What's in a name?

As I'm putting this blog out there recently a couple of friends have said, "Hey Tom, what's up with the 'Tom E.' Laughlin moniker? You've never been a 'Tom E.' Laughlin kind of guy before -- what up, bro??" 

Tom E. Laughlin

The answer is fun and in the end, it's as simple as the fact that my name is not 'mine' -- someone else owns it -- what? I hate it when that happens.

The story reaches back to 1971 when the 'Billy Jack' movies were coming on the scene in a huge way (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Jack) and it's a great story of the time.

The leading male role was played by actor Tom Laughlin and he did an amazing job, the films are classics, and he is still alive and kicking in Hollywood today in his eighties. 

Since he established the 'Tom Laughlin' name and brand and is still working it, I have an obvious situation to figure out so, wanting to work with some version of my own name, I considered including my middle initial E.

As I thought about it I realized anyone reading 'Tom E.' would naturally default to some phonetic version ending up in the neighborhood of, 'Tommy', so I'm going to go with it and we'll see what happens.

Otherwise
I continue to tweak the T-shirt shop (http://americanbarnstories.spreadshirt.com/) and am very curious to see how it goes. Checking online you see good and bad comments about Spreadshirt, so let the market rule. And as I said in an earlier post, their price structure is higher than I/we would like, but their business model of printing T-shirts on demand as per Amazon with their CDs, DVDs and books is great and I'm working to get it whacked into acceptable shape -- all inputs appreciated. It's fun and I hope I can turn it into something more over the course of time.

More Otherwise
My original business website at www.koviaonline.com is so old at this point that it is terribly outdated and something has to happen with it. I mean, it is so old that in the pics my hair isn't even gray yet  :-)  What I think I'll do with it is leave it there and call it my 'Legacy' website so people can see some of my production roots, and then include a link on its front page connecting to this new site. I'm really glad to be from the older world and still young enough to participate in what's happening now re technology etc. 

So I think I'll publish this post now and then tune in to the celebration in Boston as they finish off St. Louis for the World Series win, they're just one out away right now. Good for the city of Boston -- they've been through a lot this past year.

So keep on, more later on it all, and thanks for clicking in!

     Tom E. Laughlin

                             PS And I'll tell Art the Farmer that you all say hello!