Hi and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened,
the podcast that features folks from all walks
of life telling us of one childhood experience
and how that event impacted them as an adult.
I'm your host, Jay Rehack, and like you, I've
had my share of childhood experiences, some of
them good, some of them kind of painful. But
I like to think that everything that's ever happened
to me has made me who I am today. Tell me what
happened is sponsored by Sideline Ink Publishing,
publishers of quality books, including Susan
Salazar's classic, One Little Act of Kindness.
Tell me what happened is also sponsored by laughsaver
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.com will become an app starting June 1st. 2022.
So check your phones and download the app. All
right. Today I have as my guest, Tom Avitable.
Tom's an overall great guy, also a great drummer.
He's a bestselling author. He's a book coach
and he's done 50 years of award -winning writing
and producing. And in his latest venture, he's
doing voiceover for books. Perhaps most impressively,
He is the founder of the Online Academy of Creative
Skills. Welcome to the show, Tom. Hey, nice to
be here. Well, it's an honor to have you, Tom.
I know you're coming in from New York, somewhere
along the Hudson River, maybe, or is it the other
side? Yeah, we're just on the opposite side of
the great city of New York, looking at all the
lights in the buildings. All right. Well, when
I grow up, I want to be you. I want to be a best
-selling author, but I'm going to leave that
alone for right now. I can help you with the
Academy of my Academy We have a class called
from writer to author and if it's a very reasonable
It's 15 classes and it'll help you write a more
publishable manuscript. I Like it. I like it.
I was a school teacher for 35 years and I taught
writing But I think I could probably learn a
lot from you. So we'll talk about that offline,
but it sounds like a plan God bless you for being
a teacher. Oh, well, thank you It was a great
career. Tom, you ready to tell your story? Oh,
me? Okay. All right. I'm going to get out of
the way, Tom. All right. I'm going to ask you
at the end of it, absolutely one question. And
that one question is this. How do you think that
experience, that childhood event has impacted
who you are today? But take it away, Tom. Okay.
Well, thanks for the opportunity. I was born
in the Bronx and I lived in the kind of apartment
where you had to bang on the pipes to get heat.
I slept in a snow suit. It didn't get much better
after that. Never had a real new bike. All my
bikes were put together bikes. All the cars I
had when I got older were all from the junkyard.
Never had a new car. But one thing I did have
was a kind of a curiosity about science, mostly
electronics. So in junior high school, I built
a computer and in that to shade case. This was
before there was an electronic calculator. And
in that at the Shea case, and I did that because
a man from uncle and from Russia would love and
everything was in at the Shea cases. So I built
this computer. So I quickly found out that if
I cut school, which is I can, you know, statute
of limitations is now beyond so I can admit this.
I used to cut school and go downtown with the
at the Shea case. And I go into these big office
buildings like Union Carbide or Chase Bank or
like that and press all the buttons on the elevator.
And at every door when it opened, I'd sniff.
And what I was sniffing for was computer tape.
Because in those days, computers use these big
reels of tape to record the data. So one day
I'm down in the RCA building, because hey, they
make computers. And I go in and I meet my first
challenge of my young life, elevator operators.
Can't push all the buttons. So I get on an elevator
with my head to shake case. I was kind of big
for my age. Nobody really questioned me. This
is well before security. So I'm in there with
all these grownups and the door opens on five
and I smell it. So I get out and I walk around.
And normally what I'm looking for is a glass
window, raised floors, computer cabinets, IBM,
Honeywell, data control, something like that.
And it's usually a very pristine environment.
And there's always a door that says, you know,
authorized personnel only, which I violate freely
because I'm just a kid with an aftershave case.
Anyway, I'm walking around and all of a sudden
I see gigantic tape machine. It's really big.
Wow, it's bigger than a Honeywell. I mean, Honeywell
had three quarter inch tape and this thing looks
got two inch tape like almost. And then I look
and I realized that Frank Gorshin, who played
the Riddler on Batman, is on a little monitor
off to the right of this giant machine and standing
next to him is Dean Martin. And they're in shirt
sleeves smoking a cigarette and Dean Martin's
wearing glasses. And you never see that. And
I realized suddenly, because I'm from an Italian
American family, And if you don't watch the Dean
Martin show every week, it's almost a blasphemy.
That last night, Dean said, oh, next week our
guest will be Frank Gorshin. So I quickly realized
that what I was watching at 1130 in the morning
was the shooting of the Dean Martin show being
fed from the West Coast to the New York offices
of NBC. At that moment, some guy tapped me on
the shoulder and said, what are you doing here?
