Lee-World
I’ve been listening to Lee Hazelwood relentlessly, with rapt attention and without irony. I haven’t even been smoking dope. Even when his music isn’t playing, I find myself drifting into Lee-world, strumming the acoustic on a Baja beach, nursing a bottle of Mescal and losing myself in a Brigitte Bardot reverie. I’m thinking about growing a big bushy mustache. Somehow, the water is always cool and mild in Lee-world, and the sand is wet and soft. The wind blows gently, and the sun is always setting on an orange sky. The bartender’s name is Old Jim, and he’s an attentive listener and an even better dispenser of crooked wisdom. We share tales of loves won and lost, and we both stare wistfully out the open window, hoping for a better tomorrow. The hangover has a touch of sadness, but by noon, after the first two drinks are down, hope slips through the backdoor of my defeat and offers itself in small waves to the afternoon. I drift back into the past for a daydream of regret, but the sucker’s game of yesterday yields to the cool tequila glass of today, when every lonely barfly’s name is Sand.