Manifesting with Tom

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In this episode, Siobhan speaks to Tom Skinner as he shares the pivotal moments that have shaped his journey across various industries. They delve into the early challenges of navigating the digital market, recounting life-altering experiences that underscore the importance of resilience, adaptability, and breaking new ground. Tom reflects on the invaluable lessons passed down from his mother and how they've influenced his approach to both career and life.

The discussion also sheds light on the often-overlooked historical contributions of women in film editing, contrasting them with the ongoing gender disparities in the industry today. Through engaging anecdotes and insightful reflections, this episode highlights the power of mentorship, the importance of trailblazing, and the enduring value of learning from the past to forge a path forward.

Episode Transcript

Siobhan (00:00):
I welcome you all to this week's episode of ducking

(00:09):
reality. Today we have a friendof mine from one of the bars I
work at. I've had so manyinteresting conversations with
him. And his life has beenfascinating. And every time we
kind of delve into it, I get tolearn a little bit more. And
you're so low key and relaxedTom that I don't even think that
you told me some of the kind ofwhat I would have thought were

(00:31):
like the highlights of yourlife. It's been like Irish John
walking by and dropping littlenugget and then keep going.

Tom (00:39):
Very much try not to talk too much about the highlights.
Yeah. Oh, lights.

Siobhan (00:45):
It, but you're very humble about all your
accomplishments. You

Tom (00:49):
know, I I've had a really good run, I think and I met so
many people. And I don't I don'tmean because I necessarily
worked with them. I just came incontact with them and got to
shake their hands. And it's justbeen amazing. I started a list
years ago that I've lost. And Itried to think about it and

(01:10):
recreate it, but it pops up allthe time. I see stuff in the
paper and on TV and I go cheese,I met that person. Once you
know. I don't know why that is.
That's just something that seemsto happen to me. It's like, what
was that? Like? There was thatWoody Allen movie, the character
that appeared and all thesedifferent period, the important

(01:30):
parts of history. But anyway,

Siobhan (01:37):
so tell us how did your story start? Because you're here
in Alameda, but you've lived allover?

Tom (01:42):
Right? Well, I'm an East Coast guy. I was born in
Connecticut. I worked 30 yearsin Manhattan. And through, I
guess, good planning and goodluck. I was able to get moved to
California. Right at the periodwhere a house was being sold,

(02:03):
the divorce was being completed.
And I was given sole custody ofmy three young children. And I
wanted to get them out of getthem out of there. And so I
worked for an advertisingcompany in New York at that
time, the party greatadvertising G two, and done a

(02:24):
project for them that had workedout they were happy with me. The
Aetna Medicare Site. I thinkthat's what it was Aetna
Medicare, Oh, wow. It was a bigsite. It was a complicated
thing. And my boss was in hisoffice one day, and he managed
production, delivery for alltheir offices around the United

(02:46):
States, which there were about ahalf a dozen of them, maybe
more. But San Francisco was allscrewed up. And he didn't know
what to do about it. And I sawthis sort of timeline in my head
about the house, the divorce,the kids being my
responsibility. And I said, Oh,I'll do that. I'd love to go off

(03:09):
to San Francisco and try to fixwhat's wrong in the office out
there you go. And I never didthat. The Office folded in about
eight months. And he said, Doyou want to come back? God bless
him. And but I didn't. I had mykids out here. They were in
school. Everything had beenmoved out at the company's

(03:30):
expense. And they were gonnagive me a nice runway, they were
like, Okay, well, if you don'tcome back, you know, they give
me insurance for, you know, fiveor six months for me and my
family and a couple of months ofpay. And they gave me a good
runway. And so I just startedhustling around San Francisco,

(03:51):
trying to get work similarsimilar work. And I was really
fortunate because I had workedfor a small startup digital
company in New York calledtouchscreen Media Group. In the
early 90s. And midnight, he's Iwas there for about five years,

(04:14):
five or six years. It started bythese two, Pete young people
that were friends of mine andone guy did my sales rep at a
post production facility and theother woman was out of IBM or
something. And we were acquiredby a company in Bethesda,
Maryland and one of the some ofthe team members that came up
and interviewed us and evaluatedour relative value and

(04:36):
everything else and negotiatedthe deal. And ended up at Wells
Fargo in San Francisco, inproperty management. And one of
them was a friend he said, Well,you need a job. I'll give you a
job. That's always nice job. AndI said, Okay, what do I do? And
so I don't know we're gonna dothis and that we got plans in

(04:58):
the next couple of years.
because we had to start all theplanning, everything moves in
this glacial way, in the worldof banking technology. It's not
like advertising or television.
And so I went to work forCharles. And I think I'd come to
the office, which was right onMarket Street. I was taking the
ferry boat over from, fromAlameda at that point, we landed

(05:22):
in Marin, but I had to move usout of moraine because the
school sucked and I wasn'tmaking enough money. And, or at
the time, I thought, and I wason Market Street there, and it
was just a great life. You know,I had commuted on trains out of
Grand Central Station for 18years and, and this was just
commuter heaven. At a bar carhad

Siobhan (05:47):
everything. Yeah, the ferries a good time, part of me
was like, Oh, maybe I shouldwork. At least one day in SF
just to take the ferry every day

Tom (05:54):
I made I made friends there. And I really, I'm really
grateful to the people I met onthe ferry. That's another story.
But anyway, I went to her forCharles and he, we go out to
lunch, and he says, Look at, I'mgoing to have open heart
surgery, I'm going to be gonefor like five months. And I
didn't have anybody else toreport to. I didn't have any
other bosses and, and he said,Do you work with this woman and

(06:18):
Charlotte and this person andwork on that project and just,
you know, build the PowerPointslides and you know, run the run
the meetings and do all that.
And I said, okay, so that wasit. I worked for them for 18
months on that gig. I had threedifferent contracts with Wells
Fargo. And that sustained me, Imade more money in that 18
months. And I made in the wholeyear with the advertising
company in New York. Oh, wow.

(06:38):
And it just got us going. Youknow, we got settled in. I've
been in the same house for 14years here in Alameda. And it
was just good, really good luck.
For me. Really good luck.

Siobhan (06:53):
So that's kind of a theme in your life, a lot

Tom (06:56):
of good luck, some bad luck, but a lot a lot, a lot of
good luck. I didn't marry verywell. But I I was lucky. I was I
was lucky. I did a lot of crazystuff when I was a kid. A lot of
crazy stuff. My father died whenI was about 14, I think and I'm

(07:17):
one of two, three brothers,three sons. I'm the middle one.
And my mother, God bless her waslike, didn't really know how to
handle me. She kind of just sortof said, well, you know, I want
you to do this. And I said,Well, if I do that, then I get
to do this. And I negotiated mywhole life. And I kept up my end

(07:39):
of the bargain. And she kept upher end of the bargain. And so I
would paint a house and makesome money. And when I was 15 I
got a with a friend of mine, twofriends of mine. We got Euro
passes and airline tickets andwent to Europe at 1515 Wow, I
had like $400 or cash in mypocket. And maybe at the time
that was more than enough money.
And you know, did all thiscrazy, you know, stuff running

(08:05):
with the bulls in Pamplona andand running a fourth of some
grungy apartment with theseAfricans in Paris and I just had
a fun I just had a lot of fun.
How long did you go for I wasgone for I think six or seven
weeks. And it was interestingthe way the trip ended. I had

(08:29):
come back I take the train, youknow you travel first class on
the trains with these Europasses. And I had been in
Lisbon, Portugal. And I wascoming back to London where I
was going to meet up with mymother and younger brother. We
were going to all go hometogether on this date. And I got
there early. I was 10 days earlybut I had friends I'd made in
London and I wanted to hang outin London. And so the subway

(08:53):
pulled in from the train stationI took the subway to Leicester
Square for some reason. And Ihad a kind of big wallet that
had my passport and all mycontacts and my money and there
was this thing that was you knowfit into my pack and a really
secure place. And I opened it upon the platform and the front of

(09:16):
this phone and I didn't have theright coin and I turned around
to get the coin from the guyright there and when I turned
back it was all gone. Oh wow.
And so I had nothing in Londonthere I had the change in my
pocket. I had my pack but I hadno ID I had no money I had no
passport, I had no nowhere to gono numbers to call. Everybody

(09:38):
from home was over there itseemed and and so I spent about
10 days living on the on thestreets of London and sleeping
in the parks and going torevival meetings in the morning
to get a tea and a doughnut andstuff like that and pan handling
and doing whatever I couldsurvive it. And I just kept

(10:00):
repeating the name of the hotelthough I knew my mother was
going to be in. And I went theAmerican Embassy and everything
they wouldn't couldn't doanything for me. They were like,
man. Good luck. Well, you know,I hope you would make it to your
family shows up. Wow. And thatwas a life changing thing that
that really changed my wholeview about living rough like

(10:21):
that. And how that happens topeople in life. Was I look back
and I go, that was a luckyexperience. Yeah, at the time,
it didn't seem so lucky. No,

Siobhan (10:35):
not at all. I must have been scary.

