"My dad was the stage manager at a venue where Tom Waits was performing. The show started with him driving a beautiful restored Chevrolet onto the stage..."

"... and it was kind of a set piece there during the performance, to such a degree that Mr. Waits completely forgot the keys were in his pocket when he left.... [M]y dad got the surreal privilege of spending an evening driving around to every bar in Chicago that he could think of looking for the guy so they could get the car off the stage. This is how my father taught me that that if you hop dive bars long enough into a Saturday night, you will eventually - maybe inevitabley - come upon Tom Waits. He will give you the keys to a '55 Chevy Bel Air, and he will also buy you a drink for your trouble."

Comments by Phobos the Space Potato at on a Metafilter thread titled "New spoken word track by Tom Waits."

Here's that track:

Why not eat 11 doughnuts?

This is so insane

“Crumbl Cookies is now selling a cookie with the amount of sugar you would get, not in 1, not in 5, BUT 11 of these Krispy Kreme donuts”

This one cookie has 69 ingredients including one that crosses the blood brain barrier

How is this legal?? pic.twitter.com/ygUcmxo6n2

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 8, 2026

This made me think about the old expression "That's the way the cookie crumbles." The OED traces that expression to 1955, when a Cincinnati Enquirer columnist, Ollie M. James, wrote: "Well, as we say in the publishing business, sometimes that is the way the cookie crumbles." It was perceived at the time as a cute variation on "That's the way the ball bounces." I remember the late '50s excitement over "cookie crumbles" and other variations on the old "ball bounces." But the only other variation I can remember is "That's the way the grapefruit squirts."

Here's Tom Waits, "That's the Way." He remembers:

"What's he doing in there?"

Video by Meade, on the shore of Lake Mendota, today in the afternoon. We don't know what that man was doing out there in the water. Perhaps limnology. 

Later, I had no idea Meade was making this video of me, traipsing about in the forest:

 

"Most of us have gone on some sort of spiritual or existential odyssey in the last 19 months. Some were André, burning it all down..."

"... in the name of growth (and broadcasting it to anyone who would listen). Others were Wally, hiding under electric blankets, an anodyne to the suffering of the world because 'our lives are tough enough as it is.' Most of us were both — self-aware enough to know what’s coming but not yet brave enough to get out. Over a digestif, André concedes that his experimental antics have gotten old in the same way his past life has, and he has ended up with more questions and torment than before. His struggles to find meaning have been in vain, like interrogating an unexamined life, or a forever war or a plague. When the check arrives, André pays, Wally splurges on a cab home and nothing is resolved. No moralizing or grand resolutions — just malaise, the kind you’re left with after you meet up with an old friend who talks about himself the entire time."

From "'My Dinner With André' at 40: Still Serving Hot Takes The film was a feature-length conversation. And it is still stirring up plenty of chatter today" by Mariella Rudi (NYT). 

The movie — my favorite movie — premiered 40 years ago yesterday. I don't watch movies that often these days, but I did watch 2 movies in the last 2 days, which I rarely do. One was a movie that gives me a similiar experience to "André": "Coffee and Cigarettes." The other could be compared to "André" in that it's about the loss of the soul in a world of media: "To Die For."

ADDED: In the closing credits to "Coffee and Cigarettes," we hear Iggy Pop's version of "Louie Louie," which contains the line: "Turn on the news/It looks like a movie/It makes you want to sing/'Louie Louie.'" Iggy appears on one segment of the movie, consuming coffee and cigarettes with Tom Waits. Both men have quit smoking, and the celebrate quitting by having a smoke. 

The last thing you see in the credits is "Long live Joe Strummer." I had to google to try to understand what that was about. I don't really know, but I found this:

 

And this — from a 2019 interview with the director, Jim Jarmusch:

You cast musicians frequently in your films and one of my favorite bits of casting is Joe Strummer in 1989’s Mystery Train. What drew you to Joe Strummer as “Elvis”? 

Joe Strummer is a friend of mine, someone I deeply admire. He’s quite an interesting actor, he’s very focused. He and I were sort of like brothers in a way. Joe Strummer, in the most minimal way, taught me one of the most valuable things I’ve ever learned about human expression. That is what all of Strummer’s friends know as “Strummer’s Law,” these four words: no input, no output. You see that in The Clash, you see that in their openness to rockabilly, to reggae, to soul music, to hip-hop. You know, see that openness. In that way, The Clash are the antithesis of the Sex Pistols, who were super great in their style of reduction down to the essence. The Clash were open … like “Throw open the doors, see what the wind blows in on us.” Strummer was a very important person in my life. He’s someone who I miss a lot. I try to ask him advice sometimes, even now, and see what channels back to me. A remarkable person. I was so honored to know him.

