Tom Waits saves cigarette coupons. Moths fly from his change purse.
The
keys fall off his piano. Business as usual.
Tosca, Tuesday, late, Columbus near Broadway,
San Francisco. This is a
fine bar, a lovely bar, loud but not too loud. The jukebox plays
scratchy
opera music. Francis Coppola is in back where the tables and booths
are.
He's listening to Lauren Hutton tell a story and when he laughs, so does
everybody else. Sam Shepard stands up from his stool at the bar to
pay his
tab. His MasterCard falls to the floor, unnoticed except by the redhead
standing nearby. She puts her foot on top of it and carries on her
conversation. Shepard leaves. Lauren Hutton leaves. Coppola
and his
people leave. Almost everybody leaves. The bartender works
a rag across
the bar, and in the doorway behind him we see someone who looks just like
Tom Waits. He peers in, squints, rubbing his head. A cigarette
butt,
stepped on but still glowing, trails smoke across the floor, left to right.
He steps through the smoke and goes to the jukebox, searches. He
finds a
quarter in his pants, punches buttons. A tenor yelps. It's
"Nessum dorma,"
from Puccini's 'Turandot.'
A pink paper cocktail umbrella, the kind that
sprouts at the rims of
colorful tropical drinks, blows across the floor at the foot of the stage,
left to right, blown by an invisible wind.
Tom Waits wear black tie and tails, red socks,
and railroad boots. A
big barrel-bellied woman sits next to him, one leg draped over his knee.
She's wearing a red flamenco dress and a black mantilla, and her name is
Val
Diamond. She has eyeballs painted on her eyelids. She can see
you with her
eyes open; she watches you with her eyes closed. Polaroids are scattered
on
the stage at their feet.
TOM: I don't understand golf.
VAL: (mutters sympathetically)
TOM: It needs to have more sex. (Gleaming lightbulb appears
directly over
his head.) Night golf!
VAL: Somebody won a lot of money golfing recently.
TOM: They get more money than boxers.
VAL: That doesn't seem right.
TOM: It doesn't seem right. Somebody gets beat up for an hour
and somebody
else hits a ball into a hole. Doesn't seem right.
From the floor, the DIRECTOR watches them through a
little black lens,
through his director's viewfinder. He hands the viewfinder to his
assistant
and walks off. The assistant stares carefully through the lens.
Tom's
zipper is at half mast.
It's dawn. Bats are hurrying back to
the belfry, and below, one hand
on the rope that rings the bell, Ken Nordine waits. Nordine, the
word-jazzed Voice of God as heard on Levi's commercials, has something
he
wants to say. This time it's Tom Waits' words and Ken Nordine's voice;
sometimes it's the other way around. Here's how to tell: Tom
Waits' voice
sounds like he gargles with gravel; Ken Nordine's sounds like he's
selling
three truckloads of soft margarine in handy reusable plastic tubs.
There is
no Devil (for our purposes here, at least), just God when he's drunk.
Ken
Nordine, God as we understand Him (for our purposes here), is not inebriated
in the least, but he's willing to act (for our purposes here). He
has
something he'd like to say.
KEN NORDINE: (gritty voice) It's like Jack Nicholson said to me one time
-
Continuity is for sissies.
We're in a nightclub, an empty nightclub.
A nearly empty nightclub,
with a camera crew setting up in the back. Ken Nordine's butter-flavored
voice is the only light.
KEN NORDINE: For our purposes here, perhaps some explanation is in
order.
Perhaps not. Welcome, in any case, to Miss Keiko's Chi Chi Club.
We see the stage now, bulbs flashing in sequence
across the proscenium.
KEN NORDINE: Proscenium. Butter-flavored proscenium.
We see Tom Waits in a tuxedo, slumped in a chair
at the center of the
stage.
KEN NORDINE: We have a purpose here. We are filming a video
here, a video
to accompany the tune "Blow Wind Blow," from Tom Waits' new album,
Frank's
Wild Years.
As Nordine speaks, we see Waits rise from his
slump (as it were) and
sit stiffly upright. His lips move precisely in time with Nordine's
words,
and his arms deliver florid gestures.
KEN NORDINE: But Frank's Wild Years is not merely an album.
Frank's Wild
Years is also a play, a stage production. Frank's Wild Years is two...
Val and Tom are holding breath mints in front
of them. They click the
packages together carefully.
KEN NORDINE: ...two mints in one. And the video from in one.