Tom (10:37):
It was scary. But you know, nothing happened to me. I didn't
get robbed or

Siobhan (10:46):
you didn't get robbed, but just that first day.

Tom (10:49):
Killed. Yeah. But I guess that was lucky. I think it does.
When I look back, I say I waslucky. I

Siobhan (10:55):
would say so. Yeah. 15 alone broke in London.

Tom (11:00):
Yeah. And the other part of the deal was that I came back
and I went to a school like inthis Giamatti movie. Now that's
up for the Academy Award of thisprep school in upstate New York,
Episcopalian school with theties and the jackets and all
these idiots. But that was thedeal. And I went there for my
junior year of high school. Iwas not invited back. Oh,

Siobhan (11:22):
were you? You were a really rebellious kid, huh?

Tom (11:25):
I was a good hockey player.
I was a good hockey player upthere. But I was rebellious.
Yeah, I was I really was.
Anyway, so anyhow, so let's see.
Let's keep the thread here. So Igot back, I ended up in college,
literally, the mail, but backthen they used to just send you
Yeah, I don't know what we wouldsend them I guess an essay t

(11:48):
score or something. And youwould be inundated with the all
these promotions from all thesecolleges that would take you
well. And I had no interest ingoing to college. But my mother
said you got to go to college,you got to go to college. And so
one of them was from this placecalled Emerson College in
Boston. And she said, Oh, myfriend, Peggy some went there.
You should go there. Try that.

(12:10):
And I said, Okay. And

Siobhan (12:13):
she knew Boston would be a good fit for you.

Tom (12:18):
And I went up there and I didn't I had a girlfriend. His
brother was a senior at Tufts.
He was an actor. And he had beenin India, he had been playing
hair in the play hair in India.
And for the summer, sometraveling tour of hair,

Siobhan (12:36):
that'd be an experience. Well,

Tom (12:38):
he came back and he had a dump apartment up in Porter
square. And he needed aroommate. And so when I showed
up at school to sign up, theysaid, Well, where are you going
to live? I got a place. You'regonna place up at Porter square.
There's Oh, okay. So I never hadthe dormitory experience. And I
lived in that apartment forabout seven years up there. Oh,

(13:00):
wow. And I got through college,and I went to work and I went to
work for a guy named StuartCody, who was a kind of MIT
Media genius guy. He had a placein Somerville, a shop and I said
I'll do anything. I'll do it.
I'll do the toilets, whatever,whatever you need. I just want

(13:23):
to a job he had a to mixingrooms, film mixing rooms, and
various services did a lot ofrental of audio equipment,
ethnographers and things likethat we're just talking about
it. His claim to fame was he haddeveloped something called a
remote start slate system, whichwas a wireless. This was a big
deal back in 1975. That enabledthese guys like Dickie Lee Kok

(13:48):
and all these documentarians outof Harvard and MIT, the KonTiki,
the recreation of the throwhigher Dale boat that this guy
built to replicate what couldhave been done the 1000 years
and sailed it, you know, fromPeru to Europe or something.
Anyway, it was equipped with 316millimeter film cameras, and the

(14:12):
little Nagar tape recorders andthis remote start state system.
So while he's out there, in thewaves, you can push a button and
the cameras are all started.

Siobhan (14:21):
Oh, awesome. It was kind of like the first Yeah, it
was self timer.

Tom (14:25):
It was really crazy stuff.
Yeah.

Siobhan (14:26):
So for anyone that doesn't know Emerson is an Arts
College in Boston. Well,

Tom (14:30):
it was a speech school. Oh, it started as a speech pathology
school. Oh, I didn't know that.
I did. Then it went into radio,television, theater, of course.
But speech was their thing. Youcould go to these some of these
teachers could tell exactlywhere you were from after you
just talked to them for a lotless time than I've talked to

(14:52):
you already. Oh, wow. They couldjust tell the regionalism and
they could say oh, you're fromSouthie or you're from Worcester
or you're from, you know,wherever it was Wyoming. And so
that was that was my my collegeexperience. My teacher was a guy
named Vinnie de Bona is anotherfamous guy. Vinnie was a

(15:14):
newsman. He shot film for WBC.
And he taught there. And he wentto Hollywood. And he invented
Entertainment Tonight. Oh, wow.
And he, he invented America'sFunniest Home Videos. Wow. So he
created this sort of dreamtelevision show where all the

(15:36):
content was free. People sentyou the content for the vote.
That's an amazing thing. It wasjust such a beautiful model. You
know, like, wow, that's reallyis taking it easy, man. Yeah,
you got to just do the introsand outros of the whole thing.
Anyway, Vinnie was obviouslyvery, very successful.

Siobhan (15:58):
So did you go there not realizing that you wanted to get
into like TV and film, it wasjust

Tom (16:03):
I was totally into it. I was, I was a photographer, I had
a dark room and my crummyapartment and Porter square.

Siobhan (16:10):
So you were kind of in that artistic realm before going
there?

Tom (16:14):
i Yeah. But it was more it was more process oriented for me
to there was no like, sittingaround writing scripts. It was
sort of more about you know,shooting film and developing
four by five negatives and colorprinting and, and just
understanding all the mechanicsof film production process.

(16:36):
Okay, I was very much intosaying I want to understand what
everybody's doing in the roomhere. And and that's sort of
what I what I did, I kind ofjust sort of stuck with it. I
was a sound guy and I used towork in the mixing in the post
production and I don't know, Ijust I just love that I still I
still am interested in in thegear and how it how it all

(17:01):
works.

Siobhan (17:03):
So what was your first like, big project, you went to
work for the gentleman that hadthe two audio rooms and

Tom (17:08):
yeah, that that was for Stuart, but I didn't. You know,
I was just, I was a worker beein the back room there. I got
out of that, I guess I guesswhen I started to get it tasted
what was going on? Is I movedout to the Berkshires out to
Western Massachusetts. And I wasgonna get married and I did get

(17:29):
married out there. And I had alot of jobs. I worked as a cook
for a woman named Miss Ruby inWest Stockbridge. I worked as a
projectionist at the movietheater. I was at Massachusetts
licensed projectionist. Wow. AndI was a film editor for a guy
named William Greaves who was inNew York City, who had a home
and there we come up on theweekends. And Bill always had

(17:52):
stuff going on. And he wrote, Hereally put me to work. I was his
editor, I was a sound man, wewould go and shoot film all over
the United States in things likethe Peoplemover systems and
airports. And I, when I go toSan Francisco, I was here when
they were done putting thatcreating that a and, and there

(18:15):
was one another, anyway, they'relike five or six cities, you
know, we went in 10 days andshot all this stuff, and then
came back and cut it up. Butthat's when I really started
getting the feel of it. Enjoyingthe per diem getting paid, and
and getting a per diem. Andthat's when I really kind of got
hooked on it. So it was afterdoing that for, I guess, a

(18:38):
couple years in the Berkshires.
I was a projectionist. I had abuddy who was a production as
there who worked for this Germanguy. And he kind of just did a
lot of paperwork abouttelevision shows that were on
every week. And I reallycouldn't understand this job.
And one day he came in and hesaid, Mike, Klaus, the guy's

(18:59):
name was Klaus Heilig, great guysaid Klaus is looking for a
producer to go to New York towork as a assistant producer in
New York. And if it works out,well yield become the producer.
Do you want to do that? And Isaid, Yeah, I want to do that. I
had no resume. I had nothing. SoI just wrote a letter and I can
do this, this, this and this.
I've done this. This isn't that.
And I went and met Klaus Klaushired me. And the next thing I

(19:22):
know I got to Office on ThirdAvenue and 52nd Street, right
have a PJ Clarke's and I, I workfor this company of about 810
people that represents thebiggest media distributor and
creator in Germany, Austria andSwitzerland. They kind of ran

(19:45):
the German Austrian Swissmarket. They exported about 50
hours of American primetimetelevision every week. Oh, wow.
They had deals with all the sixmajor studios. They own right to
these things in their territoryand another territories And it
was all run by one man who hadmade his fortune on the film was

