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The Annotated Biographical Sketch(es)
May. 29th, 2003 12:37 am[Reposting]
(Note: I started working on this on Monday. That's three days ago. I'm sure this is about as long-winded as I'm going to get for a while.)
(Also, many thanks goes out to Kerri Justice's Live365 webcast station "Into the Mystic" which provided the soundtrack for most of this entry. It's a great mix of music, IMHO)
I got email from Stephe on Friday night asking for a two paragraph bio to go along with his grant to the National Science Foundation for "What the Tech?” . Since I'm an "occasional contributor" and not an on-air host I didn't need to fill out the Official Bio form, a simple two or three paragraph bio would do.
Here's what I sent up:
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Tom Franklin was born in Washington, DC and graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a BA in Radio/TV/Film in 1985 and a Masters in Children and Television in 1992. He received his Masters in Library Science from North Carolina Central University in 1995.
Regardless of Mr. Franklin’s actual job title, his goal has always been to share knowledge. Whether it’s teaching basic computer skills to senior citizens or Chess strategy to elementary school students, Mr. Franklin has a talent for breaking down difficult subjects to smaller, more manageable components.
In 1996, after spending 5 1/2 years as an Elementary School Librarian, Mr. Franklin moved into his current position as Desktop Computer Support for the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (a division of the National Institutes of Health). Currently he is the lead PC and Macintosh support for the Office of the Director and works closely with the editorial and graphic staff of the Institute’s scholarly journal, Environmental Health Perspectives. His cross-platform expertise, hands-on knowledge of a wide variety of software applications and love of computer gadgets makes his “What the Tech?” reviews of interest to a wide variety of listeners.
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Stephe's response was that he thought it was a little glib for the NSF and that he'd edit it for me. Glib? I replied "I thought I'd been playing it pretty straight."
Here was his edit:
Tom Franklin:
BA in Radio/TV/Film , University of Maryland, College Park
MA in Children and Television, University of Maryland, College Park.
MLS, North Carolina Central University.
Current position: Desktop Computer Support for the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (a division of the National Institutes of Health). He is the lead PC and Macintosh support person for the Office of the Director and works closely with the editorial and graphic staff of the Institute’s scholarly journal, Environmental Health Perspectives. His cross-platform expertise, hands-on knowledge of a wide variety of software applications and love of computer and consumer electronics gadgets inform his “What the Tech?” reviews .
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It got me thinking about the two bios (the "Artist's Bio" and the "Extended Bio" (i.e. the "Straight" and the "Interesting" bios) I have up on the 5cats webpages. Bonnie wants the pages completely redone and the bios scrapped. The bios have some worthwhile stuff in them (although re-reading it now there's less than I had originally thought) and an updated and slightly expanded version should be blogged here before I pull the pages down.
Being longwinded, I feel a need to annotate these bios with some additional highlights. I'll try not to be too long (or glib). (Yeah, right)
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"Artist's Bio"
I was born in Northwest Washington, DC and grew up just over the Southeast border in Maryland. I've lived in a number of states including Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin. Bonnie and I have lived in North Carolina since 1991.
Officially, I'm an artist comfortable working in many mediums, who has won awards for my photography [1], retail advertising designs [2] and jewelry [3]. Unofficially I consider myself to be artistically untrained [4] but able to pay close attention to structural integrity and what looks good or right to my eye than anything else.
I came to jewelry through Bonnie. When Bonnie making began jewelry again in the early 1990s, she saw potential in my attention to detail and ability to make clean folds while doing origami. With her encouragement [5] I began working with a variety of wires, stones and styles before settling on a series of gold-filled and silver bangles and hand-made chains.
Bonnie says my patience and precision is evidenced by that series of hand-made chains. Made of Fine Silver or 22 Karat Gold, these chains take anywhere from 6 to 40 hours to make, from start to finish. Most of these chains are finished off with special hand-made catches as well.
I also enjoy designing, building and consulting on webpages. I designed and built these webpages over a period of a few months in my supposed "free time".
____________________________________________________________
1. …who has won awards for my photography...
Okay, so it was 1979 or '80 and it was only because my mother sent the picture in. I'd gotten up before sunrise at Bethany Beach, Delaware and walked down to the boardwalk with my camera and tripod. Somehow I managed to get the light meter settings all screwed up on a couple of pictures -- the end result was a glowing orange sun with orange ripples on the surface of the water, all against a black background. The Washington Post gave it an Honorable Mention.
2. …retail advertising designs...
I worked for about a year or two for Kemp Mill Records (when I started they still had actual records, as in LPs, for those of you too young to remember them). One of the jobs I took on was the in-store posters and displays for new albums. It was a job I really got into, especially for bands I really liked, and tried to make them all unique and as visible as possible. I still have a bunch of Polaroids of some of my favorites. Maybe I'll find some space online and start linking to them in the blog. One of them finally won an in-house award.
3. ...and jewelry.
We won a Juror’s Award at Artsplosure about 3 years ago. Someone finally noticed the chains and started asking questions about them. It was a man, which was kind of surprising (most male show jurors pass by jewelry about as quickly as most husbands nervous that their wives might want to spend some serious money on just herself), but after hearing the right answers from me about how the chains were made, really got into it. If the two women had been interested we might have gotten a more prestigious award, but I was happy having finally captured someone's attention who could appreciate the time and work that goes into making the chains.
4. Unofficially I consider myself to be artistically untrained...
As Clint Eastwood once said, "A man's got to know his limitations." This one is easy: I am many things, but an Artist I am not. Bonnie does all of the Art, I do the Craft work. Bonnie works with gold and silver, soldering together fabricated one-of-a-kind pieces. I cut pieces of wire and do things with them. Not much of a comparison, if you ask me.
I refer to what I do as "straight line simple stuff." Everything is a straight line of one sort or another: Make a wire bangle? Cut the wires to the right length, wrap them all up in some binding wires and polish. Wire teardrop earrings? Cut some wire to the right length, shape it, slide the beads on, curl the edges and attach to the earring wire. Pearl necklace? Thread pearls, ties knots in between each one. Fine silver chain? Wrap the wire around the proper sized dowel, cut each link out, butt joint each link and hit with flame to fuse. Shape each joined link and piece it together.
