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Re: The Wayback Machine / RE: (TV) Tomspotting



I would not be surprised if Tom works at the Strand. How much money do we think 
he's making from his records, seriously? 

Aside from royalties for Bowie's cover of "Kingdom Come", has any 
Verlaine/Television record ever made money? If it took Richard Hell's BLANK 
GENERATION until 1996 to break "even" (and to have made roughly $20,000 in 
royalties by 2000, or about $5k/year, only some of which goes to the artist) how 
much can Verlaine have made from records over the years? 

Which leaves touring as his main source of income -- not much there, either, 
unless he's make $20K or more from each appearance. 

I guess he could be living frugally. But he could also be picking up hours (and 
new reading material) at the Strand. 

--Phil




________________________________
From: Leo Casey <LeoCasey@comcast.net>
To: tv@obbard.com
Sent: Mon, November 1, 2010 9:54:29 AM
Subject: The Wayback Machine / RE: (TV) Tomspotting

Hi Jesse,

Regarding:  
> know if Tom by any > chance _works_ at the Strand? Seems unlikely, but it's my 

> impression a lot of > artists and musicians have worked at the Strand for a 
>long 
>
> time - and Tom has to 

According to Ms. Secret X (from quite a while back) and a couple of old
magazineinterviews/articles, Tom worked at The Strand Bookstore in the early-mid 
70s.

I think it's unlikely he works there now.

And given his notorious frugal lifestyle I  think he's able to live comfortably 
making a living
'being Tom Verlaine' as Michael Carlucci once put it.

Leo

PS:  He 's also supposed to have once worked (again from Ms. Secret X, and again 
in early - mid
1970s)  on the docks loading crates of  bananas onto trucks.  



"He did what we all do.  
He went about his dull routine 
as if all the days in the world 
were still to come".


> -----Original Message-----
> From: tv-owner@obbard.com [mailto:tv-owner@obbard.com] On 
> Behalf Of Jesse Hochstadt
> Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 8:16 PM
> To: TV list
> Subject: (TV) Tomspotting
> 
> This may be par for the course in NY, but having recently 
> returned after 15 
> years living elsewhere, thought I'd mention it: I saw Tom 
> outside the Strand 
> Bookstore the other day when I was waiting to get in to sell 
> some books. I'm 99% 
> sure it was him: I saw him recently play at Galapagos as part 
> of the DUMBO Arts 
> Festival, and so I have a pretty good image of what he looks 
> like nowadays. He 
> was dressed in a black shirt, black pants, and plain black 
> shoes, and was going 
> through the $1 book racks. At one point he was chatting in a 
> friendly fashion 
> with one of the Strand employees. The only thing I could hear 
> him say was some 
> reference to a guy who "owns a large chain of steakhouses" - 
> seriously.
> 
> At first Tom looked like he was going through the books very 
> systematically, 
> lifting a bunch of books at once and moving them over into an 
> adjacent column 
> when, I assumed, he'd finished thumbing through them. But 
> after a while it 
> seemed to me that he was re-racking the books. Does anyone 
> know if Tom by any 
> chance _works_ at the Strand? Seems unlikely, but it's my 
> impression a lot of 
> artists and musicians have worked at the Strand for a long 
> time - and Tom has to 
> make money somehow when he's not recording his customary 
> three albums a year and 
> going on tours of Latin America, Europe and Japan with huge 
> light shows and 
> dazzling pyrotechnics.
> 
> Anyway, by the time I got out of the Strand he was nowhere to be seen.
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