Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown (2013–2018): Season 12, Episode 5 - Far West Texas - full transcript
Bourdain travels to the untamed land of Big Bend, Texas near the Mexican border; an area that pits man against nature and nature usually wins. He finds a tough, inclusive and vibrant, struggling community threatened by the border policy.
[gentle music]
♪
[western music]
♪
- Hey, hey, hey!
♪
- It's one of the most rugged
and remote destinations
in the United States.
Everything out here will bite,
poke, or freak you out.
Everything.
[cow moos]
- People live in cubicles
and they're the king
of their domain.
Out here, I mean,
you ain't king of shit.
[mooing echoing]
- ♪ I took a walk through
this beautiful world ♪
♪ Felt the cool rain
on my shoulder ♪
♪ Found something good
in this beautiful world ♪
♪ I felt the rain
getting colder ♪
♪ Sha-la-la-la-la,
Sha-la-la-la-la-la ♪
♪ Sha-la-la-la-la,
Sha-la-la-la-la-la ♪
♪ La
[radio static]
[country music]
[radio static]
[Latin music]
[radio static]
- Stick around
and tell your friends
from the border to the basin
out here in West Texas.
Great to be here tonight.
[soft guitar music]
♪
- The dream of the American
West was come out here,
get your own little
piece of paradise,
you work hard, raise cattle.
You make enough money
to look after the family.
- Sure, I'd love
to cook you one.
[indistinct chatter]
♪
- [whistles]
♪
[truck idling]
♪
[mooing]
- This land,
it's really for one thing,
and that's
producing livestock.
They've tried to farm it,
it doesn't work.
And, you know,
except for beautiful views,
that's what it can produce.
- West Texas
and Big Bend, this area,
are you the platonic ideal
of the Texan?
The American hero.
Lone rider on a horse.
Big empty spaces.
Mexican music.
Mexican food.
- This is still where
the punchiest cowboys
in the United States are.
It don't get no rougher.
- I mean, we're 120 miles
from the nearest Walmart.
40 miles to a tank of gas
or a loaf of bread.
- Out here, pretty much
everything is five hours away.
[radio static]
[soft guitar music]
- And the property
has been in the family
how many generations now?
- This is
the fourth generation.
- Fifth.
- Fifth generation.
My granddad came here
in the '30s.
Bodie's family came out here
in 1880.
- Not a lot of people
who are left get to do this.
- The ranch is approximately
70,000 acres.
We don't use anything
other than a horse.
No four-wheelers,
no helicopters.
- Excuse me for saying so,
that seems a little stubborn.
I mean, as far
as practicality.
- He is so opposed to change.
[both laugh]
- It's not all bad, is it?
- No!
- I mean, these guys,
they love it.
I mean, they get up
every morning
and this is their office.
[cows mooing]
♪
[cow wailing]
Bodie, he had
his teeth kicked out.
- By?
- A cow.
- Ooh.
- And then he got in that chute
with the steer and knocked
him all out again.
- Hey, hey, hey, hey!
- Hey!
- Oh, there goes Evan.
She's about to rope.
- How old were you
when you learned to ride?
- Oh, gosh.
- She had a horse
when she was three.
- Three.
- Yeah.
Evan shows horses all over.
She is top five in the world
right now.
- In the cow horse,
you have to show
how well your horse can do,
you know,
different maneuvers and--
- Oh, here comes Levins.
- How old?
- He's ten. Watch this.
[cheering]
- Damn.
- [laughing]
Is that hilarious?
- It's killing me.
- Way to go, Levin!
[somber music]
♪
- ♪ Oh, sweet little hunter
♪ My back into your side
- There we go.
[chuckling]
- The cabrito that
we're eating,
yesterday was a live goat.
- ♪ Oh, killer so graceful
- We like it spicy.
Jalapeños and onions and,
you know, fresh tomatoes.
- If you got a bunch
of gringos, it's perfect.
[laughter]
- How Mexican is West Texas?
This is where it is.
- On the other side
of that mountain,
20 miles is the crow flies.
- Those flavors, those sounds.
That's yours also, right?
- Oh, yeah.
- I learned to talk Spanish
nearly before I learned
to talk English.
- It's the good vanilla
from Mexico.
- Old Mexico or New Mexico?
- Old Mexico.
- Chuy's mother comes
from Mexico.
South of Ojinaga, right?
- That's right.
- And how long you guys
been riding together?
- Oh, me and him?
- Yeah, you and him.
- 35 years.
- Yeah, it's an awesome
way of life.
- Jalapeño cheese grits.
- Nice!
- Of course, there are
buttermilk biscuits.
- This is an area of Texas
that is legendary for--
whatever you
might have thought
you were going to do here,
nature wins.
- Always.
- Always.
- Always.
- It'll not rain for 20 years.
And you just stay as long as
you can till it starts raining.
- Yep.
- So how do you make a living?
- Basically, dig in.
- Work like hell
and don't spend any money.
- Yeah.
[all laughing]
- This table, right here,
is filled with people
who truly care about the land
and what happens to it.
- You just have to have
the heart to stay
and want to stay and do it
and make something of it
while you're here.
If you got a weak heart,
you won't last.
- I mean,
I'm graduating next year
and I'm going to go
to college.
Go through law school,
finish.
But I want to come back
out here.
There are kids that are my age
that will never see this.
Never have this, never be able
to know people like this.
And that's, I mean...
- Priceless.
- Yeah,
how can you say no to that?
- If you get to eat
three good meals a day,
and be happy.
- Mm-hmm.
- Being happy is more
important than anything.
- [singing in Spanish]
♪
[all cheering]
- Yeah!
♪
- [cheering]
♪
- [cheering]
- So, how else is
the area changing?
I rode for three hours.
Some ghost towns,
dead gas stations,
and nothing but nothing,
and, you know,
suddenly we arrive in Marfa.
[upbeat pop music]
♪
- And it's like, uh, "Would
you like some bruschetta?
Some salumi," you know.
Some $900 ponchos.
- That's right
[all chuckling]
- What--what's going on?
- Clearly, it's not the old,
old family Marfa.
♪
- ♪ You're everything
- Marfa has become
a pretty distinct culture.
Tourist town, art town,
cowboy town.
It's just got it all.
You can get calamari.
In Marfa.
Who'd a thunk it?
20 years ago, nobody even
knew what the word meant.
♪
- ♪ And it feels like
♪ And it feels like
♪ And it feels like
[all cheering]
♪ And it feels like
[all cheering]
- This is the first bar I've
ever been into where, uh,
the person next to me
is petting a goat.
