked and he romanced. He sunned in the sun and mooned in the moon. Starry eyed women followed him like a shaggy tail follows a horse and sex, lice and videotape were a part of his great Western accoutrement. The spare rib, the limited smile and the abundant plug tobacco were his signature and the bourbon was his ink. His best friend, his sidearm, his soul bowl, his mate, maven and fellow marauder was a man who knew only the foxtrot and hence, was known by the ladies in the pleasure houses as the One Dance Kid. Together they would loot trains, toot lanes and hoot hens as brothers in arms and armaments often do.

The Kid was a different kettle of fish altogether though. A study in antitheses. The Kid was flaxen haired while Hooch was darkly shaded in colourless white. The Kid was baby faced and playful whereas Hooch was wrinkled in the right places, muscled in the tight places and tousled in the wrong ones. The Kid, if you will, was flexible and street sharp. Hooch was defined by his principles and explained by his values. The Kid was linear and upfront, what you saw with him was what you got from him. Hooch was a man of many shades and was regularly interpreted by man, beast and woman alike through what he said as much as through what he didn’t.

Between Hooch and the Kid, the town was safe and mostly in control. Which is more than what can be said about the women in the town though. The ladies were regularly swept off their feet by the dynamic duo and every new moon, there were kids from the Kid and hoochie coos from Hooch bawling for a teat or a pistol in Shanti town. The ladies loved it though. It was honourable to get a lady to allow a man to bake a cake with that lady, in that lady. If that sounds complex, you should see courtships in Westerns. Men had real time then. Women had real desires. And the product was a happy surprise, not a surly bastard. Shanti Town looked after its own and Hooch and the Kid were its largest flagships.

And then one day, things started changing. First came the new genre of movies. Movies that reduced romance to dating apps and consummation to consumerism. Then came the big companies that replaced the horses with mass rapid transportation systems and the pleasure houses with discos. The price of things became north bound, the value of things got south bound and the compass that guided chivalry broke into two and went off to the east and the west. All that remained of the Western was special effects, Will Smith, bad parody and good box office. Bean counters broke up the counters, scattered the beans and made the calculator the deciding jury in a duel. The cowboys became a cross between cows and boys and the ranch became the new party place for outoftowners. The bucking bronco became the fucking monkey and the sheriff got shot by Eric Clapton.

Thus went the date with fate for the Western and Shanti town soon became a ‘location’ with anachronistic props somewhere between art house and period drama. Hooch and the Kid could fight any hombre on a rainy day. They could wrestle any bronco down to the ground. They could steal women’s hearts, men’s glances, little children’s role models and the sheriff’s sleep. They could fight, drink, shoot, sow, dance, ride and swing with their eyes shut. Any verb was game and the town was theirs. But they did not know their six shooters from their shot glasses and their horses from their asses when faced with irrelevance. That was a noun from out of town. And it came and screwed them over like a plague in fifth gear.

What happened next is what is happening to most of the rest of the world. A lot of plastic that goes for substance. A lot of gas that goes for warmth. A lot of dance that lasts only till the music plays. And a lot of manure that masquerades as amino acids. Hooch and the Kid have their memories and their country tumblers to live out the rest of their dead days. Most of the younger lot are luckier. They are born dead.