Some time back, I referred to telephone recordings made by “Lonesome Cowboy Tim”. These used to run on a (secret) telephone number in San Francisco, and the story changed from time to time. The story in general was that Lonesome Cowboy Tim lived out on the prairie with a lot of critters, and they had various adventures which were very, very funny.
It seems that lots of Cowboy Tim fans still remember those days. I heard from Frank Mitford from south Florida and several others. Some of them have recordings.
In an attempt to bring these recordings back to the world, I’ve registered “lonesomecowboytim.com“, and will be putting a website up in that location. Hopefully, I’ll be able to garner recordings and post them there, and perhaps some other fans would like to help with this project, so that you can return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear.
Lonesome Cowboy Tim will ride again!
Stay in touch? Share with friends?
I was going through my things last night when I found a hand written letter ( a lot of backwards letters ) from Lonesome cowboy Tim ! seems him and Darlene Poot were off to see the world ! and she was bugging her to marry her ! What a find ! the letter is still in great shape !
Yeh, the Cowboy was a profligate correspondent. And the Poot … well, she’s just the Poot. It’s just natural, I suppose.
But you know, having that letter … you are one lucky groundhog, I reckon.
🙂
I had Lonesome Cowboy Tim (LCT) on my answering machine – as the outgoing message – and, I would change stories each week – as Dave Christian changed his…! I even had a cassette tape that Dave gave me – that is now long-lost. It was Lonesome Cowboy Tim’s Greatest Hits – and, I rotated them into the answering machine, as well. I got tons of calls – from friends & strangers a like. Their message was always > them laughing their asses off…! I had to get a second line. And, one-of the-highlights of-my-life was: Inviting Dave (aka Lonesome Cowboy Tim) to my Second Annual “Seriously Decadent Celebration of Summer” party in Austin, TX (Summer of 1983). He came and did a bunch of LCT stories. Rarely have I seen sooooo many people laughing and having such a good time…! Course – the magic mushrooms probably had something to do with it…
Hey, Michael, thanks for the news, from back in the day.
It’s so funny, hearing from our common friend, like echoes and ripples down through time.
And, until time comes again, for now, we just gotta say, “Howdy, Buckaroos!”
Does anyone have any copies of the old messages?
I don’t know of any scripts or recordings. A guy contacted me some time back, saying he was going to recreate it, that he had the originals, but as far as I know, nothing was ever done. So I suppose it shall simply be a fond memory. I got a lot of those. Probably you do, too! 🙂
Howdy, Buckaroos!
Wow – So exciting to have found others who remember Lonesome Cowboy Tim! I did a quick search today because of the sad news of Donna Summer’s passing. Her favorite song was “Last Dance”, which never fails to resonate in my head the way Lonesome Cowboy Tim said it in his special way on one of his messages: “Last dance… last chance for lo-ove.” I think that episode had something to do with a chipmunk. And maybe the Supremes? Going to the Trocadero?
He was THE BEST! I’d love to hear some recordings from anyone who has them.
Yo, back in the mid 80’s I was a friend of Dave Christian, the author and illustrator of LONESOME COWBOY TIM. Anyone know what happened to him? We had lunch in san francisco in 1986 and that’s the last time I saw him. Would love to hear from him!
I was Dave Christians off and on boyfriend in the 80’s and used to watch him do the recordings. He lived above Diamond Heights. He also did TV voice commercials. Lost track of him when I left SF in the 80’s. Larry
PS: I’m still in contact with his 2 roommates he had in the early 80’s. I will send them an email and see if they know where he is at or have any of his recordings. (I used to have some.) If I find anything out I will post it. Try a mylife.com search. They provide previous cities the person has lived in and possible email addys, addresses and phone numbers for the person. He had a friend in the city named Mark Brand and I think he still lives in SF. Larry
To: Calling Lonesome Cowboy Tim: He changed his episodes every Tuesday.
