One night I was watching television when I heard The Ramones on a Pepsi commercial. I couldn't believe it: Blitzkrieg Bop was playing as soda cans danced on the screen. I wanted to go all Oedipus and rip my eyes out to erase the horror of it. It wasn�t like this was the first time it had happened. They had been stealing the soundtrack to my childhood for whorish corporatism for years. The Stones hawked Microsoft. Iggy Pop was selling cruises. Led Zeppelin wanted me to buy a Cadillac. It made me sick. I was, at that moment, ready to believe that art was dead. It had been acquired by the Disney corporation and re-packaged to a bland, dull public in order to sell us mountains of over priced crap that we don�t need and likely don�t even want. Then I remembered Tom Waits. Waits restored my faith in integrity.

If you aren�t familiar with Waits you should know that he is a supremely talented singer songwriter. His work is sui genres. It�s rock and folk and metal and adult contemporary and blues and jazz and spoken word and country and industrial and weirdness wrapped in angst and soaked in scotch. Waits has written musicals; collaborated with William S. Burroughs; invented new instruments and won Grammies and other awards all without ever becoming a household name. Musically, he�s a god.

And.

He�s the last ethical man. When Doritos wanted to use his song �Step Right Up� for a commercial he told them to get fucked. When they used a sound alike he sued the hell out of them and won. He refuses to sell out. When Michael Jackson started pimping Pepsi, good old Tom said that M.J. should get a suit and a desk and work for Pepsi and stop pretending to be an artist.

Tom Waits will never sell my memories. And they�re good memories. At my wedding, my lovely bride walked down the aisle to the strains of �Please Call Me, Baby�. When I got the word that I had sold my first story, �Frank�s Wild Years� was in the background. When I completed the last page of my first novel it was to the sound of �Whistle Down the Wind�. Those are just a few of the great moments that have vibrated to the sounds of his music and, unlike The Rolling Stones, I never have to worry that those images will be replaced by Budweiser or Ford.