(20:06):
strada, the Fellini film, he hadbought the rights outside of
Italy somehow for that witheverything, mortgaging
everything, and built that intoliterally an empire. And what he
loved was classical music. Itwas his favorite thing. And he
spared no expense and built thelargest library of Performing
Arts, classical music in theworld. Wow. And they were the

(20:30):
best. They were the ViennaPhilharmonic. They were the best
opera houses in Italy and thebest musicians. And it was just
amazing. And we would sell it toExxon here in this country for a
series called Great performanceson PBS. And I was this post
production guy. So I would getthese cans and crates a film

(20:53):
from Europe, and work with theappointed whoever they were from
public broadcasting, which wasusually good, but sometimes
acrimonious, and subtitle, youknow, essentially put these on
American Standard videotape,transfer the film subtitle and
shoot this sort of interstitialstuff, the interviews with the

(21:14):
artists, you know, between the xor the show, you know, whatever
it was, and flesh it out as aprogram. And I did that for
Klaus for for years. And wewould do a lot. I do, I don't
know, 1520 30 hours, sometimesmore in a season in the kind of
fall to spring season. And thenwhen that ended, I would go off

(21:37):
on these, whatever this otherproducer from Germany wanted to
do in the United States, whichhe had solid gold and all these
sorts of shows, and we would gowith the German hosts and take
them out and do the Germanversion of like solid

Siobhan (21:52):
gold. Oh, that's amazing. And

Tom (21:55):
so we go to Hollywood and Hawaii and Las Vegas and all
these sorts of glitzy placesthat do all the shoot all the
wraparound stuff. So it was agreat job and it went great
until Exxon pulled out an Exxonpulled out. That was pretty much
it for me and Klaus.
I did work for him for yearsafter I did projects for him.

(22:15):
Usually involving someone likeSony or some other group where
he wanted someone in there thathe knew. It was great job. He's
gone now.

Siobhan (22:26):
No, but it sounds like a lot of his work is still out
in the world, though.

Tom (22:30):
Oh, yeah. I mean, there's, it's out there. I guess it's up
on YouTube somewhere. ButLeonard Bernstein was an artist
that was signed to the company.
And these were pretty rigidcontracts in money, made a lot
of money. And he didn't dotelevision for anybody else. So
I got to know him because he wasbased in New York. And even

(22:51):
this, Frederica on Stata, whoended up in Alameda, Alameda of
all places. She apparentlyretired here and I had met her
in New York a couple of times.
She's a wonderful singer. And soI got to meet all these people.
That didn't mean goes in thePavarotti and the Carrera S and
all these tenors and singers andmusicians, which I loved. I

(23:16):
loved that I loved the whole theidea of going into work and
listening to classical music.

Siobhan (23:21):
That's amazing, like job that you fell into.

Tom (23:24):
I just fell into it. Yeah, I do nothing about it. I had no
no knowledge of the classicalrepertoire that I was, you know,
I had heard it. I didn't Ididn't dislike it. But I I was
not a musician. I didn't studythis stuff. Right. I just fell
into it. More Good luck. Yeah.

Siobhan (23:43):
Because we had a conversation once where you told
me that basically, you hadmanifested your life even
without knowing what what it wasor I did. I know.

Tom (23:50):
I know. I did. I you know what, I It's so ironic how this
all tied together. So it'samazing to me. I was so moved by
the film version of West SideStory, the first movie that came
out, I remember seeing that mytown and saying, Wow, not only
did they swear in it, which isamazing. But it was it was big,

(24:17):
you know, it really it reallygot me the whole thing, the
colors, the music, the dancing,the whole and the hood seem kind
of believable in their ownshowbizzy way and but I really
dug it end it just made me thinkthat there's a way to get in on

(24:37):
this. Yeah. And you know, it wasit was a very kind of Protestant
approach. It was work, workwork, you know, you got you got
to do the work, you know, but ifyou keep doing the work, this is
going to work out for you. And Iwatched all the I loved old
movies and all that stuff and,and was well versed in
everything from map andCostello's Humphrey Bogart and I

(25:00):
just thought someday I'm goingto, you know, I'm going to make
it in this in this business,somehow I'm going to make some
kind of a, get a hold on. And.
And it worked out it was kind ofthe first time I years later,
the first time I came to anaward show in LA was the Golden
Globes. And then the ACAT, theEmmys for the making of West

(25:24):
Side Story. It was a film thatKlaus that we CO produced with
the BBC. And I was the guy inNew York. And there's some guys
who came over from London,director and another producer.
Great, great guys. And here, Iwas there I was sitting there

(25:46):
going this is this is a littlecircle you've drawn for yourself
here, isn't it? You know. Andthen a couple years later, I did
win an Emmy for the Bernstein at70. So I was sort of tied into
this West Side Story kind ofpulled you through. I ended up
being involved with LeonardBernstein and this, you know,
these shows, and I just thought,I think I manifested that. I you

(26:07):
know, I can't understand howthat could have happened Just So
randomly, right. You know, Ijust have I think I manifested
that.

Siobhan (26:18):
I think you did, too. I mean, that's an amazing, it's

Tom (26:22):
just, you know, I having still remembering being so moved
by that movie at the time. Andwhat was it? 6212 13 years old?
12 years old. Right. And Ihadn't really started on
photography. My father had adark room in Westport,
Connecticut, where we grew up.
But it was kind of mysterious tome, you know, what was going on

(26:43):
in there? That I don't know.
Yeah, that's what I meant when Isaid about that manifesting.
That was the example. Yeah,

Siobhan (26:53):
I mean, that's a huge example. And it's one of those
moments where like, you kind ofdon't notice it until
afterwards, where you're in thatmoment at the Golden Globes, and
you're like, oh, wow, weremember when I was 12 years
old. No,

Tom (27:05):
I guess I guess I did the same thing. When I put these
kids in the car and drove outhere. I kind of manifested this
future in California for themfor us. All right. And it's
really pretty worked out prettywell. I mean, they're
remarkable. Kids, but they, youknow, they they're thriving.

(27:28):
Both the girls got scholarshipsto UC schools, Berkeley in Santa
Barbara. And, but they worked upthrough the Alameda school
system, graduated mountains andwent went to the local junior
college or whatever it is here.
But they got these grades thatwere just couldn't stop them.
Yeah, he just us kept going andgoing and going, was

Siobhan (27:52):
probably a testament to them seeing you work hard to get
what you wanted. And I mean, itsounds like your job is

Tom (27:58):
fun watching me working hard. I mean, I don't know if
you saw me when I got home and,you know, was ready to go to bed
and get up in the morning and goagain. I guess they figured that
that was the work. But

Siobhan (28:07):
right. Yeah. Because I mean, as a young guy who's huge
in the kind of the balls thatyou had back then. Because not
only are you a single dad ofthree kids now you're gonna move
them across the Yeah, I

Tom (28:18):
wasn't I was 59 years old.
Oh. All right. I was 5959 yearsold. And, you know, I was kind
of going out on a limb there.

Siobhan (28:31):
Yeah. But still, it still takes a lot of courage to
say, All right, well, I'm gonnatake these kids out of the city
and into a new place and start awhole new life for them. Yeah,

Tom (28:39):
yeah. i It seems to be the only thing to do. You know,
their mother was a drug addictand a nurse and just still was
wrestling with it all, what, 14years later, she's still got
problems. And I just kind of waslike, we're gonna do this. I'm
just gonna make somehow this isgonna happen. Right? You know,

Siobhan (28:57):
where do you think that determination comes from?

Tom (29:02):
Well, it must be my mother because my mother didn't know my
dad. You know, I was he wasyoung. I was young when he when
he died. And I had a very goodmother. I really was quite
again, very lucky with that.
Well, I got to know much betteras I got older, you know. Just
died a couple of years ago at96. And she was pretty much to
the to the end. So I guess fromher, she was a girl from

(29:28):
Philadelphia, tough town. sideof town and she she was a
worker. Yeah, she reinventedherself she but after my father
died, she remarried. He gotAlzheimer's. She went through
that for five years with Jackand then Jack died. And she said
no more marriage. I'm done withthat. And she started a kind of

(29:48):
career in Florida selling gotinto real estate got into a good
niche of thing and she did verywell for herself. It's amazing.
It is it is amazing. I think shewas an inspiration actually.