- [chuckling]
In here?
Sometimes we got--
- You got all types.
- Dogs come in
without their owners.
As long as everybody behaves,
whether you got
two legs or four,
everything's good.
- ♪ When it rains
flew up in Memphis ♪
♪ Memphis
make you see the scar ♪
♪ I was heading west
through Dallas ♪
- You've seen
a bit of the world.
You've seen a lot
of the world.
- I ran away from home
a lot as a kid.
- Mm-hmm.
- And by the time I was 16,
I got real good at it.
I went to Alaska,
then I came back.
Joined the military.
Cowboying, roughnecking.
- Running drugs and guns
across the border?
- I did run guns south.
And the ATF knows.
They got an open file.
- But what motivated you
to get into the bar business?
- Well, every cowboy has
a dream of owning a saloon.
- I did not know that.
- Mm-hmm.
- It's been around
for some time under various--
- Oh, almost a hundred years.
There's many
different cultures
that come through here.
Hipsters,
blue-collar city workers,
and I wanted everybody to be
able to have a good time,
no matter who or what
or where.
There ain't going to be
but one intimidating
son of a bitch in my bar,
and that's me.
- [chuckles]
♪
You're seeing this town change
in a lot of big ways.
- Mm-hmm.
- Every single person
I've talked to down here
is telling me the same thing.
That wall ain't never getting
built around here.
- My ranch is on the river.
It's on the border.
We can't survive without
the river.
And we can't survive
without the people
on that side of the river.
They can't survive without us.
- Right.
- That and they're our friends
for God's sakes.
Loyalty is a big thing
in Texas,
and you ain't gonna build
a fence between me
and my loyal friends.
- Every old school
Anglo rancher I've met here
speaks Spanish fluently.
- Uh-huh. It's a mutual respect
to speak a little Spanish.
And it's respect for them
to learn a little English.
But you know as well as I do,
if you go to Europe,
it's not hard to find somebody
in France speaking English.
- Everybody.
- They can--
- Yeah.
- They don't mind.
They're not offended.
You know, Americans have
a tendency to want to be
all butthurt about it.
But here, we're just not.
It's--it's--
That's just being
a good human being.
- Why is it so goddamn hard
to be a good person these days?
- [laughs]
- [vocalizing]
♪
[upbeat rock music]
[radio static]
- Right now in Marfa,
it's 75 degrees.
Low tonight, only 61.
Not that cool, honestly.
[ethereal music]
I'm David Beebe
with you till one a.m.
It's time to go outside
and look up at the stars
and enjoy the place
that you live.
♪
[western music]
♪
- This part of the state
was always called
El Despoblado,
the unpopulated zone,
which it never really was.
♪
- Born and bred near here?
- Yeah, a couple hundred
miles east. Not far.
- That's considered close
around here.
- Close, yeah.
- Yeah.
- The forest still
makes me uneasy.
Surrounded by trees,
I get uneasy,
'cause I can't see.
- Um.
- I can't see far enough.
- Now, I guess unlike
a lot of Texans
who take a rather romantic view
of those early days,
you seem to view it
in a darker prism.
- It is dark.
The story of Texas
can get a little--
it gets a little
too polished.
It was a conquest,
and people forget that.
There were people here.
The Spanish and the Mexican
authorities
wanted to exterminate
the Apaches.
They created a society
for the extermination
of the barbarians.
- So the classic
Cowboy and Indian film
of scalp-hungry Indians, uh,
was not really the case.
- Well, they took scalps too,
but they kind of learned
from the Anglos.
And then when the Texans
came in, it intensified.
If you were a rancher
coming out here in the 1870s,
you better have
a lot of guns.
Because you were an invader.
- Right.
- And the people
you were invading
knew you were an invader.
- Oh, damn.
You know, if you look at
the legend of this place,
you know, was it
the history of violence
and the harshness
of the landscape
that preserved it
for so long?
- Yeah, West Texas stayed wild,
and it's still wild.
People lived in this landscape
for 14,000 years.
Through all these different
nation-states and empires
that have swept over them,
they just--they persist.
[soft music]
♪
- We're going to catch
the arch.
The arch of light
that is gonna just envelope
this motif right here,
that represents the place
where the sun was born.
Welcome to
the White Shaman site.
This is one of the oldest
pictorial creation narratives
in all of North America.
The mural tells the story
about the death of the sun,
the sacrifice
that takes place
so that the sun can be reborn
the next day.
I had the honor
of having a Huichol shaman
come up from Mexico
to this site,
and he started weeping.
And they said,
"They're all here.
"All of our grandfather's
grandfather's grandfathers,
they're all here."
[tribal drums]
♪
- So here we are
at Alpine, Texas,
talking about the beginning
of civilization
on the North American
continent.
The earliest evidence
of human existence
in this area
goes back how far?
- Almost 15,000 years.
The rock art
in the Lower Pecos
and along the Rio Grande,
encapsulates not only
their religion, but the cosmos.
Why you had constellations
at certain times of the year
and where were they
in relation to each other.
The seasons.
- Tony, sometimes
I just want to scream
because people will say,
you know,
"Well, did these people
speak with a grunt?"
I look at these murals
and I see sophistication
that we'd be hard-pressed
with today.
- I think sophistication is
an overvalued term.
Uh, well, what the hell
do we mean by that anyway?
- Well...
- [chuckling]
- I mean, still pretty much
killing ourselves
with spears and rocks,
of one sort or another.
- One of the important things
you have to realize is that
these people have
the same brain
that put a man on the moon.
They were in tune with their
universe and their environment.
- Same brain, same brain.
- I would not be surprised
if the Lower Pecos art
outlasts all of us.
All of our monuments crumble
to dust immediately.
4,000 years later,
White Shaman, still there.
- I think they're going to have
a tough time of interpreting
what life was like
on this planet.
They'll be left with Betamax
copies of "Three's Company"
and, uh, you know,
"Who's the Boss."
Who lived on this planet
and what went horribly wrong?
[laughter]
♪
[all groaning]
[cheering]
- Yeah!
[all cheering]
[dramatic music]
♪
[upbeat rock music]
- You know, if you talk about
life-changing events
in any neighborhood,
it's when the artists show up.
- When my father Donald Judd
came to Marfa
in the early '70s,
it was a ranching community
and an old railroad town.
- The legend is, of course,
that he looked at a map
and was looking to the least
populated area of America
and came out here.