The trick to all of this is (a) having the right tools and equipment and (b) having lots of patience. Pearls and the chains are the two most problematic -- pearls, while tedious, require unwavering attention or something will screw up; chains just take a long time. I have one chain that took close to 40 hours to make. (It's great to look at, but I doubt we'll ever sell it)
5. With her encouragement...
People at shows will ask me "How long have you been making jewelry?"
"Since Bonnie told me I was going to make jewelry," I always reply.
That's about the truth of it, too. Bonnie's been doing this for 25+ years, off and on. When she started back up in 1992 she realized she didn't have the time to make enough inventory to sell. She asked me to try to make something (anything) and I started twisting some wire around some glass globs and marbles we had to work with. I made some atrocious rings that first night, but it was a start.
I started more out of a financial need to have things to sell than any inborn need to create jewelry. Bonnie, on the other hand, has that inborn need to create jewelry. If she doesn't get out into her workshop to do some kind of work on her art at least every few days she starts getting anxious and slightly depressed. Me, once the last of the shows are over and we're done for Christmas I stop completely until the spring shows start up and don't miss it a bit.
(Now writing, on the other hand...)
Quick side note: Early on we sold stuff out at the local flea market. One day some kids were looking at our stuff, the colorful glass in the sunlight having caught their eyes. They showed their mama the jewelry and asked if she thought it was pretty. "Them is mahbles," she said dismissively and with a fair amount of contempt. It's been a catch phrase with us ever since.
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"Extended Bio"
Tom grew up in Maryland in the house his parents still live in. [1] There he spent far too much time watching TV [2] and not nearly enough time outside. [3]
A “slow reader” at first (until he heard the phrase used to describe him) [4] he made up for lost time by spending almost as much time reading as he did watching TV. By age 16 Tom added playing the guitar [5] to the list of things he did in his abundant spare time.
While in high school he attended a summer camp which, years before, his father had attended. Shrine Mont proved to be a turning point in Tom's life by introducing him to encounter group-style interactions and a number of very cool people. It was followed, a year later, by the Bethany Beach Folk Arts Festival which introduced him to group of cool, artistic people and, back home in the DC area, "Forum", a church-sponsored discussion group. [6]
Tom traces the roots of his sense of humor to a good family friend, Don Brown, who one day turned Tom on to The Marx Brothers. "Duck Soup" and "A Night at the Opera" became something of a life-altering event for him. [7] (Although far less so than "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was for Bonnie) From there he quickly moved on to other older comedians: W.C. Fields, Buster Keaton, Abbott and Costello. Eventually he found Monty Python's Flying Circus and read/heard/watched Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" series in all of it's various incarnations.
Tom’s eclectic musical tastes started with his early years of listening to more acoustic singer-songwriters such as John Denver [8], Cat Stevens, CSNY and Harry Chapin. Thanks to the incredible record collection of the brother (Doug) of Tom’s good friend Todd Fredell [9], Tom was introduced to the music of David Bowie, Yes, Roxy Music and Be Bop Deluxe. Tom also credits and thanks the late seventies and early eighties format and DJs of Bethesda, Maryland radio station WHFS (especially Bob Here, Damien and Weasel) with turning him on to the best the eighties music [10], including the earliest days of REM, Tommy Keene [11], Marshall Crenshaw and numerous others.
Tom now enjoys a variety of music including Classical (especially Telemann), New Age, Acoustic singer/songwriters and more Celtic music than Bonnie can put up with.
Tom graduated from high school in 1979 [12] and took a year off from school to give his Bad Attitude about school a chance to simmer down. (He wishes to publicly apologize to Ms. Maureen Nemechek of Potomac Sr. High who was well within her rights to try and kick him out of her class that day [13] and to thank Ms. Joan Bauer for giving him a place to hide out much of his senior year. [14])
To support himself he began a 10-year stint selling kites at The Kite Site in Georgetown, DC. [15]
In between kite and boomerang sales and nightly games of Toobee [16], he also managed to get a BA in Radio-TV-Film from the University of Maryland, College Park.He eventually returned to UM to get a Masters degree in Radio-TV-Film, concentrating on Children and Television in 1992. In 1995 he added a Masters of Library Science to his list of all-but-worthless degrees. [17]
Tom's career path has been far from linear; a point he credits to God’s wonderful sense of humor. [18]
From selling kites he worked at a School for the Deaf [19], a School for the Blind [20], as a Kelly Girl [21], an Assistant Manager of a record store [22] (just as they were converting from actual records to CDs), a Children's Librarian [23] and a Computer Support Technician [24] .
While working as an assistant manager in the now-closed Georgetown Kemp Mill Records he worked with a young woman named Serenity. Seren kept telling him he needed to meet her mother, insisting that her mother, Bonnie, and Tom would really like each other. After much resistance from both Tom and Bonnie, the two finally did meet. They quickly fell in love and were married in 1991. [25]
Later that year they moved down to North Carolina to be closer to Bonnie’s son, John English [26] . Less than two weeks later John moved in with them. Skipping the gory details of the custody battle, Tom actually cutting his hair for the first (and only) time in two decades for the custody battle [27], and the revocation of parental rights for Bonnie's ex, suffice it to say all three live happily in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Tom has been described as a natural-born teacher [28]. If the state of North Carolina paid its teachers a living wage he would still teaching there today. Currently he is works as a Computer Support Technician for a Government Research Institute but hopes to return to teaching sometime very soon [29].
He has also spent far too much time lately working on these webpages. [30]
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1. Tom grew up in Maryland in the house his parents still live in.
Not only was that true when I wrote it, it's still true now. This is in sharp contrast to Bonnie who grew up a military brat. She moved every few years and had/has a hard time with the idea of never moving as a child. On the one it gave me a tremendous sense of security; on the other, I think it stilted my sense of adventure for many years.
2. There he spent far too much time watching TV...
For several years of my young life I could proudly tell you the entire evening lineup of all of the major networks for any given night of the week. I considered this quite the achievement.
3. ...and not nearly enough time outside.
The end result was that I was a fat kid. "Husky" as J.C. Penney's liked to call my clothes. For years the only picture my mother had of me was at the beach with a raft in front of me because I was too embarrassed to see myself in a photograph.
Somewhere around sixth grade I hit a major growth spurt and my height compensated for my weight. By the time I was 18 I was skinny as a rail. Getting outside and playing tennis with my father probably didn't hurt, either.