Siobhan (30:04):
She sounds like she was good. And that's probably Yeah,
that's probably is where you gotthat determination and the
ability to know that you canreinvent yourself and after
anything, right.

Tom (30:14):
It's a good thing to remember that

Siobhan (30:17):
you can do that. It is and I think people forget that a
lot. Oh,

Tom (30:20):
yeah. Yeah. I, I agree.
It's sad. It really is veryfluid. What you can be out
there. It's all in your head.
And I think there arelimitations.

Siobhan (30:35):
Because, yeah, I look at you guys. You know, you have
a good group of friends at thebar that you all you go on
adventures all the time, you'regoing to movies, you're active,
you're out, you're still living,and kind of reinventing
yourself. You're alwaystraveling somewhere new, or, you
know, yeah, trying. Yeah. Andit's nice. It's a reminder to me
to like that I can do more thanI think,

Tom (30:56):
well, that's, if we're an inspiration for you to be more
active. And good.

Siobhan (31:03):
Yeah. Cuz sometimes, you know, I get into like a rut,
and then I'll hear you guys areeither one of you is traveling
somewhere, or y'all have plansto go see a movie or you're
going hiking on this one. It'slike, or you just went to this
restaurant? And it's like, Oh, Ihaven't I haven't left the
island in two weeks.

Tom (31:19):
Well, I guess there are times in life for that later
whether it'll be moreopportunity for you to get out.
Well,

Siobhan (31:27):
yeah, of course. But it's but it's also so fun to be
able to come in and talk to youguys. Because you you all have
taught me so much. And like yourstories on meeting Betty Davis.

Tom (31:36):
And yeah, that was before I went to college. That was a

Siobhan (31:40):
it's what I mean, like your life is just all these
little nuggets that you'll dropin. And I'm like, yeah, you've
met one of the most beautifulwomen who was something

Tom (31:46):
else. Yes. She, my mother had a friend named Robin Brown
and Robin was went to schoolwith Eddie David Colby in Maine.
And they both went to Broadway.
And Robin was a dancer, I thinkand and they were you know,
chorus people. And Robin got outof that she married this
characters. I don't know whatelse. I can't remember what I

(32:08):
was into. But they remain great,great friends. And my when she
would come out in the summershe'd run a little cottage
somewhere in Westport. And mymother would say, well, robins
here, Betty, she's going to bethere. I'm going over there. And
it was always sort of around.
And I was now a film student atEmerson. This was like, I think

(32:29):
my second year I was home forthe summer. And I was with Don,
my first wife. And she said, Doyou want to meet her? And we
looked at me and Don looked. Oh,yeah. Yeah. And so we went over
to this cottage and it was shehad drink. We were drinking
bourbon. I think I remember wasJim Beam might have been might

(32:54):
have been Jim Beam. But she wassmoking the Philip Morris
Commander, the long unfilteredones like John's pong balls.
Yeah. And there was like alittle thing full of kitchen
matches on the counters. And,and I remember her putting a
cigarette in her mouth andreaching under the chair. And
she's getting white, the ladymight end up on the bottom.

(33:14):
They're gonna lay them on thebottom of anything around here.
So if you need to let yourcigarette and she was very nice
to us, you know, we only visitedmaybe a drink or two drinks. It
was not a it wasn't all abouther. You know, it was just
visiting with her. You

Siobhan (33:30):
know, she was just a person. She

Tom (33:33):
was a little but kind of, you know, notable, of course.
kind of remarkable person. I canonly reason about what you did,
you know, took you taken onLouis B. Mayer, and all these
guys and just like saying screwyou.

Siobhan (33:50):
Yeah, she was something. She was a
trailblazer.

Tom (33:53):
She was she was a trailblazer. She was always
talking about people that Iended up meeting that were like
world figures like that. Iremember I did a two day thing
with Henry Kissinger. We had himhired to do a voiceover on a six
hour documentary. And at thetime, what we called HD high

(34:14):
definition television, which wasbefore there were high
definition televisions. And Ispent two days with Henry. Me
and Michael in this, you know,audio studio downtown in
Manhattan showed up everymorning got dropped off came in
had bagels and coffee and wentin and you know, did his did his
thing. I couldn't really none ofus could really tell what's

(34:36):
going on here. It was all inGerman. I think he was doing it
in German to voiceover Yeah, thethat's that's how I met a lot of
these people was doing audioaudio recording. Dialogue,
replacement, right?

Siobhan (34:55):
How many different so what you've worked in the
production of all these kinds ofmusical document injuries and
things like that for a lot ofyears and then you went into
advertising. Yeah,

Tom (35:04):
I mean, I ended up it was the internet I got the film
thing was ebbing. You know, itwas there, people were all
shooting the tape up there. AndI had a relationship with a
wonderful company in New Yorkcalled crossroad films, downland
Allen, and Dean Winkler, who'sgood, still good friends of both

(35:25):
friends of mine. And Dan wasgood, he'd get me gigs, I'd get
these, you know, commercialgigs, which were wonderful. They
paid like, you know, 1500 hoursa day. And, you know, you had a
lot of responsibility. And a lotof you only had a few days to do
this stuff. And we go to likesilver cup studios and these big
studios and shoot thesecommercials, whatever, whatever

(35:48):
they were. And that was dyingout for me. I mean, I guess I
was ageing out of it. I don'treally know. But I saw the
writing on the wall. And whenthese two people I mentioned
earlier from touchscreen talkedabout starting this internet
company. They wanted somebodythat had experienced shooting

(36:10):
video, because they wanted togenerate user generated content,
right? And for their clients,and I was perfect guy for that.
And you know, had my fucking meand I was like, yeah. And he'll
take care of, you know, and Isat down with Cheryl and woman,
the co owner. And she said, Doyou want to learn how we do

(36:31):
this? And they they were doinggames for Paramount, like Star
Trek games. Oh, wow. And theyhad this whole thing. What was
what is that language? Theyspeak in TARDIS Star Trek? I
can't remember the not the Borg

Siobhan (36:43):
cleaning on Yep.

Tom (36:45):
Yeah, there's a they have a whole language. They did a video
game around that you learn tospeak, cling on and all this
sort of stuff. And you want toknow how to do this, learn how
to do this. And I said, Sure.
And that began for me, what wasthis getting involved in the
production of digitalproperties, websites, or
whatever. And I didn't writecode per se, but I kind of could

(37:07):
get people that did write codeto tell me how long it was going
to take them to do it. Really,and, and so that's how I got
into it. I jumped I jumped offof the film wagon, and got onto
the internet wagon. But mostlyvideo stuff. We had big clients.

(37:30):
IBM was a big one for theNagano, Nagano Olympics, we did
a big thing for them, took about50 moderate, you know, setups
over to Japan and created thisthing called the surf shack,
where all the athletes couldcommunicate with their, the
world, other teams or otherother members, and it was a you
know, big sort of social mediaexperiment.

Siobhan (37:54):
I love that you like, fall into winning an Emmy, then
you fall into cutting edge, likethe start of the internet and
gaming and digital like, youjust really have had this luck
that

Tom (38:06):
Yeah, well, I You're right.
I agree. I've been very lucky.
But it's a time it seemed likeit was I wasn't falling into it
I was kind of working your ass.
Your as often use your contactsare some way to keep them, you
know, bread on the table. Andthere's a lot to be said for
that sort of. It's common nowthis sort of gig economy but the

(38:29):
gig economy was pretty much howthe business worked in New York,
you know, you got you got showsyou got gigs. And you could
always tell when when, when athing was wrapping up a day or
two everyone be on their phone,or go to the next thing. We're
going to the next thing. And asa producer, you get a little
worried about that, because youdon't want to leave till this
thing's over. Right? So they'vecompleted their job on

Siobhan (38:53):
this one. But it seems like it could have been a really
stressful way to do it was

Tom (38:57):
stressful. Oh, yeah. It was very stressful. It's, it's, it's
a it's a job, it's got a lot ofstress in it. You gotta be able
to embrace that.

Siobhan (39:09):
It's gonna say how did you deal with the stress? Or is
that something that kind offeeds you for?

Tom (39:13):
I guess if you don't, you don't love it, you just
shouldn't do it. And I don'tmean you love it every day,
believe me, but you have somecore. Be Your materializing
Some. Some, which I guess in away you are. You're always
thinking you're gonna, you know,this thing is gonna look this
way. And it rarely comes out theway you thought it was gonna be.

(39:36):
But hopefully it's better. Youlearn what you have learned
along the way.