Is that true?
- Yeah, that is.
I mean, he did a lot
of looking for places that
had very few people, and very
few trees and lots of space.
He had been working hard
for so long.
And I think coming out
to Marfa was this reward.
[smooth music]
♪
- Your dad was a giant
of the art world
in New York with
an enduring, huge legacy.
What's that like?
- The thing with my dad is,
like, he was like a buddy
my whole life.
He was literally,
like, my tether
to understanding the world.
- Oh, wow.
Look at this.
- There are people who make
great food in Marfa
that didn't
open a restaurant.
So this is the behind
the scenes of yummy food
that people make
in their homes.
Carmen's menudo
and her blue corn tortillas.
- Nice!
Johnny Sufficool's mesquite
bean flour empanadas.
Malinda's queso fresco.
- With chili's.
I love this, I love this.
- And Ophelia's tamales
over here.
- Wow.
When your dad came to town with
nothing but love in his heart
and a desire to make
beautiful things,
he ushered in this entire
new world with the invasion
of, you know, gourmet coffee
or, you know, trained baristas.
How did he feel about that?
- I mean my dad made his own
coffee every morning,
so he wouldn't be that into
the fancy coffee available now.
But the people
who come here now,
as long as they're contributing
to being a good citizen,
it's actually a good thing
that people are here.
[gentle music]
♪
- [speaking Spanish]
- [singing in Spanish]
- Dos carne guisada,
tambian a chile verde.
- Chile verde?
- Si.
♪
- What are you having?
- I'll have a barbacoa.
- Barbacoa taco.
Most of the better
restaurant chefs,
you can find at least once
a week getting their food here
even if they're making food
down at their place.
- Unbelievable.
The gas station.
- [chuckling]
- In the morning,
everybody's here.
It's all the border patrol
guys. Like, all of them.
- There you go.
You have a great day.
- All the laborers
in town, kids,
the people that work
at the radio station.
It's like going to--yeah,
like your abuela's house.
- So you're both multitaskers.
[laughter]
You're a state employee a, uh--
- County employee.
- County employee.
- Elected official, yeah.
- Justice of the Peace?
- Yes, sir.
- What does that mean?
- I'm like the small judge
that reads you your rights
when you go to jail.
- Also a musician?
- Yeah, a musician
with Primo here.
- Where? The--the--
the radio station?
- I've been on the radio now
for ten years.
Ten years, every week.
And he's been on the radio now
for, what, three?
- Three or four years.
- Restaurant business?
- I have a burger and taco
joint that's
open on weekends.
- Burger time.
- A lot of multitasking
around here.
People tend to--
- You have to.
- You have to.
- Yeah, I always say that
every job here
pays ten bucks an hour
whether you're the attorney,
or the barista,
or the janitor.
So you're going to have to
work a lot of different jobs
to make it because
it's expensive to live here.
- Right. Look,
this is a small town.
- 1,800 people.
- It seems an unlikely place
to put in a spanking-new
public radio station
that's heard all over Texas,
yes?
- Well, that's exactly right.
I mean, your expenses
for running
a 100,000 watt transmitter
on the top of a mountain
that gets struck by lightning
every three weeks or--
it's pretty tough.
- Yeah, uh-huh.
- But the station has support
from pretty much
everybody here.
Everybody listens to the radio
on their pickup truck.
The only other news source
we have around here
is the local newspaper.
- What are the big issues?
What do people want
to talk about?
- The issue is border trade.
And there's a lot of fear
right now because the idea
of changing NAFTA.
- American parts assembled
in Mexico come back here.
- Yeah, that's part
of the NAFTA thing.
You can take it, have it here,
take it over there,
assemble it, bring it back,
there's no tax.
Assembling has been good
for our community.
There's a mobile home factory
called Solitaire.
You see them all over here,
people buy them.
They take the stuff
down there,
they assemble the homes
down there,
then they bring them up
the road--
You'll see two or three
come up the highway today.
- And who's buying
those things?
- Everybody
who's working class.
The manufactured housing
is the craftsman home
of the 21st century.
- It appears that Marfa,
in particular,
is going to be a tourist
and service economy.
There is money
flooding in here.
It is an irresistible tide.
Is there money trickling down?
Is it spreading out
into the community?
- We have jobs here.
You can get a job here.
It's not--as I said, everybody
makes $10 an hour here.
But 25 years ago,
we had nobody here,
and it was a dying down, so--
- Right.
- You got the cowboys,
border patrol.
You got hipsters
coming in from out of town.
New York artists wearing
weird glasses and white pants.
Maybe we don't understand
each other,
but we can all be in
at the same place at anytime.
People here are nice.
- [Speaking Spanish]
Everybody wave each other. Todos.
- Ah.
♪
- [whistling]
♪
[upbeat rock music]
- Thanks for tuning in,
everyone.
You're listening to 93.5 KRTS,
Marfa public radio.
[David Lawrence's
"In The Morning]
♪
♪ Oh, dear friend,
I know your secret ♪
♪ But I just can't keep it
♪ Another night
- This is what the Mexican
people end up living
once they leave their
[indistinct].
The projects.
The low-income housing.
- ♪ In the morning
♪ You will pay
for what you've done ♪
- Hola, Ramona.
Como esta?
Dos burritos, por favor.
De asado.
- [speaking Spanish]
- Mm-hmm, por favor.
Que rico.
Gracias, Ramona.
- [groaning]
- You--You've
been riding horses?
- Yes, you noticed.
- Yes.
- The groan as I sit down.
Mmm, that is
a serious burrito.
No rice and all that.
- Uh-uh.
- This is the real deal, man.
I love it.
Were you born--
you were born in Mexico City.
- I was a fisherman in Alaska
for 19 years of my life.
- Oh yeah?
- In the Bering Sea.
- Now, is it Ado-bee
or Ado-beh?
- Ado-beh.
- Adobe.
- And you recorded a saying,
"Adobe is political."
- Yes. You're going to start
with that question.
- Yeah. I'm interested.
[electronic music]
♪
- Straw, clay, water,
and manure.
That's what makes the adobe.
We make a flat surface here
where we're going to put
the water and the manure
on top.
Adobe building has happened
all over the world
for thousands of years.
♪
Here, historically, the adobe
has been kept alive
by the Mexican and
Mexican American populations.
♪
The tradition of the adobe,
it's barely alive
because of what's happening
with the gentrification
in Marfa.
The Mexican American minorities
are being displaced.
The people who have lived
in adobes for generations
have to sell their homes
because of the new taxes.
