David Yaffe

  • Culture January 1, 1

    Tom Waits once wrote a two-line poem that summed up his attitude toward life as a public figure: “I want a sink and a drain / And a faucet for my fame.” This couplet might seem disingenuous for a performer whose cult-hero career has made little showing on the pop charts, yet Waits has inspired cover hits by the likes of the Eagles, Rod Stewart, and Bruce Springsteen and garnered two Grammy wins and an Oscar nomination (for scoring Francis Ford Coppola’s 1982 film, One from the Heart, a sink and a drain of sorts). He has also made it