4. A “slow reader” at first (until he heard the phrase used to describe him)
By my mother to a children's librarian in the Oxon Hill Public Library as she was trying to give the librarian some kind of idea of what kind of books to recommend for me. Something "clicked" in me and I understood what she meant and that it wasn't good. I was embarrassed, but instead of hiding in shame I decided to do something about it -- I became a voracious reader. Pretty impressive for a 5 or 6 year old.
5. By age 16 Tom added playing the guitar
When in practice I'm a competent rhythm guitar player. Forget leads; forget finger picking. My brain isn't wired for those types of playing. I've tried over the years to learn them but it just doesn't want to come.
My friend Jeff and I played together for years during the 80's and made a few tapes for our own amusement. Jeff could listen to a Bruce Cockburn song and have a finger picked arrangement worked out in fairly short order. I was content to just play rhythm behind him and write my own songs.
6. Shrine Mont, Bethany Beach Folk Arts Festival and Forum
It was the 70's and Encounter Groups were all the rage. I feel they're extremely useful for getting in touch with your own feelings as well as learning to be responsive to the feelings of others. These three events really had a profound impact on who I am today. As such, they each deserve their own blog at some point in the future.
7. The Marx Brothers. "Duck Soup" and "A Night at the Opera" became something of a life-altering event for him.
This was one of the first Acts of Rebellion against my parents and it came at a fairly early age. They just did not get The Marx Brothers at all; I thought they were comic geniuses. That first bit of finding my own identity apart from my parents continued as I searched out other comedy that appealed to me. Comedy and music, the two great divisors.
The other big impact of the Marx Brothers and Abbot and Costello movies came through Richard J. Anobile's books. He did a series of books (for The Marx Brothers, Abbot and Costello and W.C. Fields, filled with pictures from the movies and included the accompanying scene's dialog. As a result I got a chance to not only go over classic scenes at my leisure but by reading the written words and understanding how there was an Art to turning written dialog into something truly funny.
8. John Denver...
I was given a tape of two early John Denver albums by family friends (the Towers) when I was 10 or 11 (I think). I really liked them. Not only were they not the show tunes/Glen Yarborough/RodMcKuen/muzak at my mother continually played (yes, I said Muzak. My mother listened to WGAY which played nothing but Muzak until sometime in the late 70s. She played it constantly) but some of the songs were just one guy with a guitar making really good music.
When I first started playing the guitar I was working on learning John Denver tunes. (I still remember sitting in the basement on a Friday night trying to get my fingers to cooperate with the relatively simple C - G - C - G chord changes of "Leaving on a Jet Plane".
There's still something simple and good about his early recordings; I still listen to them from time to time.
9. Thanks to the incredible record collection of the brother (Doug) of Tom's good friend Todd Fredell...
Two cardboard boxes of albums sat on the top of a small table to the right of the stereo in Todd's living room. I was not adventurous at all with that collection, and now I wish I had been. As it was, Todd was the one that put on new records he had listened to as he discovered them.
For me, a place and time are often framed by the music. For me, Todd's living room is framed by David Bowie's "Hunky Dory." And "Ziggy Stardust", "Space Oddity" and "Diamond Dogs."
10. ...WHFS (especially Bob Here, Damien and Weasel) with turning him on to the best the eighties music.
WHFS was a free-form radio station in Bethesda, Maryland when I was at the aforementioned Kite Site. It stayed away from the mainstream '80s hits and played a combination of New Wave, seventies southern rock, blues, indy artists and anything else the DJs felt like playing. Musical genres would switch in mid-set and songs would be juxtaposed in ways I would have never thought would have worked. But it did. 'HFS was a fantastic station up until it was sold by Jake Einstein, father of Damien.
The Corporation that purchased it started sucking the life out of it, first forcing Bob Here to leave (either become full time at a substantial pay cut or leave), then by firing Damien (after rolling his TR-7 on the DC Beltway Damien had a unique speech impediment. It didn't make him difficult to understand, just "different." The Corporate Shirts didn't like that and terminated him -- until he took them to court and won his job back.) and then limited Weasel's hours (Weasel had another distinct, unique voice. That he, like Damien, knew music inside and out, didn't matter to The Shirts.)
When we'd drive back to DC it was always a big thing to get within signal range of 'HFS. It was more like coming home than just about anything else for me. Now 'HFS is a Corporate "Alternative" station. It's a far cry from the "Homegrown Radio" that it used to promote itself as being. It's so bad I can't even listen to it when I'm in DC anymore.
I do, however, have two tapes of 'HFS "from the day" (as pilote put it the other day). They're proof of what great radio could be.
(And for true alternative 80s New Wave the best thing I've found now is a live365 webcast by a woman called Java Jane. Her website has information about the webcast as well as links to listen in.)
(Best thing I've heard that simulates what I think a modern-day 'HFS would sound like is another live365 webcast. This one is called "Into the Mystic" and is what we listened to just about all day yesterday.)
11. Tommy Keene
Never heard of him? Not terribly surprising. He was a local DC boy who moved out to California shortly after releasing a few albums to rave reviews locally. 'HFS played "Places That Are Gone" a lot and I bought all of the vinyl he released. His first album, "Strange Alliance" is a collector's item in DC and my taped copy of the album was what I listened to whenever I arrived back in NYC after taking the bus back from DC. (That's another story. Somehow living in Spanish Harlem didn't make it into this bio...)
One day, from wonderful vantage point of the corner windows of the aforementioned Kite Site I actually saw Keene crossing M Street. He walked right past the windows. Stunned and excited I ran out of the store and called after him. He and his friend stopped and it was at that point that I realized I had no idea what to say to him. I opened my mouth and was appalled to hear myself say, "I'm a big fan! I have all of your albums!" His friend looked amused. Keene looked slightly uncomfortable. I just wanted to crawl back to the tall chair behind the Kite Site's counter and pretend it hadn't happened.
12. Tom graduated from high school in 1979...
Do the math yourself.
13. He wishes to publicly apologize to Ms. Maureen Nemecek of Potomac Sr. High who was well within her rights to try and kick him out of her class that day...
Advanced Placement English. Senior year. My Bad Attitude was in full bloom and for some reason that day I was in rare form. We had just endured several weeks worth of lectures on how wonderful Faulkner's "The Bear" was (it wasn't. Not even close) and Ms. Nemechek was at the front of the class. For some reason she was talking about how difficult life was when she was a child. Her family didn't have much money, etc, etc...