Siobhan (39:42):
Well, yeah, so I mean, how long did you do the digital
marketing for the beginning ofthe internet? Well,

Tom (39:52):
it was relatively early.
Like I say it was in the early90s. And I did have I had
another I had another luckything I'll tell you about if you
want to talk. Oh yeah. Like, uh,but it's just kind of funny
story, I think we were castingaround, you know, for something
that we could create this is nowwe're about, I don't know, maybe
there's 810 10 of us in thecompany, and Ford manage the

(40:12):
sales production technology. AndI guess there's four hit their
foreheads. I was one of thefour. And so we all had to pitch
our idea, you know, becausewe're going to spend company
resources and time and oncreating this thing. And so
Sheryl wanted to do a thingabout lose sight about Barbies.

(40:35):
And I was like, no, no, you'llnever get that to me. And then
sure enough, she found out thatMattel was not exactly going to
let her do this. And thensomeone else had an idea.
Meanwhile, I'm commuting everyday. And, you know, busting my
ass to get on the 705, the8056 30, how to Grand Central
out to Westport to get home tokids and everything. And I'm on

(40:57):
the bar car. And I said, Let'sdo a site about the bar car. It
this is like a great idea.
Because this is a globalphenomenon. People are going
home in London, Paris, Tokyo,with the same people every
night. And there's a certaingroup of these people that are
going to be in the bar. If theygot one, they're going to be

(41:20):
there. I said, this is a this isa community waiting to be
tapped. And they said, Okay,we'll do it. So I wrote it up
and sourced some retro 50spictures off of photo disc or
whatever that thing was, we getyou get the pictures for free if

(41:41):
you well, not for free, but it'sa one time payment. And, and we
launched this site, and me andmy buddy, Jim, a producer there
would get around and sort ofposted up to Yahoo, and this and
that. And eventually, we becamea Yahoo Site of the Day, which
was like, wow, get excited. SoI'm keep plugging away at this.

(42:04):
And I had a $600 marketingbudget. And I went out and
printed cheap cardboard beercoasters, with an image of the
50s computer on it and the URL.
And I got like 5000 of them,whatever it was. And I started
going that we'd go down to GrandCentral and there'd be like 1314
Bar cards leaving Grand Centrala given night. And I'd be on

(42:27):
there before they have to dealwith them out all over the all
the counters. All these guys Isee on the train. They say, Oh,
I'm going here. I'm going thereas it takes them take some of
these. Yeah. And they did. Theywent to Australia, Japan they
detect and people people likedit. So the site suddenly starts
to get written up. And it's inthe New York Times. And it's in

(42:48):
the New Yorker magazine. Wow.
And the best part for me was aday I got a call from CBS Radio,
who want to talk about commutermatters. To me, this was all
just a gas about you know, he'son the train and, and, you know,
taking care of each other andtaking looking out for each

(43:10):
other. And so I heard I ended upon the radio on in New York
City, talking about computercommuter matters, of which I was
totally, you know, didn't knowanything about just saying that.
I think we should continue tothe park cars, there's always
they're always under threat. Ithink they're gone now. I think
they have finally gotten gottenthem off the New Haven line.

(43:32):
That was the only line that hadthat one. I know, they were the
last ones. But they used to gointo New Jersey, it used to go
up the Hudson, they squat toLong Island. They used to be
coming out in New York Cityevery night. And that was that
was a fun one. I still have theor I still up there. I still pay
the domain registration, andit's hosted up in Pittsfield or

(43:52):
someplace.

Siobhan (43:53):
Nice. I have seen it before. I've looked at it before
we've talked about it. And it'sgreat. I think we should you
should update it. Bring it back.

Tom (44:02):
One point 1.0 Yeah, it needs a lot of technology
overhauling. But it had it hadits things at the time. You
could send people virtualcocktails, which are a little
little flash GIF, animated GIFsand stuff. And I don't know, I
had a pretty good list. I hadabout 50,000 email addresses

(44:23):
stored somewhere. God knowswhere they are now. Yeah. Or if
they're, if they're stillviable. Yeah, but it that was
that was a fun. That was a funrun in New York to do that.

Siobhan (44:35):
That is fun. And then yeah, like you've been on the
cutting edge of being likecreating those things and being
able to send people gifts andit's amazing.

Tom (44:43):
That yeah, I don't know, man. I

Siobhan (44:46):
well, you you were in it and working in so it probably
doesn't seem as

Tom (44:51):
Yeah, I I guess I guess I just don't feel like it's behind
me somehow. I still feel in themiddle. Have a lot of this stuff
in my head. Yeah.

Siobhan (45:02):
Do you still do any of that where I know you're mostly
retired now? Nothing

Tom (45:06):
really useless. I have no, I have no function. Really? That
is not true. I don't know. Imean, I don't really have any
reason to be taken up space. Ijust, I'm not really doing doing
that much.

Siobhan (45:20):
But you worked so hard for all those years now. You're
retired and enjoying it?

Tom (45:24):
Yeah, I am enjoying it.

Siobhan (45:25):
So you're setting good examples for people like me. If
I work hard, then maybe I canget to retire and travel and
hang out with my friends mostdays. And yeah,

Tom (45:36):
that's a good thing to do.
I agree. I agree. I just I'msurrounded by people. I mean, my
beloved Carol is so focused onjust always, every day, another
project another, this you know,let's try that. I mean, this
moment is something she walkedinto a store in Sonoma last
week, there was a beauty productthing. And she said, to go see

(45:57):
what I'm gonna go into, I'mgonna offer to work for for
free. I mean, I'll get paid inproduct. I don't want to be on
their books. I don't want a Wtwo. I don't want any, any any
paperwork. I looked at it, Iwould just I would just love it.
I could do this so well. And shedoes. She could she has worked,
you know, all these kinds of asa young woman, before her
business began and took off. Shewas a retailer, she could sell

(46:21):
anything to anybody. So she'sstill out doing it. She's 76 For
God's sakes. And she's like, youknow, give me a job. I want a
job.

Siobhan (46:32):
Right? Yeah. So she works and you hang out and go, I
guess I try not to feel guilty,but you shouldn't because she's
doing what she enjoys. Andyou're doing what you're
enjoying now? Yeah,

Tom (46:41):
I know. Everyone says it's important to find something when
you get to this point in yourlife something and I just
haven't really found anything. Ilike hiking. Good. You know, I
like smoking some dope. Yeah, Ilike to kind of look around and
travel.

Siobhan (46:57):
Because you and John have now hiked you guys set out
right would be

Tom (47:00):
10 years. He told me in the car this morning that we're
coming up on 10th anniversary.
The first day I went with him toSnow was the first time 10 years
ago. I just couldn't believe

Siobhan (47:09):
that. That's a long time and you in that 10 years
you guys have hiked how manydifferent? Didn't you try? Look?

Tom (47:16):
We have a book. Yeah, we're we're over 800 miles and of
hiking around the Bay Area. Andthere's a book with all of them.
Bob, the grumpy bog, made a verythoroughly documented list of
every hike.

Siobhan (47:28):
Who is grumpy Bob and how come I have not met him yet?

Tom (47:32):
Grumpy Bob left us he moved to Bellingham, Massachusetts, or
pardoning Washington. And he wasthe third amigo in this whole
cycling hiking thing that hewould come into to the bar. And
he was at the time. Was heretired, I guess he must have

(47:53):
been. But he had worked forWells too. But he was in the
security of digital securitystuff. And very smart guy and a
great musician. He would come inwith John, they would talk about
this, I would go really crazy.
You're gonna go walk in the in abig circle for 510 miles and a
circle. Really, we don't do thatwhere I come from. Anyway, they

(48:13):
talked me into it. And I thinkexpecting I would give up I
don't know what they wereexpecting. But that's that was
it and, and Bob was doing it foryears. Uh, Bob knew all the
trails he had been to all theseplaces as a kid, he grew up in
Walnut Creek, he would have beenall these things. And so that's

(48:37):
how that's how we got to do it.
And we all became fast friendsfrom that. We just spent so many
we would meet every Wednesdaymorning in front of the bar. So
7am we meet in front of Z'sYeah. And usually decide that
where we're gonna go andsometimes it would be you pick a
place you pick you know, we lookfor new places. I'd go on the

(48:58):
East Bay trails or whatever andsay nine miles not Yeah. Okay,
let's try that one. And there wego.

Siobhan (49:07):
We want what are your top three favorite hikes in the
Bay Area?

