lucifer_sam

To support his Glitter and Doom tour last summer:

Tom Waits’ True Confessions
by Tom Waits

I must admit, before meeting Tom, I had heard so many rumors and so much gossip that I was afraid. Frankly, his gambling debts, his animal magnetism, coupled with his disregard for the feelings of others… His elaborate gun collection, his mad shopping sprees, the facelifts, the ski trips, the drug busts and the hundreds of rooms in his home. The tax shelters, the public urination… I was nervous to meet the real man himself. Baggage and all. But I found him to be gentle, intelligent, open, bright, helpful, humorous, brave, audacious, loquacious, clean, and reverent. A Boy Scout, really (and a giant of a man). Join me now for a rare glimpse into the heart of Tom Waits. Remove your shoes and no smoking, please.

Q: What’s the most curious record in your collection?
A: In the seventies a record company in LA issued a record called “The best of Marcel Marceau.” It had forty minutes of silence followed by applause and it sold really well. I like to put it on for company. It really bothers me, though, when people talk through it.

Q: What are some unusual things that have been left behind in a cloakroom?
A: Well, Winston Churchill was born in a ladies cloakroom and was one sixteenth Iroquois.

Q: You’ve always enjoyed the connection between fashion and history…talk to us about that.
A: Okay, let’s take the two-piece bathing suit, produced in 1947 by a French fashion designer. The sight of the first woman in the minimal two-piece was as explosive as the detonation of the atomic bomb by the U.S. at Bikini Island in the Marshall Isles, hence the naming of the bikini.

Q: List some artists who have shaped your creative life.
A: Okay, here are a few that just come to me for now: Kerouac, Dylan, Bukowski, Rod Serling, Don Van Vliet, Cantinflas, James Brown, Harry Belafonte, Ma Rainey, Big Mama Thorton, Howlin Wolf, Lead Belly, Lord Buckley, Mabel Mercer, Lee Marvin, Thelonious Monk, John Ford, Fellini, Weegee, Jagger, Richards, Willie Dixon, John McCormick, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Hoagy Carmichael, Enrico Caruso.

Q: List some songs that were beacons for you.
A: Again, for now… but if you ask me tomorrow the list would change, of course.
Gershwin’s second prelude, “Pathatique Sonata,” “El Paso,” “You’ve Really Got Me” (Kinks), “Soldier Boy” (Shirelles), “Lean Back” (Fat Joe), “Night Train,” “Come In My Kitchen” (R.J.), “Sad Eyed Lady,” “Rite of Spring,” “Ode to Billy Joe,” “Louie Louie,” “Just a Fool” (Ike and Tina),” “Prisoner of Love” (J.B.), “Pitch a Wing Dan Doodle (All Night Long)” (H. Wolf), “Ringo” (Lorne Green), “Ball and Chain,” “Deportee,” “Strange Fruit,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “Georgia On My Mind,” “Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Just Like A Woman,” “So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Who’ll Stop The Rain?,” “Moon River,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Danny Boy,” “Dirty Ol’ Town,” “Waltzing Mathilda,” “Train Keeps a Rollin,” “Boris the Spider,” “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me,” “Red Right Hand,” “All Shook Up,” “Cause Of It All,” “Shenandoah,” “China Pig,” “Summertime,” “Without a Song,” “Auld Lang Syne,” “This Is a Man’s World,” “Crawlinking Snake,” “Nassun Dorma,” “Bring It on Home to Me,” “Hound Dog,” “Hello Walls,” “You Win Again,” “Sunday Morn’ Coming Down,” “Almost Blue,” “Pump It Up,” “Greensleeves,” “Just Wanna See His Face” (Stones), “Restless Farewell,” “Fairytale of New York,” “Bring Me A Little Water Sylvie,” “Raglan Road,” “96 Tears,” “In Dreams” (R. Orbison), “Substitute,” “Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues,” Theme from Rawhide, “Same Thing,” “Walk Away Renee,” “For What It’s Worth,” theme from Once Upon A Time In America, “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing,” “Oh Holy Night,” “Mass in E Minor,” “Harlem Shuffle,” “Trouble Man,” “Wade in The Water,” “Empty Bed Blues,” “Hava Nagila”

Q: What’s heaven for you?
A: Me and my wife on Rte. 66 with a pot of coffee, a cheap guitar, pawnshop tape recorder in a Motel 6, and a car that runs good parked right by the door.

Q: What’s hard for you?
A: Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. Math is hard. Reading a map. Following orders. Carpentry. Electronics. Plumbing. Remembering things correctly. Straight lines. Sheet rock. Finding a safety pin. Patience with others. Ordering in Chinese. Stereo instructions in German.

Q: What’s wrong with the world?
A: We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. Leona Helmsley’s dog made $12 million last year… and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It’s just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains. We are monkeys with money and guns.

Q: Favorite scenes in movies?
A: R. De Niro in the ring in Raging Bull. Julie Christie’s face in Heaven Can Wait when she said, “Would you like to get a cup of coffee?” James Dean in East of Eden telling the nurse to get out when his dad has had a stroke and he’s sitting by his bed. Marlena Dietrich in Touch of Evil saying “He was some kind of man.” Scout saying “Hey Mr. Cunningham” in the scene in To Kill A Mockingbird. Nic Cage falling apart in the drug store in Matchstick Men… and eating a ****roach in Vampire’s Kiss. The last scene in Chinatown.

Q: Can you describe a few other scenes from movies that have always stayed with you?
A: Rod Steiger in Pawn Broker explaining to the Puerto Rican all about gold. Brando in The Godfather dying in the tomatoes with scary orange teeth. Lee Marvin in Emperor Of The North riding under the box car, Borgnine bouncing steel off his ass. Dennis Weaver at the motel saying “I am just the night man,” holding onto a small tree in Touch of Evil. The hanging in Oxbow Incident. The speech by Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner as he’s dying. Anthony Quinn dancing on the beach in Zorba. Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick covered in feathers in the church as the ladies stick needles in the voodoo doll. When Mel Gibson’s Blue Healer gets shot with an arrow in Road Warrior. When Rachel in The Exorcist says “Could you help an old altar boy, father?” The blind guy in the tavern in Treasure Island. Frankenstein after he strangles the young girl by the river.

Q: Can you tell me an odd thing that happened in an odd place? Any thoughts?
A: A Japanese freighter had been torpedoed during WWII and it’s at the bottom of Tokyo Harbor with a large hole in her hull. A team of engineers was called together to solve the problem of raising the wounded vessel to the surface. One of the engineers tackling this puzzle said he remembered seeing a Donald Duck cartoon when he was a boy where there was a boat at the bottom of the ocean with a hole in its hull, and they injected it with ping-pong balls and it floated up. The skeptical group laughed, but one of the experts was willing to give it a try. Of course, where in the world would you find twenty million ping-pong balls but in Tokyo? It turned out to be the perfect solution. The balls were injected into the hull and it floated to the surface; the engineer was altered. Moral: Solutions to problems are always found at an entirely different level; also, believe in yourself in the face of impossible odds.

__________________
first.am