And the
video from "Blow Wind Blow" is not merely a scene from the play,
but an
all-new and improved product -product - production. Tom is Frank,
as it
were, or perhaps he isn't, but in any case, he's a ventriloquist.
He casts
his voice into the rest of the cast. And the rest of the cast is
ably
portrayed by Val Diamond and a prosthetic leg. Prosthetic.
Waits reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls
out a pack of those
personal details that reveal so much about a character's character.
He
smokes pre-war Lucky Strikes in the Raymond Loewy-designed green pack.
Or
Chesterfields, named after W.C. Fields' favorite son. In truth, they're
Raleighs, and he takes a dramatic drag off the cigarette, makes nonchalant
expressions as he holds it in, then looks off in another direction as Val,
the ventriloquist's dummy, exhales a white cloud. Waits takes the
pack,
crumples it, flicks it into the wastebasket hidden in the wings.
A pause,
another pause, and then he leaps up, dumping Val to the floor, and we see
him bent over the wastebasket, digging around for the cigarette pack.
He
finds it, tears a square off the back.
TOM: (turns to the camera) I save coupons.
He sits back down. His lips keep moving.
KEN NORDINE: In truth, he doesn't smoke anymore. That would
be too much
like the old Tom Waits. And the old Tom Waits is over, done with,
defunct,
finito. Aesthetically, at least. He made his bed and he slept
in it until
it was past checkout time. Writings songs about dead-end kids on
dead-end
streets became a dead-end street. Damon Runyon demaded royalties.
Waits is making nonchalant expressions up on the
stage. Val is staring
baleful and blue-eyed, her eyelids clamped shut.
KEN NORDINE: And yet here we are in a nightclub, a nearly empty nightclub.
Have you noticed the postage-stamp cocktail tables? The chains of
garter
snaps that decorate the walls? The black Naugahyde banquette booths?
Once
upon a time, this was Ann's 440 Club, where Lenny Bruce got that illustrious
start of his. Ah, but that was along ago, and for more than 20 years
this
has been Miss Keiko's Chi Chi Club. Welcome. Have you meet
Miss Keiko yet?
A yellow spotlight comes on in the back of the
club, illuminating a
black and white photo. A signature in black felt-tip pen reads, "Miss
Keiko
- 1969." She stands forever on the toes of one foot, gazing
over her
shoulder, lifting her long dark hair above her bare back. Her costume
is
brief, her breasts are tassel-tipped projectiles. Tom Waits stands
nearby,
appraising the photograph.
TOM: (gravel-voiced) If I was a girl, I'd want to look like that.
Francis Coppola's sergeant-at-arms drops by to
let Waits know that
Francis is dining next door at Enrico's. He's willing to wait until
the
video crew takes a lunch break if Tom would care to come over and talk.
There's a part for him in an upcoming project. Waits is sitting at
the Chi
Chi Club bar with a guy called Biff, waiting for the crew to set up the
shot. Miss Keiko gazes down at them from over her shoulder.
TOM: Vegas. She worked the big rooms in Vegas. You know,
I saw a guy go
down with a heart attack at a crap table, and his wife was pounding on
his
chest, and the pit boss said, "New shooter coming up."
I swear to God.
KEN NORDINE: (sounding godlike) Search me. Sounds like it could be true.
TOM: New dice, new shooter, keep it moving. Cold. Cold-blooded.
BIFF: How far away were you?
TOM: I was the new shooter.
BIFF: Were you wealthy when you left the table?
TOM: Nah. I gamble with scared money. I'm a tightwad.
Moths in my change
purse.
He gets up to get some cigarettes from the machine,
although he doesn't
smoke anymore. Moths burst forth from his change purse. He
buys Raleighs.
Doesn't smoke any.
TOM: So what do you think is suitable for manly footgear, Biff?
BIFF: Roman sandals. And beads to go with 'em.
TOM: I've been asking everyone I, uh, come into contact with, because
I'm
doin' a little survey. I'd say we're in a crisis in terms of American
footgear.
BIFF: Slip-on loafers.
TOM: Nah, can't go that route. You can't go down that road,
for down that
road danger lies.
BIFF: How come?
TOM: I don't like the name. Loafers. For a guy that works
as hard as you
do, it's just not right.
BIFF: You could call 'em slip-ons, but...
TOM: That's even worse. That's worse than loafers. You
wouldn't want me
to call you a slip-on.
BIFF: You got a point there.
TOM: Points. I always gravitate toward points