Tiny Tim
Did I ever tell you about the time I, well, hung out with Tiny Tim for a weekend? Yes, the Tiny Tim from the Tonight Show marriage with Miss Vicky, “Tiptoe Through The Tulips” and all that.
He was brought to town for a couple shows and a live recording, Tiny Tim Live in Chicago (with my pals the New Duncan Imperials) that I was involved with in the glorious 1990’s. Among my strongest memories of him and that weekend…
- Picking him up from O’Hare at like 10am on a weekday, slinking along in the tail end of morning rush traffic, with none other than Tiny freakin’ Tim in the passenger seat, strumming his omnipresent ukulele for a personal serenade. Surreal is an understatement. Out of body experience is a better description.
- His cologne/perfume. He stunk to high heaven with perfumed lotions and powders reminiscent of a crowded funeral home wake. Just an ugly, clashing mix of flowery, powdery air pollution. His main handler, my buddy Kenn, put him up in a Holiday Inn in Skokie and reported the guy going to the gift shop and buying only perfumes and scented powders. He reeked of old lady and the laundry soap aisle at Dominicks.
- The guy, as seemingly pleasant and kitschy and all, was an unabashed, hard-lined bigot, racist and chauvinist. I mean the guy’s views on women and relationships was among the most oppressive imaginable. Entitlement, deference, objectification… listening to him talk was both astonishing and sickening - in a watching a car wreck kind of way.
- Bringing him to WGN Radio in Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue to be a guest on the Spike O’Dell show. It was my first time in that studio and I frankly had a private thrill being there in a place where so much radio history had been made. While sitting in studio one with Tim waiting to be the next featured segment, in walks legendary Farm Report and Noon Show anchor, Orion Samuelson. He is an older man, on the portly side, and today he is dressed impeccably with a striped shirt, tie and suspenders. He is on time as I presume he had always been for the previous 50 years of news updates. He walks in and sits down at what is presumably his usual mic and begins his report on queue. His deep, rich voice starts rumbling the market numbers in an in-person fidelity that took me back. It was like hearing stereo for the first time - he went from mono-AM radio fidelity to in person rumble. He owned that room when he walked in. So here is Tiny freakin’ Tim sitting to the side of Orion, rustling the paper bag (an apparent trademark of his) that held his ukulele. Orion’s voice doesn’t miss a beat, but it was art to watch him pivot around, while keeping his lips exactly the same distance and relationship to the live mic, and shooting a look that sliced through Tiny Tim with no uncertain meaning: STOP RATTLING YOUR DAMN PAPER BAG WHILE I’M ON THE AIR. I will never forget that moment.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I believe one of his scent du jours at the time was “Adidas” cologne…so along with the old lady and detergent aromas, throw in gym shoe as well. I had the honor(?) of playing bass with him on the weekend you mention. It was a party thrown by the guy who provided the flowers for the wedding on “The Tonight Show”. You write about listening and watching the car wreck…hell, I was in the car with him!