Taxes that are only
in adobes, you know?
A lot of us, we also
find discriminating.
[somber guitar music]
♪
We are at a critical point.
When I think about adobe,
it's probably the oldest,
tangible representation
of the local,
original culture that we have.
[upbeat guitar music]
♪
- [singing in Spanish]
♪
[upbeat rock music]
- Everybody, for generations,
they have crossed
the Rio Grande back and forth
by just walking.
The river was low
and they would just cross,
go buy some groceries,
and then go back.
[radio static]
[somber guitar music]
- All right y'all,
[indistinct] time.
Molly Ferguson from
[indistinct] Presidio, Texas.
This is Marfa public radio.
- [singing in Spanish]
♪
[radio static]
[singing in Spanish]
♪
- Very low crime here.
- Yeah, I mean,
Ojinaga defies so many
of the things
that people say about
the border.
You know, my daughter spends
a lot of time in Ojinaga.
My daughter, and, you know,
some people it's like, "What?"
But, I mean, I don't--
I don't go to sleep at night
wondering if she's okay,
'cause I know she's okay.
- She's at home.
- Yeah, yeah.
The interesting thing about
this restaurant is they don't
just serve your typical
Mexican enchilada plate.
So a lot of kind
of traditional recipes.
- Oh, I know they do meat here
in a big way, yeah?
- Yeah.
♪
So welcome to good old
Presidio and--and Ojinaga.
- Other side of the river,
you are currently
the mayor of Presidio.
- Yes, sir.
- And you are former mayor of--
- Ojinaga.
[speaking Spanish]
- You know, when we talk about
sister cities, that's serious.
- Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- It's almost like
an arbitrary line through them.
- On the weekends, Presidio
just kind of empties out.
You say, "Where is everybody?"
It's 'cause they're here.
So, I mean that's kind of
why--when there's talk about
a border wall, I was like,
"Whoa, wait, wait!"
We're basically
just one town here.
- Now, you can come over here.
Your boyfriend
can't come over there?
- No.
- Not yet.
- That--that's not
too friendly.
What's up with that?
And how come? Why not?
- A good person.
- I'm a person, you know?
- So, you don't--
you would need a visa?
I mean, what's the problem
that you can't go back
and forth for the day?
Or for two days?
- No. We did the process
and everything
for him to, at least,
get a visitor s visa.
He went on a bus
that took him to Juarez,
which is four hours away?
- Yeah--no, ten hours away.
- Ten hours on a bus.
Okay, and then he
had to wait in a line.
Four hours, like, waiting.
And then the interview took,
like, two minutes?
- Almost, almost.
- And they just put "denied."
- Denied?
- They didn't even--denied.
- Meanwhile, you live right--
- Yeah.
- Like, within a mile
of each other.
- He has no bad record,
nothing, you know?
And we're best friends,
you know? And--and I wish
he could come over to my house
and just see it, you know?
- The state of Texas
is so much more diverse
than it used to be,
and I think it makes it just--
- Better.
- Much--oh, yeah.
And I know some people,
that scares them,
and I don't--I think it's
just a fear of the unknown.
It's not a fear based
on anything concrete.
Here, we're all family.
- Salud
- Saludo.
[upbeat rock music]
[Latin music]
♪
- This is Santa Elena Canyon.
Big Bend National Park,
the largest national park
in Texas,
and it's named after
the Big Bend in the Rio Grande.
We are surrounded by
1,500-foot limestone cliffs.
This slowly rows up
and then the river just
cut through it
for millions of years.
[horn blaring]
[horn blaring]
[horn blaring]
[guitar music]
♪
- Ready?
- Whoa!
[indistinct chatter]
- It looks good.
- Doing a good job
on the food.
- Cheers.
- Thank you guys.
- Salud.
- Salud.
- So, you're looking at Texas
and I'm looking at Mexico.
- Yes.
- 100% correct, yeah.
The cliffs on our left
are Mexico
and the ones on our right are,
uh, the United States.
I've been on several overnights
where your clients
almost forget that, yeah,
that's Mexico right there.
And they say,
"Wait, is that Mexico?"
And it's like,
"Yeah, it--it is."
Looks exactly the same as that.
- Yeah.
- We get people from
all over the country,
all over the world,
and some of them come in
hesitant or scared
of the border.
- When they book the trip, they
say, "Should I bring my gun?"
- Right.
- But the neat thing is that
everyone I've taken out, you
get to see this transformation
from being, like, terrified
to thinking it's beautiful
to thinking they don't need
a wall to thinking,
"I'm actually going
to write a letter saying that
we don't need a wall."
- Right.
Does anyone ever bother to--
I mean, are there, like,
scary gunboats coming
up and down this river, uh?
- I mean, I think the border
patrol technically does have
a hovercraft that they've used
once and it was horrible.
- Park Service does too.
- Yeah.
- They have helicopters.
- For the record,
I don't understand why Mexico
is made to be such an issue.
I mean, it's our second biggest
trade partner aside from China.
- What about the Canadians?
They're actually pouring across
our borders
and stealing our jobs.
- They are taking our jobs!
- Find a non-Canadian comedian.
How many Canadians play hockey
in the United States
for a U.S. team?
- Those are high paying jobs
that Americans--
- They're stealing!
They're stealing them.
- They're stealing our jobs.
- I mean, there are so many
avenues that the conversation
go to where violence comes
from, where dangers come from.
- Well, even
our small towns here.
I mean, crazy stuff happens
everywhere.
- The world is made a better
place by little bits at a time.
You can't just jam though it
all in one year
and say it's fixed.
- You know, I've been
to a few places
where they do have a wall.
- Yeah.
- Few things are uglier
in the entire world,
of all of the places I've seen,
few things have been more
of an indication
of an utter failure
of otherwise smart people
to figure shit out.
Thank you for showing me
this amazing, amazing--
I mean, just ludicrously
amazing place.
[guitar music]
♪
- ♪ My son John
was tall and slim ♪
♪ And we had a leg
for every limb ♪
- Ohh!
- ♪ But now he's got
no legs at all ♪
♪ For he ran a race
with a cannon ball ♪
♪ Timmy roo dun da,
fadda riddle da ♪
♪ Whack fo' the riddle
Timmy roo dun da ♪
♪
[somber music]
♪
- There are a certain type of
people who connect immediately
to the empty spaces.
- I can't spend much time
on myself
If I'm alone in my apartment
in New York
or on a beach with a hammock.
