Stevie Wonder's everlasting friendship with "Shotgun Tom"

When I moved to San Diego in 1978 and got into advertising, Shotgun Tom was one of the first on-air personalities I met. He was the morning DJ at B-100FM and already a household name in San Diego. Years later with my experience as an advertising copywriter, Tom asked me to write an eight-minute script for a demo videotape he was producing about himself. We became even better acquainted and I never had so many laughs in my life. In the fall of 1985 he and I and a friend of his made the rounds of LA and Hollywood distributing the demo tape and introducing him to select broadcast media. That afternoon we headed for Burbank as Tom got us tickets for the taping of the Johnny Carson Show to be aired that night. During the warm-up by longtime producer Fred de Cordova, Shotz was really cutting up--I thought we were going to be thrown out. Later, during Johnny's monologue, Shotgun let out his trademark "you better believe it, baby". A bit later while Johnny was talking with a guest and got a laugh, Tom let it out again to which Johnny said "I remember that guy from the monologue, you better believe him, too!". We watched it all that night and, of course, Tom taped it for posterity and I'll bet he still has it. All good fun. But putting that aside, Tom is a great family man and a loyal friend. I am glad for his success at K-Earth. No one in the biz deserves it more.

Basque, Both of my heroes in the same room! On the same audio track! Fine, Basque. Basque, Africa.