Tim and Harvey
Tim with his imaginary friend Harvey.



No one really knows the true birthname of Tim Betts as he was left in a basket on the front steps of a catholic church in Peoria, IL and raised by a catholic priest. This would explain Tim's deep spiritual nature and almost certainly explains his bad luck with women. At the wide-eyed age of 13 he left the church and set out on his own to find his place in the world. He hitched a ride with a group of immigrant bean workers from Peoria to Chicago and almost immediately found work as a "gopher" for the infamous "Bamboni" family, delivering small packages and making sure the spaghetti sauce was always "just right". After a rather suspicious case of food poisoning that causes him to hallucinate even to this day, Tim left the family and joined the Marines. His exemplary service as a special ops sniper earned him the nickname "Tim the Sniper" and after his 4 year tour of duty he was enlisted by the CIA to infiltrate the Castro regime posing as a cabana showgirl. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, Barry Manilow's "At the Copa" hit the Havana airwaves at that time, blowing his cover (although we still don't know just "who shot who"). After his failed mission, Tim was transferred to Roswell New Mexico to work for the next 6 months as a stage prop consultant for a series of avant-garde "autopsy" films that were inevitably panned by critics as being "too campy" and seriously over-budget. With few options left, other than participating in some phony alien abductions or being chained to a desk somewhere doctoring up JFK films, Tim decided to return to the Peoria church where he was raised. It was there he began to work with sound systems, and his work with the Peoria Boy's Choir is still regarded as some of the best church choir work ever by a non-pedophile. The choir travelled all around the great state of Illinois, and in 1979, came to Quincy for a performance. It was then he met Jim Weyand, who was still recovering from the "operation", but heavily involved in the local music scene and looking for a sound reinforcement technician that could not only make him sound like he actually had talent, but who would work cheap. Tim was only able to fulfill one of these criteria, but their friendship has endured for years. Today, Tim (or whatever your real name is) is an integral part of the Big Richard family and continues his spiritual quest in spite of his continuing hallucinations and questionable sexual orientation.




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