W IS FOR "WILD BUNCH" & "WAITS"

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Read the easy-to-follow assembly instructions
Batteries not included
Send before midnight tomorrow, terms available
Step right up, step right up, step right up

You got it buddy:
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away
Step right up, you can step right up, you can step right up
C'mon, step right up
[Get away from me kid, you bother me...]

GOOD STUFFS
W IS FOR “WILD BUNCH” :

To refer to “THE WILD BUNCH” as one of the greatest Western movies ever made is to do it a great injustice; no qualifying allowed. It is one of the finest films ever created in ANY genre!

Evaluating THE WILD BUNCH objectively in terms of narrative force, characterization, direction, scope, suspense, and pure excitement, it is unsurpassed in the pantheon of Western films – the “Citizen Kane” of Westerns.

Directed by SAM PECKINPAH in 1969, the story takes place primarily in Mexico during the revolution of 1913.

Foreshadowing: Scorpion Symbolism . . .
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"If they move, kill them!" . . .
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Adultery and lost love . . .
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"You egg-sucking, chicken-stealing gutter trash!
We're after MEN, and I wish to God I was with them" . . .
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"Let's go." . . .
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Four crazy gringos comin' to kick butt and raise hell! . . .
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To: Germany - From: America, baby! . . .
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To read my full-length, politically incorrect review of ‘The Wild Bunch’, click on the McLink at the bottom of this Blog Bit.

BAD STUFFS
W IS FOR “WARTHOG WOMENS” :
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Uhm . . . no, wait. I wanna “Do-Over”.
I don’t wanna write about Warthog Womens.

BAD STUFFS
W IS FOR . . .
“WASTED ON WHISKEY & WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE” :
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Whoa! I can’t write about this. Who am I kidding? I ain’t never been wasted on whiskey; I’ve never touched the stuffs. As the young woman said: “I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brain.” Now wasted on Worcestershire Sauce – that’s a different story. But I don’t wanna talk about it. And don’t mention it to Mama; she’s trying to forget about it. So, can I have a second mulligan?

BAD STUFFS
W IS FOR “WAITS” :
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Ahh, now THIS porridge is just right!
Singer/songwriter Tom Waits was born in Southern California in 1949. In my opinion (which, of course, reigns supreme on this Blog), Waits established himself as the greatest lyricist of all time from the years 1973 through 1982.

Those early years saw Waits develop the stage persona of a Bluesy, Jazzy, gin-soaked Beat poet – a sort of “poor man’s Jack Kerouac” (now that’s kinda funny if you know what a poor man Jack Kerouac was!)

Tom Waits over Bob Dylan in the Lyrics department? Is that really what I’m saying? Yeah. It is. Why? Well, it’s probably a safe assumption that had Dylan not come before to light the path, there would have been no Tom Waits as we knew him. In 1965, with the release of ‘Bringing It All Back Home’, Bob Dylan reinvented songwriting. He heightened the potential for social awareness in music while at the same time introducing a refreshing, abstract poetic flare to lyrics. In a way, he kind of creatively exploded with a display of linguisitc gymnastics never seen before and rarely if ever seen since. And some of his lyric lines were adopted as slogans which spoke for his generation. We can’t say the same about Tom Waits.

However, Waits had an incredible way with words, an ability to turn a phrase that really “Wows!” the listener. And there was a certain pathos in some of Tom’s songs that Dylan couldn’t match. I can’t imagine Dylan ever writing something as tender as ‘San Diego Serenade’, ‘Kentucky Avenue’ or ‘On The Nickel’. The only time Dylan ever came even remotely within range of that sort of personal genuineness and evoked a sense of empathy was with his great breakup album ‘Blood On The Tracks’. Even then, it was all about HIM, but we just happen to be able to relate to those feelings; we've all loved and lost.

Had Tom Waits never written anything but ‘Emotional Weather Report’ I would still be calling him a genius! What a brilliant, imaginative idea: a “Lost Love” song seen from a TV weatherman’s viewpoint! Ha! Here are just three verses with my own clarifying remarks in brackets. His woman has left him and here’s the forecast:

When the thunder storms start increasing over the Southeast
And South Central portions of my apartment, I get upset
. . .
With tornado watches issued shortly before noon Sunday
For the areas including the Western region of my mental health
. . .
Well, the extended outlook for an indefinite period of time
Until you come back to me, baby, is:
High tonight [*drunk*]
Low tomorrow [*blue*]
And precipitation [*crying*] is expected.

Another super-clever idea Waits came up with was to build a song around overused advertising cliches. All of the strange, out-of-place sayings in red that I opened up each of my April A To Z Blog Bits with came from the Waits song ‘Step Right Up.’

