Waiting 'Round to Die

Juarez

He wears a blue suede cowboy hat
Got a Juarez women stretched out on his lap
He sings an old song
A song to himself
He sings waiting 'round to die

You see, one border whorehouse it looks just like another
But he first came to this one with his father and his brother
Now, nobody cares one way or another
He sings an old song
A song to himself
He sings waiting 'round to die

Well there's a plump woman, she's attending bar
He holds hands with another plump woman named Starr
Lays a twenty on the table by the pigs feet jar
Sings an old song
Song to himself
He sings waiting 'round to die

There's a beautiful woman
She wraps around his shoulder
Eyes painted like clay
Except colder
She says hell of a deal
ain’t it
Getting older

Waiting 'round to die
He sings waiting 'round to die
Waiting 'round to die
He sings waiting 'round to die

He thinks

Who in the world would write a song like that
Then the two plump women
Start laughing at his hat
So he pulls another twenty out
Just like that

Sings an old song, song to himself
He sings waiting 'round to die

He wears a blue suede cowboy hat
Got a woman in her underwear sitting on his lap
He sings an old song
A song to himself
He sings waiting 'round to die

He sings an old song
A song to himself
He sings waiting 'round to die

* * *

I got so excited when I heard that song for the first time yesterday, I almost posted this.  Something told me to wait.  I wasn't sure if this is how I wanted to "represent."  Indeed, as apropos as the portrait is, it is hideously unflattering.  I was holding back.  

But fuck it.  When I sent the song to Travis with the note "Hillbilly Rap," he said I should read Charles Bowden.  "He writes a lot about Juarez," he said.  So I used The Google and found an article that was posted online.  It was this one if you are interested (link).  Bowden is dead now, but he was writing about the crisis at the border for a long while.  The article has a gritty poetics to it.  I sent it to Q.  "Holy shit," he replied.  "This is great."  Then he asked me if I had read William Vollmann's "Imperial."  I used to read Vollmann early on when his career was young.  But I burned out.  He writes more than anyone possibly can.  One book will be in volumes.  I always thought him a wonderful writer and used to recommend him, but there was also something in his writing, something that I have never been able to put my finger on, that is off-putting for me.  Maybe it is that his writing is so cold.  I'd have to go back and read him again to see.  But. . . way leading to way, I went down the Vollmann rabbit hole and ended up reading this profile (link), and am now curious to read him again.  

These are both weirdly beat writers who can sway your opinion through artistry.  I am a critical reader, though, and am always looking for underlying assumptions and all that is left out.  I guess that is why my friends call me a cynic.  But I can appreciate the writing without accepting the premise.  As an early reader, I couldn't or didn't.  Good writing made me believe.  Literature can take you to some very dark and depressing places.  Art in general.  I mean, who wouldn't want to live in a post WWI Berlin cabaret?  Of course anyone with any sense, but for those of us vulnerable to the powers of literature and art. . . .  We end up in places with Hunter Thompson, Charles Bukowski,  Jean Genet and even Tommy Waits.  But one day you wake up with a rotten liver in a one room flophouse in a Juarez whorehouse. . . . 

You get my drift.  Wake up the kids.  I can teach them to read without becoming the thing they have read.  

I've learned to live on one side of the fence and to simply visit the other.  Or I used to.  For many years now I've been living on my side of the fence only.  Pretty much.  O.K.  With a couple of exceptions.  Here and there.  

"Waiting 'Round to Die," for the uninitiated, is the first song written by the mythological musician Townes Van Zandt.  I'm guessing that is the song to which Sam Baker is referring.  Here are two versions of the song, the original "music video" and a more elaborate version from the studio.  If you're interested.  If you are anything like me, you will have listened to "Juarez" ten times by now.  Did I tell you, though, that I can appreciate the art without needing to live it?  Anymore, I mean.  I DO enjoy reflecting on the grit while sitting with my morning coffee in my comfortable leather chair.  

I sent "Juarez" to my mountain buddy.  He was on his way to Burning Man.  He'll do things he's never done before, I am certain.  He's jumping the fence.  I eagerly await his reports to the mainland.