The kind-hearted radical championed collective good through music, movies, cartooning and environmental activism
MARFA — Not many live a life as full or as impactful as Gary Oliver. The Marfa resident passed away suddenly last week at age 77, leaving behind a community forever altered by his compassion, wit, creativity and persistence.
His lasting contributions are many, but include weekly editorial cartoons dating back decades in The Big Bend Sentinel, movie screenings at the Marfa Public Library, a fight to stop a radioactive waste site in Sierra Blanca and a DIY local radio station. Before he moved to Marfa in 1983, Oliver co-owned the One Knite, a dive bar that was heavily influential in the early days of the Austin music scene.
Oliver also supported the founding of the Presidio County Health Services clinic in Marfa in the early 2000s, a federally-funded healthcare facility that has since expanded and rebranded as Preventative Care Health Services.
He traveled all over the world, to Mexico, South America, Europe and the Greek Islands, often traveling solo or via bicycle, though he was legally blind. He was vegan, loved animals and had a knack for remembering birthdays. He cherished his friends — many of whom noted they never saw him in a bad mood.
“He was such a wonderful, caring person,” said Marfa Public Library Director Nicki Ittner. “I never ever saw him get annoyed or seem irritated.”
Oliver enriched the lives of those around him and accepted their love in return, said his partner Annette Mendoza. His “happiness multiplied when he was hearing others chuckle, seeing them dance when he performed with a band, showing them a movie he’d spent hours researching,” she said. “He was as close to a perfect human as I’ve ever known,” Mendoza said. “We were all better for knowing him.”
His friend of 31 years, Sterry Butcher, said Oliver was a “deeply thoughtful, profoundly giving person” whose humor and patience never failed. The example he set by striving to improve the Marfa community helped her learn “what it meant to commit to a place and its people,” she said.
“Gary’s kindness and gentleness complemented the strength of his convictions,” Butcher said. “He hewed always to what was right and good, and nudged those around him to take action or at least to take notice of the human frailties, greed or injustices that threatened fairness or the planet.”
The early days
Oliver grew up in Beaumont, Texas, in a 1920s house built by his grandfather, and became involved with music, comics and movies at an early age. Nick Bennett, a lifelong friend of Oliver’s from Beaumont, said he has it “on good authority” that Oliver started playing the accordion as early as the fourth grade. He also illustrated for school newspapers and collected comic books, beginning to form the distinct style he would become known for decades later. “The guy was very, very, very talented,” Bennett said.
In high school, Oliver made a short film starring Bennett titled “Prometheus Bound,” which he shot on Super 8 film, animated with graphics of an alien spaceship and screened in the auditorium.
Like most teens, Oliver also got into some mischief. Bennett recalled a time when a group of Oliver’s friends helped him get his motorbike license — which was illegal given his limited sight — by viewing eye exam charts for Oliver who memorized them so he could pass the test.
Oliver graduated from high school in 1965 and went on to pursue a degree in English from The University of Texas at Austin — where he studied, played music, lived in old houses and grew out his hair, embracing the hippie lifestyle of the day.
Austin and the One Knite
Oliver, along with two other co-owners, helped run the One Knite — a dive bar with a coffin-shaped front door subject to frequent raids by the police — from 1970 to 1976. The bar was located on Red River Street in Austin, in place of today’s venue Stubb’s, and played a serious role in Austin’s music history.
“It was not only a sleazy bar with good music, but it was considered to be the nexus of a certain lifestyle,” said a college friend of Oliver’s, Neel Lyles. “That lifestyle being fairly enlightened people involved with music.”
There was never a cover charge to see bands at the One Knite — except the one time Willie Nelson played. The rowdy joint hosted musical acts including TJ McFarland, Angela Strehli, Joe Ely, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s band Blackbird, Jimmie Vaughan’s band Storm, Paul Ray and the Cobras and many more.
“After a while, people were knocking down the door to get to play [at the One Knite] because they knew that they could be seen, even though they didn’t get paid,” Lyles said.
He said Oliver “slithered around and drank beer with everybody” at the bar but was somewhat of a trendsetter, people were drawn to him, and he “had what it took to make things happen.”
“I credit Gary, along with Ron Coleman who ran the New Orleans Club, with actually starting the music scene in Austin,” Lyles said. “The one that we see the remnants of now.”
Austin music journalist Michael Corcoran wrote about the One Knite in 2021, including details on a 2004 reunion gathering. He said, “One thing I remember that I didn’t put in the article was that Gary boycotted the One Knite reunion at Stubb’s because it wasn’t free to attend — the One Knite rule.”
“Everything was always free if Gary had anything to do with it,” Lyles said.
“He was a notorious cheapskate,” he added. “He was always up for paying his share of the beer though.”
Lyles said Oliver was a talented musician himself, dedicated to researching bands and heavily inspired by Howlin’ Wolf and Lightnin’ Hopkins, in addition to international artists. He said Oliver was always rooting for the underdog, opening up his home for guests and “never met anybody that he didn’t like, that he didn’t treat with the greatest respect.”
“There was always somebody sleeping on his couch,” Lyles said. “A musician that didn’t have anybody to play with, somebody he met through his travels that was coming through town.”
Marfa Radio 100.1
In an interview recorded in 2001 by the Texas Legacy Project, Oliver said that after a cycling trip to Alaska and five years “bumming around” South and Central America “through a series of chances,” he wound up in Marfa in 1983 and stayed.
From around 2001 to 2008, before the advent of streaming and the establishment of the local NPR affiliate Marfa Public Radio, Oliver was instrumental in running a local, unlicensed radio station simply called “Marfa Radio.”