I was sitting in the middle right of the class and lazily, extended my left arm out, palm up. I made an understated (or so I thought) sweeping motion with my right hand across my left arm. And back again.
I might have rolled my eyes and sighed heavily, too. I don't remember very clearly.
Anyways, she exploded.
She screamed, told me to leave (I didn't) and not to come back. She ranted and raved; I said and did nothing. Eventually I think the bell rang and we were all spared any further complications.
The interesting thing was that no one knew why she suddenly exploded but her and me. I got lots of sympathy from my fellow classmates who had no idea what had gone one. One person told me, "I'm glad you didn't get up and leave. If you had I would have walked out with you!"
So, sorry Ms Nemecek. And thanks for teaching me that I wasn't as danged clever and smart as I thought I was. (Probably a much more important lesson, come to think of it. Sorry for any, you know, trauma, I may have caused.)
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Okay, my other Ms. Nemechek story. After all, blogging is a very self-indulgent exercise, isn't it? I mean, I'm writing this for me and for my own amusement. No one has to read this (if anyone is or has stuck around for this long) and, besides, this blog is going on for such an incredibly long time I might as well try to beat out the size of the Big Matrix blog from last week...
She assigned us a term paper on the poet of our choice. We needed to have 5 or 6 references and it was supposed to be something like 12 pages long. Then she did something that I found highly insulting: she gave us a handout with an example of segments from a Proper Term Paper. It wasn't so much the formatting, but an example of a page or two from an "acceptable" term paper. I realized all she really wanted was for us to transpose our information into this formatting and style. Forget any individuality, she wanted a paper written by a robot.
I did some token research and then decided to just give her what she wanted -- but with my own individuality imposed upon it. I'd write the paper in the exact formatting and style, but I was going to make up every single word of it.
My bad attitude was evident in another way as well in that I refused to do homework at home. Any homework that was assigned was done either in school or not at all. I figured I was giving them 6+ hours a day and that was more than enough.
The word came out one Friday that the assignment was due the following Monday. I spent some of that Friday working on my imaginary paper on Dylan Thomas (a good Irishman who died a drunken Irish death), writing the first page or two. (In which was the imaginary quote: "Of Dylan Thomas' earlier, unpublished works, one critic said it was best that they remain that way.")
That weekend was the Washington's Birthday weekend of 1979. On Sunday night it snowed close to 32". School was called off for the entire week, one day at a time.
I got to school the following Monday and did nothing in my first two classes but make up Dylan Thomas' career with literary criticisms and turned it in at the start of third period.
I got an "A" on it.
I had made a vow to myself about that paper. When I had officially graduated I would tell her about it. Sure enough, as soon as I turned in my graduation gown (it was the first lesson in The Real World: cross the stage and get handed a diploma holder. If you want the actual diploma you needed to turn in your gown. "Congratulations on your achievement. We don't trust you.") and got my diploma I walked over to her.
"Remember that Dylan Thomas paper I wrote?” I asked.
"You plagiarized it," she responded. (Bonus points!)
"Nope. I made it up."
"You made it up?" she asked.
"Yep. Every word of it." I was mighty proud of myself and it undoubtedly showed on my face.
She wasn't smiling.
Of course she had the last word. I had forgotten that teachers didn't turn in their grades until after graduation...
14. ...and to thank Ms. Joan Bauer for giving him a place to hide out much of his senior year.
Joanie was a class act and still is. She ran the school newspaper and gave me a place to hide out, feel accepted and even let me write an article for the paper (on the PSAT that I wanted to title "The PSAT: Beating an Old, Dead Horse" after a quote from the guidance councilor I was sent to interview on the subject. I wrote it up and then watched as a very good friend of mine, David "The Axeman" Hayes edited it beyond recognition. The byline with my name on it was the only thing I recognized as being mine when it was published).
I'm still in touch with Joanie occasionally. She's a great person to know.
15. To support himself he began a 10-year stint selling kites at The Kite Site in Georgetown, DC.
Just shy of ten years, actually.
The Kite Site was a great place to work. I was taken in as a complete unknown, largely on the good word of a friend who had been working there for a while. I was handed the "shipping and packaging" department for the wholesale "division" of the store. (This was a small place with a slight excess of inventory in the basement that the owner sold off to other, smaller shops. I spent several hours a day doing that and the rest upstairs on the floor selling.) Not a bad way to make a living when I was 18. It gave me some real world experience and provided me with the motivation to go to college.
When I started going to college I shifted from days to nights at The Kite Site. My 40 hours a week changed to 30, I was made "Night Manager" and I did that for almost my entire college career in Maryland. Nights were 6 hours of 'HFS on the radio, lots of games being played with all of the flying toys in the store (many of which went beyond the notion of "demonstrations for the customers" and turned into serious, sweat-filled competitions) and very low pressure sales to people who'd had too much to drink and were wandering the streets of Georgetown.
There were a few times when I was actually surprised that Chuck, the owner, didn't fire me. I'm still good friends with him and he has yet to tell me why he didn't.
There are lots of good Kite Site stories, lots of very good people that I worked with there over the years. That'll be another blog some other day.
(One last note: I met Bonnie at The Kite Site before we really knew each other. She and Seren were on their way to London for the summer and were staying in DC with her mother before they flew out of National Airport the next day. I sold her a diamond kite with a dove that I then mailed off to her (IMHO) psy choti callyder anged ex.)
16. ...and nightly games of Toobee...
If you follow the link you'll find that a Toobee is about a third of an aluminum can with the top cut off and the bottom edge folded over. (My old sales pitch is coming back to me) Can you make one yourself? Probably, but you'll need to do it in such a way that there are no sharp edges, which is harder to do than it looks. (I know, we tried) You throw it much like a football, putting a spiral on it. The longest throw is 90-something yards (almost a football field) which had to have some wind behind it, but isn't too impossible to believe.
Our game of Toobee involved two separate goals each roughly the length of the store apart from each other (~35 - 40 feet apart). One was the front left window to the store, the other was to get it down the stairs. Each had it's own defenses - you could block the window much like a soccer goalie; you could run down the stairs and catch the Toobee before it hit the floor (the tink-tink-tink of the Toobee hitting the floor was a clear indication of a goal). Each also had it's own strategy for scoring - the upper corners of the display window were tough to defend against; some people were all but reckless about diving down the stairs t
(Note: I started working on this on Monday. That's three days ago. I'm sure this is about as long-winded as I'm going to get for a while.)
