Down by Law: Tom Waits

Happy birthday Tom Waits. His AA-rated data gives him 0° Sagittarius rising with Mercury right on the ascendant, a perfect songwriter’s signature, and also that of a campaigner and advocate. Despite his image as a hipster tramp and barroom bohemian, Waits is famously litigious and protective of his work. Since 1988, he has successfully sued such giants as Levis and Audi for copyright infringement and violation of his rights over use of his material in commercials. His action against a Frito-Lay (a subsidiary of Pepsi) in 1992 - Mercury-Mercury dasha - alone awarded him $2.3m.

"Apparently, the highest compliment our culture grants artists nowadays is to be in an ad —ideally, naked and purring on the hood of a new car... I have adamantly and repeatedly refused this dubious honour." - Tom Waits

Lagnesh Jupiter has a strong sense of justice, though fallen in Capricorn in the 2nd is a serious and rather controlling placement, at odds with the planet’s free-spirited approach: "Trust God and tie up your camel". Jupiter exactly conjunct Venus is a wealth-yoga, also with connotations of advocacy. Second house lord Saturn makes a prickly association with Mars in the 9th house of the law, while fifth lord Mars exchanges signs (parivatana) with ninth lord, Sun. This is another potent yoga in its own right, but one especially showing legal matters (9th) in relation to art (5th).

December 7th 1949, 07:25am, Pomona, CA.

Just five minutes earlier takes Waits' ascendant back to Scorpio - always a dilemma for an astrologer, especially as rectification’s thumb rule is to go earlier rather than later (the instant of birth, first breath, usually comes before the baby is fully recorded by hospital authorities). Scorpio rising would account for his generally more combative attitude and chart lord Mars with Saturn in the 10th describes a man sensitive about his image. He married his wife, Kathleen Brennan in 1980, during Saturn-Venus dasha, which might also argue for a Scorpio/Taurus horizon, except Moon in the seventh house is more a classic romantic - the couple are still married. Likewise, Moon as 9th lord in the 8th house does not suggest somebody who is quite so lucky in the courtroom.