thanks for sharing, bhattu. i'm a big fan of tom waits, but i prefer his earlier, more bluesy stuff to the incoherent stuff he puts out these days. still, his finest hour was in mid-career, before his voice got totally obliterated but after it started to get affected by the smokes and drinks....martha, ruby's arms, kentucky ave, tom traubert's blues, san diego serenade- these are all brilliant songs!!! anyway, mule variations was his last album. he recently came out with another new one- just within the past couple of months. "He quit drinking and smoking." woah, who knew?!?! too bad the effects of it are still with him....