And the quickest I ever thought in my life. With
the computer, I had what we call sequential access.
It was a tape machine that rolled at high speed,
then found the data, and then played back the
data. And I quickly said to the guy, well, I'm
here to sell you something. Tell me what? I said,
I'm going to sell you a machine that you can
put all your news stories on one tape and play
them back in any order you want. He said, we
don't need that. I said, oh, OK, now I'm just
looking to get out of there because I'm being
caught. He says, come on, I'll show you. And
he takes me to this all glass studio on the fifth
floor. We walked through the door and there is
all these tape machines. And he picks up something
which later is actually called a cartridge or
a Fidelity Pack cartridge. It was an independent
little like an old eight track. And they would
put one story on each eight track and throw it
in, hit the button and instantly start. I went,
oh, that's really great. That's random access.
And all of a sudden I look and I see Chet Huntley.
Now Chet Huntley. was the anchor of the NBC News
at the time, their evening news, like Walter
Cronkite, Chet Huntley, Harry Reisner, those
guys. So I see Chet Huntley and the same thing.
He's like in a t -shirt and he's cigarette smoking
and he's got glasses on and all this stuff. And
I'm shocked because you never see these people
like this on TV. And all of a sudden, somebody
throws his finger at him and he goes, NBC Monitor
News, New York, Chet Huntley reporting. I'm sorry,
it was NBC News on the Hour, Chet Huntley reporting.
And I'm by George Drop. The guy looks at me and
says, you're hungry? And I said, sure. He says,
come on, let's go to lunch. I'm like, huh? So
we walked down to this room where he works, which
was the newsroom with all the teletype machines,
chunka, chunka, chunka, chunka, chunka. He tells
me to sit in a chair. I sit in a chair for a
minute. And all of a sudden he goes away and
there's ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,
ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,
ding, ding All of a sudden the room goes into
pandemonium and someone not much older than me
hands me a piece of paper and says quick take
that to hourlies. And I'm like. OK, so I ran
out in the hall. I got this piece of paper in
my hand and it's like hourlies NBC News on the
hour. It's worth a shot. So I run down the hall
and I see the glass doors and I opened the door
and I there's a guy sitting at a desk and I hand
him the piece of paper bald headed guy who later
became herb. and he looked at the piece of paper
and he said, great, bring me the first lead.
And I walked out and I'm back out in the hall
now and where the heck was the room the guy brought
me to? And all of a sudden I listen and I hear
the chunk, the chunk, the chunk, the teletype
machines and I go back and I'm in the room now
and I'm looking and there was this blue machine,
which was a UPIA wire. And that's the machine
I saw the guy ripped the paper from. So I look
and those teletype machines in those days had
a piece of glass in front and the typewriter
mechanism or the teletype mechanism was going
35 characters per minute. And what it was typing
out was one STLD, one STLD first lead. Okay,
so I'm reading it. And what it says is Mexico
City. a Boeing 737 Air Mexico airliner crashed
upon takeoff on this rainy capital city runway.
It was a plane crash. And what I had in my hand
was the bulletin for the plane crash. And what
I did was I brought it to the radio studio so
that Chet Huntley could do the big thing in news,
which is just hand it in, plane crash, Mexico
City. Now, NBC wants everyone to stay tuned for
more information on the plane crash and chet
having done this before says so stay tuned to
this nbc station for more on the mexican plane
crash and that gets them all excited cut back
to the room i'm standing there and lazlo comes
over while i'm reading the first lead and he
said what are you doing and i said i'm waiting
for the first lead and he went huh And the guy
who handed me this paper went, where'd you bring
the paper? Where'd you bring the paper? And I,
you know, maybe he thought it was floating in
the toilet somewhere. And I said, glass doors
at the end of the hall, bald headed guy. And
the guy who was taking me to lunch goes, sit.
And yelled at me. And now I'm 14 years old. So
my bottom lip is starting to quiver. My father
is going to beat the crap out of me. because
I cut school to do this. And I'm sitting there
and I'm waiting for the cops and I'm shaking
like a leaf. And finally all the pandemonium
dies down and the guy sits next to me and he
says, all right, I'm docking him a day's pay
and I'm paying you, you wanna work here? And
I went, sure. So I started working at NBC News
at 14 years old. Now how could that happen? Well,
it seems like in the newsroom, everybody, that
was around me was 15, 16, 17, and they were the
sons and daughters of RCA, NBC, and subsidiary
companies' kids. This was nepotism on a grand
scale. And I looked like one of those kids. So
I started working weekends. I was paid $37 .50
out of the news manager's dinner budget, $37
.50 a shift. So as things moved along as I was
14 and a half as a vetted employee, I was working
two shifts on Saturday and two shifts on Sunday.
