Stop Smiling Magazine, which offers a great alternative take on current culture (mainstream and the edges), put out their 28th issue. What is special about this issue is the collection of 20 interviews featured inside. Probably the stand out interview is with Tom Waits. You can read an excerpt, which is quite long in of itself, at their website.

If Tom Waits is impossible to categorize, he is certainly easy to like. When he’s relating a story or singing — as opposed to merely answering a question — his voice gets even more resonant, more dramatic, wrapping a deceptively quixotic cocoon around the listener. He uses music biz terms like “added value” with a deadpan irony and understated emphasis, waxes ecstatic on strange and unusual facts about insects, and, as records from Swordfishtrombones to Frank’s Wild Years attest, creates one-of-a-kind aural soundscapes that open a gargoyle-guarded gateway into an alternate universe. For these reasons and many more, Tom Waits is rightfully revered — and sometimes feared.

Calling from his home in rural Sonoma County, California, Waits was by turns shy, thoughtful, uncomfortable, teasing, amusing, endearing and just plain cool. He’s the kind of guy you’d want to spend a late afternoon with in the gloomy half-light of a near-empty bar — with plenty of quarters for Waits to control the jukebox and conversation. But we happily settled for an early evening on the phone.

I am in a Tom Waits mood today, so here are a few of his videos to take in:

Downtown Train, Hold On, and his latest video, Lie to Me.