| Ken Nordine: | I was talking to Tom about this movie that nobody wants me to make. It’s a musical called ‘M’, starring Siamese twins connected by the lips. |
| Tom Waits: | Connected by the lips? That’s... |
| Ken Nordine: | Now I figured out how to do that too. You see, I have this... |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah? |
| Ken Nordine: | ... eh dentist friend. |
| Tom Waits: | Ah. |
| Ken Nordine: | A very religious guy. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah. |
| Ken Nordine: | In fact he believes in the laying on of hands. He really would touch your tooth, and make it better. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah, yeah. |
| Ken Nordine: | That’s why I go to him, I can’t stand pain. |
| Tom Waits: | Right. |
| Ken Nordine: | But I’m getting off the track. He has a...eh, you know, I think he’d go along. He could be in the movie. |
| Tom Waits: | Okay. |
| Ken Nordine: | I think he should be in the movie. |
| Tom Waits: | Alright, alright, does he have any acting experience? |
| Ken Nordine: | No no no. |
| Tom Waits: | No? |
| Ken Nordine: | He’d be a re-actor. |
| Tom Waits: | Ah, ah, Just a re-actor. |
| Ken Nordine: | He's got this, you know, mask that he wears. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah. |
| Ken Nordine: | And yellow gloves. He’s afraid.
|
| Tom Waits: | Yeah. |
| Ken Nordine: | You know...he’s very nervous. |
| Tom Waits: | Oh. |
| Ken Nordine: | But I’d get the camera on him, wide-angled camera |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah, yeah |
| Ken Nordine: | And I’d ask him if he could make a double mouth piece. |
| Tom Waits: | mm hmm. |
| Ken Nordine: | What I’m thinking of, you’ve seen these things that they use in the circus? |
| Tom Waits: | uh huh. |
| Ken Nordine: | Where the girl bites into this mouth piece and they pull her up to the top. |
| Tom Waits: | Ah yeah, yeah. They eh, they suspend her by it, and she’s biting on to some kind of a stick or something. |
| Ken Nordine: | Right, up to the top of the tent. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah, right. |
| Ken Nordine: | Well, he’d make a double thing with a little rubber holding it together. And then we’d audition these identical twins. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah. |
| Ken Nordine: | And that would hold them together, so it would seem... you know, it would look like what I’m talking about. |
| Tom Waits: | Right. Hmm. |
| Ken Nordine: | Maybe we should have a...a boy and girl. Are there boy and girl identical twins? |
| Tom Waits: | I, I, well their not...I wouldn’t call them identical, I mean if they were boy and girl. |
| Ken Nordine: | Well maybe they could be. And then they could be separated in the film. |
| Tom Waits: | Ah huh. |
| Ken Nordine: | See, see the idea is not just that though. That’s just part of it. There’s another guy in the film that I try to help. Cause I thought of calling the movie ‘The Devout Catalyst’ as the title. And there’s another guy who is a tattoo artist, and... but he’s avant-garde, he wants to do something very special. |
| Tom Waits: | Something new... in a way. |
| Ken Nordine: | So we go to this chemist that I know, and he makes a slippery ink, so the tattoo, you know, it just doesn’t sit there. It moves slowly across the surface of the skin towards the nearest opening. You see, there’s... how many openings are there? |
| Tom Waits: | Well, you mean, you mean orifice? Uh... how many actual...? |
| Ken Nordine: | One two three... |
| Tom Waits: | Three four five uh... six |
| Ken Nordine: | Whichever one it’s closest to, it goes in there, and then it moves inside your body through the Endothelium, and say it was an eagle. It gets inside of you and it gets digested. Maybe it gets stuck behind your right knee cap. |
| Tom Waits: | Right, yeah! |
| Ken Nordine: | You rub it, it gets lose and when it comes out it looks like a Klee, or maybe a Rouault or, you know... or Thurber. You know... |
| Tom Waits: | That’s wild. Oh yeah, I got a little money laying around that... I’ve been... you know... |
| Ken Nordine: | What we have to have with that is... Well, that’s a special effect. We’ll have to get some kind of a decal that will slide across this... But the trouble is when I tell anyone about this, they laugh and... |
| Tom Waits: | Ha ha |
| Ken Nordine: | So what I figured I’d do is put my own money in it. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah. There, there you go, yeah, just put your own money... |
| Ken Nordine: | But in the movie, the kids, my three kids, and my wife wanna have me committed. That’s the plot. If you really do what you wanna do, they’ll commit you! |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah. Wow. |
| Ken Nordine: | It’d be a great movie. |
| Tom Waits: | Well, are you gonna direct...? |
| Ken Nordine: | Well, if we can get Jerry to do the music track... |
| Tom Waits: | The music, yeah, right |
