What do Carol Burnett, Bob Newhart and the Muppets have in common? Tom Patchett, whose new, irreverent memoir looks at his storied Hollywood career.
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Tom Patchett is a producer, director and comedy writer known for The Carol Burnett Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Tony Randall Show, Open All Night, Buffalo Bill, and the hit series Alf. He also co-wrote the screenplays for the films The Muppets Take Manhattan and The Great Muppet Caper. He was half of the stand-up comedy team of Patchett & Tarses. He teamed up with puppeteer Paul Fusco to create Alf.   Later, Tom founded the art gallery Track 16 at Bergamot station. The gallery, now in its third iteration, turns 30 this year.
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Jerry Stahl is the author of ten books, including the best-selling novel I, Fatty, the memoir Permanent Midnight, made into a movie with Ben Stiller, and most recently, Nein, Nein, Nein! One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust. His fiction and journalism have appeared in Esquire, the New York Times, Vice, the Believer, and a variety of other publications. He has written extensively for film and television, including Alf,  HBO’s Hemingway & Gellhorn, CSI, and Escape at Dannemora, for which he received an Emmy nomination.
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How does a boy rise from his “hard-knock” upbringing in Lansing, Michigan and a $75 a week job as an advertising copywriter to become a co-creator and majority owner of a network TV show in syndication?
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Tom Patchett examines his path to becoming a comedic force in Hollywood in his illustrated, limited-edition memoir, The Horse I Rode In On, which writer Jerry Stahl has called “Hilarious.” 
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The “Horse” that Patchett rode in is an illustrated memoir that spans the first 84 years of his whipsaw life. Asked for his “source of inspiration, he answered without hesitation, “Absurdity was my co-pilot.”
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***Join us for a very special night to celebrate Tom as we also mark the 15^th anniversary of Live Talks Los Angeles. It’s safe to say we might not be here without his generosity at our start, for it was at Tom’s celebrated gallery Track 16, then at Bergamot Station, where we incubated our series many moons ago. 

6:30-7:30  Wine reception