The Man That Give Me That Awful Name

When I was 17, I started following a local Bluegrass/Rockabilly ersatz Rat Pack pair of drunks named Hal Smith and Henry Beebe, who called themselves the Shade Tree Boys. They did Bluegrass songs with a Johnny Cash beat, and alcohol-fueled x-rated comedy. They played in joints: the Jade Club, the King’s X, the Gaslight Lounge at Bowlero Lanes. My Spanish teacher, Randy Earl, used to go see them and he’d take me along and claim I was his son, which, had it been true, would have made me legal. Sometimes I would sit in.

They had been through a slew of bass players -- Richard ‘Pinchi Pancho’ Chorne, Herman Glop, Thumby Zee -- and in March of 1969 they had a guy named Vince Moya who had gotten so lackadaisical that he would sit on top of his amp and play bass with one hand and eat a cheeseburger with the other. Hal and Henry got drunk one afternoon and decided to fire Vince. But who would they get? How about the kid? Henry called me and asked if I played bass. Yes, I lied. Did I want the job? Yes again, but I had no equipment. Not to worry -- I could use the equipment Vince had been using, which was on loan from the Harmony Shop, which Henry managed. And so, for the last two months of high school, I was playing four nights a week. In joints.

Hal and Henry couldn’t remember my name, which I found rather insulting. They were toying with the idea of calling me Lightning or Speedy or Flash. One night Hal was introducing the band and when he got to me he said ‘This is our new bass player. His name is…uhhh… (off-mike) What the hell is your name?’ and I said ‘Yogi Zarch.’ ‘This is our new bass player, Yogi Zarts. We call him Zoomer Zarts.’ The audience thought it was a riot. So did Henry.

And that name has stuck! It even got used at our wedding (Do you, Zoomer, take this woman...) and when I was ordained as an elder in the Presbyterian Church. That’s my story.