This about sums it up:
Killers, thieves, and lawyers.
Yet Another
by John Cole| 34 Comments
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Yet Another
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Let there be snark.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
After dobbs, women are no longer free.
Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.
President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.
We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!
Their freedom requires your slavery.
There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.
I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.
Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.
Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.
The words do not have to be perfect.
Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.
Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.
I was promised a recession.
Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
Comrade Mary
Still an awesome, awesome song.
I don’t know if I posted this the last time you put this up, but this live version of Telephone Call from Istanbul from his film Big Time is what turned me into a fan. I still have the soundtrack on vinyl …
General Winfield Stuck
I’m watching The Pianist and it is one long ass movie, but a very good one. Saw it when it first came out, but not since.
Tom Waits is a character. Love his music, but also his performance in Ironweed was terrific too. Best drunkard movie ever made, IMHO. Meryl Streep broke the mold for ditzy sot.
Have I mentioned lately that Netflix is a gift from Teh gods.
JoyousMN
Tom Waits is god.
JoyousMN
General Winfield Stuck
If you like Tom Waits in movies make sure you watch “Short Cuts.” Waits partners with Lily Tomlin. They are an aging drunk couple and it’s fantastic. The entire movie, directed by Robert Altman is worth watching, but Tomlin and Waits almost steal the show.
General Winfield Stuck
@JoyousMN:
Will do. Thanks!
Wag
Rain dogs got me through the first year of medical school
deeb
The prior comments are impressively correct: Tom Waits is God; the Big Time version of “Telephone Call From Instanbul” is mind-blowing; and “Short Cuts” is (without question) one of the finest American movies of the 90’s.
Laura W
I find Waits to be one of the most annoying (like nails on a chalkboard or people who chew ice to relieve stress, or a chained up, incessantly barking Yorkie, or let’s say a neighbor who cuts firewood for a living’s saw…) and mind bogglingly overrated, air quotes, “musicians”, that ever walked the earth. I want to heave when I hear him – air quotes again – “sing”.
(I’m very proud of that paragraph, BTW. I think it’s a PR for both run on sentences, free association, and made up words. Win!)
In regard to the previous thread: “My Mother The Car”.
Am I still allowed to post here?
Christ you people need lives.
Re: Altman…3 Women.
Comrade Kevin
Also, in connection to the other thread, Robert Altman directed the movie M*A*S*H.
geg6
The Player. That is all.
JK
Tom Waits has a brief scene in The Fisher King. Waits’ singing style sounds like someone who has been gargling with razor blades. Waits’ singing voice is an acquired taste and I don’t think I’ll live long enough to acquire that taste.
MASH, Short Cuts, The Player, Gosford Park, California Split – Robert Altman was definitely a genius in my book.
AhabTRuler
@Laura W: I used ti agree with you, but have come to appreciate the finer points of his style. To be fair, I do think he has many exceptional songs, and then some meh songs that sound a little like his exceptional songs.
Laura W
@AhabTRuler:
Link to one.
I’m nothing if not open-minded.
JK
An hour of listening to Tom Waits and the GITMO detainees would spill their guts.
I wouldn’t pay for a ticket to see Tom Waits perform, I’d pay the concert hall money to disinvite him from performing.
Comrade Kevin
Lawyers, guns and money.
Laura W
@AhabTRuler: Never mind. Don’t waste your time. I can’t edit my previous challenge and I’m going to bed and in all of my many years, I have never been able to discern one difference in his horrible “voice” no matter what he is “singing”.
But Momo totally rocks.
JK
OT
David Brooks’ tale of being groped by a senator now brings up 38 hits on Technorati.
cbear
@JK:
An hour? I can barely take 30-40 seconds of that crap before I’m ready to commit seppuku with a rusty paring knife.
trollhattan
Love me some Tom Waits. Admittedly, I’m more drawn to his earlier stuff. When he and Rickie Lee were an item I always feared the universe might not be able to handle the convergence.
On a completely different topic…FINALLY (maybe?):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/politics/12justice.html?hp
If I live to see Cheney frog-marched I can die a happy man. John Yoo-to the wood chipper. Gonzo–to the Komodo dragons’ cage. Addington–leprosy and banishment to a North Korean gulag. George W. Bush–a fleeting moment of clarity in which he understands what he’s wrought.
cbear
@trollhattan:
“Komodo Dragon’s cage” is very funny.
As I have said before, I live in the fervent hope that Cheney & company contract that horrble flesh-eating disease—and would even pony up an extra $10 bucks a month on my cable bill to view the progress of the disease.
Tom
I’m another big-time Waits fan. You either love him and can’t get enough, or can’t listen at all, I’ve found. Either way is cool. I’m partial to his ’80’s impressionist period – Swordfishtrombones all the way through Rain Dogs and Bone Machine.
