My memory strains as to the exact event or moment in our past when I first met Tom, but I’ll make a clouded stab.  It all blends together in a lifetime.

Michael Shamberg, Top Value Television, (TVTV), the Democratic and Republican Conventions in the Miami Convention Center in August 1972, first comes to mind.

At the time I still was not sure what Tom did with TVTV exactly.  He seemed like a backer, or associate producer and certainly a gentleman with a wry sense of humor and a subsequent friend.  There were so many of us involved with recording the Democratic Convention in 1972 it does seem like a dream remembered.

Sometime before TVTV went to Hollywood there was Chicago.  This is all circa 1972. Tom was doing a series for WTTW/PBS TV affiliate in his hometown of Chicago.  The series was fashioned around enigmatic, energetic American Icon writer journalist Studs Terkel, whose book, “Working,” that interviewed everyday working-class people like waitresses. I may have been shooting a Sony Porta-Pak camera at times. I know I was editing, along with the talent producer Anda Kost.

(Around this time Eleanore, I had met you and made friends with you and Jimmy Hall in New York, along with the dress designer whose name escapes me… oh I think it was Jackie Rogers?  is that right?)

Tom had me editing hours of black and white footage of a pleasantly reformed fifty-year old male alcoholic, who possessed the pleasant but sleepy Darth Vader deep voice. The shots were of him collecting garbage over and over and over. Collecting it in a truck as it drove down the canyon of back alleys in the Chicago financial district.  Three AM in the morning, no people in-sight only him and his grinding gear truck.

Oh, lordy this looked as though it could become one dull drudgery of an edit. Tom assured me I could handle it.  He was right. It was a challenging edit and turned-out swell looking. 

I also got to spend those hours and hours of editing with European blonde beauty, Anda Kosta. Her slinky white body and long legs wrapped in her fur coat. She bought white wine to the edit. What kind of fur?  Who cares!  I brought a space heater into the chilly edit bay. Anda was fun and died far too early.  As I said the edit turned out informative, tender and very moving. 

I should also mention here that while I worked in Chicago on that, “Working,” show, we were not far from Wrigley field. Tom was kind enough not only to introduce me to the smiling gravel voiced Studs Terkel , but to Bill Veeck, owner of the White Socks baseball team.  All  four of us ate at a grand steak house.

Hurray for Hollywood. Yes, TVTV went to Hollywood to do a few historic shows about the early days of television in America.  I love television. I always learn from it. I might assume Tom Wienberg feels that way too. 

Sometime afterwards, Tom backed my production of, “Making It in Hollywood” where we interviewed actors, producers, and casting directors.  Tom did some interviews like the one with iconic film star, Tab Hunter, now passed, which is a classic. He was involved also with the edit.  He and Media Burn handled the distribution. 

I have no idea who Tom ever dated or if he was ever married.  I assumed he was married, as I thought he had children.  I take it his company Media Burn is doing well. I have a trunk full of reel to reel1/2-inch tapes to transfer to digital I must talk to him about. 

Happy Birthday Tom.

Frank Cavestani