| Ken Nordine: | And you could, you know... |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah, I could play a part. |
| Ken Nordine: | Well, you could be the guy I’m talking to you about. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah, right. |
| Ken Nordine: | Get a far-out bar and sit there and... star! |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah. |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah. In a musical called ‘M’. |
| Tom Waits: | Well, I’m looking to diversify my investment portfolio, and I’ve been looking to get into something strange, you know, so... |
| Ken Nordine: | Hey! What we could do is, we could have you in it, you take out your wallet, and moths fly out. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah... |
| Ken Nordine: | That’s a special effect too. |
| Tom Waits: | Ha ha ha ha. You get a bug guy for that. They have bug guys in Hollywood that eh, all they do is, they work in the insect world. You’re gonna have a lot of medical footage in this too, I guess? |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah, I could put that thing in about the January flies too, in our bedroom. |
| Tom Waits: | January flies, what...? |
| Ken Nordine: | That was insane. |
| Tom Waits: | What are January flies? |
| Ken Nordine: | Well, we don’t have them in Chicago, but in the middle of January, you went to the bedroom and there were twenty of these... almost as big as horse flies, on the pink walls, and... |
| Tom Waits: | That’s annoying. |
| Ken Nordine: | Oh, it’s terrible. And they were sluggish, cause it was January. |
| Tom Waits: | They were a little slow. |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah, and I couldn’t hit them with the paper, cause they’d splat. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah. |
| Ken Nordine: | And I couldn’t spray them... you know... |
| Tom Waits: | You’re going to sleep, you don’t want that in the room. |
| Ken Nordine: | No, I’d kill myself that way. So I got the bright idea to get the vacuum cleaner and, with the long hose, we sucked them into the vacuum cleaner. And then they were all gone. |
| Tom Waits: | Well, but they were in the vacuum cleaner really. |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah, and still alive too. Cause that’s like a wind tunnel. They went down there... so we... I put some, you know, tissue paper at the end so that they wouldn’t get out. But they’d come back! The next night there were twenty or thirty more. So... well, what I did then, I called the chimney sweep. |
| Tom Waits: | Chimney sweep? |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah, there’s a girl by the name of Debbie Dove. |
| Tom Waits: | She’s a chimney sweep? |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah, from Vermont. |
| Tom Waits: | Ah! |
| Ken Nordine: | And she said, let me check your chimney. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah yeah, that’s a good place to start. I mean, if you have a fly problem, a lot of people will look at the chimney first. |
| Ken Nordine: | And she took the barricade that I had so that nobody could come in through the chimney. There were two dead squirrels inside there, you know. Just a... |
| Tom Waits: | Awww... |
| Ken Nordine: | The flies belonged to the squirrels. |
| Tom Waits: | Oh right, yeah... |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah. She sold us three squirrel traps for the chimneys and... we’re safe now! |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah, no more flies. |
| Ken Nordine: | Do you think we could get her in the film? |
| Tom Waits: | Gee, I don’t know. We could write a part for her. |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah, we should. |
| Tom Waits: | Does she have any film experience? |
| Ken Nordine: | Guess we’d have to get two dead squirrels in the film too. |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah well, you get an animal guy for that. |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah. Gee, I’m so glad that you’re interested in this, really! |
| Tom Waits: | Yeah, I think... I’m ready to go into production, so you just let me know. |
| Ken Nordine: | Ah, great. We’ll call it ‘The Devout Catalyst’. |
| Tom Waits: | I love it. |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah, good title. |
| Tom Waits: | A lot of action in the film too, I guess? |
| Ken Nordine: | Oh yeah yeah yeah. I have one thing. I have this picture window ant colony, that I’ll have for the titles. |
| Tom Waits: | Ah Nice. So the ants will actually spell out the title of the film, and the credits? |
| Ken Nordine: | Well, they’ll actually pull little tissue paper credits through it. |
| Tom Waits: | Nice. |
| Ken Nordine: | Yeah. How about a fly with a little trailer, with the title of the film on, flying around the bedroom. |
| Tom Waits: | Nice, nice... |
| Ken Nordine: | Well, Tom, you’ve made me feel a lot better. Thanks, I... seriously, I thought no one cared, but... thanks. |
| Tom Waits: | I’m there for you, Ken. |
| Ken Nordine: | You’re a pal. Thanks |