BTW, don’t live your entire life without seeing Down by Law — Waits, John Lurie, Roberto Benigni directed by Jim Jarmusch (but one of Jim’s better efforts.). And Tom-boy kicked ass in one of the worst movies in the history of the planet Earth — Mystery Men. But yeah, Short Cuts was one great movie as well.
ChristianPinko
This song was used very effectively at the end of the Enron documentary The Smartest Guys in the Room.
JK
Speaking of horrible voices –
Has there ever been anyone, in the history of cable news, with a more sickening, putrid, godawful speaking voice than Greta “The Scientologist” Van Susteren? It’s bad enough that she’s a mouthpiece for Republican talking points, but her voice is a weapon of mass nausea. As soon as I hear it, I have to change the channel before I throw up.
JGabriel
Laura W:
Well, let’s take Waits’ voice out of the equation. As a songwriter, I think Tom Waits is one of the greats – I’m using here the criteria of a great songwriter being one who has multiple songs successfully covered by multiple, critically recognized, artists – Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Elvis Costello, Laura Nyro, Jagger/Richards, Lennon/McCartney, Holland/Dozier/Holland, etc., are all songwriters who fit that definition.
Ol’ 55 was a hit for The Eagles, and Downtown Train was a hit for Rod Stewart, but I’ve chosen different versions to break things up a bit. Anyway, here’s three Waits songs covered by different artists:
Ol’ 55 – Sarah MacLachlan
Jersey Girl – Bruce Springsteen
Downtown Train – Everything But The Girl
(ETA: Bias note – I’ve been a fan since Swordfishtrombones in ’83.)
.
cbear
@JGabriel:
No fair, JG. There’s no doubt the guy’s a very good, maybe even great songwriter–it’s that god awful unintelligible voice we’re talking about.
Tom
It’s true that Waits has lost his range this past 10-15 years — it really seemed to go while he was working in Europe with Robert Wilson, but hell probably age had a lot to do with it. True, on first hearing you don’t get the beauty of that ruined voice singing the poetry, and many people never do. For some, it touches into a deep spot of the flawed human condition, and the voice is beautiful in that way. You can’t explain it to people, but his fans can relate the exact moment and condition when they really heard Tom Waits and became a fan. Like a fine, aged Bourbon that you have to drink straight down straight up, he isn’t for everyone. Like Jon Stewart told him (paraphrasing), there’s no one he’d rather spend the rest of his days in the gutter with. That kind of explains all about Tom Waits and his loyal fans, I guess.
tavella
I remember liking some of his eighties stuff, but wow, listening to that… his voice has gone from whiskey-laden to nonexistant.
cbear
Point taken, although if you’re serious about whiskey-drinkin, make mine Jack (or Dickel in a pinch).
KRK
@Tom:
I’m seconding Tom’s recommendation of Down by Law. Just a great, great movie.
Ceri B.
As long as we’re comparing versions of Waits, I must speak up for Canadian torch singer Holly Cole. Here she is doing Train Song, and (Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night.
For good measure, here she is doing I Can See Clearly Now (and the way she sets up camp on those long notes in “blue skies” just always sends a shiver up my spine), and the original Make It Go Away or Make It Better.
When it comes to Waits himself…I can’t find the quote, but Clive Barker says that there are truths only monsters can tell, and I think Waits works like that for some of us. He conveys the sense of having already been where we fear going, or going again, and there’s a comfort in the company even when the place is hellish.
Svensker
@Laura W:
Do you do lesbian marriage?
Early Waits is barely tolerable. Later Waits with his vocal chords shredded from bad singing and bad living is just torture.
And I hate movies about drunks.
/Suzee Crabbycakes
Laura W
@Svensker:
I’m waiting for Sade to get back to me.
Would you be hurt if I told you that you are second in line?
Well, third, because Bonnie Raitt. Also. Waders.
JoyousMN
I think these two posts probably explain Waits better than I ever could. Like Dylan, whose voice is not good in the way we think of good voices, his voice is only a part of the overall experience of listening to them. The poetry of their words is a huge part of their appeal. But their voices are also a part of their charm to those of us who (like the bourbon analogy) love them. Waits sings about the ruined soul and his voice is the voice of that ruined soul.
I also believe that you can think of listening to Waits in the same way as people appreciate art. Great artists are often loved and loathed. Because their art touches us in such a deeply personal way there is no way that the art is going to affect us all the same way. In fact, that’s the point of their art.
trollhattan
For Waits at his most accessible, “Used Songs” offers many…uh…charms. I’ve played it for a number of folks, each of who at some point asks, “He wrote that?”
Ceri B. #30–seconded on Holly Cole’s Waits covers. For that matter, Holly Cole, period. Great voice and very emotive.