That is until the phone calls got too heavy. Then he disconnected that phone number, got a new one, and set up all over again. You had to ask around, to find out what the new phonenumber was! 🙂
I just happened across this blog and was touched to see so many remember Cowboy Tim. David Christian was my brother-in-law. Unfortunately, he passed away in December of 1996 and his ashes are scattered above Stinson Beach, CA. He was a great guy and very talented. He sold the Cowboy Tim episodes (60 seconds) in syndication to radio stations. I believe Tim was one of his characters when he was a radio DJ, but I think he had the most fun with the phone. He would have loved social media. On trips home to Texas we’d try to coax Cowboy Tim stories from him. I believe we have copies of them on cassette. I need to put them on CD and share them. I’ll get back to you with that.
Well now, my friend and buckaroo, here’s a little story about that — At once point, somehow or other I actually tracked down David’s number (I seem to dimly recall he went as ‘Dave’?) and I got him on the phone. Actually, I think it was a deal where I did a reverse-directory on his current Tim phone number, got the address, wrote a letter to him at that address, and he called me on the phone.
Anyhow, what I had in mind, and proposed in the letter, was that my company (then Network Answering Service) would become a sponsor of these recordings, and I’d even written a new Cowboy Tim script with our sponsor plug at the end. Well, windlass to sea, I mean, needless to say, he declined my offer, and we chatted, and I asked him if he’d considered syndicating the spots. At that time he said no, but from what you say, it would appear that, later, he did.
Well, if I had any part in the suggestion, and it got syndicated, I’m happy to learn about it. Thanks for the great stories.
If you have cassettes (or mp3s) for which you have a legal right to share, I would consider posting them online here on this blog. This would be a good place, because year in and year out, Google has listed this Cowboy Tim page, and year after year, somebody new finds it. It would be great to publish the episodes here, don’t you think?
You might also be interested to see my own “take off” that was inspired by Lonesome Cowboy Tim, the adventures of Ruru the Guru at Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service.
I would love to hear them again
This reply is for Elaine Christian. Thanks for sharing the info about the passing of my friend Dave Christian. It brings me a sense of closure in knowing that he’s been dead for twenty years now as of 2016. He was truly a great guy. In 1984 I had returned to San Antonio for a short period. He was living next door to me in apt building I moved in and we struck up a friendship. We traded stories about our days in San Francisco, he told me stories about him and his partner, a guy named Peter. He made me copies of dance music mix-tapes from his days at The Trocadero Transfer in SF. when he returned to SF he told me to look him up when I was to return in 1985. Later that year we met in SF by chance and he took me to lunch at the Gold Street restaurant. That was the last time I saw him. I returned to San Antonio in late 86 and we continued to correspond by mail until July of 1987. I still have all the letters he sent to me. I feel lucky to have known him and now that I know where his remains are, my curiosity can rest. Thanks for the update!
Thanks, Elaine Christian. I appreciate knowing what happened to Dave, and thank you for posting the news here.
My husband and I came across two cassettes that we taped years ago in San Francisco with Lonesome Cowboy Tim on them. We so enjoy listening to his stories from back then and so glad to know what happened to him.
I’m glad to have made this available. Yep, the Lonesome Cowboy was a part of my life, and in the lives of my friends. Time changes, yes? 🙂
Dear Friends, Arthur & Reg,
I am actually the legal owner of all Lonesome Cowboy Tim material, the syndicated programs and all of the master recordings of Tim and his originator, Dave Christian who died in December 1996. The episodic telephone number was actually operated out of our studios in San Francisco and all the master recordings were recorded in our studios. While we have not pursued a commercial release or relaunch of the program we do reserve that right and maintain the legal rights to all programs. In this regard, we do not object to individuals trading and sharing copies of the programs that they may have in their possession, but be aware that any commercial use of the materials is prohibited. As you know, you released the URL to us several years ago but we did not complete the transfer as we discussed and we see that the site is not currently active. If you would like to discuss Cowboy Tim’s history, the site, the URL, or the commercial use of the programs, please feel free to contact us at anytime. In the meantime, please enjoy Tim’s special breed of story telling and his fruitful imagination.
Dave Adams
TransMedia, Inc.
415-956-3118
dave@transmediasf.com
Mighty fine, then.
