Showing posts with label West Coasters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label West Coasters. Show all posts
May 15, 2009
From Jennifer Jones
Happy Birthday T2!
Hope your 40th is the best yet! I wish I could be there to celebrate, but alas I will have to toast from the other coast! Another Hollywood starlet also wanted to send you wishes...
Have a great day!!!
xoxo ~ JJ
Hope your 40th is the best yet! I wish I could be there to celebrate, but alas I will have to toast from the other coast! Another Hollywood starlet also wanted to send you wishes...
Have a great day!!!
xoxo ~ JJ
From Andrew Sample
ODE TO THE CM CLASS OF '98
We pilaged the metal biz with vigor
Tossing aside the norms and trends
Bringing in new stars and underdogs
Some became enemies and some friends
Concerts and festivals helped keep us sane
Meetings and budgets were met with disdain
Studios and rehearsal rooms never got old
Dipshit managers and agents all bought and sold
Getting out before it got too bad
Was no doubt a smart move
As now the CDs, LPs and 7-inches
Have all bowed to downloads and I-Tunes
Happy 40th Tom!!!
Miss you man...Andrew Sample
We pilaged the metal biz with vigor
Tossing aside the norms and trends
Bringing in new stars and underdogs
Some became enemies and some friends
Concerts and festivals helped keep us sane
Meetings and budgets were met with disdain
Studios and rehearsal rooms never got old
Dipshit managers and agents all bought and sold
Getting out before it got too bad
Was no doubt a smart move
As now the CDs, LPs and 7-inches
Have all bowed to downloads and I-Tunes
Happy 40th Tom!!!
Miss you man...Andrew Sample
From Eric & Beth Freedman
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Tom,
Happy Birthday!!! Hope all of your wishes come true!
LA is not the same without you and Jennifer!
Love,
Beth and Eric Freedman
From Adam & Vanessa
Tom-Vanessa and I were gonna do a birthday rap song for you. I had already planned to rhyme ‘Bejgrowicz’ with ‘Refuse/Resist’! Unfortunately, my studio is in pieces and in storage at the moment, so a simple sentiment of birthday love will have to suffice. Hope this birthday kicks ass dude. Miss you guys and hope to see you soon.
Adam
From Steve Joh
Tom B! Happy Birthday, Are you really 40? Damn, it seems like yesterday that I, as an intern at my first day at Caroline, bought you a beer on your last day there as part of your going away party. Still can't believe we both ended up across the country a few years later working for the same company. Anyway, here's to living big in a small town...Happy Birthday!
Steve
PS. I hope you're old and wise enough now to be able to admit that the Outfield really were a great band, play deep Tom, play deep...
Steve
PS. I hope you're old and wise enough now to be able to admit that the Outfield really were a great band, play deep Tom, play deep...
From Peter Brandt
I met Tom in 1997 in Los Angeles where we both lived for awhile. My wife Lida knew him from New York.
10 Miracles Tom performed during his first four decades:
1. Within one month of meeting Tom, he had transformed me from a simple hillbilly into a suave Los Angelino. Tom introduced me to the Johnny Rockets veggie burger, and cooked me the very first Indian-food meal I had ever come close to. The latter was a horizon-expanding experience which ignited within me a 10 year passion for indian cuisine, which has, in turn, been an ass-expanding experience.
2. In the 1990's Tom unseated Gray Davis, then sitting as Governor of California, and Tom is the current governor of California. Tom was able to accomplish this political coup because he is an assassin sent from the future and he has a titanium alloy endoskeleton covered in living tissue. Or I may be mistaking Tom for someone else.
3. Having only a single leftover Astro-Burger veggie chilli dog in his refrigerator Tom nevertheless broke it, and fed 13 members of the band Trial and their associated roadies and make-up artists. None went hungry. And he let them stay at his apartment, even though I only asked him like 15 minutes before they showed up.
