Best known to the average Joe as the narrator's voice in The Dukes of Hazzard, barely known from the days in which the above picture was taken as the bassist for Buddy Holly following the break up of The Crickets. Waylon Jennings eroded into a hairy, troubadour crafted by that eroded landscape of the American Southwest which he called home.
But one can look his story up on wiki just as anyone else.
Yesterday I drove out to see the parents, the night prior was frustrating in town, Bridge and Tunnel pricks on their constant quest to ruin the city for two days a week. I went out for a steak alone as all my other companions were busy with events of this second week in February. Every step along the way was an exercise in patience and civility and on the verge of explosion I went home. I threw the lights on down low and laid down in bed with my clothes on fully intent of heading out for one last drink before the night was over, merely a reprieve from the events before and waiting for the call from someone.
The call came around four in the morning while I was sound asleep.
I woke up early on Sunday and headed out, dealt with shitty drivers and traffic until I found myself on the couch watching the ProAm at Pebble with my father in the same position I have taken at said place for the past thirty three years. After a few hours it was time to head back in and take care of some business.
I have a new 16 gig nano and from the time I purchased it it has been on random. It is something I never really do since my other iPods have over sixteen thousand songs and I don't need to hear some of the very random tunes that are held on it. But on the nano, since it is limited to around three thousand there is nothing but the stuff I can listen to at any time.
I took the exit for the Holland Tunnel and cruised through the ramp at around ninety which for some reason I am always doing. As I pulled up to the first traffic light before the tunnel, the one where you can make a left and head into Hoboken I was sitting there staring out of the window with my mind totally blank and void, the music not even registering in my consciousness. That is until this tune came on, like an old friend who walks into the bar unexpectedly, it warmed my soul and loosened my jaw (which is the first symptom of stress for me), my heart rate slowed and goose bumps ran through my skin when Waylon in his deep timbre howled "Sweet Dream Woman, come and be a woman to me".
But the thoughts that raced through my mind were not some dimly lit room with a nude long haired temptress arching her back above me and kissing my neck, nor the sweetness of blue eyes laughing in the sun on a beach towel laid where the grass meets the sand. Rather it was a lone trucker pacing though I-10, my college buddy and his band traveling from gig to gig in a Prevost for the past two years without a home and myself sitting in the jet with the headphones on, the communications turned down on some J route headed back east on a Sunday after long weekend out west with a hangover and my survival gear suffocating my insides. It was the story of life and the cinema that is everyone's individual life. It is life that is that temptress, and just as all the other temptresses before they have all passed and are left as fodder for dreams. For now there was a temptress just on the other side of that tunnel, one that will leave me in a while and I'll be left searching for another on that lone highway.
