The Strange But Deserving

There's no way I can not do a blog on the introduction of Tom Waits into the rock and roll hall of fame. Then I found out he was inducted by Neil Young it was absolutely perfect. I cant search through all the artists in the artist yellow pages or anthology and find anyone that deserves this prestigious award more then Mr. Waits. He is not your typical multi millionaire singer- songwriter that walks with pride and wealth. Waits still has the feel that he just crawled out of the gutter after a hard night of drinking in the dirtiest of dive bars. He is the cookie cuter cutout of a chain smoking, womanizing, coffee guzzling, brandy gulping, jazz crazed lunatic that strives for hard nights and even harder days. Waits said it best when he described music as " something strange you do with air", perfectly described for waits. He really does strange things with air since the late 60s. He still has that presence and voice proving it onstage performing Make It Rain and Rain Dogs. He lets no one down. You can see the joy on Young's face as he knows this is a huge step for the hall of fame taking in such a luminary. Waits asks for a smaller version of the award so he can carry it around just in case he gets in trouble and maybe it could get him out. That's Waits summed up, a troublemaker but also the smartest and most talented storyteller the music world have ever seen. He strives to be the best and the worst, the remembered and the forgotten, the sweet and the sour, the loved and the hated, but most important hes the most famed of the underground. No one might not understand Waits but that's the reason hes so tangible, hes one of us, hes real and raw. Congrats Tom Waits on getting what you probably didn't care if you got or not, into the rock and roll hall of fame. Keep writing the quirky and strange music that keeps running through my head.