DATE: Friday, November 14, 1997             TAG: 9711140002

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: Keith Monroe

                                            LENGTH:   88 lines

STYLED WEST REGION OF CONTRADICTION: HARDTACK AT THE STARBUCKS, BUCKEROO

The American West is what the American South used to be - self-obsessed to the point of unreality.

I admit this sweeping generalization is based on superficial information - a few visits to Houston, Colorado Springs, Seattle, a chat with a publisher who specializes in regional books on hairy-chested pursuits like rafting and mountaineering. But it's only a newspaper column, after all. If you want scholarship, you're going to have to pay tuition and read books with footnotes.

Still, I think I'm on to something. When I moved to the South 25 years ago from the industrial Midwest, I was struck by the region's sense of identity. There were Southern writers, a Southern cuisine, a Southern way of talking.

That certainly wasn't the case in the rust belt. Ohio cuisine? Forget it. There were plenty of Ohio writers - James Thurber, E.B. White, Hart Crane, Sherwood Anderson, Dawn Powell, James Wright. But their only interest in the region was how fast they could get out of it - to Manhattan or Paris.

But in the past 25 years, it seems to me the South's regional identity has faded considerably. A great homogenization has taken place. There are still regional writers, but it's less a badge of honor than an indication of limited sales potential.

Downtown Charlotte or Atlanta has more in common with everywhere modern than with anywhere specifically Southern. You might as well be in Singapore. Culturally, politically, economically, the South looks more and more to the same meccas as the rest of the nation - New York, Washington, Los Angeles.

Not so the West. It now possesses the virulent mistrust of the East that the South once had of the North. If it looks anywhere for inspiration, it's further West - to the far coast. But mostly, the West seems to look to itself, a self-reliance in keeping with its heritage.

Bookstores don't just feature a shelf or two of regional titles. Half of many is given over to Western texts, Indian lore, regional history, cooking and travel. Instead of Musak in public places, you often hear cowboy tunes, lonesome yodels, railroad songs.

Clothing stores don't display the same old placeless style as everywhere else. Many feature clothes that are half Ralph Lauren and half Clint Eastwood. Big buckles, leather and Indian-blanket prints are prominent. Jewelers rely heavily on the turquoise.

It's a region where 4-wheel drive actually makes sense. Cars and trucks that wimpy suburbanites drive elsewhere to appear macho are actually necessities of life out West, and speed limits are scorned when they aren't nonexistent.

Art museums and galleries have a minimum of that modern New York/European art and an unlimited supply of Georgia O'Keeffe, C.M. Russell and Frederic Remington originals or knockoffs. Entertainment is a gem show or a rodeo. A technology museum isn't concerned with cars or airplanes but with mines.

News, too, has a regional flavor. Instead of the generic crime and politics found everywhere else, on a recent weekend in Colorado the top human-interest story concerned a cowboy dislodged from his horse by an attacking mountain lion that he had to beat to death with a tree limb. The plight of farmers trying to get crops to market with diminished rail service was also a headline. Along with the customary drought and blizzard.

In some ways, the West is reminiscent of Hampton Roads - only more so. In its lunar landscape, water is a huge issue. The conflict between upscale tourists and subsistence ranchers is ongoing. It's a land caught between cowboys and skiers.

Politically, the region is really conservative. Reagan is still a God, and Newt appears to be regarded as an effete Eastern blowhard. The anti-tax sentiment is so heavy duty that Jim Gilmore would be regarded as a tax-and-spend liberal. And Pat Robertson might be regarded as a cultural moderate. The West's idea of conservative is public executions, Lone Star successionists, the Luddite Unabomber and shoot-the-feds gun nuts. A protest of government bureaucracy can take the form of blowing up bureau of fish and wildlife employees.

Ironically, this don't-tread-on-me region may be more dependent on government than any other. Its native population relies on government assistance. Huge government water projects make the region habitable. Tax transfers from richer, more populous states build the roads today as they built the railroads yesterday. Many local economies rely on Ag Department cash or government paychecks from military bases and defense contractors.

Yet the mythology of the region - rugged individualism and self-sufficiency - requires an ideology based on the elimination of government and taxes cut to the bone. Putting such a programs into effect would be fatal, but the region is deep into denial.

While the confident swagger of the West can be attractive, its insularity is off-putting. After the umpteenth tack shop fashion, bronze rodeo sculpture, beef platter dinner or rockhound magazine, it's hard not to feel the only proper response is: Get over yourself, Cowpoke! MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page of The Virginian-Pilot.

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