(Also, many thanks goes out to Kerri Justice's Live365 webcast station "Into the Mystic" which provided the soundtrack for most of this entry. It's a great mix of music, IMHO)
I got email from Stephe on Friday night asking for a two paragraph bio to go along with his grant to the National Science Foundation for "What the Tech?” . Since I'm an "occasional contributor" and not an on-air host I didn't need to fill out the Official Bio form, a simple two or three paragraph bio would do.
Here's what I sent up:
Tom Franklin was born in Washington, DC and graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a BA in Radio/TV/Film in 1985 and a Masters in Children and Television in 1992. He received his Masters in Library Science from North Carolina Central University in 1995.
Regardless of Mr. Franklin’s actual job title, his goal has always been to share knowledge. Whether it’s teaching basic computer skills to senior citizens or Chess strategy to elementary school students, Mr. Franklin has a talent for breaking down difficult subjects to smaller, more manageable components.
In 1996, after spending 5 1/2 years as an Elementary School Librarian, Mr. Franklin moved into his current position as Desktop Computer Support for the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (a division of the National Institutes of Health). Currently he is the lead PC and Macintosh support for the Office of the Director and works closely with the editorial and graphic staff of the Institute’s scholarly journal, Environmental Health Perspectives. His cross-platform expertise, hands-on knowledge of a wide variety of software applications and love of computer gadgets makes his “What the Tech?” reviews of interest to a wide variety of listeners.
Stephe's response was that he thought it was a little glib for the NSF and that he'd edit it for me. Glib? I replied "I thought I'd been playing it pretty straight."
Here was his edit:
Tom Franklin:
BA in Radio/TV/Film , University of Maryland, College Park
MA in Children and Television, University of Maryland, College Park.
MLS, North Carolina Central University.
Current position: Desktop Computer Support for the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (a division of the National Institutes of Health). He is the lead PC and Macintosh support person for the Office of the Director and works closely with the editorial and graphic staff of the Institute’s scholarly journal, Environmental Health Perspectives. His cross-platform expertise, hands-on knowledge of a wide variety of software applications and love of computer and consumer electronics gadgets inform his “What the Tech?” reviews .
It got me thinking about the two bios (the "Artist's Bio" and the "Extended Bio" (i.e. the "Straight" and the "Interesting" bios) I have up on the 5cats webpages. Bonnie wants the pages completely redone and the bios scrapped. The bios have some worthwhile stuff in them (although re-reading it now there's less than I had originally thought) and an updated and slightly expanded version should be blogged here before I pull the pages down.
Being longwinded, I feel a need to annotate these bios with some additional highlights. I'll try not to be too long (or glib). (Yeah, right)
I was born in Northwest Washington, DC and grew up just over the Southeast border in Maryland. I've lived in a number of states including Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin. Bonnie and I have lived in North Carolina since 1991.
Officially, I'm an artist comfortable working in many mediums, who has won awards for my photography [1], retail advertising designs [2] and jewelry [3]. Unofficially I consider myself to be artistically untrained [4] but able to pay close attention to structural integrity and what looks good or right to my eye than anything else.
I came to jewelry through Bonnie. When Bonnie making began jewelry again in the early 1990s, she saw potential in my attention to detail and ability to make clean folds while doing origami. With her encouragement [5] I began working with a variety of wires, stones and styles before settling on a series of gold-filled and silver bangles and hand-made chains.
Bonnie says my patience and precision is evidenced by that series of hand-made chains. Made of Fine Silver or 22 Karat Gold, these chains take anywhere from 6 to 40 hours to make, from start to finish. Most of these chains are finished off with special hand-made catches as well.
I also enjoy designing, building and consulting on webpages. I designed and built these webpages over a period of a few months in my supposed "free time".
1. …who has won awards for my photography...
Okay, so it was 1979 or '80 and it was only because my mother sent the picture in. I'd gotten up before sunrise at Bethany Beach, Delaware and walked down to the boardwalk with my camera and tripod. Somehow I managed to get the light meter settings all screwed up on a couple of pictures -- the end result was a glowing orange sun with orange ripples on the surface of the water, all against a black background. The Washington Post gave it an Honorable Mention.
2. …retail advertising designs...
I worked for about a year or two for Kemp Mill Records (when I started they still had actual records, as in LPs, for those of you too young to remember them). One of the jobs I took on was the in-store posters and displays for new albums. It was a job I really got into, especially for bands I really liked, and tried to make them all unique and as visible as possible. I still have a bunch of Polaroids of some of my favorites. Maybe I'll find some space online and start linking to them in the blog. One of them finally won an in-house award.
3. ...and jewelry.
We won a Juror’s Award at Artsplosure about 3 years ago. Someone finally noticed the chains and started asking questions about them. It was a man, which was kind of surprising (most male show jurors pass by jewelry about as quickly as most husbands nervous that their wives might want to spend some serious money on just herself), but after hearing the right answers from me about how the chains were made, really got into it. If the two women had been interested we might have gotten a more prestigious award, but I was happy having finally captured someone's attention who could appreciate the time and work that goes into making the chains.
4. Unofficially I consider myself to be artistically untrained...
As Clint Eastwood once said, "A man's got to know his limitations." This one is easy: I am many things, but an Artist I am not. Bonnie does all of the Art, I do the Craft work. Bonnie works with gold and silver, soldering together fabricated one-of-a-kind pieces. I cut pieces of wire and do things with them. Not much of a comparison, if you ask me.
I refer to what I do as "straight line simple stuff." Everything is a straight line of one sort or another: Make a wire bangle? Cut the wires to the right length, wrap them all up in some binding wires and polish. Wire teardrop earrings? Cut some wire to the right length, shape it, slide the beads on, curl the edges and attach to the earring wire. Pearl necklace? Thread pearls, ties knots in between each one. Fine silver chain? Wrap the wire around the proper sized dowel, cut each link out, butt joint each link and hit with flame to fuse. Shape each joined link and piece it together.
