Tom Waits

Eric wrote this about Tom Waits.

I have little to add about Waits' music. I have horrible taste in music. I own 6 CD's, and four of them are Andy Williams, each of them containing one version or another of Moon River. (The other two are multiple copies of the same Billy Ray Cyrus album; a primary, and a secondary for when (not if) the primary wears out).

But Tom Waits is part of one of my favorite cinematic moments.

A little setup:

In the movie Short Cuts, in a bit of inspired casting, Tom Waits plays Earl Piggot, a rumpled, frumpy limousine driver and jealous husband to Lily Tomlin's Doreen Piggot.

Early in the movie, Earl visits Doreen at the diner where she waitresses after he gets off a job. There, he witnesses a couple of fisherman hassling Doreen so that she keeps having to bend over in her short waitress uniform. Earl sees this, seems initially amused, but then takes what he sees as Doreen's flirtation to heart, and returns home to sulk.

After her shift, Doreen accidentally hits a little boy with her car. He seems okay, and he refuses any of her help, and she goes home to her trailer, which is somewhat well kept, but is still just a trailer. Earl is there, and he's been drinking.

Doreen tells Earl of what's just happened, and Earl is concerned, but mainly for his wallet:

Doreen: I told you....He's all right
Earl: Okay, allright, I just don't want to get sued
Doreen: Earl....It was just a stroke of luck that I didn't kill him.
Earl: Well, I'm glad somebody's luck is holding out.....

I laugh at that, but then comes the great part.

An argument ensues, in which Earl accuses Doreen of flirting at work. Doreen tells him to leave. Earl makes the offhand comment:

You know, a lot of guys don't like a big ass in their face when they're trying to eat....

The fight escalates. Doreen calls Earl a "bullshit artist," and as Earl storms out of their tiny trailer home, he shouts plaintively into the trailer in his raspy Tom Waits voice:

You're the one chippin' away at our mansion of love, baby, not me!

It's a little piece of poetry, and it's probably the most perfect person to have played the roll and spoken the line.

Yeah. This has been another tale of Tommy Remembers Movies He Likes.