Tom Waits

Got a friend who wakes every morning
Sticks a pin in a finger just to get a drop of blood
Shoves needles in his stomach
Looks like a junkie in a public park, slowing killing himself
Does it all just to stay alive
Damn, that takes guts, in this day and age

Writes free verse
Turned me onto Tom Waits.
Told me stories I wouldn't believe from anybody else
Wants to be a....
Wants to be a....
Well heck. There's an oddity.

Aren't we all supposed to want to be something?
A doctor, a lawyer, a musician, someone famous, someone who makes a lot of money.
Wow. I knew him. Now he drives a Porsche.
Heck, when you've ridden on an elephant in India, who cares about a Porsche.
This guy knows that a good diner beats the Hard Rock Cafe hands down.
And he knows where this really good one is, just a few miles off of I-80.
In some godforsaken town I never even heard of before.

And I throw another Tom Waits CD in my player and check out the liner notes.
Maybe I even hit the web site.
Oh wow, he was in that Dracula Movie.
Yeah, but who the heck is he anyway.
Even if you heard of him, heard him, read him, seen him, and thought you understood him.
Did you know him? Know the secrets behind each little verse.

I know a guy crazy enough to drive across Nebraska just to see what we've never seen
Even though we don't even know if it's there.
Flew to England to get English food
Only to find it again just a few miles from his house.
Ate chocolate Jesuses in Brazil.
And brought some home for the rest of us.
Writes love poems about Dolly Madison and the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Bizarre tales of Cows and Pork Rinds.
But I know the secrets behind each verse.
I know the story of the box of chocolates that sat in his closet because he thought that they would kill him.
I know about the girl he loves, and why, much more than she ever will.

I may never know Tom Waits.
Truth is, it doesn't matter.
I know someone infinitely cooler.