Tom (49:10):
Well, I'm big, big point raised fan. I'm a big snore fan.
snores a beautiful, beautifulspot I don't know it's hard to I
can't believe how lucky I am tohave this little walk up on the
Oakland Hills there. Yeah. Imean, if you don't go with when

(49:32):
the school starting could takeyou up take a bit longer you can
be up there and 2025 minutes andand you can get away from it.
You can you can not hear stuffit can be perfectly quiet and
you're out there but I guess noand and point arrays are my
there are a lot of differentheights there but those have

(49:52):
been the most impressive we didbig base and that was exciting.
That was that was our one of ourlongest ones that's now near San
Jose or someplace.

Siobhan (49:59):
How long has That one,

Tom (50:00):
I think it was like 13 or 14 miles. And we were good. I
tell you, we're all in prettygood shape at the time. Yeah.

Siobhan (50:11):
Well, I mean, you're all still in pretty good shape.
You're still doing it. 10 yearslater, you're still going

Tom (50:15):
up 14 miles?

Siobhan (50:18):
Well, that's alright.
If you've dropped it down. Youstill do like 10 mile hikes.

Tom (50:22):
Yeah, we couldn't do it. We could do that. Yeah, it's just
important to keep moving. That'sone of the things gotta keep
moving.

Siobhan (50:28):
Yeah, I often say that like, because I deal with so
much chronic pain, I'm alwayslike, I work through it. Because
bodies in motion stay in motion.
And when you sit in the pain toolong, it just makes it worse,
really. Because if you're goingto be in pain either way, you
might as well be out living itinstead of just wallowing in it.
Yeah, I'm

Tom (50:45):
sorry, you have to your suffer. From that I've been
really lucky. I get aches andpains. But once you start moving
away from me, that pretty muchgoes away.

Siobhan (50:56):
Yeah, same. Sometimes if I'm sitting for too long, I
get up and I look like theHunchback of Notre Dame or like
a crappy old lady. And then fiveminutes later, I'm moving and
you couldn't even tell. But it'sjust like that transition into
getting back to moving can be alittle slow. So a bar the bar
has been a theme in your lifetoo, with the

Tom (51:18):
nude has it you know, I don't know how it's gonna sound
but there's always been a bar inmy life. I had one in New York
on Third Avenue, I have toactually one left one close
down, I cross the street andstart what do another one. But

(51:41):
it's always been the sort ofcenter of my kind of the
neighborhood base, you know,even though these people in this
place where no one lived on 55thStreet and Third Avenue, but we
all drank there every day forlunch and after work. And it's
gotten me out of some jams, Ireally it really has helped me

(52:05):
out. When I when I wasseparating from my first wife, I
had to find a place to live. AndI saw this thing on a lamppost
in New York Don't ever do this.
It says you know apartment forrent, and you tear off a little
thing with a number on thebottom. So I tore the number off
the bottom. And the apartmentsliterally around the block from

(52:26):
my office, I said, this isperfect. Wow. Not much of an
apartment, I guess. And so Imeet the guy, look at the
apartment, give them a check.
And it's all supposed totranspire in the next week, or
10 days to the end of the month.
And that comes and the guydoesn't get out of the

(52:46):
apartment. Oh, and he's takingthe check. He's got the he's got
the he's got the money. And, youknow, after a week of excuses,
as he suddenly not making it notmaking any excuses anymore. And
I I was worried I had a lotgoing on my head, of course, was

(53:07):
going on. And I happen to goover to check the building to
see if he's there. And one ofthese things, situations where
someone's coming out of thebuilding and the doors open and
I go in and the next thing Iknow I'm standing at his door
and his door is not locked. It'sopen. It's like a jar, you know.
So I'm there and I confrontinghim. And he's essentially

(53:29):
telling me to, you know, fuckoff. And I I took his watch like
fair collateral for me. Yeah,you're gonna have this back when
he give me my money back. Sothen I go off to, you know,
work, whatever. And I'm workingover on across the city audio

(53:53):
room over there. Matrix, wherethey ended up doing the John
Stewart show. That's where thatwas out of stage on 11th Avenue.
And I get a call. And it's frommy office. And that's the police
have just been here. Oh, and theguy had filed a assault, beef

(54:16):
robbery and assault. Anyway, wethought you should know. I said,
my cell phone. Thank you. I pickup the phone and I call the bar.
And the night door guy was inNew York City police detective.
And he was a guy named BillClark. And Bill's got was quite

(54:39):
famous because he ended up beingthe technical consultant for a
TV show called NYPD Blue. Oh,yeah. And he built moved to
Hollywood and the bill went upbut before he was bar guy, that
doorman and I call him up and Italked to Bill I said Bill, this
is what happened is he goes youhave to Watch, I got the I got

(54:59):
the washers, bring me the watch.
I said, Okay, so I go backacross town, it's now seven or
eight o'clock at night. And Ihand it to him. I say I'm young,
I'm an idiot, but this guy toldmy money and, and he says, I
want you to come in earlytomorrow. That means you got to
get really early. I want you tobe at the briefing down here at
like 10 of seven. Okay? And Iwant you to go talk to and give

(55:22):
them the watch. So, okay, so Icome in, I go to this empty
police station relatively empty.
And see this detective and hetakes a watch and I started to
tell him because now I heard.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Well letyou know. And I think it must
have been maybe 24 hours later.
I had a postal money order forthe money on my desk at work. It

(55:45):
had been dropped off there. So Ibought Dylan ice. He was into
his neckties I bought him a nicenecktie or two Brooks Brothers.
He liked that shit. And and thatwas the you know the bar but the
save my ass literally in thiscase. I mean, I could have ended
up in Rikers. So yeah, I'vealways had a bar in my life. I

(56:07):
think they're, they're greatresources, if they're not
abused. Yes. You meetinteresting people sometimes and
you know, barstools, things saythey have softball teams and,
you know, do stuff. Yeah.

Siobhan (56:24):
I'm a big proponent of there's always been a bar in my
life, too. And I think when youget to see, like, especially a
neighborhood bar like ours,where it's like, you get to see
the community, you buildfriends. I see people meet there
all the time that then ourfriends for years. Yeah. And
there, it's a good if someonedoesn't show up, you notice and
you're like, where are they? Arethey okay, it's a nice community

(56:45):
feeling, right? Yeah. Which Ithink people sometimes forget.
That happens with bars. Yeah.

Tom (56:51):
These was a friend from England, the guy that used to
sit down at the end of the bar,

Siobhan (56:59):
Graham Graham. I only got to meet him very briefly.
But he was

Tom (57:03):
he was a crusty old character. He was he was a he
was Graham was not more you gotto know him. He wasn't that
likable. He was charming in hisway. And

Siobhan (57:13):
he had the accent. So did the accent that always helps
in America.

Tom (57:17):
But he was a character and he you know, he was like, found
because he was missed. Sowhere's Graham? Have you ever
seen gram? No, let's go look forit. And they go over there's
gram lying on the floor in thisapartment for day two? Yeah. And
they found they found him. So itjust a good thing. It does
provide that it

Siobhan (57:36):
doesn't it I think it's sometimes the pluses are way
more than in a bar than theminuses, but it just has that
negative connotation by so manypeople because it gets abused so
easily. Yeah,

Tom (57:47):
it's not a private club, you know, it's open to the
public. So you never really knownecessarily what's going to
happen in there. But that's whyability and that's its beauty. I
think the fact that it's wideopen Yeah. So anyway,

Siobhan (58:07):
we were talking about you being in the TV production.
Well, you went from the TVproduction to the digital
marketing. And then is that howyou got into kind of like
working for the banks is doingtheir digital marketing?

Tom (58:19):
Yeah, no, that's that's exactly what I was doing. I was
one of my longer contracts withWells Fargo was building
something called your loantracker. This is a this was a
phone based thing that allowedpeople to modify their mortgages
and essentially the screw uptheir entire life on their phone
at the bar their whole mortgageeverything they can take and

(58:44):
mess it all up right at thephone. Wow. And yeah, it was
building these these tools. Someare public facing some were
internal into the into the bank.
And and then some advertising,we did do some work on the Wells
Fargo website. You know, stufflike that, sort of reduce the
the checking area, and it's allabout team building and

(59:10):
collaborating and getting buyin. Yeah.

Siobhan (59:16):
So what's your favorite tip for getting someone to buy
in that you've used over theyears?

