Kings Of The Road

No Country For Old Men opened today. It's the Coen brothers film adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel by the same name. The only McCarthy book I've read was Blood Meridian, a brutal brilliant work set in the mid 19th century. Word is, that No Country isn't any tamer.

It was filmed in and around Marfa, Texas. Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood comes out next month, an adaptation of Upton Sinclair's Oil, was also filmed in and around Marfa, in and around the same time the Coen brothers were filming.

Marfa resembles a Mexican town more than an American one. In 1999 when I visited Marfa, the only chain restaurant in town was a Dairy Queen. The large collection of permanent outdoor contemporary sculpture is the first indicator that this an atypical place. Art Forum and many other art publications continually write about it. The first weekend of October is when the annual open house happens. This has become a major pilgrimage for anyone interested in contemporary art. Eight years ago when I was there, it seemed a lot more mom and pop. I stayed with some artists that I just met.

After I left Marfa I took a bus into Mexico. I used the 100 pesos that the woman from Molly's in New Orleans gave me. She said, "Good luck." I converted a little money at the border, but not too much. Border crossing's are a good place to get ripped off. My bus ticket to Chihuahua was exactly 100 pesos. I spent the night there. I bought a black and white postcard of members of the Tarahumura tribe participating in peyote rituals. I still have the postcard, somewhere. The Tarahumara are known for running long distances, sometimes more than 100 miles in a day. I've heard a couple of stories about the tribe members. I can't substanstiate the stories, but I like them anyway. One was the 1968 Olympic story. The Mexican government finally took an interest in the tribe when the Olympic Games were held in Mexico City in '68, so they went down and recruited three Taruhumara's to run the marathon. They asked the tribe elders for their three best distance runners. The three ended up finishing way behind any of the medalists. When the government questioned the poor results, the elders asked why they asked for distance runners when the race was only 26 miles. Another story I heard was that some big running shoe company went to Mexico after hearing about the Taruhumara's legendary distance running. They also asked for three runners to run in a 100 mile ultra-marathon in Colorado. When the three got to the race they didn't want to wear the shoes that the company gave them. They said they preferred to run in sandals. Finally they agreed to wear the shoes, within a couple of miles their friends passed their sandals onto them, their running shoes were discarded. The three also stopped to smoke cigarettes and drink beer while the other runners were taking water breaks. At the 50 mile mark runners were given light snacks to replenish. The Tarahumara's had steak, fries, beer and more cigarettes. At the end of the race they came in 2nd, 3rd and 4th. They weren't all that interested in winning. They were more interested in sticking together. I can't supply footnotes for these stories.

My friend Dave left Orlando a little over a year ago on his bicycle. He was headed to Los Angeles. He's in Tucson. I think he may have met a woman or joined a band or got a job in a coffee shop or all three. He bicycled through Marfa after hearing me talk about it. He said he'd live there if he could figure out how to pay the bills.