was just browsing through surfer Joe Curren’s blog:  

http://www.joecurren.blogspot.com/

 

and found this great Q&A with Tom Waits.

i found his answers to be pretty amazing, so thought i’d share.

oh, and check out Joe’s great photos from his surf travels.  he has a book called ONE that

comes in an incredible hand made wooden sleeve by Joe himself.

 

Words Of Wisdom From Tom Waits

 

Q: What remarkable things have you found in unexpected places?

A:

1. Real beauty: oil stains left by cars in a parking lot.

2. Shoe shine stand that looked like thrones in Brazil made of scrap wood.

3. False teeth in pawnshop windows-Reno, NV

4. Great acoustics: in jail.

5. Best food: Airport in Tulsa Oklahoma.

6. Most gift shops: Fatima, Portugal.

8. Most unlikely location for a Chicano crowd: A Morrissey concert.

9. Most poverty: Washington D.C.

10 A homeless man with a beautiful operatic voice singing the word “Bacteria” in an empty dumpster in Chinatown.

11. A Chinese man with a Texan accent in Scotland.

12. Best nights sleep-in a dry riverbed in Arizona.

13. Most people who wear red pants- St. Louis.

14. Most beautiful horses, N.Y.C.

15. A judge in Baltimore MD1890 presided over a trial where a man who was accused of murder and was guilty, and convicted by a jury of his peers… and was let go- when the judge said to him at the end of the trial “You are guilty sir… but I cannot put in jail an innocent man.” You see - the murderer was a Siamese twin.

16. Largest penis (in proportion to its body)- The Barnacle

 

Q: What do you wonder about?

A:

1. Do bullets know whom they are intended for?

2. Is there a plug in the bottom of the ocean?

3. What do jockeys say to their horses?

4. How does a newspaper feel about winding up papier-mâché?

5. How does it feel to be a tree by a freeway?

6. Sometimes a violin sounds like a Siamese cat; the first violin strings were made from cat gut- any connection?

7. When is the world going to rear up and scrape us off its back?

8. Will we humans eventually intermarry with robots?

9. Is a diamond just a piece of coal with patience?

10. Did Ella Fitzgerald really break that wine glass with her voice?

 

Q: What are some sounds you like?

A:

1. An asymmetrical airline carousel created a high pitched haunted voice brought on by the friction of rubbing and it sounded like a big wet finger circling the rim of a gigantic wine glass.

2. Street corner evangelists

3. Pile drivers in Manhattan

4. My wife’s singing voice

5. Horses coming/trains coming

6. Children when school’s out

7. Hungry crows

8. Orchestra tuning up

9. Saloon pianos in old westerns

10. Rollercoaster

11. Headlights hit by a shotgun

12. Ice melting

13. Printing presses

14. Ball game on a transistor radio

15. Piano lessons coming from an apartment window

16. Old cash registers/Ca Ching

17. Muscle cars

18. Tap dancers

19. Soccer crowds in Argentina

20. Beatboxing

21. Fog horns

22. A busy restaurant kitchen

23. Newsrooms in old movies

24. Elephants stampeding

25. Bacon frying

26. Marching bands

27. Clarinet lessons

28. Victrola

29. A fight bell

30. Chinese arguments

31. Pinball machines

32. Children’s orchestras

33. Trolley bell

34. Firecrackers

35. A Zippo lighter

36. Calliopes

37. Bass steel drums

38. Tractors

39. Stroh Violin

40. Muted trumpet

41. Tobacco Auctioneers

42. Musical saw

43. Theremin

44. Pigeons

45. Seagulls

46. Owls

47. Mockingbirds

48. Doves

The world’s making music all the time.

 

Q: What’s scary to you?

A:

1. A dead man in the backseat of a car with a fly crawling on his eyeball.

2. Turbulence on any airline.

3. Sirens and search lights combined.

4. Gunfire at night in bad neighborhoods.

5. Car motor turning over but not starting, its getting dark and starting to rain.

6. Jail door closing.

7. Going around a sharp curve on the Pacific Coast Highway and the driver of your car has had a heart attack and died, and you’re in the back seat.

8. You are delivering mail and you are confronted with a Doberman with rabies growling low and showing teeth…you have no dog bones and he wants to bite your ass off.

9. In a movie…which wire do you cut to stop the time bomb, the green or the blue.

10. Mc Cain will win.

11. Germans with submachine guns.

12. Officers, in offices, being official.

13. You fell through the ice in the creek and it carried you down stream, and now as you surface you realize there’s a roof of ice.

  

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 07:40 and is filed under q & a, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.