Tom (59:26):
Well, I guess it depends what they're concerned about.
What what what their their pointis, that there's you know,
there's only three dials on themachine. I think as I as I
recall, there's, there's cost,there's time and there's
resources and you can twist thedials if you want it sooner then

(59:50):
you're going to have to add moreresources and that's going to
make it cost more and if youwant you know, as I can just
tweak these things all you know,away so you You can have what
you want, but it'll take moretime. Or you can have what's
here and save some resources forthe future. You know what I
mean? Yeah, so it's all a matterof what, what the circumstances

(01:00:13):
calls for. But it's not thatcomplicated. There's only so
many variables. And this is whatyou're playing with, you know,
the advertising a lot of peoplejust want everything tomorrow.
Right, you know? And that's,that's, that's where some
discussions begin.

Siobhan (01:00:32):
I want it all and I want it now. Yeah. So it's about
getting down to like the brasstacks of it. And then, yeah,
distilling it down to thosethree knobs. And, yeah,

Tom (01:00:40):
it is. They, they're, the people that do it know that, you
know, there are a lot ofwonderful was that the ay ay, ay
ay CT, something commercialproducers, American Independent
commercial producers, these longbudget documents, they literally
have a column, or a box, forevery possible expense, you can

(01:01:03):
imagine, on a given situation,you know, horses and boats, and
this, whatever, whatever it is,it's in there. And I used to
love it, I thought that was justjust the greatest thing in the
world that I do, you couldactually make the grind, it's so
fine, you know, that you couldreally, you know, figure out

(01:01:26):
what something's going to cost.
And of course, you always add acontingency. But yeah, I'd like
to I'd like that part part ofit. I did enjoy that part of it.
The timing. I'm very obsessedwith time. I'm really scheduled
driven in a way that I neverthought I'd be in my retirement.
Right. I I can't explain itCarrie Carol laughs at me about

(01:01:51):
it. But, you know, on Thursdays,I come down to Alameda from
Sonoma and I usually leaveSonoma around nine o'clock in
the morning. And I always, youknow, get the coffee. They're
always you know, get them off inthere. Always take a leak there.
I always eat an apple in Marin.

(01:02:13):
You know, I have this routine.
Wow. And I'm, I'm really kind ofenslaved to it. You know, I
don't even notice that I'm doingit. But I look back and, and I
do that a lot about my life. Iwake up in the morning and plan
a day. And I, I really think ofexactly how it's gonna take me
to do this. Where I'm going tobe at this time. And I don't

(01:02:33):
know if it's a curse, or if it'ssomehow making my life easier. I
don't really know. Carol's notlike this at all.

Siobhan (01:02:42):
Yeah, I'm not like that. And I actually just been
thinking about that, like, Idon't have a regular daily
routine. Because my schedulesare always changing and things
but I'm like, maybe if I did aregular routine, it would help
me in some of these aspects ofmy life. I've never been a
routine.

Tom (01:02:56):
I used to do it every day, because I don't have that much
going on. But the days that I dohave stuff going on. Yeah, I
have definitely down there knowwhat I mean? I've really, it's
crazy to me. If I have if I haveto, you know, do something like
to like travel here, travelthere. You know, today, go on a
hike, do the shopping the kidsshopping, take a shower, or go

(01:03:18):
to be or two o'clock, you know,when I get out of there, maybe
go to the log at four o'clock.
You know what I mean? I've gotthis whole thing already in my
head, about what I'll do whereI'll go.

Siobhan (01:03:28):
I wonder if that comes from being in production for so
long. And you have to have likea checklist to make sure it all
gets done. And it does.

Tom (01:03:35):
I think it does, because there's always a sort of
potential for people's hair toburst into flames. And and
there's it's always good to havea sense of like, well, this is
really where we're at, you know,yeah. And we can do this and
this and this if we and meetthis deadline, if we you know,
but I don't know, I just maybeit's a defense mechanism of some

(01:03:58):
kind, and I don't really know.

Siobhan (01:04:00):
Well, it seems to be working for you. No, it does.
But it makes

Tom (01:04:04):
me you know, think I'm kind of crazy to have it, but it does
work for me. It does work forme.

Siobhan (01:04:10):
This Carol appreciate your scheduling.

Tom (01:04:14):
She just thinks it's amazing that anybody anybody,
you know lives like this.
Anyway, doses. She's laughs Shedoes. She does. She just calls
me this Libra, who has all thistime management capability. I
don't know.

Siobhan (01:04:30):
So how long have you two been together? Now?

Tom (01:04:32):
I think Carolyn are going on nine years. Oh, wow. So

Siobhan (01:04:36):
you met her and your hiking buddies at almost the
same time for this phase of yourlife? I'd

Tom (01:04:41):
been five years in California. About that. Five
years in California. We startedhiking in early 2024. Yeah, I
guess I guess I did. I met Carolon the internet. And in another
one of these weird things I wentto visit her in her apartment
was right across the street fromthe office that I was sent to

(01:05:04):
when I came to San Francisco onday one. Oh, wow. Second on
Second Street in San Franciscoright across from my office was
and which I just thought was sostrange. Yeah, it's been about
nine years. remarkable,remarkable person. I think she's

(01:05:25):
on her fifth house since I'veknown her.

Siobhan (01:05:29):
Wow.

Tom (01:05:31):
She just does this. It's just amazing to watch see rehabs
houses, kinda? Yeah. You know?
She does. But she's

Siobhan (01:05:39):
not volunteering to work for a retail store. Well,

Tom (01:05:42):
she seems to have not yet right. It doesn't seem to be
enough time maybe because thishouse is pretty much getting
done. But she's now doing allthis stuff. But she's out, you
know, networking and trying toget colored jobs and this job
and you know, I'll help you Ihelp there. There was this
restaurant that had beenabandoned or was not occupied.

(01:06:04):
In front of this kind of chintzymall on the corner of Sonoma.
Abbey Road, this big, big route12 up in Sonoma, we drive by it
for months and months have beenkilled. It looks like a what a
mess. Yeah, we got to do some ofthat play, you know. And now
next thing I know, she's got theguy's phone number. She's on the
phone with him saying I'll doall the color for you. I'll tell
you what color to paint thisthing. She's done this whole

(01:06:26):
blocks of San Francisco. Wow,CVS is and apartment houses and
all the girls got thesephotographs. And she's got the
the things from the paint storenow that sample chips and the
person who put them on orthey're there, they're there.
They're there. And she hands itand that's a deliverable for
her. She gets paid for that.
That's awesome. And she said,I'll do this for this guy. And I
guess when he gets it together,he'll call her, you know, right.

(01:06:51):
But she's not passive aboutthis. She's really if she sees
something that she doesn't liketo look at, she's gonna do
something to change it. That's

Siobhan (01:06:59):
amazing. It is it is amazing. In the fact that she's
gotten it done. Yeah, there's somany people that talk about it.
But for her to actually pull itoff and get them to paint it.
Yeah,

Tom (01:07:08):
she's she, she feels she has a responsibility to raise
the value of the real estateproperty of her neighbors.

Siobhan (01:07:16):
That's a great neighbor to have

Tom (01:07:19):
my place really nice. So your place is going to be more
valuable. Yeah. And if you wantany help, I'd be happy to help
you. Right?

Siobhan (01:07:25):
Because then it just makes her place even more
valuable, right? That's a smartbusinesswoman. It's

Tom (01:07:29):
very smart. It's very smart. Again, not not my kind of
brains but very smart. I agree.
I never would have put ittogether like that.

Siobhan (01:07:41):
Yeah, but you've put together so many things that you
know, you have your creativebrain to. I

Tom (01:07:46):
do. I do have mine. I do. i The only thing the only way I
use it at the moment, though, isin a very limited way. When I go
to the walk. I have this archiveof stuff sky escapes from this
one position on the bay thatfeatures the skyline of San

(01:08:08):
Francisco in the corner usually,but mostly it's all about the
sky and the light in the Bay.
And that's been really fun forme I have a I like to do that I
really there are certain objectsin the world that I like to to
go and photograph.
They used to be actually two ofthem are outside bars. One of

(01:08:30):
them are those two old statelypalm trees on the corner
opposite z's. Yeah. And thathouse there.

Siobhan (01:08:36):
I loved I have a couple of shots of the moon, right?
Yeah.

Tom (01:08:39):
And then there's there's those catalpa tree outside of
the back door of the bar that Igo to on Tuesday nights and
Sonoma. When Carol was on herphone, she had a phone meeting
every every Tuesday night, andI've cut loose. So I go to the
dive bar in Sonoma.

Siobhan (01:08:53):
I didn't know you're cheating on me in Sonoma

Tom (01:08:57):
only got 90 minutes. I really I'm out there calls from
six to 730. So it's short. But Ialways go back and take a
picture of this guitar poetrybecause I had one in our front
yard in Westport. And I miss itscreen tree.

