![]() Thin as a knife, weathered skin, clean and faded clothes. So I'm waiting for Tom Waits when a homeless man wanders up to me. The sloping wooden floors, the sticky-keyed piano in the bar, the yellowing dollar bills thumbtacked to the ceiling, the weary waitresses who look like they've been on the business end of some real hard love their whole lives- every story in the house is a true one. It's in the middle of the grassy countryside of Sonoma County, across the street from a vineyard, next to a dairy farm and somewhat near the mysterious, secret rural location where Tom Waits lives. I'm Waiting For Tom Waits on the porch of the Washoe House- one of California's oldest inns. So, yes, in case you were wondering- Tom Waits was always different. "Can't find players like that anymore, can you, Bob?" This was back when he was in, like, sixth grade. How 'bout that brass section, Bob?" he'd say to somebody's father while listening to the hi-fi on a quiet afternoon. Music with some grizzled hair on its chest. ![]() And he loved the music that old men loved. At 11, he wore his grandfather's hat and cane. How long you been with Aetna, Bob?" He wanted to be old so bad it drove him nuts. Kicked back in some grown man's Barcalounger, this skinny little kid would clear his throat, lean forward and say, "So. He'd pretend to be a much older man (2), maybe even a father himself. While the other kids were outside playing kickball in the sun, he would slip into the darkened den and sit there with somebody's father for the entire afternoon, listening to Sinatra records and talking about home insurance. He would visit the houses of his friends and neighbors, not to hang out with his buddies but to hang out with his buddies' dads. So now the child didn't have a dad around anymore. When he was 11 years old, his father- a Spanish teacher who used to drive his boy out of San Diego and over the Mexican border for haircuts- left the family. Engulfed by these noises, he'd be compelled to clear his head by reciting rhythmic nonsense syllables aloud (shack-a-bone, shack-a-bone, shack-a-bone, shack-a-bone.) until he could think straight again. If he ran his hand across his bedsheets, he heard a harsh scrape, rougher than sandpaper. If he waved his arm near his head, he heard a sharp whistle in his ear like the whipping of a fishing line. Cars driving by under his bedroom window roared louder than trains. There were sounds all around him that made his hair stand on end, sounds nobody else seemed to hear. He heard noises the way van Gogh saw colors - exaggerated, beautiful, shimmering, scary. Moreover, there was something kind of wrong with him (maybe, he thinks now, some minor brush with autism) that made him almost painfully obsessed with sound. When he grew nervous, he rocked back and forth like a rabbi deep in prayer. He was unduly fascinated by carnivals, buried treasure and mariachi music. There was no comb, lotion or prayer in this world that would get his hair to lie down flat. He had a trick knee, psoriasis, postnasal drip. Tom Waits Would Be America's Springsteen - If America Were A Strange Dispossessed Land Of Circus Freaks. ![]() Kathleen Brennan at the premiere of One From The Heart. Credits: photography by Mark Seligerĭate: early 1982, w. Thanks to Dorene LaLonde for donating magazineĭate 2002 (1999?). Keywords: Alice/ Blood Money, Kathleen, recording Photography by Mark Seligerĭate: Washoe House/ Santa Rosa, CA. Transcription by Dorene LaLonde as sent to Tom Waits Yahoo discussionlist May 24, 2002. Source: GQ magazine (USA) June, 2002 by Elizabeth Gilbert. ![]()
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