The Limo Interview -

Title: The 'Limo Interview'
Source: Island video made to promote te release of Big Time movie/ Franks Wild Years. Filmed as a follow up of the "Blow Wind Blow" video (Island, 1987). The Best of the Cutting Edge, Volume II. VHS Rhino (I.R.S.) RNVD 2402. Alternate version aired on "Night Flight: Tom Waits Profile" (USA Networks Inc., early 1991). Interviewer unknown. Transcription from tape by "Pieter from Holland" as published on the Tom Waits Library
Date: San Francisco's Chinatown, 1987
Keywords: religion, Romiyiana Monkey Chant, freight train in the hall

Accompanying pictures

Source: "Limo interview ", TV screenshot. The Best of the Cutting Edge, Volume II (1987). Filmed as follow up to "Blow Wind Blow" video (Island, 1987). Date: 1987 (same day as "Blow Wind Blow" video). Credits: Island, 1987

The 'Limo Interview'

Waits in the back of a limo (apparently right after the "Blow Wind Blow" video he did), holding a white poodle⁽¹⁾. He looks exhausted, wiping his forehead.

Q: Tom, how was it playing the White House?
TW: It's a dream. It's a dream place. It's a machinery of dreams.

Q: Tell us about your family, what did your father do?
TW: My father was a bail bondsman. And my mother is a fan dancer. I come from a showbiz family. She used to do hair and make-up in eh, Burge Robert's mortuary there.

TW (to limo driver): How you're doin' Wayne?

Q: What do you find erotic?
TW: Eh, flamingos, fish...

Q: Where do you live?
TW: Eh, I'm a citizen of the world really.
TW (to poodle): Come on baby, come back to daddy.

TW (to limo driver): Where the hell are we Wayne?

Q: Five words to describe yourself?
TW: No left turn.

Q: What's your favorite country
TW: Eh, St. Louis.

TW (to limo driver): We're lost Wayne!

Q: So, Tom, where is heaven?
TW: God sits in a boat up on the surface of the water, and we're all like fish. When you die, you float to the surface like a dead carp. The Big Guy hauls you in the boat. God's a little short guy, you know, he started in the mailroom and worked his way up. He invested well.

Q: Did you ever meet Marlene Dietrich?
TW: No I don't. We used to shower together, but we never met.

TW (to limo driver): Just kiddin' Wayne. Little joke.

Q: Do you have any global thoughts?
TW: I think the earth is really a living being. I keep waiting for it to rear up and scrape us all off its back.

Q: Do you have a childhood experience that's memorable?
TW: My dad found a black pearl in a mussel. I figure it must've been worth a million. He tucked it in his cheek, and we fished all day. At the end of the day, it shriveled to nothing, and you know, there went the fortune. All those dreams....

TW (to poodle): Say 'Hello' baby.
Q: So how long did you have this dog?
TW: When I was a kid there used to be a train in the hall. Every night a train went through the hall. To get into the bathroom I used to have to wait into my doorway. The freight train used to run right through the center of the house.

Q: What are you afraid of?
TW: Cops... (laughs). Fountain pens, sensible shoes, undertakers and eh... turbulance.

Q: What do you live for?
TW: I live for adventure and to hear the lamentations of the women.

Q. Do you have a permit to carry that gun?
TW: (grins, holds hand up to cover the camera)

TW: I don't have a large record collection, but it's diverse. You know, I have a lot of bush recordings. I've got a recording of the Romiyiana Monkey Chant. It's eh... pfew!

Notes:

⁽¹⁾ Poodle: "One short, shot in San Francisco's Chinatown, is an interview in the back of a limo with Waits accompanied by a chihuahua. "We wanted to have a monkey with him," Blum says, "But somehow we couldn't pull that off" (Source: "Rare Tom Waits Big Time Screening", Chris Blum interview. The Press Democrat. John Beck. April 16, 2008)

⁽²⁾ Every night a train went through the hall: This reminds of the song "Kentucky Avenue" (Blue Valentine, 1978): "Just put a church key in your pocket, we'll hop that freight train in the hall."
- Kristine McKenna (1983): What's the earliest memory fixed in your mind? Tom Waits: "I have a very early memory of getting up in the middle of the night and standing at my doorway by the hall in the house and having to stand there and wait while a train went by. And after the train passed I could cross the hall into my parent's room." (Source: "One From The Heart & One For The Road ". New Musical Express magazine. Interview by: Kristine McKenna. October 1, 1983)