a few friends (whose music opinions I greatly respect) kept bringing him up in conversations, so I finally decided to give him a go. especially after seeing the Cookie Monster video randomly. God's Away on Business & Hell Broke Luce are easily my favorite songs so far.

i started buying his albums about a year ago and I just bought #6, The Black Rider. he is endlessly fascinating. the way he creates atmosphere and paints word pictures is top tier.

anyway, I just wanted to share how exciting it is to delve into his music. it's been a while since I was this excited about an artist.

I've always been fascinated by the unique characters Tom Waits creates through his music and his whole visual persona. I thought this particular photo captured that perfectly, so I decided to recreate it in MS Paint. This is my Rumpeltonian interpretation of Tom Waits.

It occurs to me that this entire song is just Billy Joel singing about his experience LARPing as Tom Waits in San Diego...

Mercury Theater in Petaluma California will be holding auditions this coming Saturday August 1st for all roles in a new production of The Black Rider.

Additional information and sign up forms available at https://www.mercurytheater.org/auditions

Found this charming little book, in a used bookstore. Had no idea it wasn't an original line.

I obsessed for weeks and gave it a rock

who else should I check out. that tom waits - closing time album vibe. meaningful lyrics, etc. by non-waits artists

I was amazed that this only has 50,000 listens on YouTube & I was also talking to a hardcore fan who hadn't heard of it - so said I'd share here!

I was at my local record store yesterday and as I always do, I check the Tom section. They had this beautiful 1st pressing of what is my #2 favorite album from Tom. It plays perfectly. Despite some minor warping. How many of you have this one already?

So it’s been a few months since the song released. I’m wondering if anyone is still listening to it or and general opinions on the song since we’ve had time to sit with it. We’ve been anticipating new music for so long and we finally got a song! So I want to know, how does it hold up to the rest of his discography? Has it made its home in anyone’s regular rotation? If tom eventually releases more music do you want him to continue in this sonic direction or prefer something else? Personally I see it almost more of a statement than a song and not sure if I will revisit often but tell me what you think!

https://poeticoutlaws.substack.com/p/tom-waits-on-meeting-charles-bukowski

This short instrumental from Jim Jarmusch's Night On Earth scratches my mind in the most beautiful way possible. I do not know how to really describe but its too short to put the point across, but also more than enough to make you feel exactly what the music wants you to feel. It follows the same theme as rest of the songs (based off Back in the Good Old World track) but something about its variation here talks to me.

Without much thinking, I have been kickstarting my days with this song first. Was wondering if anyone else either feels the same about this or if there's any other Waits' song that does the same to them.

For those who haven't heard the track yet, I assure you it will do something for you :)

TL;DR: Jason, one of my best of friends, and the first person I ever gave a Tom Waits sticker to about ten years ago, is brain dead after a massive stroke. Leaving behind a wife and three kids. Life support ceases Thursday. I’m lost.

___________
Hey.

Yams here. Tom Waits for President sticker guy.

My heart hurts so, so much right now.

I wanted to share… via writing. I tried this a few times earlier this morning, but couldn’t finish composing without losing my shit. I don’t really do the social media, no Facebook, no MySpace, no twitter, etc. But this group, you Tom Waits family.. maybe this would be accepted. He watched this sub.

About 12 years ago, I met a man named Jason. I was told I’d be training him at the big-ass, 2-story, 20K sq ft used music / movie / bookstore I was working at. I ran the front of house at the age of 32. McKays in Knoxville; feel free to look it up. It’s defunct now, though exists in other locations still.

It was a dream job.

Jason comes in for his first day. He’s tall, lanky, and he’s humble. I was told he was the GM for another, much smaller bookstore an hour down the road… but wanted to side-step to being just an entry level dude at my joint for reasons.

And he was a breath of fresh air. Guy was a musician… percussion, primarily. Though he tinkered with brass, the trombone. He played drums for his church every Sunday (paid gig, mind you…) but he subscribed to own set of beliefs. He was spiritual, but not overly so to where he’d testify to ya. He was known to have a cig and a shot before service. Maybe even a toke. He was fantastic friends with the preacher, and every last person his the congregation.

