There is one man who is currently walking on our planet whom, though I have never actually met, will one day tell my great-great grandchildren that I met in a bar in Istanbul over apple tea. That man is Tom Waits. He makes me proud to be an American and I consider it a joy to be able to breath the same air from the same atmosphere that he does. As a tribute to this phenomenal author, poet, writer, singer, songwriter, actor, entertainer, I thought I would share a few of my favorite youtube clips. Please go buy his records.
While it is a little vague, I thought it was appropriate to begin with something this epic, so that we are all familiar with the nature of the beast of a man that we are dealing with here. Let’s continue:
Notice the extra-special little flourishes around 2:50. Fantastic commentary on contemporary religion. Moving on to my all-time favorite 10 minutes of Tom Waits:
Tom Waits and Jim Jarmusch apparently have a long relationship that must have begun when the two of them ran into eachother at a truck stop in between Portland, Oregon and Salt Lake City, Utah. Or maybe it began here:
I learned about that little clip while watching some of Tom’s late-nite t.v. appearances which are pretty much the Premier Cru of late-nite television. Case in point:
Consider also, exhibit B:
Exhibit C is also remarkable:
A separate post should be devoted to solely to his appearances on Letterman. It would allow for an incredible study on how time ages a man, i.e. Letterman. Exhibit D will be the final excerpt from late nite entertainment:
Not quite sure how this was even legal television at the time.
And to close, let’s look at a little bit of Tom Waits on love. Sorry this one you’ll have to follow the link to:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p8X_RjblHg8
This post will be updated soon… I’m forgetting the other videos that I watned to include.