Siobhan (01:09:11):
Do you share those photos anywhere? No,

Tom (01:09:14):
I don't. In fact, I maybe somebody will hear this and help
me figure out how to reallyorganize them. Carol thinks I
can sell them. I bet you couldtell you think Susan these are
definitely marketable things.
Yeah, she encourages menaturally, of course, you know,
to do this, but I I don't know.

(01:09:36):
It's all its digital stuff. AndI can't print it in my own dark
room. I don't you know, I don'tI I've had some prints made and
I don't. I don't know. I haven'tfigured out how to do it in a
way that gets the result that Ilike. Alright,

Siobhan (01:09:49):
I bet you will find you someone that can help with that.

Tom (01:09:52):
I hear there's some people that that are out there that do
this. Yeah. Maybe I'll find one.

Siobhan (01:09:57):
Do you still have a darkroom? No, no He's gonna say
they're so they're hard to findno other than maybe community
colleges and colleges anduniversities

Tom (01:10:06):
in the chemicals. I mean, good even buying film, to me is
I don't know where you'd even dothat. Yeah.

Siobhan (01:10:14):
And I remember, there was some event that I had bunch
of those disposable cameras andit took me like I had to mail
them away, to get them developedinstead of just bringing them
Yeah, yeah. And I thought It'sso wild that used to be able to
do this anywhere. And now youcan't. It's hard to find I know.

Tom (01:10:33):
It's an archaic medium, but

Siobhan (01:10:35):
it's, it's we were talking about this before we
turn the mics on about how whenyou see something that's on
film, it has a different feelingand a different vibration than
when you see a print made from acomputer. Yeah,

Tom (01:10:46):
it definitely has a different feel. I mean, just to
hold it and manipulate it and,and get familiar with it. Yeah.
When I was a projectionist atthe man hey, we lots of films
all kinds of arthouse stuff, allthis stuff, and you're just
dealing with me literally milesthat film every day. And I loved
it. And I just loved it. But Iwas an editor too. And that was

(01:11:07):
a lot of a lot of that inediting a lot of hands on. It
wasn't like it wasn'telectronic. It was, you know,
glue and splicing blocks. And,you know, all this. It was a
whole different Moses oldtechnology.

Siobhan (01:11:23):
Yeah, it was an art. I mean, it not that it's not an
art now, but it was just adifferent kind of art. Yeah.

Tom (01:11:30):
Well, you know, it was it was a area of the business that
was really dominated by women.
Oh, really? Yeah. The early filmeditors were women. Hmm. I never
knew that. Yeah. Either. A lot.
A lot of famous filmmakers usehad women editors. And I should
remember some names now. But Idon't. But they were women. And
they they cut the film.

Siobhan (01:11:53):
Back in the day? Yeah.
Probably because they had thepatient's work. Maybe or

Tom (01:11:58):
the organizational mind.
Yes. for it. But there was anarea that they covered. Not that
they're into it yet. I mean,they're into the industry yet.
On the New York Times today,there was about that thetic
percentage of women behindcamera and the industry down

(01:12:18):
there in Hollywood.

Siobhan (01:12:24):
Yeah, I mean, even now, it's mostly male dominated.
Yeah.

Tom (01:12:28):
Yeah, it is.

Siobhan (01:12:29):
I mean, we're getting better. But it's sometimes when
you look at the numbers, you'restill like, how are we still so
far behind?

Tom (01:12:37):
I don't know. I don't know.
I can't explain it. I I couldn'tI that was I could never get
into the whole of that aspect ofthe business, the real
commercial, theatrical filmproduction. Even rock and roll
it was I've had bad experiencesin dealing with deals with that

(01:13:01):
kind of those kinds of folks.
Right. met some great people butartists but not it wasn't right
for me. Right wasn't a good fitfor

Siobhan (01:13:16):
that. You enjoyed the classical and the you know, I
enjoy

Tom (01:13:20):
that. I enjoy all the music, but there seem to be less
fewer poisonings and

Siobhan (01:13:30):
I just gonna say politics and you went to
poisoning. Yeah,

Tom (01:13:33):
no, I think these guys have slipped me and Mickey once on a
job in London. Oh, wow. Thatthey got me out of the picture
for about four or five days.
Wow. But that was rock and roll.
That was another another thing Igot to meet a Beatle though I
got to meet George. He was hewas involved in Eric Clapton and
Dave Gilmore. And was JohnSanborn, the saxophone player.

(01:14:00):
It was a piece of music that waswritten for him. Concerto for
saxophone by Michael Kaman. Youknow who he is? I don't. He's a
New York guy. But he writes filmmusic. He wrote all the music
for the lethal weapon movies.
Die Hard. And Terry Gilliam'sBrazil and Michael was a great
guy. He's he's not with us anylonger either. But he wrote a

(01:14:23):
nice piece of music, classicaltrain Juilliard guy for Sandborn
and ended up being a deal withPioneer LaserDisc at the time.
It's actually it still makes meslightly nauseous to
talk about this deal. It wasWow, they're all great. The

(01:14:47):
music was fine and all theartists are great, but my co
producer was a sociopath. Oh,

Siobhan (01:14:54):
anyway, yeah, I mean, we move on. Yeah. Was what was
your favorite project thatyou've ever worked on? Well, it
sounds like you've had so many.
But is there one that is likethe crown jewel for you?

Tom (01:15:08):
The favorite one to work on? Well, I was quite I enjoyed
working on the Bernstein 70 showout of Tanglewood. That was good
because that was a nice,wonderful location placed him to
work out of and it was rightnear where I had lived just a
couple of years previously, as acook and a film editor and

(01:15:31):
everything else. I was in Westawkward zone tangle woods in
Lenox, and I used to see SeijiOzawa at the coffee shop in the
morning when he was coming inand I was going off to cut woods
somewhere for money or for heatinstead of for money, I would be
working for cordwood and so thatwas kind of fun to go back there

(01:15:53):
and do that. Do that show andhave that conversation with
Seiji about that? Do youremember me? I used to? Yeah, I
do.

Siobhan (01:16:03):
That's another full circle moment.

Tom (01:16:05):
That was a kind of full circle moment. So I liked I
liked that one a lot had a lotof great people and Victor
Borger joy, you know, meetingthese characters. You know,
Victor Vargas,

Siobhan (01:16:19):
I know the name.

Tom (01:16:20):
He's an old he's an old actor. He's a he's just like
this clown. And he's Danish, andhis act is kind of
discombobulated conductor. Yes,sir. Yeah. But he's quite
musical and quite quiteknowledgeable about all this.
But you know, he was in it. Butthere were lots of people that

(01:16:42):
are famous and fun to to workwith. They all did a nice job
for Lenny. No, I don't know. Ijust like to work. I just love
to work. It was nice.

Siobhan (01:16:57):
Well, I guess we'll let you get back to your schedule
for the day. But thank you somuch for coming and talking to
us about

Tom (01:17:04):
it's been my honor to talk to you about it. Thank you for
asking. Yeah.

Siobhan (01:17:09):
I love hearing these stories. And I love that I get
to keep them going for a whilelonger. And yeah, to know them.

Tom (01:17:15):
We'll see i have i It's funny. It's a funny experience
for me to do this. And I getforget that I'm doing it. And
it's only I remember, I'm doingit and it kind of

Siobhan (01:17:27):
jams me up a little bit. Oh, well, it's always it's
fun to have someone that I canthat I talked to and hear so
many stories from then come hereand see the difference of having
a mic in front of them. Yeah,

Tom (01:17:38):
I'm not usually on this end. Yeah, it's yeah, you seem a
little

Siobhan (01:17:42):
basketball, which is fun. Because you're usually the
one doing the audio and thebehind the scenes. probing for

Tom (01:17:50):
the directing guy. Can you say that again? Please? Yeah.
Mike, say that on my face?

Siobhan (01:17:56):
No. Well, thank you.
And I hope you will enjoy theaudio from this. I look forward
to it. Give me the critiquesthat I may need.

Tom (01:18:03):
I look forward to I think I should listen to it alone.

Siobhan (01:18:05):
Oh, yes. Well, that you listened to it alone before. Let
the rest of the world chime in.

Tom (01:18:10):
For my kids, my kids here.
Yeah.

Siobhan (01:18:13):
All right. All right.
Well, thank you so much, Tom.
And thank you all for listening.
Okay.