The trick to all of this is (a) having the right tools and equipment and (b) having lots of patience. Pearls and the chains are the two most problematic -- pearls, while tedious, require unwavering attention or something will screw up; chains just take a long time. I have one chain that took close to 40 hours to make. (It's great to look at, but I doubt we'll ever sell it)
5. With her encouragement...
People at shows will ask me "How long have you been making jewelry?"
"Since Bonnie told me I was going to make jewelry," I always reply.
That's about the truth of it, too. Bonnie's been doing this for 25+ years, off and on. When she started back up in 1992 she realized she didn't have the time to make enough inventory to sell. She asked me to try to make something (anything) and I started twisting some wire around some glass globs and marbles we had to work with. I made some atrocious rings that first night, but it was a start.
I started more out of a financial need to have things to sell than any inborn need to create jewelry. Bonnie, on the other hand, has that inborn need to create jewelry. If she doesn't get out into her workshop to do some kind of work on her art at least every few days she starts getting anxious and slightly depressed. Me, once the last of the shows are over and we're done for Christmas I stop completely until the spring shows start up and don't miss it a bit.
(Now writing, on the other hand...)
Quick side note: Early on we sold stuff out at the local flea market. One day some kids were looking at our stuff, the colorful glass in the sunlight having caught their eyes. They showed their mama the jewelry and asked if she thought it was pretty. "Them is mahbles," she said dismissively and with a fair amount of contempt. It's been a catch phrase with us ever since.
Tom grew up in Maryland in the house his parents still live in. [1] There he spent far too much time watching TV [2] and not nearly enough time outside. [3]
A “slow reader” at first (until he heard the phrase used to describe him) [4] he made up for lost time by spending almost as much time reading as he did watching TV. By age 16 Tom added playing the guitar [5] to the list of things he did in his abundant spare time.
While in high school he attended a summer camp which, years before, his father had attended. Shrine Mont proved to be a turning point in Tom's life by introducing him to encounter group-style interactions and a number of very cool people. It was followed, a year later, by the Bethany Beach Folk Arts Festival which introduced him to group of cool, artistic people and, back home in the DC area, "Forum", a church-sponsored discussion group. [6]
Tom traces the roots of his sense of humor to a good family friend, Don Brown, who one day turned Tom on to The Marx Brothers. "Duck Soup" and "A Night at the Opera" became something of a life-altering event for him. [7] (Although far less so than "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was for Bonnie) From there he quickly moved on to other older comedians: W.C. Fields, Buster Keaton, Abbott and Costello. Eventually he found Monty Python's Flying Circus and read/heard/watched Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" series in all of it's various incarnations.
Tom’s eclectic musical tastes started with his early years of listening to more acoustic singer-songwriters such as John Denver [8], Cat Stevens, CSNY and Harry Chapin. Thanks to the incredible record collection of the brother (Doug) of Tom’s good friend Todd Fredell [9], Tom was introduced to the music of David Bowie, Yes, Roxy Music and Be Bop Deluxe. Tom also credits and thanks the late seventies and early eighties format and DJs of Bethesda, Maryland radio station WHFS (especially Bob Here, Damien and Weasel) with turning him on to the best the eighties music [10], including the earliest days of REM, Tommy Keene [11], Marshall Crenshaw and numerous others.
Tom now enjoys a variety of music including Classical (especially Telemann), New Age, Acoustic singer/songwriters and more Celtic music than Bonnie can put up with.
Tom graduated from high school in 1979 [12] and took a year off from school to give his Bad Attitude about school a chance to simmer down. (He wishes to publicly apologize to Ms. Maureen Nemechek of Potomac Sr. High who was well within her rights to try and kick him out of her class that day [13] and to thank Ms. Joan Bauer for giving him a place to hide out much of his senior year. [14])
To support himself he began a 10-year stint selling kites at The Kite Site in Georgetown, DC. [15]
In between kite and boomerang sales and nightly games of Toobee [16], he also managed to get a BA in Radio-TV-Film from the University of Maryland, College Park.He eventually returned to UM to get a Masters degree in Radio-TV-Film, concentrating on Children and Television in 1992. In 1995 he added a Masters of Library Science to his list of all-but-worthless degrees. [17]
Tom's career path has been far from linear; a point he credits to God’s wonderful sense of humor. [18]
From selling kites he worked at a School for the Deaf [19], a School for the Blind [20], as a Kelly Girl [21], an Assistant Manager of a record store [22] (just as they were converting from actual records to CDs), a Children's Librarian [23] and a Computer Support Technician [24] .
While working as an assistant manager in the now-closed Georgetown Kemp Mill Records he worked with a young woman named Serenity. Seren kept telling him he needed to meet her mother, insisting that her mother, Bonnie, and Tom would really like each other. After much resistance from both Tom and Bonnie, the two finally did meet. They quickly fell in love and were married in 1991. [25]
Later that year they moved down to North Carolina to be closer to Bonnie’s son, John English [26] . Less than two weeks later John moved in with them. Skipping the gory details of the custody battle, Tom actually cutting his hair for the first (and only) time in two decades for the custody battle [27], and the revocation of parental rights for Bonnie's ex, suffice it to say all three live happily in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Tom has been described as a natural-born teacher [28]. If the state of North Carolina paid its teachers a living wage he would still teaching there today. Currently he is works as a Computer Support Technician for a Government Research Institute but hopes to return to teaching sometime very soon [29].
He has also spent far too much time lately working on these webpages. [30]
1. Tom grew up in Maryland in the house his parents still live in.
Not only was that true when I wrote it, it's still true now. This is in sharp contrast to Bonnie who grew up a military brat. She moved every few years and had/has a hard time with the idea of never moving as a child. On the one it gave me a tremendous sense of security; on the other, I think it stilted my sense of adventure for many years.
2. There he spent far too much time watching TV...
For several years of my young life I could proudly tell you the entire evening lineup of all of the major networks for any given night of the week. I considered this quite the achievement.
3. ...and not nearly enough time outside.
The end result was that I was a fat kid. "Husky" as J.C. Penney's liked to call my clothes. For years the only picture my mother had of me was at the beach with a raft in front of me because I was too embarrassed to see myself in a photograph.
Somewhere around sixth grade I hit a major growth spurt and my height compensated for my weight. By the time I was 18 I was skinny as a rail. Getting outside and playing tennis with my father probably didn't hurt, either.
