Music’s a crazy thing, when you think about it. Interesting how I decided which discs not to pawn. I could’ve kept some party music, but that would’ve just tried to boost me up, all this thin kind of “Tss-tss-tss” music. You get all boosted up, convinced you’re going to win in life, then the song’s over and you discover you fucken lost. That’s why you end up playing those songs over and over, in case you didn’t know. Cream pie, boy. I could’ve kept back some heavy metal too, but that’s likely to drive me to fucken suicide. What I need is some Eminem, some angry poetry, but you can’t buy that stuff in Martirio. Like it was an animal sex doll or something, you can’t buy angry poetry. When you say gangsta around here, they still think of Bonnie & fucken Clyde. Nah, guess what: I ended up keeping my ole Country albums. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck—even my daddy’s ole Hank Williams compilation. I kept them because those boys have seen some shit—hell, all they sing about is the shit they’ve seen; you just know they woke up plenty of times on a wooden floor somewhere, with ninety flavors of trouble riding on their ass. The slide-guitar understands your trouble. Then all you need is the beer.

Deep shit sweetens your plans like crazy.

You’re cursed when you realize true things, because then you can’t act with the full confidence of dumbness anymore.