Ah. Joe Strummer died in December 2002. "Coffee and Cigarettes" came out in 2003. Elvis died in 1977.

"I talk in the book about thinking about playing 'Imagine.' But that wasn’t the right one."

"I needed to play something from a great songwriter that had an emotion that wasn’t about violence, but that also contained grief. Tom Waits has the line, 'So close your eyes, son, this won’t hurt a bit.'"

Said Tori Amos, asked about performing Tom Waits’s song “Time” when she was the first musical guest to play on David Letterman's show after the 9/11 attacks. She is quoted in "Tori Amos Believes the Muses Can Help//A conversation about music, politics, and what you learn about America from being on the road" (in The New Yorker).



Here are the lyrics to "Time." Consider the process of thinking twice about playing "Imagine" and coming up with "Time." That was back on September 18, 2001. Now, as celebrities ineptly return to "Imagine" for our coronavirus pain, it's worth reflecting on Tori Amos's alternative, "Time."

Here's her new memoir, "Resistance."

"[Film] critic Sheila O’Malley wrote about the phenomenon of 'back-ting,' in which an actor is turned away from the audience...."

"'To this day, I am fascinated by moments when actors turn their backs on the camera. It is actor as storyteller, actor as auteur.' Rewatching... Fight Club, I was surprised by just how many moments of back-ting there were, the most mesmerizing of which occurs in an early scene, when the eponymous club is just starting to gain traction. Tyler Durden (Pitt) is simply walking through a bar to the tune of 'Going Out West' by Tom Waits."



"But in this singular moment, we can see, even from behind, that Tyler has what the unnamed narrator played by Edward Norton lacks: unbridled, unending confidence and a clarity of self. 'All the ways you wish you could be, that’s me' Tyler says later, sitting with the stillness of a coiled snake that’s waiting to strike."

From "Every Brad Pitt Movie Performance, Ranked A closer look at the Oscar-nominated actor’s body of work" by Angelica Jade Bastién (who goes to a lot of trouble)(in Vulture).

In case you're wondering, "Fight Club" is ranked #6. #1 is not "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," the 2019 movie for which Pitt received an Oscar nomination. That is #3. #2 is another 2019 movie, "Ad Astra." And #1 is "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (from 2007)

Anyway... "back-ting"... that amused me. And it fits with today's mini-theme, hyphens (here and here). If you'd coined the word, would you have written "bacting" or "backting" instead of "back-ting"? It's hard to do portmanteau words, and here you need to find a way to make readers see "back" and "act," with the "k" and the "t" in some weird conflict. Worth it though! Because acting while turned away from the camera is something you have to think of noticing.

Ah! Here's the original Sheila O'Malley column, "Back-ting." Excerpt:

"Speaking of Trump, I notice he has been channeling Tom Waits."

Writes Amadeus 48 (in the comments, here). He quotes this Tom Waits song:

He's got the fire and the fury at his command
But you don't have to worry, just hold onto Jesus' hand.
We'll all be safe from Satan when the thunder rolls.
We just gotta help me keep the devil way down in the hole.

I think both men were channeling the Old Testament:

Isaiah 42:25 So he poured upon him the heat of his anger and the fury of war; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him, but he did not take it to heart.

Isaiah 66:15 For the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to pay back his anger in fury, and his rebuke in flames of fire.

Lamentations 2:4 He has bent his bow like an enemy, with his right hand set like a foe; he has killed all in whom we took pride in the tent of daughter Zion; he has poured out his fury like fire.

Ezekiel 19:12 But it was plucked up in fury, cast down to the ground; the east wind dried it up; its fruit was stripped off, its strong stem was withered; the fire consumed it.

Ezekiel 23:25 I will direct my indignation against you, in order that they may deal with you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and your survivors shall fall by the sword. They shall seize your sons and your daughters, and your survivors shall be devoured by fire.

And the New Testament:

Hebrews 10:26-37 For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.... For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

ADDED: Possibly related: An op-ed in today's NYT titled "Christianity Does Not Justify Trump’s ‘Fire and Fury.'" I didn't realize anyone had been arguing that, and I'd just noticed that "fury of fire" in the New Testament. The author, Steven Paulikas, is an Episcopal priest in Park Slope (Brooklyn, NY).

