[Kzyxtalk] Les Tarr is dead.

[Marco McClean]

Les Tarr of /Eight To the Bar With Tarr/ died.  I got email from Bob 
Woelfel, from KTDE in Gualala, who said, "I'm sorry to relay that Les 
died of pancreatic cancer this past Sunday. I saw him on 2/15 in Willits 
and he was starting to feel poorly. Kathy admitted him about 10 days 
before he passed but it was more than a week before it was diagnosed. He 
last did his show on 3/4. We've been running repeats the last two Friday 
nights. Tonight, Wednesday, we're doing a tribute to him with anecdotes 
and a partial replay of his show that included an interview with an old 
blues man from San Francisco where they remember early times in San 
Francisco."

One time when Bob was still running KMFB I was in on a not-my-show night 
to keep things rolling while everyone else was out. This was far enough 
back when hardly anyone had decent internet service, and I had put an 
MP3-playing DVD player in the studio so people could do 
four-hour-or-more-long shows from the other end of the county if they 
wanted to and just mail an MP3 CD or DVD. I had disks for all the shows 
Saturday night, and I was reading and working on my show and napping 
(this was a Saturday and I'd been up all Friday night, as usual, and I 
got the order of the shows wrong. I put Lilia Albuquerque's One Ocean 
show on instead of Les Tarr's.

Les roared in half an hour later, having driven like a rocket in his 
truck from Willits, steaming mad. He said his relatives were over for 
dinner and he turned on the radio and his show didn't come on. He told 
me, "I'm /Italian/, baby! I express myself!" I apologized, told him I 
can't go back in time but I can be sure to never do it again. Nothing 
helped. I told him to calm down; I'd heard he had heart trouble and I 
didn't wanta be responsible for him having a heart attack. He showed me 
a silver screw-top bullet on a chain around his neck with nitroglycerine 
pills in it in case of that. "I'm covered!" he boomed. "I'm prepared!"

His real name, I'm told, was Les Hjulmand. That's a good Italian name. 
He played bass in hot roadhouse bands, and he had a voice like a pipe organ.

All kinds of people around here were fans of his show on KMFB and KLLK 
and KTDE and others. If you remember something about him or something he 
did that struck you, please pass it on to me; I'd like to put them all 
in one place and of course read them on KNYO.

--
Marco McClean, memo at mcn.org
https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com