Joshua Thorin Messer

Comment from Renee: “That’s incongruous.”

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008)

Requiescat in pace, you motherfucking cocksucker.

We learned that the word “Penix” just keeps being funny.

We learned that 115° heat is basically unbearable.

We learned that one should rent a car if one is going to Phoenix. The distances (like in LA) are too great and cabs get way expensive way fast.

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It all happened again, but with an almost entirely different set list. I really can’t express myself properly in this climate. I need time to digest and let this compose itself. I will return to replace this with lyrical remarks overbrimming with life-altering observations.

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It is extremely difficult to be coherent at this point. I have just seen Tom Waits perform live for the first time in my life. I feel giddy and reckless. I feel like the rest of life will be dull, harsh, and meaningless. I feel like Phoenix (or Penix, as Renee in 12-year-old-boy mode keeps calling it to much merriment from us both) in not-quite-summer is a brutal mistake that is only made bearable by Tom. I feel like the most outrageous hyperbolic language barely touches the perfection of the event.

Is it wrong for a grown man to weep uncontrollably when a musical act takes the stage?

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So Renee and I have flown to Phoenix to catch a couple of Tom Waits shows. How casual that sounds, but I’ve been trying to catch this most elusive specimen for over 18 years. Admittedly it hasn’t exactly been my life quest. I wasn’t willing to lose jobs or go bankrupt as a younger man in order to fly somewhere and see a show. But now it’s going to finally happen and my sense of dreamlike unreality over the entire episode is not being helped by the 115 in the shade boiling my brain. Dry heat my ass, it’s like being popped in the convection oven until I come up to temperature. Once I hit 130 internal, I’ll be a nice Mid Rare for Mr. Waits at table 6.