Andy Warhol's Interview magazine asked me to shoot Tom Waits. When I spoke to Tom about arranging the shoot and asked him if he had any ideas, he said he wanted to go to Times Square.

Great, I thought, you and every other out-of-town musician.

I asked him if he would wear a big shiny chain around his torso, leaving one hand to hold a cigarette.

"I don't smoke." he replied.

I knew a traffic island between Broadway and Seventh Avenue where I had taken other bands and if we had something to feed the pigeons, they would fly down from their nearby perch on the castiron facade of an old building. If someone made a noise or dropped some keys, the pigeons would fly up, making a dramatic photo.

This particular day, it was so cold that the pigeons were just hanging out on the subway grating, keeping warm from the air rising out of the subway station. We couldn't get the pigeons to fly for anything.

I even have shots of Tom kicking at the birds.

We won't be seeing those shots here. Thank you, PETA.

Some years later, while I was working at SPIN magazine, I got to shoot Tom again. This time we went
to Chinatown.

Tom made lunch.

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