4. Tom let me stay at his apartment while he was out of town and even though his bedroom door somehow got broken on my watch, and he didn’t get mad. Ordinary wear and tear, dude. I replaced the door with one made of particle-board alloy, covered in living tissue. Still waiting for a thank-you note.
5. Few people know this, but Tom was the roadie in the film Another State of Mind, and even to this day he continues to dye his hair various colors every other day to reflect how the tour is going.
6. Tom indirectly introduced me to my wife, which was pretty cool of him.
7. Tom adopted an entire litter of kittens in Los Angeles. Coincidentally, one of those cats was also comprised of titanium alloy covered in living tissue, and was sent from the future to eliminate Ted Nugent.
8. As I understand it, Tom wandered in the deserts of Alabama for what seemed like 30 years, then returned to the promised land (Los Angeles).
9. Tom is very handsome for someone with fuschia hair and a pure titanium nose.
10. Taking a page from Norman Rockwell, Tom gave himself a tattoo of himself giving himself a tattoo.
10 Miracles Tom performed during his first four decades:
1. Within one month of meeting Tom, he had transformed me from a simple hillbilly into a suave Los Angelino. Tom introduced me to the Johnny Rockets veggie burger, and cooked me the very first Indian-food meal I had ever come close to. The latter was a horizon-expanding experience which ignited within me a 10 year passion for indian cuisine, which has, in turn, been an ass-expanding experience.
2. In the 1990's Tom unseated Gray Davis, then sitting as Governor of California, and Tom is the current governor of California. Tom was able to accomplish this political coup because he is an assassin sent from the future and he has a titanium alloy endoskeleton covered in living tissue. Or I may be mistaking Tom for someone else.
3. Having only a single leftover Astro-Burger veggie chilli dog in his refrigerator Tom nevertheless broke it, and fed 13 members of the band Trial and their associated roadies and make-up artists. None went hungry. And he let them stay at his apartment, even though I only asked him like 15 minutes before they showed up.
4. Tom let me stay at his apartment while he was out of town and even though his bedroom door somehow got broken on my watch, and he didn’t get mad. Ordinary wear and tear, dude. I replaced the door with one made of particle-board alloy, covered in living tissue. Still waiting for a thank-you note.
5. Few people know this, but Tom was the roadie in the film Another State of Mind, and even to this day he continues to dye his hair various colors every other day to reflect how the tour is going.
6. Tom indirectly introduced me to my wife, which was pretty cool of him.
7. Tom adopted an entire litter of kittens in Los Angeles. Coincidentally, one of those cats was also comprised of titanium alloy covered in living tissue, and was sent from the future to eliminate Ted Nugent.
8. As I understand it, Tom wandered in the deserts of Alabama for what seemed like 30 years, then returned to the promised land (Los Angeles).
9. Tom is very handsome for someone with fuschia hair and a pure titanium nose.
10. Taking a page from Norman Rockwell, Tom gave himself a tattoo of himself giving himself a tattoo.
From Lauren Skaar
Happy Birthday Tom! We miss you very much! Hope you guys get back out this way some day soon.
Love,
Lauren
From Xilonen Oreshnick
Wishing the coolest of Happy Birthdays to one of the coolest kids I know!
Love,
Xilonen
From Lo-ruhama Ochoa
“Thomas Bej…er um, Tom Be-ja-grr…um”
His new fourth grade teacher stumbled and stammered through his last name. After two more tries Tom finally took pity on her and declared his presence, “here.”
“Oh, how do you say your name, dearie?”
“Bay-grow-its”
…
“You can call me Tom B.”
With that said and done the teacher continued down the list of students. Swiping at his hair trying to ineffectually keep it out of his eyes, Tom listened to roll call with half an ear always ready to hear a new name. He supposed there was always a chance that there was a chance every September that he would meet a kid with a name as unique as his own.
“Karen Jones. Freddy Knolls. Phillip...”
The same names that he’s gone to school with his whole life.
