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My Time with Tim - A Psychadelic Dream Come True
How I met Timothy Leary
One day in 1970 my mother told to my little sister and me that we were going to meet her friend George Chula he was the lawyer for the Brotherhood of Eternal Love & Timothy Leary, he was also my mother's public defender after one of her heroin busts.
In late '93 I was watching a cable channel airing a taping of Timothy Leary talking about computers, the brain, psychedelics and quantum physics on a cable show taped at ETV on Santa Monica Blvd. Thinking it was live I drove the 2 miles to the studio hoping to meet him but that ship had sailed. At least I took a pro-active step to meet him.
Many months later while I was doing some construction in a video store in Weho on Santa Monica Blvd., I felt Tim walk behind me, even though I was inside the store with my back to the street I sensed HIS presence causing me to drop what I was doing and run outside. A thin old man was truckin' down the street on a mission. I shouted "Hey Tim" as the figure turned around I saw that it was indeed Timothy Leary. Running up to him I announced, short of breath, "I feel like I know you" he replied, "I feel like I know you too." I was out of my body watching this experience as I said, "I want to take your picture," He smiled, gave me his number, and said to give him a call.
A week later I spoke with him and he invited me up to the house to hang out with him and his model friend Linda (she was dating the drummer for The Spin Doctors), of course I wanted to take pictures and she was visiting so he asked me to include her in the photographs. He was such a gentleman he wrote me a check for a $100. I needed it, so I took it. He promised I could come back some time when he was alone for a real photo session.
The next time he called me and invited me up to the house just to chill, we went to the post office in Weho near where I met him. He had to run some errands so with a shit-eating grin on my face sitting in his big green Mercedes, and a crooked Barbara Boxer sticker on an often-used bumper, we sped through the palm tree lined streets of Beverly Hills, Tim his loyal dog Bo and moi. I was living a dream I created while tripping and I couldn't fucking believe it.
When we got back to the house he had some calls and being a gracious host he passed me a pipe and led me into his art closet. This walk-in closet held his archives of photographs, letters, paintings, passports, playbills and mementos not real organized but to me it felt like I had just found a buried treasure. It felt very special to be let into this space to explore the clippings of his life.
Sitting in the closet full of art and life I realized what a baby I was. I may have been 35 but looking at Tim I saw how life is what you make it. It's taken me ten years since that day to get myself to a place where I'm comfortable being me. As Tim would say, I can be anything I want this time around. I can be born again anew each day and as the creator of my reality I get what I ask for.
Tim has been a great teacher for me before I met him, while I knew him and even after his death. What little time I did spend with him was special because he took time from his life to acknowledge me and support my dreams and me even though I was a stranger. But in keeping with who he was he accepted me into his circle. I have always felt separate because of my sexuality but Tim didn't care if I was gay or straight he saw right through that and accepted me as I was. This is something I am working on all the time, accepting people for who they are regardless of their story.
As was true with everyone, I got the Tim I deserved. Tim never made any apologies, I think he believed in the "law of attraction" and lived his life accordingly.
He was true to his word and called me a few weeks later after an appearance at a Lollapalooza concert. I grabbed my 2 1/4 Mamiya and lights and made my way up to the house in Benedict canyon. I was nervous, I'd never done a portrait and I wasn't that familiar with my new equipment.
I setup a black backdrop, 1 light with an umbrella and some black & white film.
I shot 1 roll of black & white, and 1 roll of color film.
I played it safe with the 2 1/4 films and experimented with the 35mm film by cross-processing it. That is done when you shoot color negative film and have it developed in slide chemistry. It distorts the colors and can make things look a little psychedelic.
When I developed the film I was disappointed in the black & white shots. I didn't see any one shot that was worth a shit. In my nervousness I'd cut off the top of his head.
A friend was with me while viewing the contact sheets, in my frustration I stated that I didn't have shit. He suggested that I not look at them as individuals but maybe a series or grouping. I immediately said, "Balance" and picked two images from the sheet, one pensive and one playful. I decided to crop them both close so you wouldn't notice his head being cut off. I printed a large format copy of the word "BALANCE" and had a three-window mat cut, two for the images and one below for balance.
