“What Comes After Certainty” by Bill Callahan is my pick.

Thank you! I was just reading your great essay again and thinking about how similar ours are—following these strange creatures of Waits and Bush from the 80s into a 90s that they both helped shape and were so wonderfully at odds with.

In the 90’s I thought the two most powerful words in the English language were “fuck it.” These days “hold on” hits with a power I didn’t used to appreciate. It gets sadder every time I hear it.

How ​Tom Waits gets THE BEST musicians to sound like AMATEURS YouTube video by Dead Wax

m.youtube.com/watch?v=0_wq...
Long but I thought worth the time

Joe Gore has a great story about Waits replacing Stuart Copeland’s bass drum with a parade drum—I wonder if it’s the same one? It has a bit of that sound.

Thanks! I know zero about the BSB (except for what you wrote) but that was such a fresh and funny essay—well played!

Oh shoot—just saw that. Weep worthy footage from the last concert.

It was on my shortlist. Especially after this
file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/88/08/71DC8293-A72E-4B5C-8903-D873FE7454A4/ScreenRecording_07-23-2025%2019-46-02_1.mov