About Us

Following is my life after the  Army, until the present, as presented after the last chapter of the  book............SNAFU - My Vietnam Vacation of 1969

OK,  now it’s time to wrap things up with some self-serving info and a bunch  of name dropping. This is where I switch to third person and bore you  with what I’ve been doing since 1969. Stop here if you aren’t into yada,  yada, yada.

Tom was honorably discharged (yes, that’s right, he  never got caught) from active service on 11/14/1969 and entered the BFA  program at East Carolina University, in Greenville NC.

    In  1971 ECU tripled the tuition for out of state students, (those  bastards!) The taxpayers provided the paltry sum of $175 a month to  cover tuition, books, art supplies, rent, food, gas, insurance, clothes,  whips, chains, leather underwear…and ahhh, other necessary stuff. The  money that Tom made as a figure drawing model (shudder, shudder) barely  paid for breakfast. So, Tom looked for a job that he could hold down for  six months in order to become a resident of North Carolina and then  attend ECU as a bone-a-fide Pirate. He was informed that the owner of a  defunct upstairs nightclub wanted to reopen. All they needed was a  qualified manager. That would be Tom. He convinced the owner that  knowing what beer tasted like and Rock N Roll sounded like was all that  one needed to know to run a bar. The owner then convinced Tom that he  should accept being paid a percentage of profits as compensation; after  all, he knew what beer tasted like and what Rock N Roll sounded like, so  how could he loose?  

The ATTIC opened its doors on September  7th, 1971. On January 7th, 1972 Tom was handed his W-2. The gross wages  were just that, coming in at $728.40. Not discouraged, (OK he was  totally bummed), Tom decided to give it one more semester. Eighteen  years, 2,188,268 customers (give or take a dozen), 36,510 T-shirts,  3,708 performances by live bands, 520 comedian performances, 4 major  Footsball Tournaments, 1 nationally televised concert on NBC by the  Pointer Sisters, 1 cover of Performance Magazine, and hundreds of  diverse concerts  (OK, here’s the first batch of name dropping) from The  Byrds to The Ramones, Greg Allman to Tim Weisberg, Wendy O Williams to  Nicolette Larson and Bill Hicks to Steve Harvey. In 1988 Tom and partner  Stewart Campbell turned over the Attics keys to manager Joe Tronto who  continued the diversity with the best in music and comedy from Dave  Matthews to Maynard Ferguson, Phish to The Blowfish and Jeff Foxworthy  to Tommy Chong. In 1997 The Attic was chosen by Playboy magazine as one  of the top 100 college nightclubs in the country.

 In July of  1988 Tom with wife Nancy (who said ‘I do’ in 1974 and has been saying  ‘What was I thinking,’ ever since) and their family, Tracy (10), Adam  (8), Seniah (6) (the last a Golden Retriever, not an oddly named child)  packed up the U- Haul (or whatever truck company that will pay to have  their name mentioned here for the next printing of this book) and headed  to Charlotte. Tom joined Creative Entertainment, the headquarters for  the Comedy Zone chain of comedy clubs and settled into a work schedule  of 28 hours per day (those bastards.) From 1988 to 1996. He and booking  partner Jeff Chester booked more comedians than any other two people on  earth. He became part owner of the Comedy Zone Comedy Club in Charlotte  featuring such names as (OK, round two of name dropping) Jerry Seinfeld,  Dennis Miller, Ritch Shydner, Chris Rock, Bill Maher, and Ellen  DeGeneres. In the mid 90’s he was on the management team for Carrot Top  and the co-manager for Rodney Carrington, and wrote comedy for many  touring comedians. In 1997 he decided the stress of booking comedians  (those bastards) was more than he wanted to deal with, so Nancy and he  formed an ad specialty company called Stand Up Stuff.  Tom sold T-shirts  and other marketing products to comedians while Nancy (the company  president) serviced the corporate community. East Carolina  University called Tom in May of 2015 and said that the university would  like to ARCHIVE the Attic. Seriously, a major university wanted to  archive a rock n' roll nightclub. And, it goes without saying, Tom said,  YES!

We now bring you to the present. While continuing to  provide comedians with their marketing items and teaching stand-up  comedy, Tom is currently looking for a number of individuals or one very  wealthy person to offer him grant money to pursue a number of art  projects. What he has in mind is to---Hey, where are you going---he just  wants a few minutes of your time to explain---no, really, he just---hey  don’t close this book, this will only take a few short  minutes---hey---hey---shit!​

NOTE:  Due to my exposure to Agent Orange I attained a "new status" in January  2016---100% Permanetly Disabled Vietnam Veteran. I am not expecting my  newlyacquired medical issues to interfere with the progress of this  project, but I've opened up a new account with God and am now accepting  all prayers and positive thoughts. Thanks for reading. 

NOTE  #2: OK, I was wrong, my medical issues have interfered with the start  of my Kickstarter Project. The new date will be set in stone and will  take place in the summer of 2019. Thanks for your understanding.