“…Randy Smith”
Randy? Tom looked up from doodling on his folder, which was filled with circles and slashes that to an untrained eye might have looked like a family of small onion people. Scanning the class, his eyes fixed on the kid in the torn sneakers, swinging his legs back and forth. Torn-sneakers kid was hunched over in his seat and was quickly tearing up small pieces of paper and popping them into his mouth. A straw lay discretely by his elbow.
Randy had been in Ms. Ohara’s class last year. Tom had been in Mrs. Jensen’s. The two classes had shared a wall and occasionally Mrs. Jensen’s class could hear the shrieks and stern lectures coming from next door. Somehow everyone knew that Randy had been the cause.
Tom turned back to his drawing, adding some dots and dark shadowing to the second largest “onion person.” A girl’s shriek followed by a couple of boys’ appreciative laughter broke Tom’s reverie.
Tom smiled. Oh yes, Randy would be fun.
***
After school, Tom headed home forgoing the nice sidewalk path that most children took for the uneven dirt path that crossed through two abandoned lots and a tiny forest of knee high weeds. One of the lots that he walked through also contained an abandoned manufacturing factory that used to make colorful ceramic garden gnomes, judging by the amount of fragmented gnomes (who had unfortunately met their demise through the stomps and rock-throwing of many a neighborhood child) and a large sign that read Mr. Reddings Happy Gnomes, Grown Here.
Tom was technically not allowed to go inside the factory, yet how could he resist the allure of past times and the imagination of what had been? It was simply too much to ask for of a lone child. But today he would not enter the factory. He was to be good this week; he had a shiny new baseball card hanging in the balance. This week he would not break the rules.
As were the ways of temptation, having just reaffirmed his decision to be good, Tom was pulled towards the factory by a child’s manic laughter. Someone was having great fun inside the factory, and here Tom was, having only a moderate amount of fun, walking outside the factory. Tom stood indecisive just outside the large opening that was once the main door. He could still hear laughter as it echoed off the cavernous factory floor room but could not discern who was having so much fun since his eyes could not cut through the shadows. As Tom thought over the consequences of his actions, he found that his feet had already crossed the doorway and were fast approaching the origin of the laughter.
It only took 3 more steps to realize that Randy was the one making all that raucous. Tom stood and watched Randy as he ran and slid across an old conveyor belt. Some old crates and one giant gnome stood at various intervals along the conveyer belt and Randy nimbly leaped over each one. Even at a young age, Tom knew that probably wasn’t very smart.
Having spotted Tom, Randy called out to him.
“Hey Tom, wanna play?” he asked, patting the giant gnome’s tummy, which he had recently jumped over, “we can race.”
As a young boy, Tom wasn’t really prepared to walk away from a race. Especially if the reason was because he was pretty sure he would break his neck if he tried. Tom shook his head and scuffed his foot as if the idea of racing on a conveyer belt riddled with crates and gnomes was too beneath him to even contemplate. His only hope lay in that Randy would not dare him.
“Want me to give you a tattoo?” Tom offered, hoping to distract him. Randy nodded and jumped off, Tom uncapped his blue pen in preparation.
As Tom drew a picture of a skull with flames coming out of its mouth on Randy’s bicep, Tom began to tell him about why he should really recycle his coke bottles instead of leaving them on neighbor’s doorsteps and that soy chicken nuggets taste just like real chicken nuggets
“Tom,” Randy began, “you’re kinda weird, you know that?”
“Yea.”
“You think you’ll ever be normal?”
“Maybe, like when I’m 40.”
“Doubt it.”
Tom shrugged and added one more squiggle to the skull, then signed it tom b.
***
Happy Birthday Tom!
His new fourth grade teacher stumbled and stammered through his last name. After two more tries Tom finally took pity on her and declared his presence, “here.”
“Oh, how do you say your name, dearie?”
“Bay-grow-its”
…
“You can call me Tom B.”
