Why I Will Never Forget What I Heard in the Last Lonesome Cowboy Town In America

Silver City, New Mexico. Ever been? It’s a sleepy mountain town about an hour out of your way when you’re crossing the state along I-10. Closest comps would be Laramie, Wyoming, Brattleboro, Vermont, or one of any “microdot” towns in Colorado like Nederwald or Gunnison or, on a good day, Boise or Bozeman. You could even throw Mt. Shasta City in there.

It leans hippie, but not in the exasperating way of Sebastopol or Woodstock, where big city money feints at “the simpler life.” Out here it really *is* the simpler life with a strong blue collar bent, where people fix their own brakes and change their own oil and know secrets of the weather and winter that they could never prove, and you would never believe, but which have aided their ancestors through generations of hard country living.

In fact, I had forgotten how hard it leaned towards common man values when I decided to detour here on the long drive back from El Paso. And while it wasn’t the getaway I expected, it was the getaway I needed. Quiet, unassuming, and far enough out of the way that it will never be cool and Californicated like so many other American towns.

The only place open past 9 is the local brewery. It is huge, with several rooms in arbitrary styles patched and grafted carelessly together, like an old truck refabbed with whatever parts were lying around the junkyard. Good enough. There is even an outdoor porch for smoking with your booze, and the urinals don’t bother with modesty dividers, hearkening back to an era most of us can barely remember. The food is basic barfare where the veggie burger option is a 1980s portobello mushroom, and green chile can still be smothered on anything.

I stayed late to click away at my laptop, as out of place as ever, amongst the close friend and family circles that surrounded me, dining 5 to 10 at a table. No one was working at this hour, but all seemed to be enjoying the come down of a beer after an honest day and the kind of conversation that glazes the eyes of urban intellectuals and at a tempo that shows them up to be even less interesting than they look, with the ponderous weight of Molto Largo to underscore the vapidity.

But that was none of my business. These people were happy, and even more so, “content,” in the way that coastal people simply can not conceive or even believe is real. But I think at their heart, urban intellectual types envy the ability to function at this pace, or at least they would if they slowed down enough to think about it.

Like most cities now - even Mendocino - there are a few homeless types hanging around. Less Burner, more old school train Hobo, I counted at least 3 on the main drag as the sun was setting. Dusty, slightly crazed, but still crafty enough to survive in an inhospitable climate when you don’t have a fire in the hearth and a roof overhead to shield you from the deadlier elements that would lay low the hordes of spoiled California indigents, who bask so easily in the alleyways and city parks of their temperate paradise, oblivious to life’s dangers beyond gluten and GMO soy.

As I walked out of the brewery, leaving behind the last drunks and the waitresses chatting and folding napkin rolls for the next day, one of the native street dwellers was settling in for the night, leaning up against the bar with his rucksack. Unlike the California variety, whom one might see with a shitty fake African drum or an out of tune Yamaha guitar, this young man was toting an honest-to-God banjo.

And his voice was one of the finest things I have ever heard.

He accompanied himself ably and sang in a disheveled, world-weary way that betrayed a true madness in his heart. But the clarity was breathtaking, the freeness of the wild lines - uncontrolled wailing, yet perfectly in tune - was truly inspired. His voice was purity itself with the rough edges coming from the rawness within and not from any artifice or pretense you would find in a proper concert venue.

That his daemons chose such an unlikely vessel for their genius is, to me, a sad puzzle. He rested against the bar, filling the street with music for less than a handful of passersby to hear. For all I know the locals probably just dismissed him as another nut to be tolerated.

But for a moment, I couldn’t help but think that I was in the presence of greatness, the spirit of St Cecilia in one of her many disguises, crying her way into the night along the streets of a never-has-been western town for no one to hear.

But I heard.

And for all the artifice and pretense that bathed the high culture of my youth, I can’t help but think that one strain from this weary and burdened throat would move more men than the endless parade of self-satisfied artistes at La Scala. This was a command performance that should give Silver City its own place in the sun for culture mavens who aren’t afraid to have a beer with their opera on a cold, uneven street instead of a negroni in their sterile temples of art.

That’s my two cents in any event.

If you find yourself here, there is one more cultural monument worth experiencing. The patrons skew geriatric and American-Christian, but the local coffee shop is one of the most exquisite hippie renderings of any granola perch in which I have ever caffeinated my itinerant self.

The Tranquilbuzz Coffee House is a labyrinthine surprise of multiple rooms and parlors, washboard aluminum siding walls, and outdoor nooks with hand hewn mini tables and benches. There are indoor local pottery displays, unspoiled leather sofas, wire wrapped twigs in the rafters, tchotchkes galore and western paraphernalia lining the walls alongside a clutch of exotic musical instruments that you have to imagine come out in monthly hootanannys for the locals when they celebrate the decanting of their home brewed green chile moonshine (or at least you *want* to imagine. . .).

Home baked goods in odd sizes and shapes, label-free and hand wrapped in plastic wrap, local artist-made greeting cards for sale, hand painted reclaimed wood signs (except no one would call them “reclaimed” here), and the only hot food is a quiche - filled with green chile, of course. The atmosphere is calm, “tranquil” even, and in every way it exudes the welcome and comfort of a true community meeting place where you can discuss your art exhibits or what grade of motor oil to switch to for your high mileage pickup.

“Do you have cold brew?”

“We have iced coffee.”

And she didn’t even flinch or mock. Perfect.

The space, and Silver City in general, hearkens back to an era where we weren’t all so wired all the time and local uniqueness could persist on its own without even realizing it was unique, because no one was around to tell it it was.

New York City gave up that innocence when Jerry Seinfeld commoditized all of its charms, and central American treasures like Austin and Durango have long since given way to having been “discovered” and objectified. Their erstwhile culture is now self-conscious “character,” fit for t-shirts and selfies but not really for life.

And while you have to assume that people in Silver City have internet too (though mine was pretty spotty tbh), they are as close to immune as any town I have seen in years to the ingress of foreign corruption and dilution of its just-so nature.

I don’t think it's a coincidence that New Mexico and Arkansas are the strangest states in America (by far, and sorry California) and that they both have the best preserved nooks and crannies of secret local cultures in their midsts. Coastal types are adequately freaked out by “Deliverance” fantasies that they keep their distance, so much so that “Keep Arkansas Weird” is a bumper sticker that doesn’t even need to be printed.

But I doubt that that will last more than another generation. The pull of the cities is too great. Anyone with promise will move away, and the remainders will not be able to sustain a competitive economy, except in as much as they invite in cynical Califorinans looking for the authentic. And that is exactly what will kill them in the end, as it has so many precious gems in the past 50 years.

So pack your bags and head out to Silver City while you can. But for the love of God, please don’t stay. Let it live a little longer as a tucked away local enclave where the locals still live in ecological balance with the unglamorous infestation of Texas tourists. It’s just right right now but already leaning towards “past due.” A little bit hippie, a little bit hick, and a respectful observance of such from its polite, artsy but unfashionable church lady visitors from neighboring states.

California is calling me back, and soon I must yield. But I am hanging on here as long as I can for one more cup of iced coffee and a late night serenade before I go.