I'd like to think
I'll be able to relax,
but I can't.
There's that enforced
sense of humility,
'cause you really know
how utterly powerless you are.
You're just tiny.
♪
♪
[western music]
♪
- Hey, hey, hey!
♪
- It's one of the most rugged
and remote destinations
in the United States.
Everything out here will bite,
poke, or freak you out.
Everything.
[cow moos]
- People live in cubicles
and they're the king
of their domain.
Out here, I mean,
you ain't king of shit.
[mooing echoing]
- ♪ I took a walk through
this beautiful world ♪
♪ Felt the cool rain
on my shoulder ♪
♪ Found something good
in this beautiful world ♪
♪ I felt the rain
getting colder ♪
♪ Sha-la-la-la-la,
Sha-la-la-la-la-la ♪
♪ Sha-la-la-la-la,
Sha-la-la-la-la-la ♪
♪ La
[radio static]
[country music]
[radio static]
[Latin music]
[radio static]
- Stick around
and tell your friends
from the border to the basin
out here in West Texas.
Great to be here tonight.
[soft guitar music]
♪
- The dream of the American
West was come out here,
get your own little
piece of paradise,
you work hard, raise cattle.
You make enough money
to look after the family.
- Sure, I'd love
to cook you one.
[indistinct chatter]
♪
- [whistles]
♪
[truck idling]
♪
[mooing]
- This land,
it's really for one thing,
and that's
producing livestock.
They've tried to farm it,
it doesn't work.
And, you know,
except for beautiful views,
that's what it can produce.
- West Texas
and Big Bend, this area,
are you the platonic ideal
of the Texan?
The American hero.
Lone rider on a horse.
Big empty spaces.
Mexican music.
Mexican food.
- This is still where
the punchiest cowboys
in the United States are.
It don't get no rougher.
- I mean, we're 120 miles
from the nearest Walmart.
40 miles to a tank of gas
or a loaf of bread.
- Out here, pretty much
everything is five hours away.
[radio static]
[soft guitar music]
- And the property
has been in the family
how many generations now?
- This is
the fourth generation.
- Fifth.
- Fifth generation.
My granddad came here
in the '30s.
Bodie's family came out here
in 1880.
- Not a lot of people
who are left get to do this.
- The ranch is approximately
70,000 acres.
We don't use anything
other than a horse.
No four-wheelers,
no helicopters.
- Excuse me for saying so,
that seems a little stubborn.
I mean, as far
as practicality.
- He is so opposed to change.
[both laugh]
- It's not all bad, is it?
- No!
- I mean, these guys,
they love it.
I mean, they get up
every morning
and this is their office.
[cows mooing]
♪
[cow wailing]
Bodie, he had
his teeth kicked out.
- By?
- A cow.
- Ooh.
- And then he got in that chute
with the steer and knocked
him all out again.
- Hey, hey, hey, hey!
- Hey!
- Oh, there goes Evan.
She's about to rope.
- How old were you
when you learned to ride?
- Oh, gosh.
- She had a horse
when she was three.
- Three.
- Yeah.
Evan shows horses all over.
She is top five in the world
right now.
- In the cow horse,
you have to show
how well your horse can do,
you know,
different maneuvers and--
- Oh, here comes Levins.
- How old?
- He's ten. Watch this.
[cheering]
- Damn.
- [laughing]
Is that hilarious?
- It's killing me.
- Way to go, Levin!
[somber music]
♪
- ♪ Oh, sweet little hunter
♪ My back into your side
- There we go.
[chuckling]
- The cabrito that
we're eating,
yesterday was a live goat.
- ♪ Oh, killer so graceful
- We like it spicy.
Jalapeños and onions and,
you know, fresh tomatoes.
- If you got a bunch
of gringos, it's perfect.
[laughter]
- How Mexican is West Texas?
This is where it is.
- On the other side
of that mountain,
20 miles is the crow flies.
- Those flavors, those sounds.
That's yours also, right?
- Oh, yeah.
- I learned to talk Spanish
nearly before I learned
to talk English.
- It's the good vanilla
from Mexico.
- Old Mexico or New Mexico?
- Old Mexico.
- Chuy's mother comes
from Mexico.
South of Ojinaga, right?
- That's right.
- And how long you guys
been riding together?
- Oh, me and him?
- Yeah, you and him.
- 35 years.
- Yeah, it's an awesome
way of life.
- Jalapeño cheese grits.
- Nice!
- Of course, there are
buttermilk biscuits.
- This is an area of Texas
that is legendary for--
whatever you
might have thought
you were going to do here,
nature wins.
- Always.
- Always.
- Always.
- It'll not rain for 20 years.
And you just stay as long as
you can till it starts raining.
- Yep.
- So how do you make a living?
- Basically, dig in.
- Work like hell
and don't spend any money.
- Yeah.
[all laughing]
- This table, right here,
is filled with people
who truly care about the land
and what happens to it.
- You just have to have
the heart to stay
and want to stay and do it
and make something of it
while you're here.
If you got a weak heart,
you won't last.
- I mean,
I'm graduating next year
and I'm going to go
to college.
Go through law school,
finish.
But I want to come back
out here.
There are kids that are my age
that will never see this.
Never have this, never be able
to know people like this.
And that's, I mean...
- Priceless.
- Yeah,
how can you say no to that?
- If you get to eat
three good meals a day,
and be happy.
- Mm-hmm.
- Being happy is more
important than anything.
- [singing in Spanish]
♪
[all cheering]
- Yeah!
♪
- [cheering]
♪
- [cheering]
- So, how else is
the area changing?
I rode for three hours.
Some ghost towns,
dead gas stations,
and nothing but nothing,
and, you know,
suddenly we arrive in Marfa.
[upbeat pop music]
♪
- And it's like, uh, "Would
you like some bruschetta?
Some salumi," you know.
Some $900 ponchos.
- That's right
[all chuckling]
- What--what's going on?
- Clearly, it's not the old,
old family Marfa.
♪
- ♪ You're everything
- Marfa has become
a pretty distinct culture.
Tourist town, art town,
cowboy town.
It's just got it all.
You can get calamari.
In Marfa.
Who'd a thunk it?
20 years ago, nobody even
knew what the word meant.
♪
- ♪ And it feels like
♪ And it feels like
♪ And it feels like
[all cheering]
♪ And it feels like
[all cheering]
- This is the first bar I've
ever been into where, uh,
the person next to me
is petting a goat.
- [chuckling]
In here?
Sometimes we got--
- You got all types.
