Tom Waits - The Day After Tomorrow

     Tom Waits was born in Pomona, California on December 7, 1949. Tom Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits’ gritty voice has put a dissimilar sound on jazz, blues, and rock music around the world. His songs tell the tales of “seedy” and sometimes “grotesque” characters and places. Although his music is not particularly liked by everyone, Waits still has a loyal band of followers to support his every move. Earlier this year, Waits was put at the top of the list for Rolling Stone’s “Top 25 Underappreciated Artists.” Tom Waits wrote one of his most influential albums “Real Gone” in 2004. The album’s focus was a collection of anti-war songs.



     In the song “Day After Tomorrow” I think that Waits is singing about the point of view of a soldier in battle. The soldier is writing a letter back home with big hopes of getting to come within’ the next few weeks. While the soldier is at war, he turns twenty-one. During this point in his life and time that he has served for his country, he has become very humble. The soldier is really starting to miss the little things from back home that he took for granted in his home town of Rockford, Illinois. Deployed soldiers begin to have many mental issues once they go overseas because, they suffer from so much trauma, fatigue, and homesickness. These issues return home with many of the men and affect their everyday lives tremendously. I strongly believe that this is what is happening to this particular man that is writing back to his family. This soldier seems very broken by the war and aches for Rockford, Illinois.

     The Government tells soldiers that they are fighting for our country, and the civilians “freedom” but according to “Day After Tomorrow,” this soldier is just “fighting for his life.” I could definitely agree with this soldier writing the letter because as much as I love my country, the only thoughts that would be going through my mind would be if I was coming home alive, or in a wooden box. Fighting for my life would definitely be a huge factor in fighting in any war.

     This song that Tom Waits has written is describing a soldiers experience at war and the heavy thoughts he has to carry around with him on a daily basis. Throughout the song, Waits sings about the soldier’s letter and put it into evident detail how much the soldier longs for his family and hometown. The soldier states how much he misses the “little things in life” the most, “shoveling snow” and “raking leaves.” The soldier is writing to his family about how he is really “fighting for his life” and nothing else while he is deployed. The man in Tom Waits’ song is really struggling mentally with everything he has to go through overseas and how much Rockford, Illinois is calling him back home.

Infectious Disease of Boredom in War Zones

David Axe, a war correspondent for C-SPAN, The Washington Times and BBC, has made a career for himself by following wars, from arms-dealer trade shows, to refugee camps and even to the literal battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, East Timor and Somalia. The more I get into reading Axe’s graphic novel, War is Boring, the more I realize that it is not about the places he goes but more about how war changes him after he repeatedly witnesses it.

Axe structures War is Boring as a series of recollections to his driver, Adrian Djimdim, as they travel to a camp for refugees of the Darfur conflict in Chad. Axe describes the Unglamourous process of hunting down juicy stories in conflict zones that are, as the title has it, boring. As a journalist, Axe, spends a lot of his time waiting, and a lot more time trying to get to difficult places on a low budget. He does not bother with the minor details or the routine along with it, but anyone with eyes can see that the daily ins and outs of war are boring for him. So much so, that when fighting does break out it could almost come as a relief to him. This brings me to the question: why does Axe continue to go back to war if he thinks it is boring?

David Axe in Somalia

At times, Axe finds himself being bored with the war despite the fact that the war is not boring at all , due to battles that are constantly taking place. In fact, he seems quicker to be, “bored with the stale beers and mendacious conversations he encounters during his trips back to the U.S.” The best example of this is in the panel where Axe’s colleague approaches him in a bar in D.C. and asks, “How was Afghanistan?” To which Axe replies, “Awesome, dude.” Axe got annoyed with people like his colleague and people who criticize wars that they think they know everything about but in reality are too cowardly to go see for themselves.

 
While he portrays himself as a war junkie in the novel, “Axe doesn't seem to get a thrill from war, it’s just that a direct attempt on his life is the only thing that makes him feel alive.” At the beginning, war coverage is more of a fix of excitement. But by the end of the novel Axe’s answer has changed. He wants to do something for people other than himself. David  used, “because Chad matters,” as his motivation to do the right thing . In east Timor, an elderly man offers Axe information for money, for the sole reason that the man was “hungry.” Axe replied back, “There are millions of you, and you’re all hungry. How am I supposed to fix that?” Axe's encounter with the man at the bar made him question, “Had war chosen me, or had I chosen it? And what did that say about me?” Axe had a sudden change of heart with the elderly man and ended up giving him money. No, he would not be able to help everyone in need but by helping at least one person he was already off to a better start.

Axe thought that going to Chad to shed light on Darfur would be the answer to all of his problems and to finally put others’ needs ahead of his own. But good intentions are not enough sometimes. His pure motives could merely be entering him into the same cycle of addiction, an excuse for the death wish that he openly admits to. He still finds the brutality of Chad just as disillusioning and boring as any other country he has visited. Axe goes back to war zones, trying to regain his sense of humanity, to care, to feel, to sacrifice, to connect, and he fails. Maybe he is failing though because he keeps doing what he had always been doing. Axe came to value these things too late. “I don’t feel much anymore,. What pleasure I used to take in everyday things was replaced with a constant, low-grade anger...Mostly anger at myself for thinking that going off to war would make me smarter,sexier, and happier.” You can gain a multitude of things from his story. We can’t turn away from Axe’s view of the world, but we also do not have to except the world as it is now.