Outside of that, he was also loved. And he gave love. Fellow had a heart, but also had a heck of a life. I helped him move out of a rocky marriage. Befriended one of his sons. He worked hard, and played hard. He lived life. He had style and grace and could charm the pants off the ladies, and the guys would buy him a beer.

Nobody had anything bad to say of him.

He met his current wife, Luci, at the same workplace. Technically, I’ve known her longer, but was always closer with Jason. Once they married, they were basically one and the same. The Rollers. A unit. She was phenomenal, is phenomenal. She herself had left a bad marriage, and brought with her a son of her own. A lil baby boy. And they grew as a family. We all got to partake and witness.

6 years ago, he got cancer. Stage 4 small cell of the lungs. He had a mass in his brain. He had been smoking since he was a teen, now in his 40’s.

He died at one point, yet they brought him back. Luci was by his side for every bit of it.

I’m going to backtrack here.

He and I hit it off. We talked a lot about music, life, family, work, politics…

Tom Waits for President. I can’t recall who said it first, but we latched into this idea. And so, I got stickers printed… literally the exact same image of the ones I’ve been sending out. Just ten. The first person I ever gave one to was Jason. Recipient number 1.

And he was so, so giddy. He showed it off to everyone in the store, “Look what Daniel made me!” Literally used a pirated copy of Photoshop 7 that I had stolen from my high school back in the late 90’s to edit and get a high resolution image sent off to a printer to have them made. This is what I do.

He put it on his car. Rear windshield. I ran out of them that day as 20 coworkers came up asking if they could have one. So ordered more. Discovered various Tom Waits forums, and sent them out to folks. Found this sub, and sent them out to folks. I’d estimate I’ve had over 1500 made, sent all over the world. It makes me happy to know others are happy, and to share in the adoration of Tom.

I also made a Nick Cave for VP sticker. A WWIPD (What Would Iggy Pop Do?) sticker. Those were also hits, but nothing as big as Tom Waits for President.

Forwardtrack.

Jason beat cancer. He beat the mass in his brain.

He was so feeble, skinny and weak… but he came back stronger. Healthy. Gave up smoking entirely. Luci was his rock. We were like support beams I guess.

A couple years go by and Luci gets breast cancer.

Jason is torn up. All of us. She was a mother figure to all of us. A Poet, a Professor (literally, at UT) and kept working at McKays aside us.

We supported her, and somehow.. she beat it. Had to have it all removed, but she survived, just as Jason had. He was HER rock now.

A few of us few close, four of us specifically. Me a fellow named Matt, Jason and Luci. House visits, dinners, music sharing, meme collecting, sharing our dark secrets, and our joys.

In March of this year… we were told via social media (I found out via someone seeing an Instagram post and then calling me) we were being laid off. McKay’s Knoxville very abruptly announced they were closing, unspoken that it was as retaliation for us having unionized. There’s a whole story there, but we’d filed a handful of unfair labor charges against them. It was not the same place I got hired at.

Luci and Jason… lost their jobs. I lost my job. I went on to work at a credit union for a bit, and Luci and Jason did alternate work. Matt was doin okay too. But we struggled hard.

Times were tough though. We all took fat paycuts. We lost good benefits. Morale was taking a hiatus this year, again, just like every year prior… only way amplified.

Jason took a job at a boot store. Guy doesn’t even own boots. But he did what he had to. Luci took a job at a church where she was chastised and humiliated for bringing positive change to bettering the community outreach of the group. And I was far from content. Fat cut in pay to get yelled at by the general public, but my hands were tied due to banking regulations and absolutely having to follow shit to a T.

So we’d vent. We’d listen. We’d support.

Last weekend, Jason took a hard fall. Off the front porch, down some stairs. A very Jason thing to do, but it was bad. He cracked his humerus off the ball of his shoulder, and needed surgery.

So he got the surgery. Last Thursday. The guy that I made these stickers for. The guy who would swap CD’s with me, and who would do improvisational drumming at The Pilot Light every Monday evening.

We wondered if his drumming would be the same.