- Dogs come in
without their owners.
As long as everybody behaves,
whether you got
two legs or four,
everything's good.
- ♪ When it rains
flew up in Memphis ♪
♪ Memphis
make you see the scar ♪
♪ I was heading west
through Dallas ♪
- You've seen
a bit of the world.
You've seen a lot
of the world.
- I ran away from home
a lot as a kid.
- Mm-hmm.
- And by the time I was 16,
I got real good at it.
I went to Alaska,
then I came back.
Joined the military.
Cowboying, roughnecking.
- Running drugs and guns
across the border?
- I did run guns south.
And the ATF knows.
They got an open file.
- But what motivated you
to get into the bar business?
- Well, every cowboy has
a dream of owning a saloon.
- I did not know that.
- Mm-hmm.
- It's been around
for some time under various--
- Oh, almost a hundred years.
There's many
different cultures
that come through here.
Hipsters,
blue-collar city workers,
and I wanted everybody to be
able to have a good time,
no matter who or what
or where.
There ain't going to be
but one intimidating
son of a bitch in my bar,
and that's me.
- [chuckles]
♪
You're seeing this town change
in a lot of big ways.
- Mm-hmm.
- Every single person
I've talked to down here
is telling me the same thing.
That wall ain't never getting
built around here.
- My ranch is on the river.
It's on the border.
We can't survive without
the river.
And we can't survive
without the people
on that side of the river.
They can't survive without us.
- Right.
- That and they're our friends
for God's sakes.
Loyalty is a big thing
in Texas,
and you ain't gonna build
a fence between me
and my loyal friends.
- Every old school
Anglo rancher I've met here
speaks Spanish fluently.
- Uh-huh. It's a mutual respect
to speak a little Spanish.
And it's respect for them
to learn a little English.
But you know as well as I do,
if you go to Europe,
it's not hard to find somebody
in France speaking English.
- Everybody.
- They can--
- Yeah.
- They don't mind.
They're not offended.
You know, Americans have
a tendency to want to be
all butthurt about it.
But here, we're just not.
It's--it's--
That's just being
a good human being.
- Why is it so goddamn hard
to be a good person these days?
- [laughs]
- [vocalizing]
♪
[upbeat rock music]
[radio static]
- Right now in Marfa,
it's 75 degrees.
Low tonight, only 61.
Not that cool, honestly.
[ethereal music]
I'm David Beebe
with you till one a.m.
It's time to go outside
and look up at the stars
and enjoy the place
that you live.
♪
[western music]
♪
- This part of the state
was always called
El Despoblado,
the unpopulated zone,
which it never really was.
♪
- Born and bred near here?
- Yeah, a couple hundred
miles east. Not far.
- That's considered close
around here.
- Close, yeah.
- Yeah.
- The forest still
makes me uneasy.
Surrounded by trees,
I get uneasy,
'cause I can't see.
- Um.
- I can't see far enough.
- Now, I guess unlike
a lot of Texans
who take a rather romantic view
of those early days,
you seem to view it
in a darker prism.
- It is dark.
The story of Texas
can get a little--
it gets a little
too polished.
It was a conquest,
and people forget that.
There were people here.
The Spanish and the Mexican
authorities
wanted to exterminate
the Apaches.
They created a society
for the extermination
of the barbarians.
- So the classic
Cowboy and Indian film
of scalp-hungry Indians, uh,
was not really the case.
- Well, they took scalps too,
but they kind of learned
from the Anglos.
And then when the Texans
came in, it intensified.
If you were a rancher
coming out here in the 1870s,
you better have
a lot of guns.
Because you were an invader.
- Right.
- And the people
you were invading
knew you were an invader.
- Oh, damn.
You know, if you look at
the legend of this place,
you know, was it
the history of violence
and the harshness
of the landscape
that preserved it
for so long?
- Yeah, West Texas stayed wild,
and it's still wild.
People lived in this landscape
for 14,000 years.
Through all these different
nation-states and empires
that have swept over them,
they just--they persist.
[soft music]
♪
- We're going to catch
the arch.
The arch of light
that is gonna just envelope
this motif right here,
that represents the place
where the sun was born.
Welcome to
the White Shaman site.
This is one of the oldest
pictorial creation narratives
in all of North America.
The mural tells the story
about the death of the sun,
the sacrifice
that takes place
so that the sun can be reborn
the next day.
I had the honor
of having a Huichol shaman
come up from Mexico
to this site,
and he started weeping.
And they said,
"They're all here.
"All of our grandfather's
grandfather's grandfathers,
they're all here."
[tribal drums]
♪
- So here we are
at Alpine, Texas,
talking about the beginning
of civilization
on the North American
continent.
The earliest evidence
of human existence
in this area
goes back how far?
- Almost 15,000 years.
The rock art
in the Lower Pecos
and along the Rio Grande,
encapsulates not only
their religion, but the cosmos.
Why you had constellations
at certain times of the year
and where were they
in relation to each other.
The seasons.
- Tony, sometimes
I just want to scream
because people will say,
you know,
"Well, did these people
speak with a grunt?"
I look at these murals
and I see sophistication
that we'd be hard-pressed
with today.
- I think sophistication is
an overvalued term.
Uh, well, what the hell
do we mean by that anyway?
- Well...
- [chuckling]
- I mean, still pretty much
killing ourselves
with spears and rocks,
of one sort or another.
- One of the important things
you have to realize is that
these people have
the same brain
that put a man on the moon.
They were in tune with their
universe and their environment.
- Same brain, same brain.
- I would not be surprised
if the Lower Pecos art
outlasts all of us.
All of our monuments crumble
to dust immediately.
4,000 years later,
White Shaman, still there.
- I think they're going to have
a tough time of interpreting
what life was like
on this planet.
They'll be left with Betamax
copies of "Three's Company"
and, uh, you know,
"Who's the Boss."
Who lived on this planet
and what went horribly wrong?
[laughter]
♪
[all groaning]
[cheering]
- Yeah!
[all cheering]
[dramatic music]
♪
[upbeat rock music]
- You know, if you talk about
life-changing events
in any neighborhood,
it's when the artists show up.
- When my father Donald Judd
came to Marfa
in the early '70s,
it was a ranching community
and an old railroad town.
- The legend is, of course,
that he looked at a map
and was looking to the least
populated area of America
and came out here.
Is that true?
- Yeah, that is.
I mean, he did a lot
of looking for places that
had very few people, and very
few trees and lots of space.
He had been working hard
for so long.
