I’m having sort of a frustrating day. I’m in limbo with my MMR Free Box reviews, because I’ve reviewed every album by a band that said I can post their music, so now I’m waiting to hear back from the rest (and re-emailing a lot of them). I started filling out job applications on Craigslist, but then I was wondering if I should put my Cover Letter as the body of the email, or if I should send it as an attachment. My friend Tom is the king of getting jobs, so I called him to ask him, and he texted to say he was in a movie. So basically, now I’m just sort of hanging out, waiting get feedback for doing stuff. I put on Tom Waits’ classic Blue Valentine, and it’s so badass.
I had a period of my life for about three years where I didn’t listen to any music except Tom Waits. There’s been times when I have felt Tom Waits has been able to express the thoughts and emotions surrounding my life better than I was. I also think that no other artist has ever been able to capture the essence of the American condition in music better than Waits. There’s something extremely American about this music, but not in a jingoistic way. Rather, he captures the real America. The history of struggle, toil and pain that haunts the people of the US. Tom Waits writes from the point of view that Dorothea Lange photographed.
Blue Valentine is a great album that first hits you as goofy lounge jazz, and slowly, slowly drives itself into your heart like a knife, until you realize you’re been hit so hard that you’ll never be able to look at music the same way again. If you haven’t heard the album before, do so. When I was looking for a picture to post above, I found a Russian website that has the whole thing for download. I wasn’t even looking for an illegal download of the album and it was the first thing that came up. Sometimes I feel a little bit sorry for the RIAA. They’ve got a whale of a problem on their hands for sure.