Let me share with ya a small selection of some other favorite Tom Waits lyrics from a variety of 1973 to '82 songs:

‘Cause every time I hear that melody
Something breaks inside

You know the bartenders
They all know my name
And they catch me when I’m pullin’ up lame

I admit that I ain’t no angel, I admit that I ain’t no saint
I’m selfish and I’m cruel but you’re blind
If I exorcise my devils, well, my angels may leave too
And when they leave they’re so hard to find

I’m across town from ‘Easy Street’
. . .
Used car salesmen dressed up in Purina checkerboard slacks

It’s fast women, slower horses, I’m “reliable sources”

She’s a moving violation from her conk down to her shoes
But it’s just an invitation to the blues

Well, I got a bad liver and a broken heart
Yeah, I drunk me a river since you tore me apart
And I don’t have a drinking problem
‘Cept when I can’t get a drink
. . .
She was sharp as a razor
And soft as a prayer

Well, I’ve lost my equilibrium
And my car keys and my pride

She took out her barrettes
And her hair spilled out like root beer

I’m disheveled and I’m disdainful
And I’m distracted and it’s painful

He… caught the cruel and unusual punishment of her smile

I was born in a taxi cab
I’m never goin’ home
. . .
What you think is the sunshine is just a twinkle in my eye

Broken bicycles, old busted chains
With rusted handlebars out in the rain
Somebody must have an orphanage for
All these things that nobody wants anymore
September’s reminding July
It’s time to be saying goodbye
Summer is gone, but our love will remain
Like old broken bicycles out in the rain

That’s just getting warmed up; there are so many other great song lyrics that Tom Waits composed from 1973 through ’82 that I could go on here for quite awhile. If I had to select just one Waits tune as a favorite lyricwise, I’d have to go with ‘San Diego Serenade’, but that one needs to be read in its entirety. Here’s a link if you want to do that: Tom’s Best? (Heck, you can even hear the song played if you have computer speakers hooked up.)

OK, so now you must be asking yourself: If Stephen thinks Tom Waits is the best, most quotable songwriter in history, why has he placed him under the “Bad Stuffs” category?

Good question. And here’s your answer: Beginning with his third album release, the live recording ‘Nighthawks At The Diner’ in 1975, Tom Waits began wearing this fake voice. Prior to that he had a masculine baritone, but suddenly from out of nowhere everything he “sang” was with a gravel pit guttural bass that was obviously a put-on. I think he was just trying to intensify that skid row character he was pretending to be. Even so, I still own and play four of his albums from that period because some of the songs were so good and the lyrics were so great that Im willing to overlook “the voice”.

But then, after composing and recording the terrific soundtrack for the movie ‘One From The Heart’ in 1982, Tom Waits remolded himself again. This time he dropped the Bluesy, Jazzy, gin-soaked Beat poet persona and became Marvelous Mervo the circus clown. Still wearing the phony voice, he now focused on writing songs about, not loveable losers but rather, freakish characters. Gone was the fun personality, the warmth and most of the humor, replaced by weird, atonal melodies and cat-bones-on-tin-cans percusssion. The “music” was as hard to listen to as the album covers were hard to look at. ‘Swordfishtrombones’, ‘Rain Dogs’, ‘Frank’s Wild Years’? I can’t even look at them without feeling like maybe I should see a doctor and have him check the health of my manhood!

With apologies to my dear friend The Flying Aardvark, whom I know is a big fan of Tom’s ‘The Bone Machine’, I gotta say that with a rare exception here and there, post-’82 Waits I find to be unlistenable. For instance, other than the song ‘Hang On, Saint Christopher’, which I kinda-sorta like, the album ‘Frank’s Wild Years’ is nothing but racket! I don’t think I could “sing” that bad if I tried (and I ain’t no singer).

Waits still has a notable cult following amongst the college crowd but what the hell do college kids know? If they knew stuffs they wouldn’t still be in school! I suspect that people who claim to listen to ‘Frank’s Wild Years’ for pleasure are just fooling themselves. (Look, collegeboy, it ain’t “cool” to torture your ears!)

My friend The Great L.C. and I both think that Tom Waits represents the biggest waste of God-given talent ever! EVER! This guy had an outrageous, jealousy-inducing, over-the-top musical gift that I would have begged, borrowed and stole for, and he went and pee’d it all away to become a cheap carnival sideshow character with a fake voice writing about mad hatters in Singapore. Sheesh! Well, it was HIS gift to do with as he chose, but when I think of the number of classic songs he could have written over the last three decades, but didn’t, it makes me ill.

Most of Tom’s stuffs after ‘One From The Heart’ deserves ‘Sixteen Shells From A Thirty-Ought-Six’. However, the stuffs that came before makes me ‘Clap Hands’.

‘Clap Hands’, incidentally, is one of those few post-’82 Tom Tunes that I do happen to like. Some days Marvelous Mervo still gets lucky.

McLink:
WHY "THE WILD BUNCH" IS A CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE

Le McQuotes Du Jour:
I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
~ Booker T. Washington

Good intention will always be pleaded for every assumption of power. ... It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.
~ Daniel Webster

~ Stephen T. McCarthy
Doggtor of Semiliterate, Half-Naked Blogological Studies
Stream O’Consciousness University in Whoville, Wississippi

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YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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