And in those shifts, I made 3750 a shift. So
I was bringing home 150 bucks. My dad was a teamster
driving a truck, loading stone out and all the
elements breaking his fingers breaking his back.
He made 145 a week. And my parents just were
in awe because we lived in this stupid walk up
apartment, you know. So I gave all my money to
my parents and I continued in school. And the
worldly perspective of being at NBC News and
being in that room, that as soon as anything
happened in the world, it was at my fingertips,
literally, gave me not only a perspective on
the world and people, but I also worked with
people who were much, much older than me. And
it matured me in a very accelerated way. which
served me very well for the rest of my life.
So it was a real experience. But the couple of
moments that I just point out was I worked on
the Apollo missions. OK, I slept in the lunar
rover because I'm in Studio 8H, which later would
become the studio set and then live shot in.
They had a big moonscape all set up and they
had the command capsule. And, you know, Douglas
Sprinkly would be in there with the with the
guys throwing switches. What are they doing right
now? Well, right now there's fire in the retro
rockets. He throws switches. But they also had
that little car that went around the moon with
the driver. I slept in that one night and a security
guard comes in around two in the morning. What
are you doing? And so, you know, I worked overnight
and I didn't want to go home. You can't sleep
here. So I went into the control room and I set
up three chairs and I slept in the eight inch
control room. But I had a lot of great stuff
and I even have home in the old days. They didn't
have electronic ways to put type on the screen.
So they used a card with white type on black.
And I have one card that says live from the moon,
which is what everybody saw on the bottom of
the screen as Armstrong was walking. And I also
have. live from Wapakoneta, Ohio, which is where
his mom was. They had a camera in there and her
reaction when her son walked on the moon and
it was live from Wapakoneta, Ohio. So I have
those kinds of things. And also at NBC in those
days, that's one of all the game shows, Concentration,
Jeopardy, Sale of the Century. He said, she said,
these are all game shows that came out of 30
Rock. So I was totally like, you know, in a play.
Plus it was the Carson show. We had the Johnny
Carson show. And I met a lot of great stars.
I met Chuck Connors. I met Eric Clapton. I met
Bob Hope. It was a wonderful way to grow up.
And I quit NBC when I was 18 years old after
the 72 election. And that's a longer story. But
I'll give you the quick, I think we have about
a minute left. I'll give you the quick thing.
I was assigned to the UPI -A wire in Studio 5B,
which was the radio studio. And the UPI -A wire
on election night was running on the election
news. So various results of congressional and
senatorial and gubernatorial races were coming
up on the UPI plus the presidential race. But
there was a new machine right next to me. It
was called the Camden line. And the Camden line
was a direct line to the computers, RCA computers
in Camden, New Jersey. And they were doing something
nobody had ever heard of before. It was 1972.
They were going to do a computer projection.
They were taking all this data and putting it
into a computer, and they were gonna try and
predict who won. So in my orientation that night,
I was told, this is what you do. When the UPIA
wire goes off, you rip the copy, which is what
we did, we ripped copy, and you hand it to this
gentleman, Bill Fitzgerald, who had been in the
news business since the spark gap. Bill must've
been 80 years old, but he was good, and he was
a good news writer. And then the piece of paper
goes to Bill. Bill then gives the piece of paper
to the Russ Tornabin, who was the producer. Russ
judges it for its news value, hands it back to
another writer. The writer writes it, hands it
back to Russ. Russ OKs it, puts it in the script.
And then Peter Hackes. I don't know if anybody
remembers Peter Hackes, but he was the anchor
on NBC News. Chet Huntley, David Brinkler, upstairs
in 8H. hosting the television and I was in 5B
and Peter Hackes was the voice of NBC News on
election night. And then you would switch to
various desks with other like John Palmer and
people like that. But anyway, so that's my job.
And I said, what's this? And they said, well,
that's the Camden line. If that goes off, OK,
all you got to do is bring it right to Russ.