4. A “slow reader” at first (until he heard the phrase used to describe him)
By my mother to a children's librarian in the Oxon Hill Public Library as she was trying to give the librarian some kind of idea of what kind of books to recommend for me. Something "clicked" in me and I understood what she meant and that it wasn't good. I was embarrassed, but instead of hiding in shame I decided to do something about it -- I became a voracious reader. Pretty impressive for a 5 or 6 year old.
5. By age 16 Tom added playing the guitar
When in practice I'm a competent rhythm guitar player. Forget leads; forget finger picking. My brain isn't wired for those types of playing. I've tried over the years to learn them but it just doesn't want to come.
My friend Jeff and I played together for years during the 80's and made a few tapes for our own amusement. Jeff could listen to a Bruce Cockburn song and have a finger picked arrangement worked out in fairly short order. I was content to just play rhythm behind him and write my own songs.
6. Shrine Mont, Bethany Beach Folk Arts Festival and Forum
It was the 70's and Encounter Groups were all the rage. I feel they're extremely useful for getting in touch with your own feelings as well as learning to be responsive to the feelings of others. These three events really had a profound impact on who I am today. As such, they each deserve their own blog at some point in the future.
7. The Marx Brothers. "Duck Soup" and "A Night at the Opera" became something of a life-altering event for him.
This was one of the first Acts of Rebellion against my parents and it came at a fairly early age. They just did not get The Marx Brothers at all; I thought they were comic geniuses. That first bit of finding my own identity apart from my parents continued as I searched out other comedy that appealed to me. Comedy and music, the two great divisors.
The other big impact of the Marx Brothers and Abbot and Costello movies came through Richard J. Anobile's books. He did a series of books (for The Marx Brothers, Abbot and Costello and W.C. Fields, filled with pictures from the movies and included the accompanying scene's dialog. As a result I got a chance to not only go over classic scenes at my leisure but by reading the written words and understanding how there was an Art to turning written dialog into something truly funny.
8. John Denver...
I was given a tape of two early John Denver albums by family friends (the Towers) when I was 10 or 11 (I think). I really liked them. Not only were they not the show tunes/Glen Yarborough/RodMcKuen/muzak at my mother continually played (yes, I said Muzak. My mother listened to WGAY which played nothing but Muzak until sometime in the late 70s. She played it constantly) but some of the songs were just one guy with a guitar making really good music.
When I first started playing the guitar I was working on learning John Denver tunes. (I still remember sitting in the basement on a Friday night trying to get my fingers to cooperate with the relatively simple C - G - C - G chord changes of "Leaving on a Jet Plane".
There's still something simple and good about his early recordings; I still listen to them from time to time.
9. Thanks to the incredible record collection of the brother (Doug) of Tom's good friend Todd Fredell...
Two cardboard boxes of albums sat on the top of a small table to the right of the stereo in Todd's living room. I was not adventurous at all with that collection, and now I wish I had been. As it was, Todd was the one that put on new records he had listened to as he discovered them.
For me, a place and time are often framed by the music. For me, Todd's living room is framed by David Bowie's "Hunky Dory." And "Ziggy Stardust", "Space Oddity" and "Diamond Dogs."
10. ...WHFS (especially Bob Here, Damien and Weasel) with turning him on to the best the eighties music.
WHFS was a free-form radio station in Bethesda, Maryland when I was at the aforementioned Kite Site. It stayed away from the mainstream '80s hits and played a combination of New Wave, seventies southern rock, blues, indy artists and anything else the DJs felt like playing. Musical genres would switch in mid-set and songs would be juxtaposed in ways I would have never thought would have worked. But it did. 'HFS was a fantastic station up until it was sold by Jake Einstein, father of Damien.
The Corporation that purchased it started sucking the life out of it, first forcing Bob Here to leave (either become full time at a substantial pay cut or leave), then by firing Damien (after rolling his TR-7 on the DC Beltway Damien had a unique speech impediment. It didn't make him difficult to understand, just "different." The Corporate Shirts didn't like that and terminated him -- until he took them to court and won his job back.) and then limited Weasel's hours (Weasel had another distinct, unique voice. That he, like Damien, knew music inside and out, didn't matter to The Shirts.)
When we'd drive back to DC it was always a big thing to get within signal range of 'HFS. It was more like coming home than just about anything else for me. Now 'HFS is a Corporate "Alternative" station. It's a far cry from the "Homegrown Radio" that it used to promote itself as being. It's so bad I can't even listen to it when I'm in DC anymore.
I do, however, have two tapes of 'HFS "from the day" (as pilote put it the other day). They're proof of what great radio could be.
(And for true alternative 80s New Wave the best thing I've found now is a live365 webcast by a woman called Java Jane. Her website has information about the webcast as well as links to listen in.)
(Best thing I've heard that simulates what I think a modern-day 'HFS would sound like is another live365 webcast. This one is called "Into the Mystic" and is what we listened to just about all day yesterday.)
11. Tommy Keene
Never heard of him? Not terribly surprising. He was a local DC boy who moved out to California shortly after releasing a few albums to rave reviews locally. 'HFS played "Places That Are Gone" a lot and I bought all of the vinyl he released. His first album, "Strange Alliance" is a collector's item in DC and my taped copy of the album was what I listened to whenever I arrived back in NYC after taking the bus back from DC. (That's another story. Somehow living in Spanish Harlem didn't make it into this bio...)
One day, from wonderful vantage point of the corner windows of the aforementioned Kite Site I actually saw Keene crossing M Street. He walked right past the windows. Stunned and excited I ran out of the store and called after him. He and his friend stopped and it was at that point that I realized I had no idea what to say to him. I opened my mouth and was appalled to hear myself say, "I'm a big fan! I have all of your albums!" His friend looked amused. Keene looked slightly uncomfortable. I just wanted to crawl back to the tall chair behind the Kite Site's counter and pretend it hadn't happened.
12. Tom graduated from high school in 1979...
Do the math yourself.
13. He wishes to publicly apologize to Ms. Maureen Nemecek of Potomac Sr. High who was well within her rights to try and kick him out of her class that day...
Advanced Placement English. Senior year. My Bad Attitude was in full bloom and for some reason that day I was in rare form. We had just endured several weeks worth of lectures on how wonderful Faulkner's "The Bear" was (it wasn't. Not even close) and Ms. Nemechek was at the front of the class. For some reason she was talking about how difficult life was when she was a child. Her family didn't have much money, etc, etc...
