TS: Tom Waits vs. your cool uncle

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My cool uncle has a lot of great stories to tell. Every Christmas dinner there's something new. Plus, he's got a 1972 Corvette that's in pristine condition (and I get to drive it when I'm there).

Tom Waits has never let me drive his car, but he has released a gazillion albums, most all of them with at least a few redeeming qualities, and was actually the catalyst for meeting one of my best friends.

My cool uncle wins, but just barely.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 09:30 (twenty years ago)

I prefer your cool uncle too

― Tad Sneery (Dada), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 09:33 (twenty years ago)

get him to fill that corvette up with Peg-legged, eyepatch wearing, chainsmoking Puerto-Rican prostitutes and to run on bourbon and your uncle definately wins.

― Frank S. Besnar (latterallateral), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 10:11 (twenty years ago)

given that my 'cool uncle' is a complete hypothetical, waits wins in a walkover.

shame really. potentially an interesting matchup

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 10:57 (twenty years ago)

My cool uncle is a gay Manhattanite who looks like George Michael.

Tom Waits is a better singer, but my uncle is probably a better dancer. It's tough, but I'm going to have to go with my uncle.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 12:19 (twenty years ago)

I have 2 cool uncles!

When I saw Tom Waits last month, I also saw my uncle, who runs the restaurant across the street. URRBUDDY WINS.

― a naked Kraken annoying Times Square tourists with an acoustic guitar (nickalici, Wednesday, 13 September 2006 12:33 (twenty years ago)

Supposedly, my cool uncle lives on the streets and smokes crack. Nobody wins in the world of crack.

― christopherscottknudsen (christopherscottknudsen), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 15:46 (twenty years ago)

My cool uncle shave corpses for a living, which is preferable to Tom Waits' combined output to date.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 16:24 (twenty years ago)

It's just a matter of time before Waits writes a song about your uncle, Dom.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 16:26 (twenty years ago)

I bet Tom Waits is a pretty cool uncle, the kind that gets you a ukelele or a didgeridoo for Christmas and not some Barnes & Noble gift card.

― a naked Kraken annoying Times Square tourists with an acoustic guitar (nickalici, Wednesday, 13 September 2006 16:55 (twenty years ago)

One of my uncles is a Pentecostal-preachin' douchebag hypocrite.
The other one is a cuckolded Baptist Post Office clerk.

Tom Waits wins.

― milo z (mlp), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 16:57 (twenty years ago)

My cool uncle is a retired cop, divorced and remarried 5 times, now living somewhere in Florida, no one is quite sure where.

Tom Waits wins.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:48 (twenty years ago)

my uncle.....

tom waits wins

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Thursday, 14 September 2006 11:44 (twenty years ago)

at the exact same time that tom waits was recording '15 shells from a 30.06', my uncle was not.

therefore, tom wins.

― mister the guanoman (mister the guanoman), Thursday, 14 September 2006 11:47 (twenty years ago)

i've never understood why people like that particular song.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Thursday, 14 September 2006 12:46 (twenty years ago)

It's the only one they've heard?

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 14 September 2006 12:51 (twenty years ago)

.. and it sounds a bit like the Velvet Underground?

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 14 September 2006 12:51 (twenty years ago)

i've never understood why people like that particular song.

maybe because it's the best song on swordfishtrombones? just a thought.

― mister the guanoman (mister the guanoman), Thursday, 14 September 2006 13:03 (twenty years ago)

my cool uncle is a crazy NYC shrink who lives in a chelsea brownstone apartment the size of a closet, and has since about 1983, and stayed good friends with my dad even after divorcing my dad's sister. he was a jungian, which my dad thought was flakey. the only cool thing i remember about him was that he wore a fedora with an eagle feather tucked in the brim. he shocked me as a kid once by going to the front of a theatre line-up and saying, "excuse me, we're next" in an overly calm, slightly menacing voice to the next person in line and getting away with it. it was quite jedi. sounds cool, but it kind of scared me actually. I was a kid and wasn't used to grownups blatantly breaking the rules.

i really like tom waits a lot, and kind of feel more affectionate toward him than my uncle in a weird way. but my uncle is family. divorced family that i haven't seen in 25 years, but family nonetheless.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 14 September 2006 13:09 (twenty years ago)

Tom wins. I'm more likely to see him than my actual uncle these days.

― I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit (I say we take off and nuke the), Friday, 15 September 2006 01:28 (twenty years ago)

My cool uncle (also named Tom) has been dead for 17 years, but was a gimpy vet of Patton's army who liked to curse, laugh and had a tremendous hacking smoker's cough. He also ran the elevator in Newark Symphony Hall for awhile (buckets of champagne for Aretha, and the like).

And he let us stay up late when he babysat. So tho TW has done some great stuff, not much of a contest.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 September 2006 12:43 (twenty years ago)

My cool uncle was a roadie for Led Zeppelin. He is now nearly dead from alcohol abuse. These two things are fairly connected. Tom wins for me, although there are probably people that would disagree

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Friday, 15 September 2006 13:18 (twenty years ago)

My cool uncle is a writer and best buds with Robert Creeley. But god help me, I prefer music to poetry, and I haven't seen my cool uncle in quite a while, so I guess Tom wins. But that could easily change, especially given what Tom's been putting out recently.

― Eppy (Eppy), Friday, 15 September 2006 14:10 (twenty years ago)

I had an uncle who was a rock critic (wrote for Guitar World and a couple of other mags) and who gave me Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and a tape of Buddy Guy And Junior Wells Play The Blues. I haven't heard from him in years. If I was to reconcile with my shithead younger brother, I'd get to meet his son, and then I'd probably become the cool uncle, if only because my brother's an Army thug who's unlikely to provide his young son with Motorhead albums.

On the other hand, I interviewed Tom Waits by phone for The Wire in 2002, and he called me back the following night because there was some stuff he wanted to talk about that he didn't feel like we'd dealt with in sufficient depth in our initial 90-minute conversation. So Tom Waits wins over my actual uncle.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Friday, 15 September 2006 14:57 (twenty years ago)

Remind me again, which one is my cool uncle: the heroin addict or the racist cop?

― bernard snow (sixteen sergeants), Friday, 15 September 2006 16:39 (twenty years ago)

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