I'm like, OK. So we're running, we're running,
everything's going great. And at 820, we're doing
a break, the 820 break. And the broadcast always
ends with Peter Hackes going, so for Insurance
Company of North America, this has been election
night coverage of NBC News, Election Night 72.
Stay tuned to this NBC station for more as Election
Night 72. And he does this whole wrap out. And
then they play a jingle. And the jingle was INA,
Insurance Company of North America, right? He's
wrapping it up. And all of a sudden, the Camden
line goes off. And I see it go off. It's the
first time it's done anything all night. And
I rip it. And I look. Tornabin is up and off
the seat. Bill Fitzgerald's not there because
it's the end of the broadcast. So I grab the
piece of paper and I run to Peter Hackes' desk.
And I knocked over a garbage can. Wait, it was
a little waste paper basket. And I slam this
piece of paper down on Peter Hackes' desk. Now,
Peter Hackes is what we've called an old rip
and read man. And rip and read means you sight
read the news as it's handed to you. So anything
I give him, he reads with great authority. So
had I handed him the grocery list, that would
have been this just in one quart of milk, half
a pound of ham, quarter pound of cheese anywhere
to read it like that. So I slapped this thing
down in front of him. He picks it up and he says,
now here's the thing. See, I didn't know what
it said, really. It could have said NBC News
is about to predict. It could have said, hey,
we don't know. Maybe in a little while we might
predict. It could have been, hey, we're just
testing the line. But I was pretty sure it said
what he said. This just in NBC News projects
Nixon the winner with 52 % of the and then he
realizes what he said. And he goes again, this
just in NBC News predicts Nixon and I see Russ
Tornaman. They produce us sit back in his chair.
Now his little secret about NBC. If you remember,
let me do that again. or something like that.
You remember the chimes of NBC. That was more
than just music. That told the network to drop.
So when you heard the chimes out of New York
or Chicago or any of our O &Os, and you heard
the chimes, that meant local stations drop the
network and go back to local programming. So
the poor engineer, it was a glass key on the
console that you turn and it ran the chimes.
And I see the guy reaching for the key through
the glass and Russ Thorderman smacks his hand
away. And the guy's like, what? And Peter Hackes
again says, you know, once again, NBC News has,
well, if you're in a news business, it's being
first with everything. So by the 840 break, ABC
and CBS had jumped on board, but we were first
that night. So anyway, Hackes goes like this,
the tournament. And it's dead quiet, dead quiet.
And all of a sudden you hear footsteps like in
a movie and it's Russ Tornabin walks in. What
happened? And Peter's, I don't know, somebody
puts it on my desk. And Bill Fitzgerald is standing
there. And my boss suddenly shows up, the guy
who hired me, and he says, go up to TV now. So
I sneak out the back and I go up to 8H. And I
go to 8H and I know one of the cameramen. So
I say, hey, how you doing? He said, hey, stand
here. Now we had these things on the floor that
had fishtail knobs. And I don't know if you remember
the way they used to cover it, but It looked
like a destination sign of the subway station
or a train station. And you adjust the numbers
and the numbers would change on the big board
that was on TV. And every every desk assistant
had a board like I had Illinois governor race.
And I'm turning knobs for numbers and stuff based
on a piece of paper. And he says, right, Tom,
wave. So I turn and I wave and I was on national
TV that night. My aunt Sophie saw me in Florida.
Call my mother. I saw Tommy on TV. Anyway, that
was my election night the next day. And this
is the end of the story. The next day there was
a manager's report which I used to help print
out during the weekend but not during the week
and it said NBC News was number one again on
election night in a grand tradition as Bill Fitzgerald
and they give the entire credit to Bill for having
done this because they looked and found out I
was underaged and I was being paid by petty cash
and technically I was nobody's kid so they fired
me the next day for not being a vice president's
son. Two days later, I was hired back as I had
been hired back the last three times they fired
me for not belonging to anybody, not being blood.
Anyway, that's my story that that took me from
14 to 17. I love that story. It's like sort of
like a childhood dream, I guess, of a young people
to be able to be able to walk into a TV studio
or radio studio and somehow stumble into a job
and then do a good job. And, you know, sort of.
