I’ve heard lots of wild rumors about the musician Tom Waits over the years. The best one was that his career was an abysmal failure until he was stabbed in the throat in a bar fight, changing his voice — and his music — for the better. I also heard he was spotted ordering a decaf vanilla soy latte at a Starbucks in Santa Rosa. According to this LA Times review of a new biography by Barney Hoskyns, the latter rings more true. Apparently, it was his wife Kathleen Brennan — and not a knife in a Hollywood saloon — who is responsible for turning his career around and setting him straight.
“People think I’m down on Fifth and Main at the Blarney Stone, throwing back shooters and smoking a cigar, but I’m really on the top floor of the health club with a towel in my lap, watching Johnny Carson,” Waits told Hoskyns in 1985 (via Jacket Copy).
To all those writers and musicians downing booze and shooting up, I guess you don’t have to be the characters you create.
