Tom Waits: What Good Writing Is Meant To Do

"The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. It cheapens and degrades the human experience, when it should inspire and elevate."

--Tom Waits

(From a 2001 Vanity Fair article . . . featuring an interview between Tom Waits and J.T. LeRoy:
"Strange Innocence".)

Zevon: "All The Salty Margaritas In Los Angeles"

DESPERADOES UNDER THE EAVES

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was staring in my empty coffee cup
I was thinking that the gypsy wasn't lyin'
All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
I'm gonna drink 'em up

And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill

Don't the sun look angry through the trees
Don't the trees look like crucified thieves
Don't you feel like desperadoes under the eaves
Heaven help the one who leaves

Still waking up in the mornings with shaking hands
And I'm trying to find a girl who understands me
But except in dreams you're never really free
Don't the sun look angry at me

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel
I was listening to the air conditioner hum
It went mmm... mmm...mmmm...mmmm
Look away
(Look away down Gower Avenue, look away)

--Warren Zevon

The lyrics to that favorite song from that early album.