Obviously, you've had a career as a consequence,
right? Well, yeah. Actually, the best part about
being at NBC was in college, there was a journalism
class. I was a freshman and I saw the journalism
class and it was an honors class, which means
you have to be almost a graduate or postgraduate
class. I walked in, I sat down and the guy said,
what are you doing here? You know, you have to
have journalism 101, journalism 102. I said,
I worked at NBC News for four years. He said,
sit. So I sat. And he was the, his name is Adrian
Meppen. He was the executive producer of CBS
News. And I had logged in the morning before
I went to school. I used to work the overnight
shift and then go to school in the morning. I'd
get up at five o 'clock and I'd do the Today
Show. And then at seven o 'clock, the Today Show
would go on the air and I would log the CBS and
ABC morning news. I'd write what they covered.
I'd type it up. It would go on what we call the
Twix. And by the time I got to home room, in
high school, my report was in 1 ,000 bureaus
around the world. So when I told him that, he
made me sit. And at the end of my freshman year,
he offered me a job at CBS as a line producer,
making, in those days, what would be the equivalent
of $100 ,000 today, right out of college. I didn't
take the job because I was in a band, and I went
across the country in a band, but that's a whole
other story. That's fantastic. Well, listen,
I'm almost out of time. So how do you think that
childhood experience impacted who you are today?
I understand that you want to become a drummer
and do some other things, but you also wrote
quite a bit. So you think that impacted you as
a writer or just as human being? Tell me real
fast what you think, how you think that childhood
experience impacted who you are today. Well,
that childhood experience killed my childhood
and made me immediately a young adult, if not
mature. So I was used to working with older people.
So I had no problem. matriculating through life
and anything I wanted to do. What I wound up
doing was being a creative director in an advertising
agency for 40 years, which also meant that I
got to write, direct, and produce commercials.
I've done a couple of movies. I've done a lot
of industrial videos. But it's all from that
initial confidence that came from dealing with
some of the most biggest known people in the
world. and effectively interfacing with them,
not being the kid sitting in the corner, but
being a vital part of the arrangement, whatever
it was, and people trusting me and giving me
responsibility and me fulfilling that. And that
cycle has always served me well. That confidence,
cockiness, whatever you want to call it, is why
I'm a director. Why I can walk in and I don't
care if you're Al Pacino or some kid right out
of drama class, I can direct you. And I can make
you feel good about your performance, and more
importantly, give you all the guidelines you
need to make a good performance. And that's the
same thing in authoring. It's what I do as a
book coach. I direct writers. I direct them through
their manuscript. And in my class online, I direct
writers who really want to become authors but
have somehow been frustrated. I direct them on
how to write a more publishable manuscript. I
love it, man. I got to take your class. I've
been writing books. I've written 27 plays and
14 books, but I think I can learn a lot from
you. You sound like a master teacher and also,
obviously, I like the idea of being sort of a
master director or... I've always believed in
my heart that people just need encouragement
and some instruction. Both, you know, you don't
want to make people feel badly about what they
do. You don't make them feel good about it. You
also want to make them realize it can be done,
but it takes effort. You know, and I'm sure there's
more to it than that, but your class probably
articulates it better than that. But fantastic.
I loved your story, man. I was, I just loved
it. I don't know. I learned a lot and everything
you said, because I'm Maybe I'm a little older
than you, but anyway, I'm familiar with everybody
you're talking about in the story. And man, that's
just wild stuff. I love your confidence too.
I love it. Well, thank you. Thank you very much.
And thanks for the opportunity. Well, thank you
for coming on the show, Tom, for that fantastic
story, wonderful story, insightful story. I do
want to take his class. I'd also like to thank
my sponsors, Sidelining Publishing, Publishers
of Quality Books, and laughsaver .com. Visit
LaughSaver .com and record your laughter. We'll
keep it for you now and forever. Alright, I'm
going to end this show a little differently.
I'm going to end this show with one little act
of kindness by Susan Salazar. So until next time,
this is Jay Reac asking you all to please stay
safe out there and try not to hurt anybody. One
little act of kindness can go a long, long way
Two little acts of kindness can brighten anyone's
day Three little acts of kindness can make a
beautiful sound Many acts of kindness help the
world go round One little loving word Can go
a long, long way Two little loving words Can
brighten anyone's day Three little loving words
Can make a beautiful sound Many loving words
Help the world go right One little seed zone
can go a long, long way Two little seed zone
can brighten anyone's day Three little seed zone
can make a beautiful sound Many seed zone help
the world go around Three little children's laughter
can go a long, long way. Two little children's
laughter can brighten anyone's day. Three little
children's laughter can make a beautiful sound.
Many children laughing help the world go round.
its own. Help the world go round. Many loving
words help the world go round. And many acts
of kindness help the world go round.