Apparently, a Baptist minister (Robert Jeffress) had asserted that God gave Trump the power to "take out" Kim Jong-Un. Paulikas finds that "shockingly uninformed and dangerous." Jeffress stressed Paul's statement (in Romans 13) that existing governmental authorities are instituted by God. Paulikas stresses the next thing Paul says: "love one another" and "the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."

There has been discussion about whether the president’s bold words on Kim were improvised or part of a strategy to push China into cracking down on North Korea. Jeffress’s comments reveal a third dimension: a corrupted theology that could supply a misguided moral thrust to the president’s potential course of action. Seen in this light, the vision of “fire and fury” should be taken very seriously and at face value, an apocalyptic statement resulting from a highly unorthodox theology with no basis in the Bible.

Shy crushed pulled-in Hillary, working for you every moment of every day and why don't see how fun and warm she really is?

The NYT reports on Cher's speech at a very Cher-friendly fundraiser in Provincetown, Massachusetts. And I watched the full video here and did my own transcription.

Cher is talking about getting to know Hillary through much experience doing teas with her, and Cher says she told Hillary, "You are so much fun and you are so warm and you are all these things I've never seen when you speak."

Cher asked Hillary why and, as Cher tells it:

She said because she got so crushed — I hope she doesn't mind my telling this story — too late now!— and she said because she got so crushed by the G.O.P., just for trying to set up health care, and she never thought it would be so personal, and she said it made her kind of pull in and she's shy, so it was difficult, and so she kind of kept that with her, but, you know, she is shy, and she's not the greatest speaker in the world, but...and this is what I believe, and this is what I know: She will work every moment of every day.... This chick is just tougher than Chinese algebra.

So she's tougher than Chinese algebra, but she got so crushed when the GOP opposed her health care plan. Which is it? Maybe she's tough in private, after she kind of pulls in. She's so shy and kind of kept that with her. Kept what with her? That crushed, pulled in feeling that she got when Congress didn't go along with that plan she worked so hard on?

She might not be that good at speaking, but she'll pull back into herself and work every moment of every day. Work work work! She may not talk too much — and we know she won't take questions from the press. It's just so crushing when they don't go along with everything she worked so hard on. But she will pull in and turn that crushing into hours and hours of work work work and if only you really knew her, as Cher does, you would know she's so much fun and so warm and... all these things.

But let's take a closer look at that Chinese algebra. Is that racist? Is that sexist? Math class is tough...



... as Barbie said long ago, outraging feminists. And I guess you throw "Chinese" on top of that and get some kind of reference to the stereotype that Chinese students are especially good at math. Why carelessly throw "Chinese" around to try to be funny?

But Cher didn't put those 2 words together all on her own. "Chinese algebra" is enough of an expression that it has an Urban Dictionary definition going all the way back to 2003: "a hard type of math." But I don't know if it was ever used to talk about math. It seems all along to have been a way to talk about erections. It looks as though the original use of the word was from Tom Waits, back in 1976, "Pasties And A G-String":

She's a-hot and ready, creamy and sugared
And the band is awful and so are the tunes
Crawlin' on her belly, and shakin' like jelly
And I'm gettin' harder than Chinese algebra-ssieres...

So Cher thinks Hillary is as hard as Tom Waits watching an erotic dancer. But shy, too! Very very shy. Shy and crushed and pulled in. It's so difficult! So keep it all deep within you and work — work every moment of every day.

Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper, Dr. John, Darlene Love, Tom Waits.

New inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Passed over this year: Bon Jovi, LL Cool J, the J. Geils Band, the Beastie Boys, Donna Summer.

But as "Rock Hall says no; White House says yes":

The humble band from Sayreville will not be among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees... In brighter news, President Barack Obama on Tuesday named Jon Bon Jovi, a staunch Democratic supporter, to the White House Council for Community Solutions....

Bon Jovi, who performed during Obama's inaugural concert, heads the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, a nonprofit group working to alleviate poverty and homelessness across the U.S. The White House cited the rocker's work with that foundation as a reason for the appointment.

Who's more authentic Tom Waits/Bob Dylan or Britney Spears?

Musician Jack White thinks out loud:

"I don't know if Tom Waits and Bob Dylan are as authentic as I think they are. Perhaps they're not."

..."Sometimes you start thinking that maybe Britney Spears or someone like that who's doing exactly what they want to do in the way that they best know how, is more authentic than any of those people you could mention."

Think about it.