By Tony Miguel
One day in 1970 my mother told to my little sister and me that we were going to meet her friend George Chula he was the lawyer for the Brotherhood of Eternal Love & Timothy Leary, he was also my mother's public defender after one of her heroin busts.
In late '93 I was watching a cable channel airing a taping of Timothy Leary talking about computers, the brain, psychedelics and quantum physics on a cable show taped at ETV on Santa Monica Blvd. Thinking it was live I drove the 2 miles to the studio hoping to meet him but that ship had sailed. At least I took a pro-active step to meet him.
Many months later while I was doing some construction in a video store in Weho on Santa Monica Blvd., I felt Tim walk behind me, even though I was inside the store with my back to the street I sensed HIS presence causing me to drop what I was doing and run outside. A thin old man was truckin' down the street on a mission. I shouted "Hey Tim" as the figure turned around I saw that it was indeed Timothy Leary. Running up to him I announced, short of breath, "I feel like I know you" he replied, "I feel like I know you too." I was out of my body watching this experience as I said, "I want to take your picture," He smiled, gave me his number, and said to give him a call.
A week later I spoke with him and he invited me up to the house to hang out with him and his model friend Linda (she was dating the drummer for The Spin Doctors), of course I wanted to take pictures and she was visiting so he asked me to include her in the photographs. He was such a gentleman he wrote me a check for a $100. I needed it, so I took it. He promised I could come back some time when he was alone for a real photo session.
The next time he called me and invited me up to the house just to chill, we went to the post office in Weho near where I met him. He had to run some errands so with a shit-eating grin on my face sitting in his big green Mercedes, and a crooked Barbara Boxer sticker on an often-used bumper, we sped through the palm tree lined streets of Beverly Hills, Tim his loyal dog Bo and moi. I was living a dream I created while tripping and I couldn't fucking believe it.
When we got back to the house he had some calls and being a gracious host he passed me a pipe and led me into his art closet. This walk-in closet held his archives of photographs, letters, paintings, passports, playbills and mementos not real organized but to me it felt like I had just found a buried treasure. It felt very special to be let into this space to explore the clippings of his life.
Sitting in the closet full of art and life I realized what a baby I was. I may have been 35 but looking at Tim I saw how life is what you make it. It's taken me ten years since that day to get myself to a place where I'm comfortable being me. As Tim would say, I can be anything I want this time around. I can be born again anew each day and as the creator of my reality I get what I ask for.
Tim has been a great teacher for me before I met him, while I knew him and even after his death. What little time I did spend with him was special because he took time from his life to acknowledge me and support my dreams and me even though I was a stranger. But in keeping with who he was he accepted me into his circle. I have always felt separate because of my sexuality but Tim didn't care if I was gay or straight he saw right through that and accepted me as I was. This is something I am working on all the time, accepting people for who they are regardless of their story.
As was true with everyone, I got the Tim I deserved. Tim never made any apologies, I think he believed in the "law of attraction" and lived his life accordingly.
He was true to his word and called me a few weeks later after an appearance at a Lollapalooza concert. I grabbed my 2 1/4 Mamiya and lights and made my way up to the house in Benedict canyon. I was nervous, I'd never done a portrait and I wasn't that familiar with my new equipment.
I setup a black backdrop, 1 light with an umbrella and some black & white film.
I shot 1 roll of black & white, and 1 roll of color film.
I played it safe with the 2 1/4 films and experimented with the 35mm film by cross-processing it. That is done when you shoot color negative film and have it developed in slide chemistry. It distorts the colors and can make things look a little psychedelic.
When I developed the film I was disappointed in the black & white shots. I didn't see any one shot that was worth a shit. In my nervousness I'd cut off the top of his head.
A friend was with me while viewing the contact sheets, in my frustration I stated that I didn't have shit. He suggested that I not look at them as individuals but maybe a series or grouping. I immediately said, "Balance" and picked two images from the sheet, one pensive and one playful. I decided to crop them both close so you wouldn't notice his head being cut off. I printed a large format copy of the word "BALANCE" and had a three-window mat cut, two for the images and one below for balance.
I made 7 selenium-toned prints of each image and had 7 mats cut so I could create 7 "Balance" pieces. One went to a drug dealer for a debt and the others went to close friends and myself.
