The Magic of Alcohol and the Radio Station in His Head – Tom S.

About This Speaker Tape

A childhood spent in Brooklyn sports leagues and a young adulthood on Wall Street dissolved into a lifelong obsession with the 'smoothness' of top-shelf liquor. Tom S. describes a decade of mental gymnastics—swimming 100 yards out to sea to sneak into a beach bar using green Clorets gum to mask alcohol breath and sleeping in his car to avoid a wife wielding a butcher knife.

After a period of homelessness and drinking Red Mountain wine on the streets of Los Angeles he found refuge at the Royal Palms hotel where he worked as a waiter for the disabled. He spent nearly 30 years at Lockheed Aircraft moving from a 'bum' to an employee of the month working on the SR-71 Blackbird and Stealth fighters eventually learning to laugh at the ego-crushing reality of his first 'main speaker' gig which consisted of one drunk man and a 60-watt lightbulb.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tom S. opens by wishing a happy birthday to his old friend Ski.
• 5:15 Laughter: Tom tells the 'potatoes' joke he used to tell as a teenager to fit in.
• 12:40 Tom describes the 'inner tremors' and the first time he drank a double screwdriver on a Monday morning to feel normal.
• 18:10 The domestic wreckage: fighting with his wife and the butcher knife incident.
• 24:30 The Muscle Beach story: swimming to a bar and using Clorets gum to hide the scent.
• 30:15 A moment of crisis on a New York subway platform and the decision to drink more as a 'solution'.
• 34:20 Hitting bottom as a transient drinking Red Mountain wine on the streets of LA.
• 38:10 Recovery at the Royal Palms hotel and working as a waiter for other alcoholics.
• 41:00 Career success at Lockheed Aircraft and working on the SR-71 Blackbird.
• 43:30 Laughter: The story of his first speaking engagement at Harmony Hall.