🙂
And for all you Lonesome Cowboy Tim fans, I was contacted by Dave Adams (see comment just above) a few years ago, who said that he was the owner of the material. I take him at his word. He said he had plans, and asked me to release the domain lonesomecowboytim.com, and so I did. But so far, nothing has happened. Some further years have passed. I suspect, sadly, that we’ll not be hearing again from Cowboy Tim. Best laid plans gang aft agley. And some wonderful things fade from the world into memory and then into a dim past, fading, fading away. It’s the way of this world, and of time.
Howdy Buckaroo’s. Yes, I would like to revive the Cowboy Tim episodes and will try to make that effort. Unfortunately, the masters are archived and will require quite an effort to retrieve and restore and ultimately post on our web site. Tim and Darlene would thrive in the social media world and I suspect that the fans would support the effort. I will try to assign this project to someone shortly and get the ball rolling. Thanks for your loyalty.
Dave Adams
I found a cassette recording (copy) that Tim sent to a friend of mine in Austin, Texas. My friend was a huge fan and actually talked with Tim. I just listened to the first story and it was an abbreviated version of Mean Cows. I would love to share this with anyone interested…legally of course.
My close friend Steve interviewed David in his home in the Upper Haight when you could still call in for your weekly fix of Tim and Darlene. I was lucky enough to be there too, as I was a huge fan. Steve was planning to get the interview broadcast on NPR, and I’m not sure if that happened or not. Steve still has that interview on tape, I’m pretty sure, and I have one of David’s demo recordings of the episode that involved “vegetable hunting.” I have not circulated it, as David shared it as a gift and it had his verbal copyright. I don’t know if it would be O.K. to post it now that he is no longer with us. It’s wonderful, and it was an absolute treat to get to spend the afternoon with him some may years ago.
I was reminded of calling the Lonesome Cowboy Tim phone line in the 80s among my friends and just googled him and found your blog. I just checked the SF GLBT History Society’s obituary database created by a friend from obits in the Bay Area Reporter , from a gay paper here in San Francisco, and found Dave Christian’s obit (http://obit.glbthistory.org/olo/imagedb/1997/01/23/19970123_Christian_Dave/m19970123_0.jpg). I’d love to hear some of the recordings again. I recall his recording one Christmas about Darlene Poot’s Christmas tree that she “spray painted and hung spatulas on.” Perhaps we could start a Facebook page for sharing recordings/stories about Tim and Darlene.
Good idea!
I just loved Lonesome Cowboy Tim and soooo happy to have found this post! I had a few old cassettes-now to find them buried in boxes of other cassettes. Glad I didn’t give them away. Wish me luck finding, and I will reply back. Let’s hear more of LCT and laugh our heads off!
Yeah, I used to laugh my head off. We all did. 🙂
My thanks to Stephen McCoy for posting the link allowing us to read the Obituary posting for my friend Dave Christian. I’ve made a download of it and will post it on my FB timeline. I knew Dave for a period of time during the early 80s when he moved to San Antonio and later when he returned to San Francisco. We communicated via a series of letters which I still possess until I lost track of him. One of my proudest gifts is a birthday card he painted for me for one of my birthdays. I suspected he might have passed away but until his sister-in-law, Elaine Christian posted a notice confirming his death in 1996 I had no information to confirm my suspision. I loved when he would perform his Lonesome Cowboy Tim character for me. He is sorely missed by all who knew and loved him.
I’ll miss him, and a few hundred of my friends in San Francisco from those days will miss him as well. Once I wrote him a letter, offering to commercially subsidize his Cowboy Tim recordings, but he turned it down. It was just a labor of love for him.
Anybody got any fried pies and whiskey?
Do you mean a Moon Pie and a Bud?
I remember this back from highschool! I did a few phone promos for”Mad Max Hammer”, (This is Chainsaw from San Antonio, Texas, and your getting hammered with Mad Max only on Z-Rooooo-oooock!), and even had a few of the skits down to memory with the voice and imagined mannerisms. Got my friends busting up after getting it down pact!
Cool beans! Can you remember the skit and give us a sample here? 🙂