I was sitting in the middle right of the class and lazily, extended my left arm out, palm up. I made an understated (or so I thought) sweeping motion with my right hand across my left arm. And back again.
I might have rolled my eyes and sighed heavily, too. I don't remember very clearly.
Anyways, she exploded.
She screamed, told me to leave (I didn't) and not to come back. She ranted and raved; I said and did nothing. Eventually I think the bell rang and we were all spared any further complications.
The interesting thing was that no one knew why she suddenly exploded but her and me. I got lots of sympathy from my fellow classmates who had no idea what had gone one. One person told me, "I'm glad you didn't get up and leave. If you had I would have walked out with you!"
So, sorry Ms Nemecek. And thanks for teaching me that I wasn't as danged clever and smart as I thought I was. (Probably a much more important lesson, come to think of it. Sorry for any, you know, trauma, I may have caused.)
Okay, my other Ms. Nemechek story. After all, blogging is a very self-indulgent exercise, isn't it? I mean, I'm writing this for me and for my own amusement. No one has to read this (if anyone is or has stuck around for this long) and, besides, this blog is going on for such an incredibly long time I might as well try to beat out the size of the Big Matrix blog from last week...
She assigned us a term paper on the poet of our choice. We needed to have 5 or 6 references and it was supposed to be something like 12 pages long. Then she did something that I found highly insulting: she gave us a handout with an example of segments from a Proper Term Paper. It wasn't so much the formatting, but an example of a page or two from an "acceptable" term paper. I realized all she really wanted was for us to transpose our information into this formatting and style. Forget any individuality, she wanted a paper written by a robot.
I did some token research and then decided to just give her what she wanted -- but with my own individuality imposed upon it. I'd write the paper in the exact formatting and style, but I was going to make up every single word of it.
My bad attitude was evident in another way as well in that I refused to do homework at home. Any homework that was assigned was done either in school or not at all. I figured I was giving them 6+ hours a day and that was more than enough.
The word came out one Friday that the assignment was due the following Monday. I spent some of that Friday working on my imaginary paper on Dylan Thomas (a good Irishman who died a drunken Irish death), writing the first page or two. (In which was the imaginary quote: "Of Dylan Thomas' earlier, unpublished works, one critic said it was best that they remain that way.")
That weekend was the Washington's Birthday weekend of 1979. On Sunday night it snowed close to 32". School was called off for the entire week, one day at a time.
I got to school the following Monday and did nothing in my first two classes but make up Dylan Thomas' career with literary criticisms and turned it in at the start of third period.
I got an "A" on it.
I had made a vow to myself about that paper. When I had officially graduated I would tell her about it. Sure enough, as soon as I turned in my graduation gown (it was the first lesson in The Real World: cross the stage and get handed a diploma holder. If you want the actual diploma you needed to turn in your gown. "Congratulations on your achievement. We don't trust you.") and got my diploma I walked over to her.
"Remember that Dylan Thomas paper I wrote?” I asked.
"You plagiarized it," she responded. (Bonus points!)
"Nope. I made it up."
"You made it up?" she asked.
"Yep. Every word of it." I was mighty proud of myself and it undoubtedly showed on my face.
She wasn't smiling.
Of course she had the last word. I had forgotten that teachers didn't turn in their grades until after graduation...
14. ...and to thank Ms. Joan Bauer for giving him a place to hide out much of his senior year.
Joanie was a class act and still is. She ran the school newspaper and gave me a place to hide out, feel accepted and even let me write an article for the paper (on the PSAT that I wanted to title "The PSAT: Beating an Old, Dead Horse" after a quote from the guidance councilor I was sent to interview on the subject. I wrote it up and then watched as a very good friend of mine, David "The Axeman" Hayes edited it beyond recognition. The byline with my name on it was the only thing I recognized as being mine when it was published).
I'm still in touch with Joanie occasionally. She's a great person to know.
15. To support himself he began a 10-year stint selling kites at The Kite Site in Georgetown, DC.
Just shy of ten years, actually.
The Kite Site was a great place to work. I was taken in as a complete unknown, largely on the good word of a friend who had been working there for a while. I was handed the "shipping and packaging" department for the wholesale "division" of the store. (This was a small place with a slight excess of inventory in the basement that the owner sold off to other, smaller shops. I spent several hours a day doing that and the rest upstairs on the floor selling.) Not a bad way to make a living when I was 18. It gave me some real world experience and provided me with the motivation to go to college.
When I started going to college I shifted from days to nights at The Kite Site. My 40 hours a week changed to 30, I was made "Night Manager" and I did that for almost my entire college career in Maryland. Nights were 6 hours of 'HFS on the radio, lots of games being played with all of the flying toys in the store (many of which went beyond the notion of "demonstrations for the customers" and turned into serious, sweat-filled competitions) and very low pressure sales to people who'd had too much to drink and were wandering the streets of Georgetown.
There were a few times when I was actually surprised that Chuck, the owner, didn't fire me. I'm still good friends with him and he has yet to tell me why he didn't.
There are lots of good Kite Site stories, lots of very good people that I worked with there over the years. That'll be another blog some other day.
(One last note: I met Bonnie at The Kite Site before we really knew each other. She and Seren were on their way to London for the summer and were staying in DC with her mother before they flew out of National Airport the next day. I sold her a diamond kite with a dove that I then mailed off to her (IMHO) psy choti callyder anged ex.)
16. ...and nightly games of Toobee...
If you follow the link you'll find that a Toobee is about a third of an aluminum can with the top cut off and the bottom edge folded over. (My old sales pitch is coming back to me) Can you make one yourself? Probably, but you'll need to do it in such a way that there are no sharp edges, which is harder to do than it looks. (I know, we tried) You throw it much like a football, putting a spiral on it. The longest throw is 90-something yards (almost a football field) which had to have some wind behind it, but isn't too impossible to believe.
Our game of Toobee involved two separate goals each roughly the length of the store apart from each other (~35 - 40 feet apart). One was the front left window to the store, the other was to get it down the stairs. Each had it's own defenses - you could block the window much like a soccer goalie; you could run down the stairs and catch the Toobee before it hit the floor (the tink-tink-tink of the Toobee hitting the floor was a clear indication of a goal). Each also had it's own strategy for scoring - the upper corners of the display window were tough to defend against; some people were all but reckless about diving down the stairs t
