and why, and how did you meet?
Chief’s Domain - http://www.seas.ucla.edu/~ravi
Once upon a time, I worked as a research archivist for a large-ish auction company in Beverly Hills. One of the regular contributors to our auctions was a guy we’ll call Chris (because that’s his name). He’s definitely the most colorful character I’ve ever known. Not only has his life been one roller-coaster adventure after another, he actually owns a town (no shit!). Now how cool is that?
Chris is a dealer in Western Americana (read: “cowboys and indians”) collectibles, and after my auction company went bankrupt, I worked for him in Marina del Rey for about a year. The Malibu fire wiped out his home (the oldest home in Malibu, national register) and all of his private collection (oh my god, the 8-seat Stickley dining table and chairs!! - nope, no insurance…at $30K a year, who can afford it?). So Chris decided to get out of Dodge and move back to Montana, where he was raised.
Two days before the fire, he’d signed the papers on a 10-acre parcel of land next to the Custer Battlefield - a little spot on the map known as Garryowen, Montana. After the fire he was wiped out, but managed (I was witness to every second of this - the guy’s amazing) to coerce, urge, cajole, wheedle, browbeat, whine, beg, bribe, network, and generally turn FEMA and the SBA on their ears for permission to take his disaster funding out of the county AND out of the state so he could start again in Montana. To my knowledge, he’s the ONLY person in the history of either program to have done this.
So he moved to Garryowen, tore out the tiny market and gas station that had been there for something like 50 years (the toxic cleanup is a whole ‘nother story), and built himself this amazing complex housing a terrific Western Americana museum, the tomb of the unknown soldier from the battle (yes, there really is one), offices for his business Historical Rarities, Inc., ( http://www.historicalrarities.com ) a trading post (his buddy Putt [maybe the second-most colorful character I’ve ever met] operates and stocks that thriving enterprise with some amazing collectible beadwork, leatherwork, and artwork, plus tourist trinkets), a Post Office, a convenience store/market, and a big-rig gas station. The second floor of the complex is Chris’ home, which also includes a gorgeous master suite that can be rented as a B&B type of thing.
Chris occasionally flies me out there to work on a catalog for him, or to organize his life (he’s a hopeless stacker of papers / magazines / documents / scraps of paper / etc., and he likes being whipped into shape periodically - plus we have a LOT of fun when I’m up there!) He’s the sole inhabitant of Garryowen, and the local Sheriff, and there are about 37 other stories about him I could tell you, but it’s someone else’s turn…
Visit his website, tell him Tyler sent ya. And buy something from him on eBay, ok?
StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”
Definitely Mike C. I dated him for 2 years. This was in the mid-80’s. He was easily the most intuitively smart person I’ve ever met. At the time I met him he was in his third year of medical school. He was passing with honors despite never opening a book.
He was also easily the most charismatic person I’ve ever met. It was like he had an aura of light around him. Maybe it was his happy disposition, or the fact that he just loved to meet people. But he just loved socializing. We met at a bar with mutual friends. We talked for awhile and he asked me if I read a lot. I said “Yes. Why?” And he said, “Because you have an amazing vocabulary for someone your age.” Now THAT’s a pick-up line I’d never heard before.
He was comfortable in any situation – from a rugby match to a wine tasting event at the art museum. No matter where we were, he’d soon he’d have everyone laughing. One afternoon, he spent several hours having a conversation with a homeless person he met while waiting for the bus. He called me up to report how “neat” this guy was.
Mike had blond spiky hair and an earring. Since he was doing rotations and meeting with patients, his instructors kept insisting he “conservative up” his image, and he’d agree, then never change.
Since he had no money at the time, we’d spend a lot of time crashing on his bed (or rather, the mattress on the ground with grungy sheets) watching football games on the t.v. I had to bring over. Or he’d open up one of his favorite books, like “Hitchhiker’s Guide” and read me passages out of it.
He was the coolest person I’ve ever met. I still smile when I think about him. I would love to say that I broke his heart when I left him for my husband, but that wouldn’t be accurate. Because despite all his awesome qualities, his one big downfall was his absolute inability to be faithful to one woman. It was understood that he was not exclusive. He was very upfront about it.
The last I heard from him, he was studying to be a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and was trying to decide whether to go to Johns Hopkins or some hospital in Sydney, Australia. He was living with another doctor who wanted to get married. “So, what do you think, Lisa? Should I go for it?” He asked me. I asked, “Well, can you be faithful?” “Ummmmm…” was his response.
And I honestly didn’t know whether to think “lucky woman” or “poor woman.”
My first inclination was to say my parents collectively. My father, after being drafted into Vietnam when he was 19, tripped a landmine and was peppered with shrapnel. He was saved by a fellow grunt he had met on the bus that day, known to my dad only as “hank.” Hank rushed in, despite the fact that it is extremely dangerous to enter landmine-laden areas, and bandaged my dad while the rest of the platoon scattered. My father was told he would never walk again. Later, in a hospital bed in Japan, he wiggled his toes, and started laughing hysterically. The nurse thought he was going insane, and sedated him. He now walks with a slight limp. My father now does mental health counciling for the VA, is one of the leading PTSD authorities in the state. Once, while downtown with my dad, we ran into one of his clients, who turned to me, and said “Your father has allowed me to enter the world again. I am alive today because of your father.” WOW.
My mom taught me that the words “angry” and “feminist” aren’t the same. She taught me to never stand for anyone telling me that there is something I CAN’T do, but to never hold what another person thinks against them. She taught me that it is possible to be feminine and strong. In the early 70, she found herself pregant with my sister, by a man she KNEW wasn’t responcible enough to be a father. She ditched him, and decided to have the baby on her own, no family. She did, and met my father a year and a half later. They married three years later and my dad adopted my sister.
I can’t go a day without talking to one or the other. I count them among my closest friends. When I was 9, my dad was tucking me in, and told me he loved me. I said “I LIKE you.” He said “You don’t love me?” and I said “Well, that too. But you HAVE to love your parents. You get to choose who you want to LIKE.” I like both my parents quite a lot.
Habit rules the unreflecting herd. - Wordsworth
Wow, what awesome stories!! I’ve got to try and think of someone!!
Samuel R. Delany
I met Chip at a science fiction convention. I’ve never seen anyone who, with such ease, could come up with so many brilliant insights on just about any subject. He’s also incredibly gracious and charming.
“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx
Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction. www.sff.net/people/rothman