Jac Night at the Tam

Tonight at the Tam ‘O Shanter restaurant in Atwater, friends of Jac Zinder will remember his mordant presence and ahead-of-the-curve accomplishments as club impresario of Third Eye and Fuzzyland, as well as music writer for the L.A. Weekly. I know I didn’t send many e-mails out, but I feel that word of mouth might bring a fairly big crowd because of Zinder’s place in a lot of people’s lives. It’s been ten years since Jac died in the Thanksgiving car accident on Sunset Boulevard that threw us all for a loop. Zinder was a close friend. We had some of the same kinds of problems. I still miss his sense of disturbing, dark humor, combined in a way with low Catskills Jewish schtick. I’ve never quite seen it duplicated, and in increasingly rarer moments, I still really miss it.

Tonight at the Tam ‘O Shanter restaurant in Atwater, friends of Jac Zinder will remember his mordant presence and ahead-of-the-curve accomplishments as club impresario of Third Eye and Fuzzyland, as well as music writer for the L.A. Weekly. I know I didn’t send many e-mails out, but I feel that word of mouth might bring a fairly big crowd because of Zinder’s place in a lot of people’s lives. It’s been ten years since Jac died in the Thanksgiving car accident on Sunset Boulevard that threw us all for a loop. Zinder was a close friend. We had some of the same kinds of problems. I still miss his sense of disturbing, dark humor, combined in a way with low Catskills Jewish schtick. I’ve never quite seen it duplicated, and in increasingly rarer moments, I still really miss it.

I almost booked a 96-year-old ukelele player for the Tam whom I saw at Taix Lounge the other night—an act Jac’s friends could richly appreciate—but the performer, Bill Tapia (who used to entertain U.S. troops in Hawaii), wanted more than I thought we could afford in a pass-the-hat kind of gig.