And I think coming out
to Marfa was this reward.
[smooth music]
♪
- Your dad was a giant
of the art world
in New York with
an enduring, huge legacy.
What's that like?
- The thing with my dad is,
like, he was like a buddy
my whole life.
He was literally,
like, my tether
to understanding the world.
- Oh, wow.
Look at this.
- There are people who make
great food in Marfa
that didn't
open a restaurant.
So this is the behind
the scenes of yummy food
that people make
in their homes.
Carmen's menudo
and her blue corn tortillas.
- Nice!
Johnny Sufficool's mesquite
bean flour empanadas.
Malinda's queso fresco.
- With chili's.
I love this, I love this.
- And Ophelia's tamales
over here.
- Wow.
When your dad came to town with
nothing but love in his heart
and a desire to make
beautiful things,
he ushered in this entire
new world with the invasion
of, you know, gourmet coffee
or, you know, trained baristas.
How did he feel about that?
- I mean my dad made his own
coffee every morning,
so he wouldn't be that into
the fancy coffee available now.
But the people
who come here now,
as long as they're contributing
to being a good citizen,
it's actually a good thing
that people are here.
[gentle music]
♪
- [speaking Spanish]
- [singing in Spanish]
- Dos carne guisada,
tambian a chile verde.
- Chile verde?
- Si.
♪
- What are you having?
- I'll have a barbacoa.
- Barbacoa taco.
Most of the better
restaurant chefs,
you can find at least once
a week getting their food here
even if they're making food
down at their place.
- Unbelievable.
The gas station.
- [chuckling]
- In the morning,
everybody's here.
It's all the border patrol
guys. Like, all of them.
- There you go.
You have a great day.
- All the laborers
in town, kids,
the people that work
at the radio station.
It's like going to--yeah,
like your abuela's house.
- So you're both multitaskers.
[laughter]
You're a state employee a, uh--
- County employee.
- County employee.
- Elected official, yeah.
- Justice of the Peace?
- Yes, sir.
- What does that mean?
- I'm like the small judge
that reads you your rights
when you go to jail.
- Also a musician?
- Yeah, a musician
with Primo here.
- Where? The--the--
the radio station?
- I've been on the radio now
for ten years.
Ten years, every week.
And he's been on the radio now
for, what, three?
- Three or four years.
- Restaurant business?
- I have a burger and taco
joint that's
open on weekends.
- Burger time.
- A lot of multitasking
around here.
People tend to--
- You have to.
- You have to.
- Yeah, I always say that
every job here
pays ten bucks an hour
whether you're the attorney,
or the barista,
or the janitor.
So you're going to have to
work a lot of different jobs
to make it because
it's expensive to live here.
- Right. Look,
this is a small town.
- 1,800 people.
- It seems an unlikely place
to put in a spanking-new
public radio station
that's heard all over Texas,
yes?
- Well, that's exactly right.
I mean, your expenses
for running
a 100,000 watt transmitter
on the top of a mountain
that gets struck by lightning
every three weeks or--
it's pretty tough.
- Yeah, uh-huh.
- But the station has support
from pretty much
everybody here.
Everybody listens to the radio
on their pickup truck.
The only other news source
we have around here
is the local newspaper.
- What are the big issues?
What do people want
to talk about?
- The issue is border trade.
And there's a lot of fear
right now because the idea
of changing NAFTA.
- American parts assembled
in Mexico come back here.
- Yeah, that's part
of the NAFTA thing.
You can take it, have it here,
take it over there,
assemble it, bring it back,
there's no tax.
Assembling has been good
for our community.
There's a mobile home factory
called Solitaire.
You see them all over here,
people buy them.
They take the stuff
down there,
they assemble the homes
down there,
then they bring them up
the road--
You'll see two or three
come up the highway today.
- And who's buying
those things?
- Everybody
who's working class.
The manufactured housing
is the craftsman home
of the 21st century.
- It appears that Marfa,
in particular,
is going to be a tourist
and service economy.
There is money
flooding in here.
It is an irresistible tide.
Is there money trickling down?
Is it spreading out
into the community?
- We have jobs here.
You can get a job here.
It's not--as I said, everybody
makes $10 an hour here.
But 25 years ago,
we had nobody here,
and it was a dying down, so--
- Right.
- You got the cowboys,
border patrol.
You got hipsters
coming in from out of town.
New York artists wearing
weird glasses and white pants.
Maybe we don't understand
each other,
but we can all be in
at the same place at anytime.
People here are nice.
- [Speaking Spanish]
Everybody wave each other. Todos.
- Ah.
♪
- [whistling]
♪
[upbeat rock music]
- Thanks for tuning in,
everyone.
You're listening to 93.5 KRTS,
Marfa public radio.
[David Lawrence's
"In The Morning]
♪
♪ Oh, dear friend,
I know your secret ♪
♪ But I just can't keep it
♪ Another night
- This is what the Mexican
people end up living
once they leave their
[indistinct].
The projects.
The low-income housing.
- ♪ In the morning
♪ You will pay
for what you've done ♪
- Hola, Ramona.
Como esta?
Dos burritos, por favor.
De asado.
- [speaking Spanish]
- Mm-hmm, por favor.
Que rico.
Gracias, Ramona.
- [groaning]
- You--You've
been riding horses?
- Yes, you noticed.
- Yes.
- The groan as I sit down.
Mmm, that is
a serious burrito.
No rice and all that.
- Uh-uh.
- This is the real deal, man.
I love it.
Were you born--
you were born in Mexico City.
- I was a fisherman in Alaska
for 19 years of my life.
- Oh yeah?
- In the Bering Sea.
- Now, is it Ado-bee
or Ado-beh?
- Ado-beh.
- Adobe.
- And you recorded a saying,
"Adobe is political."
- Yes. You're going to start
with that question.
- Yeah. I'm interested.
[electronic music]
♪
- Straw, clay, water,
and manure.
That's what makes the adobe.
We make a flat surface here
where we're going to put
the water and the manure
on top.
Adobe building has happened
all over the world
for thousands of years.
♪
Here, historically, the adobe
has been kept alive
by the Mexican and
Mexican American populations.
♪
The tradition of the adobe,
it's barely alive
because of what's happening
with the gentrification
in Marfa.
The Mexican American minorities
are being displaced.
The people who have lived
in adobes for generations
have to sell their homes
because of the new taxes.
Taxes that are only
in adobes, you know?
A lot of us, we also
find discriminating.
[somber guitar music]
♪
We are at a critical point.
