Tom Waits’ True Confessions

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

A:1. Real beauty: oil stains left by cars in a parking lot.
2. Shoeshine stand that looked like thrones in Brazil made of scrap wood.
3. False teeth in pawnshop windows in Reno, Nevada.
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 Texas 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: New York City.
15. A judge in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1890 presided over a trial where a man who was accused of murder and was guilty — convicted by a jury of his peers — 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’s heaven for you?

A: Me and my wife on Rte. 66 with a pot of coffee, a cheap guitar, pawnshop tape recorder in a Motel 6, and a car that runs good parked right by the door.

Read the rest of the interview here at Russh.