ELKO - Take some advice, Pilgrim. Most cowboys aren't the rugged, carefree loners who slep under the stars in Hollywood movies. "We've done very little to change the myth of the cowboy and the myth of the West", cowboy poet John Dofflemyer of Lemoncove, CA, said in his keynote address at the 18th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. "The theme of this year's gathering is "The True West", but the cowboy myth was created long before anybody today was even born, Doflemyer said. "It remains branded in the American psyche". "Before we came along, there were dime novels making heroes out of outlaws for an Eastern readership". Then Hollywood sperad the image to sell "cigarettes, beer, cars, land - damn near everything out there that might be for sale". he said. That's why people who mosey into the gathering are surprised to hear mustachioed characters equally comfortable with lines starting "He don't..." as those from classic literature or Greek philosophy.

"If our work matters as poets and writers, I believe that we have a responsibility to not only reflect the truth in our work, but our values as well, rather than ride on the coat-tails of what Hollywood has already created," he said. Dofflemyer said most journalists who cover the gathering pick up on the poets' sense of identity. "We walk around like you now who we are", he told Thursday's audience. But he told the crowd, whose garb ranged from hats and boots to furs and hels, "I shouldn't need to remind anyone in this room that we catle peopel are a minority...in recent years we have been cast in black hatsas the current capitalistic scourge upon the West's wild and scenic landscapes". He said academics and other Americans miss the hands-on experience "of what it takes to harvest grass with livestaock". For the past century, the cattle culture has evolved "while facing an onslaught of ever-clever opportunists, politicians and businessmen", he said. "That any of us have survived may be a tribute to our enurance".