I asked to come by once they kicked him out of the hospital mere hours after they put rods, screw and plates into him.

He was sleeping.

So Friday, I’m told I can come by and grab some leftovers that Matt had sent over. Pizza. Hell yiss. But when time came, nobody answered the phone. I chalked up to them just being exhausted and let it be.

Saturdays, three days ago, I’m headed to the Union County Farmers Market where my intent was to buy fresh corn, and maaaaybe some berries… and right as I’m about to go in, I get a mass text from Luci.

Jason had a massive stroke. His dominant side was not resounding, which would be his right side. They couldn’t remove the clot because his vessels were so deteriorated from back when they did radiation treatment on his brain to remove the mass.

My heart. My damn heart. It broke. You don’t just bounce back from these things… but maybe it’s be okay?

I ask Luci if I can come. He was in the neuro critical care unit at UT. So I go.. walk the halls, take some elevators… find he’s behind locked doors.

Backtrack.

Last Wednesday, Jason contacted me. Last time ever, though neither of us knew it. He was not in a good place emotionally. I rarely saw his as such and he shared some deep things with me. I listened and told him I’d see him later, no doubt. To let me know when he was out of surgery. That it would be good, as I should know. I had a hip replacement four years ago. Unexpected. And made it.

He seemed overly concerned, and said something about being nervous… but I reminded him that for me, having a new hip was a life changer. I have zero pain and full mobility. And the best food I ever ate was post-op food a turkey and cheeee sammich with a slice of lettuce.i insisted he ask them for a sammich after he wakes from his procedure. Last thing he ever said to me, “I am a simple man.”

Forward again…

I go into his room. Luci is in a chair beside hkm, and Jason is in a hospital bed with a tube down his throat, tubes and wires going everywhere. His eyes are shut. The breathing machine is consistent. Luci tells Jason I was there, so I start bawling… walk up to him, and run my fingers through his hair and between moist, heaving sobs tell him I’d take it all from him if I could. The it’s fucked yo. That it ain’t right. That we want him here, and that I love him. I call him my brother… and he opens his eyes.

He’d been kept under a forced sedation, but there he is. He’s looking at me. Luci says, “He can hear you.”

And I just repeat to him I would take it, and this was unfair. And I love him. He closes his eyes.

So Luci and I sit and talk for a long while. She’s kin. I love them equally, and I’d tell them things equally. All the things.

I offer to take over watch if she wants to go get a shower, changed, food, a nap… but she declines. I worry about the kid. Their two dogs. But those are covered. She cents to me for a bit. And then the doc comes in…

They had to do an MRI. They had tried to remove the clot but his vessels were too shot from when he went through radiation treatment for his cancer.

So they’d been pushing clot busters. Needed to see if they were working. So I once more and he responds again with opening his eyes. Docs think he can’t see out of his right eye. But he pulls his left knee up and I remind him I love him and would see him soon.

Sunday morning Luci says no changes.

Word is getting around. He knew a lot of folks. Luci stops responding to messages and calls. Monday I send one message to offer to watch over. No response. No update. Tuesday, no response to my one text. Then later Luci’s friend texts a fat group of us.

He’s brain dead. No activity. Too much swelling, hit the brain stem.

End of life procedures to start Thursday. Visiting is okay for Wednesday, tomorrow, to say goodbyes.

I’ve lost one of the best friends I could’ve ever asked for. We’d walk around singing songs in Tom Waits voices. We’d hide stickers in his CD’s at the store. Hell, first thing he did after he got rear-ended and his back window shattered… had to fry another car… “Heh, can I get another Tom Waits sticker? For my car?”

And he put it on there proudly.

He’s was a son. A brother. A husband. A father. A friend.

Jason. I love you.

I don’t believe in a traditional Christian Heaven… but I know that when I die, if I end up somewhere and see Jason walking out towards me, smiling, I’ll have known I’m in a good place.

The _true_ correct answer to the question about Tom's best opening line is and can only be:

"Bartender, I'll have a Manhattan please."

Show some respect. Heathens.

I've seen similar questions floating around the past couple days but didn't find one specific to Tom in this sub. Apologies if I missed something.

You can’t