The usually very private Tom Waits performed and chatted with David Letterman on last night’s Late Show and will plunk down in the Seat of Heat on tonight’s Daily Show. He needs to get out there to promote his new album, Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards — which EW’s Will Hermes gave a solid A.
Pitchfork ran a rare, enviable interview with Waits yesterday. You know how sometimes you spend all day reading crap on the Internets and end up hating the world, its inhabitants, what’s considered popular, plastic surgery, the weather, yourself, et al? Read this interview. You’ll have a new personal hero, and people will ask why you’re suddenly not in cynical-bastard mode for a few minutes. I particluarly loved how Waits got all wise and meta. "There is no such thing as truth," he said. "People who really know what happened aren’t talking. And the people who don’t have a clue, you can’t shut them up." That’s so beautiful. So Daily Show! So not Raven.
Maybe Jon Stewart and Waits will become BFFs. They can have weekly spoken-word segments and throw spitballs and obscure wooden instruments at political-figure dartboards! Or not.
For some vintage live Waits appearances, check out the singer on Fernwood Tonight with Martin Mull and Fred Willard, and on The Mike Douglas Show, scaring the wits out of Marvin Hamlisch.
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Tom Waits has been my idol since i was a teenager.. When i finally saw him perform at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, just him and the piano, i wept like a baby..
i am so happy he’s out and about for a limited time, and i can’t wait to see him tonite with Jon Stewart..
“Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends!” ~T. Waits
God, Waits is recycling his own quotes. Three years ago, he told Barney Hoskyns, “the problem with history is that the people who really know what happened aren’t talking and the people who don’t … well, you can’t shut ‘em up” for Hoskyn’s book “Hotel California.”
I saw his bit on Daily Show. He’s a funny guy, but I think the Waits cult of talent worship is turd-polishing at its worst. Stewart said, “I always thought you’d be a great guy to lie down in the middle of the street and die with.” Yeah, and you can sing along to it.
Ol’ 55, Step Right Up and … nothing. Waits is damned lucky to have an army of tone-deaf sycophants.
LOL!
what’s that smell?… smells like.. like.. pure bitterness.
Tom Waits is the man. “Turd polishing”? Not even close.
Yeah, turd polishing. I guess soup kitchen chic has its proponents, but don’t count me among them. He sounds like a wounded dog. I’ll read Charles Bukowski instead, thanks.
He sounds like a wounded dog? So do you complain that Bob Dylan sounds like a raspy mule too? I suppose I’d rather be a tone-deaf sycophant than a philistine.
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
Well said, Tim!!
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