With that said and done the teacher continued down the list of students. Swiping at his hair trying to ineffectually keep it out of his eyes, Tom listened to roll call with half an ear always ready to hear a new name. He supposed there was always a chance that there was a chance every September that he would meet a kid with a name as unique as his own.
“Karen Jones. Freddy Knolls. Phillip...”
The same names that he’s gone to school with his whole life.
“…Randy Smith”
Randy? Tom looked up from doodling on his folder, which was filled with circles and slashes that to an untrained eye might have looked like a family of small onion people. Scanning the class, his eyes fixed on the kid in the torn sneakers, swinging his legs back and forth. Torn-sneakers kid was hunched over in his seat and was quickly tearing up small pieces of paper and popping them into his mouth. A straw lay discretely by his elbow.
Randy had been in Ms. Ohara’s class last year. Tom had been in Mrs. Jensen’s. The two classes had shared a wall and occasionally Mrs. Jensen’s class could hear the shrieks and stern lectures coming from next door. Somehow everyone knew that Randy had been the cause.
Tom turned back to his drawing, adding some dots and dark shadowing to the second largest “onion person.” A girl’s shriek followed by a couple of boys’ appreciative laughter broke Tom’s reverie.
Tom smiled. Oh yes, Randy would be fun.
***
After school, Tom headed home forgoing the nice sidewalk path that most children took for the uneven dirt path that crossed through two abandoned lots and a tiny forest of knee high weeds. One of the lots that he walked through also contained an abandoned manufacturing factory that used to make colorful ceramic garden gnomes, judging by the amount of fragmented gnomes (who had unfortunately met their demise through the stomps and rock-throwing of many a neighborhood child) and a large sign that read Mr. Reddings Happy Gnomes, Grown Here.
Tom was technically not allowed to go inside the factory, yet how could he resist the allure of past times and the imagination of what had been? It was simply too much to ask for of a lone child. But today he would not enter the factory. He was to be good this week; he had a shiny new baseball card hanging in the balance. This week he would not break the rules.
As were the ways of temptation, having just reaffirmed his decision to be good, Tom was pulled towards the factory by a child’s manic laughter. Someone was having great fun inside the factory, and here Tom was, having only a moderate amount of fun, walking outside the factory. Tom stood indecisive just outside the large opening that was once the main door. He could still hear laughter as it echoed off the cavernous factory floor room but could not discern who was having so much fun since his eyes could not cut through the shadows. As Tom thought over the consequences of his actions, he found that his feet had already crossed the doorway and were fast approaching the origin of the laughter.
It only took 3 more steps to realize that Randy was the one making all that raucous. Tom stood and watched Randy as he ran and slid across an old conveyor belt. Some old crates and one giant gnome stood at various intervals along the conveyer belt and Randy nimbly leaped over each one. Even at a young age, Tom knew that probably wasn’t very smart.
Having spotted Tom, Randy called out to him.
“Hey Tom, wanna play?” he asked, patting the giant gnome’s tummy, which he had recently jumped over, “we can race.”
As a young boy, Tom wasn’t really prepared to walk away from a race. Especially if the reason was because he was pretty sure he would break his neck if he tried. Tom shook his head and scuffed his foot as if the idea of racing on a conveyer belt riddled with crates and gnomes was too beneath him to even contemplate. His only hope lay in that Randy would not dare him.
“Want me to give you a tattoo?” Tom offered, hoping to distract him. Randy nodded and jumped off, Tom uncapped his blue pen in preparation.
As Tom drew a picture of a skull with flames coming out of its mouth on Randy’s bicep, Tom began to tell him about why he should really recycle his coke bottles instead of leaving them on neighbor’s doorsteps and that soy chicken nuggets taste just like real chicken nuggets
“Tom,” Randy began, “you’re kinda weird, you know that?”
“Yea.”
“You think you’ll ever be normal?”
“Maybe, like when I’m 40.”
“Doubt it.”
Tom shrugged and added one more squiggle to the skull, then signed it tom b.
***
Happy Birthday Tom!
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