Tom, hard at work in the WFMU studios.

Tom Scharpling was born in central New Jersey, growing up in the suburbs of the Garden State. One of the first things that Young Tom did for fun was buy records. He would pedal his bike as far at his little legs would take him, riding to record stores miles from home. And when he was there, the pre-teen Scharpling would make some of the most insanely troubling collective purchases. Zen Arcade and Welcome Back My Friends To the Show That Never Ends? Sure, why not? Armed Forces and the Willie Wonka soundtrack? Makes sense to me! Between the Buttons and Welcome to the Pleasure Dome? Whatever makes you happy. (Look, I was only twelve at the time. What were you buying? [And yes, I’m writing this about myself. Who else would know this stuff about me? I’m not Winston Churchill.])

Twelve was a momentous age for Tom: he got his first J-O-B, working as a busboy in a local diner. Cleaning up the partially-eaten food of his peers while they mockingly looked on taught Tom valuable lessons about class hatred, lessons that he has not forgotten to this day. Some might say "lessons that he has not let go of to this day", but that’s just splitting hairs. Some might say Tom was subconsciously seeking out this dynamic: why else would he get a job sweeping up his own high school at the age of fourteen? The other kids would definitely see him doing that! Just lay off, okay? Everyone makes weird choices in their teens.

Upon finishing high school, Tom declared that he would be the First Person In His Family To Get A College Education. And you can see how well it took – everybody knows that you don’t capitalize the letter ‘A’ in the title from the previous sentence! Wisely deciding to work full-time at a sheet music store while pursuing his collegiate career, Tom watched the age referred to many as their "twenties" race past him. During that time he started a fanzine and record label called 18 Wheeler, which put out records by Dump, Portastatic, Refrigerator, Deluxx, Alan Licht and more.

Tom’s fanzine connections made him "pretty tight" (his words) with the indie rock band Superchunk. One night in 1994, Tom went backstage at a show to "cool out" with the band, only to discover that his favorite member of the band had been replaced by a young man named Jon Wurster. Blind hatred eventually blossomed into… friendship! The two have worked together on a variety of projects ever since, creating some of the funniest stuff that anyone has ever created.

Writing was always the only thing Tom could do. And he liked to do it – he recently unearthed some Battlestar Galactica episodes that he wrote. They were more like treatments than episodes, but again – lay off. He was ten years old!

Tom is currently a writer and supervising producer on the Emmy Award-winning television show Monk, which airs on the esteemed USA Network. He also works on screenplays and TV ideas and is looking to ‘get some stuff going. Serious stuff.’ (emphasis his [mine].).