Joshua Thorin Messer

Ranting and Raillery

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Glitter & Doom on NPR!

July 29, 2008 · 0 comments

I love this world. NPR’s All Songs Considered is offering a stream and podcast of the Atlanta show of Tom Waits’ Glitter & Doom tour. I’m going to go cry with unbearable joy for an hour or two. See you on the other side.

Tom Waits in Phoenix (day 2)

June 19, 2008 · 0 comments

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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Tom Waits in Phoenix

June 18, 2008 · 0 comments

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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We're in…Phoenix

June 17, 2008 · 0 comments

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.