Rob Crowley, who was involved with the project from the beginning, said it was inspired by a Chinati artist in residence and started as a way to give locals more access to music on the air. “Really, the only music available was the country station in Alpine; a lot of us just wanted something to listen to,” Crowley said.
An introductory meeting with around 20 attendees was held at the now-defunct cafe Carmen’s, and organizers managed to raise around $11,000 for basic equipment — four circuit boards, a CD changer, and an antenna.
For a time period before it was shut down, Marfa Radio broadcast out of a building in Oliver’s backyard. He used to record the news program “Democracy Now” every day then play it on the radio so locals would have greater access to news. “Gary was there from the beginning and contributed content and was generous enough to let us set up a studio at his place,” Crowley said.
The station hosted an eclectic mix of DJs and even broadcast live music from Ray’s, the bar that predated The Lost Horse. Crowley was in Oliver’s backyard repairing something the day the Federal Communications Commission came knocking. He had installed the circuit boards and transmitter inside a red metal toolbox, which simply required him to flip a switch to shut the operation down. He said the FCC agents “absolutely loved” the transmitter, and he intends to take it to the Marfa and Presidio County Museum to see if it may be kept as a bit of local history there.
Marfa Public Library
Oliver was a stalwart supporter of the Marfa Public Library, serving as a longtime board member and board president. He helped guide the library and its directors through a renovation and spent 10 years helping fundraise and build the library’s community room and courtyard. City Manager Mandy Roane, who used to be the librarian, said Oliver was “really the heart and soul of the library.”
“He did so much for the library, volunteered so much time, gave so much,” Roane said. “I don’t think the library would be what it is today without his support.”
Oliver also curated movie screenings, sometimes as often as five nights a week, in the library’s theater. The program — for which the library holds necessary licenses — began in 2004. Oliver had shown his 3,000th movie on March 22. Current Library Director Nicki Ittner said Oliver was extremely dedicated to researching films and finding the best price for DVDs that the library would purchase. “It was just a level of devotion and care you just don’t run across that often anymore,” Ittner said.
Ittner said the range of films Oliver showed varied widely, and even if he only got one or two attendees to a movie night, “he didn’t care, he was so easy going about it.” “He created such a little loving group of people, provided like a real social network for folks in our community that were plugged into it, it was just such a special thing,” Ittner said.
She said the library is going to try to keep the movie nights going in some form or fashion, but for now, the loss of such an important member of the library community who championed a free community space for all is still fresh. “He really believed in the well-being of the community,” Ittner said.
Editorial cartoons and environmental activism
Perhaps Oliver’s most notable effort was his dedication to highlighting what he saw as grave injustices in the political and environmental arenas through the editorial comics he penned. Oliver’s work appeared weekly in The Big Bend Sentinel as well as in other West Texas papers including the Hudspeth County Herald and statewide and national publications including The Texas Observer and High Country News.
In a conversation recorded by the Texas Legacy Project in 2001 — an archive of interviews with individuals instrumental in protecting Texas’ natural resources — Oliver explains that the “Uncle Scrooge” comics by Carl Barks were an early inspiration. He said, for him, drawing funny comics was an effective way to engage audiences with critical environmental issues like radioactive waste sites, sludge, deforestation and the surrounding corrupt politicians and “gobbledygook” of industry lingo.
“I’ve always thought that’s a great way to both explain an issue and to do criticism,” Oliver said. “Everybody reads the cartoon.”
“Gary was the liberal heart and soul of The Sentinel with his political cartoons,” said previous publisher Robert Halpern. “I’m saddened that Golliver’s pen and ink have fallen silent.”
Oliver’s acts of protest went beyond the pages of publications. He also attended various demonstrations and fought the establishment of a radioactive waste disposal site in Sierra Blanca in the ‘90s. Katie Price Fowlkes worked with Oliver on the matter in her role as an attorney with the Office of Public Interest Counsel at the Texas Center on Environmental Quality and helped him achieve “party status” as a concerned citizen, allowing him to testify in public hearings. She said he was extremely knowledgeable about the issue and worked on it continually for years.
“He was the epitome of a grassroots environmental justice-type campaign,” Fowlkes said. “It wasn’t just Sierra Blanca, he offered up his assistance with everyone, fighting anything anywhere.”
Oliver won the Citizen of the Year award from the Marfa Chamber of Commerce for his dogged efforts to stop the establishment of the radioactive waste site. His reflection on the award to Texas Legacy Project interviewers sheds some light on his thoughts about Marfa. “In little West Texas cattle towns, you just don’t ever hear of awards being given for environmental reasons,” Oliver said.
Fowlkes said Oliver was a dear friend to many, who “lived his life to help others, the collective good,” and his passing was a huge loss for the small-town community. “He was just part of the soul of Marfa that made it so unique,” she said.
In a video recorded by the Texas Legacy Project, Oliver sits, sporting a T-shirt with one of his comics printed on it and a pair of ripped blue jeans, wielding an acoustic guitar and a devilishly cheeky grin.
Oliver strums fiercely on the guitar, reciting a quote from singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, “If you’re in the dragon’s jaws, you might as well dance.” And he starts his song, singing the lyrics, “As above, so below, you can’t know much for certain, but there’s just one thing we know. We’re all in this together, better take one another’s hand. Be worthy of the gift we’ve got. Six billion grains of sand.”
A memorial for Oliver will be held at the Marfa Public Library Courtyard on Saturday, April 20, from 4 to 6 p.m.