Beth from The Walking Dead sings Tom Waits' "Hold On"

"Down by the Riverside Motel, it's ten below and falling."

That lyric, from Tom Waits' "Hold On," was going through my head this week as the polar vortex enveloped Marathon Pundit world headquarters in Morton Grove, Illinois. The high on Wednesday, reached at midnight, was -10. Yes, ten below and it fell to -23. The wind chill was -55. When I walked a block west at work--yes, I showed up--I received a massive ice cream headache in seconds.

I already posted Waits' version of "Hold On" a number of years ago. Here's Emily Kinney's take, from The Walking Dead series. Kinney plays Beth. Her moving cover morphs into Waits' original. Waits' wife and frequent co-writer, Kathleen Brennan, grew up in the Chicago area, in Johnsburg about forty miles north of here, where I'm sure it was even colder on Wednesday than here.

The next day down here it warmed up to the low single digits. I still ran ten miles. Yes, I'm nuts.