So I hate Tom Waits.  I realize this makes me some sort of hipster pariah, and among my friends, when I admit to this it illicits murderous stares and incredulous gasps.  But I cannot stand him.  I do not understand the allure of his horrible voice that sounds more like an alcoholic, chain-smoking auctioneer than a singer.  Sorry.  And this is not helped by the fact that Tom Waits basically served as the soundtrack to my freshman year of college.  Apparently, every establishment and home in 95-96 in Austin, TX was tuned to the “Tom Waits station”.  So when people say, “you haven’t given him a chance.”  I say, “by this point, I’ve surely heard at least a good representative sampling of his work.”  But something entirely freaky just happened.  KEXP (kexp.org, check it out if you haven’t, it has the best music on the web), played “Hoist that Rag” by Mr. Waits.  They haven’t played this song in a few months, but for a while there, they played it at least 3 times a day, I swear.  I hated it.  But because it was more trouble to take off my headphones than to leave them on, I usually wound up listening to it.  But I hated it.  Then, today, a disturbing thing happened.  The song came on, and I really needed to get up and get something but I DIDN’T WANT TO TAKE MY HEADPHONES OFF!  I found myself listening, nay, gasp, enjoying “Hoist that Rag”!    So Mr. Waits, I guess you have had the last gravelly laugh.  But I’m not going to start chain smoking and hanging out at Starseeds again, no sir!

Oh, according to John on KEXP, apparently today is Tom Waits’ birthday.  He’s 400 years old, which you probably didn’t know.  And apparently he’s a Highlander, you have to cut off his head to destroy him.  Little known fact.