Tom Waits – Alice[play] [buy]

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As I write this, I am sitting in the back right corner of a metro bus, typing poorly on my iPhone and watching the auto-correct fix all my mistakes so that you, dear reader, will never know how clumsy my thumbs are.

I’m listening to Mr. Tom Waits, his album Alice to be specific. And it’s good to be specific. The album tells stories from a world gone wrong. It’s like Alice grew up, and Wonderland soured as she was exposed to the awful Earth, and then, as the album begins, she dies, and is at last returned to that strange Land, now twisted, but not at all beyond recognition. No, its horribly familiar.

I am sitting right next to the window, and I see that a similar decomposition is happening in Los Angeles.

The bus is crowded with Americans, all pretending to be so tough and strong. Only one in twenty has the courage to look you in the eye. But maybe of isn’t a lack of courage, only a lack of a shot to give.

The comparison between the denizens of post-mortum Wonderland and pre-Fall L.A. grows stronger: both have resigned themselves to their fates, and whatever face we put on it (for I belong here too,) we refuse to lift our heads and change our world.

It’s all the fault of Alice.