The Musings of Beck and Tom Waits

From the desk of Ned P. Rauch:

My friend Gabe, of this wicked awesome band and this other wicked awesome band, brought this to my attention a week or so ago and I've been meaning to get to it ever since: Beck's conversation with Tom Waits, posted in two parts on Beck's Web site. It's got a whiff of Waits' "Coffee and Cigarettes" conversation with Iggy Pop, but it's looser and funnier. To wit:

Beck Hansen: I just went to Japan and they scan your eyes when you come into the country now. They have a computer that reads your finger print.

Tom Waits: At the airport?

BH: Yeah, when you’re going through customs.

TW: They read your eye? Oh, man!

BH: Yeah they read your eyeball.

TW: Japan is the home of the $700 orange.

BH: It’s the best orange you’ve ever had. It’s gonna be a religious orange experience. (Laughs)

TW: It’s supposed to be. Yeah, you...you’d want a room. Just with you and the orange, I think. (laughs) They take all the blossoms off the tree except for one, and that’s the one that becomes the orange. All the nutrients are going to one orange. And they have a square watermelon, you know? It matures inside a wooden box, then they cut the wood off and they have this square fruit. Slice it like bread and stack it in a warehouse.