Glitter and Doom
I once drove to Columbus, Ohio, to catch Tom Waits on the Glitter and Doom tour. After the show—both alone and with a very long drive ahead of me—I thought I’d meander around back and join the small crowd gathered near the tour bus.
Several times, a security guard let us know that Tom’s bus had already left and there was no need to hang around. Still, in no hurry, I chose to hang around anyway. There were maybe a handful of fans—a diverse group, probably about 20 of us. Again, we heard the story about the bus being gone.
All of a sudden, we caught a glimpse of none other than Steve Buscemi exiting the bus with his wife. No kidding! Steve Buscemi!! It was hard to tell at first because he was surprisingly dapper in real life. Being one of those overenthusiastic Jim Jarmusch/John Lurie-type deep fans, this was really cool to see.
Waits’ son emerged with a soccer ball and started to kick it around.
“He’s gone, y’all,” said the security guard.
“So he left his son here?” Haha.
Finally, a small, seemingly dusty man—covered from head to toe in denim—exited the bus. He looked way up at my 6’3″ self. I got a little hug, a handshake, and a “How ya doing?” in that scratchy, jazz-beat sorta way.
On the way home, I got turned around toward Lodi, which was about two hours out of my way. I didn’t care. I had that Lodi song from CCR stuck in my head for weeks.
— Aaron Paul