Tom Waits married? Settled into a nice suburban split-level? Little Toms and Tomasinas on the rug? "Sure. I'd like to have about seven of 'em." But Waits' idyllic homelife is still far off; he has yet to stumble starry-eyed upon Mrs. Right, though he's looking. "I'll take a white girl," he gleams, "about five-two with big tits and bad teeth."

Waits' pursuit of a happy homelife and a woman he can call wife squelches a year of talk about his much-publicized relationship with Rickie Lee Jones. Publications from People to Rolling Stone touted Waits and songstress Jones as an "item," with the British rock mag Melody Maker going so far as to call their marriage "imminent." Though Waits and Jones are undeniably close and inhabit a collective world of old cars, stale bars and life's generally seamy underside, sharing a coterie of self-styled low-lifers, whatever romantic interlude the two enjoyed seems to have waned. Rickie Lee Jones was the one subject Waits was intent on not discussing.

HOLLYWOOD DECEMBER 31, 1979

Tom Waits is standing by the door of a rented, run-down hall eliciting toothy smiles from short white girls with big tits. It's New Year's Eve at "Mambo Beat '80," a bizarre multi-media "happening" in the heart of Hollywood. Various comedy acts (including a pair of blind Lebanese tourists) and an awful cover band known as Sal Mimeo & the Duplicators keep the three hundred partygoers hopping until midnight. Then veteran R&B performer Roy Brown takes the stage with his group of crusty black musicians. Waits moves from the entrance way to the dance floor. This is what he came to hear. Roy Brown's sax player, Lee Allen, used to play with Fats Domino -- one of Waits' heroes.

It is on this eventful night, at the turn of a new decade, that Waits makes a New Year's resolution: "I told myself that I was going to leave Los Angeles and move to New York."

The signs of restlessness were there. After returning from the road, Waits moved out of his long-time abode at the Tropicana Motel, now the stopover spot for spiky-haired English punk bands. Waits exited the place after one too many magazine articles had mentioned his residence there, resulting in one too many adoring fans knocking on his door at four in the morning. He moved to an apartment on Crenshaw Boulevard. Then to a house in Silver Lake. From there he slept in a series of seedy motels until the day he headed for the Big Apple.

NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 28, 1980

"I grew up in Los Angeles and I just needed a new urban landscape," Waits explains, sprawled on an unmade bed in his room at the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street. "I've always wanted to live here. It's a good working atmosphere for me. So I packed up three suitcases and took off. Once I get located I'll go back to L.A. and get the rest of my stuff."

With his move from the Southland to the concrete terrain of Manhattan, Waits is looking to infuse some new blood into his life. No more 2 A.M. cruises down Santa Monica Blvd. with his pals. No more late breakfasts at Duke's. Tom Waits will be jostling with commuters on the crosstown bus or riding the subway late at night, exploring the dark underbelly of another kind of town.

And what about the Thunderbird, "Blue Valentine?"

"I'm lookin' to sell it," Waits grins. "Know anyone who's interested?"

HOLLYWOOD JULY 28, 1980

Not so fast.

In late March, Waits hands back his room key, moves out of the Chelsea and into an apartment a few blocks away. Then, out of the blue, a telephone call from filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola: he's in town and wants to discuss a movie. "We had a brief conversation about a nebulous project called One from the Heart," recounts Waits. "At that time the idea was a little half-baked. Now, it's starting to materialize."

Materialize, indeed. Tom Waits is back in Los Angeles, fixed up in an office on the old Hollywood General lot -- now known as Omni Zoetrope Studio and owned by Coppola. The walls in Waits' suite are made of old mahogany. A Yamaha grand piano fills half of one of the rooms. An elaborate tape deck shares a coffee table with magazines, cassettes and scripts. "There's a David Niven feel to the room which I rather enjoy," he says, his eyes scanning the rich wainscoting.