Universalis

An incredible Tom Waits interview from Playboy, 1988.

My favorite excerpt:

PLAYBOY: While you may strive for musical crudity, lyrically you’re quite sophisticated~interior rhymes, classical allusions and your hallmark, a great ear for the vernacular. In a sense, you’re the William Safire of street patois, rescuing such phrases as walking Spanish–inebriated saunter–and even coining some pretty good lingo of your own, such as rain dogs: stray people who, like animals after a shower, can’t find their markings and wander aimlessly. What are some of your other favorite bits of slang, phrases you’d like to see get more everyday use?

WAITS: For starters, I’d like to see the term wooden kimono return to the lexicon. Means coffin. Think it originated in New Orleans, but I’m not certain. Another one I like is wolf tickets, which means bad news, as in someone who is bad news or generally insubordinate. In a sentence, you’d say, “Don’t fuck with me, I’m passing out wolf tickets.” Think it’s either Baltimore Negro or turn-of-the-century railroadese. There’s one more. Don’t know where it came from, but I like it: Saturdaynightitis. Now, it’s what happens to your arm when you hang it around a chair all night at the movies or in some bar, trying to make points with a pretty girl. When your arm goes dead from that sort of action, you’ve got Saturdaynightitis.

Read the rest of the interview.