Roger Zee Memoirs
Victors Closed 10/06/20
In the ten days between Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), we make a list of sins we committed in the past year and pray for forgiveness. Somehow, this year I came up with nothing. Yeah bubkis! But I did want to ask God how come he dumped on me as well as so many other people in 2020. Did I morph into the present-day Job? Will God command a new Noah to flee while purging the Earth via climate change? And then I went back to that fateful day in mid-March when Victor's put the Roger Zee Thursday Jam on hiatus due to Covid-19... Welcome to another excerpt from my memoirs, "Life and Times of a Pandemic Musician."
The final blow to Victor's arrived in mid-April when Governor Andrew Cuomo decided to continue the Corona Virus statewide shutdown for another month. Owners Alex and Amanda called to inform me that they could no longer afford to wait for NY to reopen and would close the club for good. My music partner Rudy Feinauer and I spent seven years of mostly great times in Victors Hawthorne helping amateur musicians live out their Rock Star fantasies. We worked hard putting together the right set of jammers to make everybody sound good as well as keeping the fans inside the club spending money -- two very different and sometimes competing goals.
How do I describe my job as Jam Master? "Soul sucking!" I would get home from the club at 2A on Friday morning and finally get to bed about 4A with myriad angry complaints swirling in my head. Ladies telling me to make the musicians turn down. Musicians telling me who they wouldn't jam with. Players insisting they get up to play immediately no matter when they came in because they worked at 6A the next morning. Other players leaving because they waited too long to go up. And when it came time for a set to start, it felt like herding cats! Too many places to hide out -- the pool room, the back deck, the front and rear parking lots, even the bathroom. Of course, that's what made Victor's such a cool place to hang out!
So many people keep asking me what happened to Victor's. Is the club still there? Can't you run the jam outside in the parking lot? Did they tear it down to build condos? So after an overdose of cabin fever and a nice phone chat with Dede Photos who encouraged me to get out of my apartment and drive somewhere, I took her advice and motored out to the club on Thursday morning, October 1. Very strange driving there in broad daylight after seven years of doing it in the dark, LOL! In the end, the club's still standing but completely chain-mail fenced in. See pics below.
On a positive note, our last Jam there on Saturday 3/14/10 ended with a bang! We featured "Road to Robin" as well as a private party in the back for Stephanie M. Towards the end of the opening house set, the party goers, mostly female, burst out of their room and danced up a storm. When we left the stage, all the ladies grabbed Rudy and I and showered us with hugs and kisses! What a way to go...
So on another beautiful, chill Covid-19 day in the Apocalypse, I think about the fly who sat on Vice President Pence's head for two minutes last night during his debate with Senator Kamala Harris. I wonder what he found so attractive there? Then I whip out my Fender Precision bass, toss on Billy Idol's Greatest Hits and work myself into a lather. And in the end, I spend another day "Dancing with Myself." One <3
YouTube - Dancing with Myself - Billy Idol
©2020 Roger Zee
