The Obvious (right?) Tom Waits connection. (1 Viewer)

Beathriz

Beathriz

I'm a big Tom Waits fan, at least I was up til The Black Rider, which is my favorite EVER, but after that I stopped paying much attention to the new stuff. Mule Variations dissapointed or something, I cant remember.
ANYWAY. Since I didnt 'discover' Buk til recently I never made the connection but clearly there is one. Hell, I did a e-bay search for 'Bukowski' and Tom Waits t-shirts showed up.
When I first came to this site the picture of Buk (my favorite picture I've seen so far) with the typewriter, eyes closed, lips around a beedie(?) or a toothpick, immedietly made me think of Tom Waits and his accordian.
Surely Bukowski was a huge influence. Has this been discussed? Is this at all interesting to anyone but neophyte, know-nothing little me? I bet it is sophmoric so forgive me, I'm so new, so very tender, so very very new.

Hey, wait a minute. Did I get up early a.m. last night or the night before drunk and already ask this question somewhere on the forum?
Fuck. I might have dreampt it. I never really know.
I drink.
 
im really too hung over today, but
in the movie 'born into this' he (waits) talks about discovering bukowski in the small literary magazines. oh fuck this
just listen to christmas card from a hooker in minneapolis

and mule variations being a let down? come on, cold water, hold on, come on up to the house, all true classics
 
your right, and blue valentine is my favorite ever, even more so than black rider.
i will try mule variations again, im just getting old and lazy.
 
Hi,
I have some interesting photos and posters of Tom Waits taken by the great photographer Ulvis Alberts in about 1977. He also took photos of Bukowski (at the Fridge, lifting eights, drinking beer...). Contact me offlist at [email protected] if you are interested.

BEst,
bill
 
I was a Waits fan back when he began. Still am, although I haven't kept up with his later work. Anyway, I seem to recall that Tom was aware of Bukowski and influenced from the start, but I can't cite any proof of that. Yes, Blue Valentine is a great song.

Irrelevant nonsense: my wife once broke into Tom Waits' parked '59 Caddy and stole his discarded gum wrappers, cigarette butts, etc. She was an obsessed fan, to say the least. Later the same day she ran into him at breakfast in some L.A. hash joint and got his autograph, reading (in shakey letters) "Happy New Years, Tom Waits."

I once saw Tom and his wife walking around at the San Diego Zoo, took some snapshots. Then, on the ride back to Long Beach, we were one car behind them on the freeway. I wrote about this in an unpublished prose piece. Silly, I know...
 
everybody ,

tom waits is one of the greatest living songwriters and bukowski - well he is bukowski. and mule variations is wonderful too. the first time i was exposed to tom waits was around the time "small change" came out - the dinah shore shore. he came out looking like a bowry bum - hunched over - couldnt really understand a word he said. dinah seemed to be in love with him. he sang "step right up". that was great. i went out and found "small change" (had to order it) the next day.

yes
 
there's a ton of great tom waits stuff on youtube - i don't know if anyone saw or remembers the 'fernwood tonite' show with martin mull
 
Fernwood Tonight was a great show. Way ahead of its time on the irony scale. A spinoff from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which was no slouch itself in the irony department. Very PoMo (ha!), both of them.
 
Did you guys know that Johnny Brewton of X-Ray Book Co. designed the packaging for the new 3-CD Tom Waits boxed set, "Orphans?" Bravo for Johnny.
 
Yea, Martin Mull and Fred Willard...Great tongue in cheek humour. America Tonight.
Did y'all know Martin Mull used to be teamed up with Steve Martin?
Called themselves Martin & Mull. No shit.

I for one am very proud to announce that I don't like Tom Waits or his music.
He looks and sounds like a cat that's been run over and left to rot in the rain.
But I ain't saying the dude should be stopped or shot. Good for him for pulling the wool over the eyes of his audience. It's a living.

Grinning at you skib skubbers:D (You're not smoking enough pot).
 
"i'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." who wouldn't? but i think that was waits. there's a book of his collected interviews, innocent when you dream, first published in the states by thunder's mouth press, and guess what? it incorporates buk's one for the shoeshine man !!
 
can't disagree with you there...never heard of dr demento and the rest.

"i've never met anyone who made it with a chick because they owned a tom waits album. i've got all three, and it's never helped me." waits.
 
Tom Waits is just like Bono and the other faggot, I really can't remember his name. Why'd he come out sipping his late talking about a contemporary poet that influenced him?
 
Rekrab said:
my wife once broke into Tom Waits' parked '59 Caddy and stole his discarded gum wrappers, cigarette butts, etc. She was an obsessed fan, to say the least. Later the same day she ran into him at breakfast in some L.A. hash joint and got his autograph, reading (in shakey letters) "Happy New Years, Tom Waits."
Click to expand...

Why didn't you let her fuck him?
 
jabble's taking a vacation for a few days. If he wants to ease up on the idiocy after that, fine. Otherwise we'll put him to bed permanently.
 
mjp said:
jabble's taking a vacation for a few days. If he wants to ease up on the idiocy after that, fine. Otherwise we'll put him to bed permanently.
Click to expand...

HI mjp,
Thanks for putting to bed. Something tells me that he will give us more of the same if he does come back, though.

All best,
Bill
 
hannah, I'll jump on the bandwagon and tell you to give Mule Variations a chance. it's one of my favourites by Waits.
 
god, i forgot about 'bone machine'. see, i live in texas, where i am not always as inclined as i was living in los angeles to have his music in my head. BUT come winter i start singing 'november' to myself from 'black rider' and then it all starts to come back to me.
yeah, i will have to find mule variations and bone machine, all lost in the last four years, buried under pacifiers, plastic teething rings, broken eye-wear and empty prozac bottles.
 
haven't seen dead man. along with jim jarmusch's(sp?) down by law, isn't waits also in cigarettes and coffee? what's it like? seem to remember he plays a part in short cuts, an adaption of carver's stories. he played a minor but amusing part in coppola's dracula, that "master, master!" bit...

i love all waits' albums from heartattack and vine on, but thinking of franks wild years: i loved the portrayal of the warped, sinatra-like crooner of straight to the top (vegas), and, i'll take new york...more like straight to rock bottom!
 
i had to drag this post up from the grave because I remembered it from before. i have had "Mule Variations' laying around pretty much since it came out. Played it a couple of times, along with Alice. Never got into either one of them. Just recently started playing both of them, and OH MY GOD!!! They are both my favorites now!!!

"COOKIN' UP A FILLAPINA BOX SPRING HOG!!!"
 
'Orphans' is great, I'm always a bit dubious of rarities boxsets (often a bunch of badly recorded songs that weren't good enough to be released first time round) however this really is an eclectic mix to fit any mood.
Check out the cover of Daniel Johnston's 'King Kong', genius.

Oh before I lose my self in some Waitsian wet dream lets all remember he was in 'Mystery Men', hang your head in shame Tom :(
 
"..i scream, you scream, we scream for i scream(ice cream)" :)

Down by law -
marvelous movie.

You should also check out "night on earth", it has waits music in almost every
episode and RobertoBenigni is so godamn funny as a taxidriver(imbecille!).
 

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