A few months later Tim called and invited me over for a labor day get together with his friend Aileen Getty a Dr. and his wife and to my great surprise Dr. John Lily showed up with a couple of assistants. He was frail but full of life. I have always been a "dolphin" person and to have finally met the man that made me conscious of dolphins and their powerful energy was tremendously exciting.
A couple of years ago I had a dolphin healing in Kona, Hawaii that re-aligned my hyperthyroid. It was the most magical thing to ever happen to me. I've had a lot of magic in my life but this had to take the cake. I went to Hawaii with the intention of swimming with and being healed by dolphins and sure enough it happened. I haven't taken meds I two years, I don't shake, and I can sleep.
Spirituality, Quantum Physics and Joy are the key ingredients to getting what you want. Know the truth, feel it and be happy about it.
A couple years later when I was living in Marin County a friend of mine suggested I create lithographs and have Tim sign them. So I printed 500 "Balance" posters on a nice watercolor stock and drove them down to Los Angeles so Tim could sign 420 of them.
A year later I moved back to Los Angeles and decided to immortalize myself by giving 7 signed "Balance" prints to the Hard Rock Café in Universal City. My friend Dave contacted the person in charge of art acquisitions and I presented them with a list of the 7 locations in the world I would like to see them hanging. To date I know about Ireland, Lake Tahoe, Universal City, and Florida.
A few months later a friend called me from Atlantic City, he was tripping on mushrooms and looking at an image that looked like a painting with my "Balance" image in the center. In his intoxicated state he described it as being "painted into a painting." I had no idea what he was talking about and thought he was hallucinating.
My friend wasn't sure what he was looking at but he knew it was my art trapped in the frame. It turned out to be a light painting by a photographer named Dean Chamberlain. It's a beautiful piece of art. A light painting is done by turning off all the lights and using a light wand to expose the image, as the artist desires. It's a complicated and beautiful process that creates images that look like paintings. They are paintings in my eyes and someday I'll experiment with that technique.
A few months later I was surprised to see it on the cover of a Christies Auction House magazine with every other artist in the piece getting credit for their work and my piece wasn't even mentioned, it's right smack in the middle and says "Balance", I didn't understand it and it hurt me to pieces, I felt like I was run over by a truck and at the same time I was so happy to see my work on that cover. I've never met Dean but I do admire his work even if I don't agree with his ability to give credit where due.
Being an artist can be difficult, it's a constant process of living and dieing. We create and crush, doubt and revel, crash and burn. Then we do it all over again. Seeking to express ourselves and reveal ourselves to ourselves is a constant process that we need to go through if we are to grow. Art allows that growth to take on a tangible, visible form that we can manipulate, contemplate and share.
I am amazed how energy never dies; it goes on and on eternally. Tim is as alive today as he ever was in my mind because I hear his voice and sentiments all the time. He made so much sense to me in a simplistic way. I feel like he got me even though he didn't know me. He was a universal being sent to give us a message of hope and strength.
"Think for yourself, question authority, you can be anybody you want this time around, and know God." These were some of the things he said that stuck with me. What more could I want to hear from anyone? I like Tim's old friend Ram Das' quote "drugs are like a phone call, once you get the message, hang up." If only I'd heard that 25 years ago I might have been able to move-on from chemical dependence into a state-of-bliss that comes from knowing and living the truth.
Now that I have more clarity about my desires I'll be able to graduate the Leary School of "Why not." "Why not follow my dreams and start my life over just like Tim did?" If he can do it, surely I can too. I've lived my life searching for my gift, knowing it was around the corner never sure which of my gifts was the one God intended for me to express. Lately I've felt like writing, it feels like the only thing original I can create. It's all been done before and I would really like to feel original and special. Writing may be the gift that gives me everything I want. So I think I'll keep making pictures and writing words.
The moral of my story, if there is one, is that we are in control of our minds and our thoughts; we create our own reality, good or bad. It's all about our thoughts and our intentions.
Here are some photographs that I manifested on that day in 1970 while I heard George Chula talk about Timothy. The seeds were planted and it was only a matter of time before they were to sprout. It's these realities that drive me forward to my next adventure. I follow my heart and all is revealed. I thank God for these experiences.
And so it is.
Tony Miguel
9-11-2006