When I think about adobe,
it's probably the oldest,
tangible representation
of the local,
original culture that we have.
[upbeat guitar music]
♪
- [singing in Spanish]
♪
[upbeat rock music]
- Everybody, for generations,
they have crossed
the Rio Grande back and forth
by just walking.
The river was low
and they would just cross,
go buy some groceries,
and then go back.
[radio static]
[somber guitar music]
- All right y'all,
[indistinct] time.
Molly Ferguson from
[indistinct] Presidio, Texas.
This is Marfa public radio.
- [singing in Spanish]
♪
[radio static]
[singing in Spanish]
♪
- Very low crime here.
- Yeah, I mean,
Ojinaga defies so many
of the things
that people say about
the border.
You know, my daughter spends
a lot of time in Ojinaga.
My daughter, and, you know,
some people it's like, "What?"
But, I mean, I don't--
I don't go to sleep at night
wondering if she's okay,
'cause I know she's okay.
- She's at home.
- Yeah, yeah.
The interesting thing about
this restaurant is they don't
just serve your typical
Mexican enchilada plate.
So a lot of kind
of traditional recipes.
- Oh, I know they do meat here
in a big way, yeah?
- Yeah.
♪
So welcome to good old
Presidio and--and Ojinaga.
- Other side of the river,
you are currently
the mayor of Presidio.
- Yes, sir.
- And you are former mayor of--
- Ojinaga.
[speaking Spanish]
- You know, when we talk about
sister cities, that's serious.
- Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- It's almost like
an arbitrary line through them.
- On the weekends, Presidio
just kind of empties out.
You say, "Where is everybody?"
It's 'cause they're here.
So, I mean that's kind of
why--when there's talk about
a border wall, I was like,
"Whoa, wait, wait!"
We're basically
just one town here.
- Now, you can come over here.
Your boyfriend
can't come over there?
- No.
- Not yet.
- That--that's not
too friendly.
What's up with that?
And how come? Why not?
- A good person.
- I'm a person, you know?
- So, you don't--
you would need a visa?
I mean, what's the problem
that you can't go back
and forth for the day?
Or for two days?
- No. We did the process
and everything
for him to, at least,
get a visitor s visa.
He went on a bus
that took him to Juarez,
which is four hours away?
- Yeah--no, ten hours away.
- Ten hours on a bus.
Okay, and then he
had to wait in a line.
Four hours, like, waiting.
And then the interview took,
like, two minutes?
- Almost, almost.
- And they just put "denied."
- Denied?
- They didn't even--denied.
- Meanwhile, you live right--
- Yeah.
- Like, within a mile
of each other.
- He has no bad record,
nothing, you know?
And we're best friends,
you know? And--and I wish
he could come over to my house
and just see it, you know?
- The state of Texas
is so much more diverse
than it used to be,
and I think it makes it just--
- Better.
- Much--oh, yeah.
And I know some people,
that scares them,
and I don't--I think it's
just a fear of the unknown.
It's not a fear based
on anything concrete.
Here, we're all family.
- Salud
- Saludo.
[upbeat rock music]
[Latin music]
♪
- This is Santa Elena Canyon.
Big Bend National Park,
the largest national park
in Texas,
and it's named after
the Big Bend in the Rio Grande.
We are surrounded by
1,500-foot limestone cliffs.
This slowly rows up
and then the river just
cut through it
for millions of years.
[horn blaring]
[horn blaring]
[horn blaring]
[guitar music]
♪
- Ready?
- Whoa!
[indistinct chatter]
- It looks good.
- Doing a good job
on the food.
- Cheers.
- Thank you guys.
- Salud.
- Salud.
- So, you're looking at Texas
and I'm looking at Mexico.
- Yes.
- 100% correct, yeah.
The cliffs on our left
are Mexico
and the ones on our right are,
uh, the United States.
I've been on several overnights
where your clients
almost forget that, yeah,
that's Mexico right there.
And they say,
"Wait, is that Mexico?"
And it's like,
"Yeah, it--it is."
Looks exactly the same as that.
- Yeah.
- We get people from
all over the country,
all over the world,
and some of them come in
hesitant or scared
of the border.
- When they book the trip, they
say, "Should I bring my gun?"
- Right.
- But the neat thing is that
everyone I've taken out, you
get to see this transformation
from being, like, terrified
to thinking it's beautiful
to thinking they don't need
a wall to thinking,
"I'm actually going
to write a letter saying that
we don't need a wall."
- Right.
Does anyone ever bother to--
I mean, are there, like,
scary gunboats coming
up and down this river, uh?
- I mean, I think the border
patrol technically does have
a hovercraft that they've used
once and it was horrible.
- Park Service does too.
- Yeah.
- They have helicopters.
- For the record,
I don't understand why Mexico
is made to be such an issue.
I mean, it's our second biggest
trade partner aside from China.
- What about the Canadians?
They're actually pouring across
our borders
and stealing our jobs.
- They are taking our jobs!
- Find a non-Canadian comedian.
How many Canadians play hockey
in the United States
for a U.S. team?
- Those are high paying jobs
that Americans--
- They're stealing!
They're stealing them.
- They're stealing our jobs.
- I mean, there are so many
avenues that the conversation
go to where violence comes
from, where dangers come from.
- Well, even
our small towns here.
I mean, crazy stuff happens
everywhere.
- The world is made a better
place by little bits at a time.
You can't just jam though it
all in one year
and say it's fixed.
- You know, I've been
to a few places
where they do have a wall.
- Yeah.
- Few things are uglier
in the entire world,
of all of the places I've seen,
few things have been more
of an indication
of an utter failure
of otherwise smart people
to figure shit out.
Thank you for showing me
this amazing, amazing--
I mean, just ludicrously
amazing place.
[guitar music]
♪
- ♪ My son John
was tall and slim ♪
♪ And we had a leg
for every limb ♪
- Ohh!
- ♪ But now he's got
no legs at all ♪
♪ For he ran a race
with a cannon ball ♪
♪ Timmy roo dun da,
fadda riddle da ♪
♪ Whack fo' the riddle
Timmy roo dun da ♪
♪
[somber music]
♪
- There are a certain type of
people who connect immediately
to the empty spaces.
- I can't spend much time
on myself
If I'm alone in my apartment
in New York
or on a beach with a hammock.
I'd like to think
I'll be able to relax,
but I can't.
There's that enforced
sense of humility,
'cause you really know
how utterly powerless you are.
You're just tiny.
♪