Real Music & Real Estate . . .

I got a rental application from Joe, a retired 71-year-old factory worker who made $1600/month. Welcome, Joe. But then I ran a criminal search and came up with aggravated arson, forgery and sexual battery. Pre-internet, I would have rented to him because it was hard to run background checks back then. I once rented to a rapist/murderer because I didn’t want to schlep to county records to check him out. The man got picked up on a parole violation and moved out before killing or raping anybody in my building.

I once rented to an elderly nurse who was a felon. Her previous landlord followed her to my place and told me she was a forger and thief. She didn’t look it. She already had the keys to my building; the building manager had given her the keys in exchange for a dime store ring. We moved the nurse’s belongings into the basement and locked the stuff up.  She said, “Give me my meds!” Good point. I gave her meds, plus her toothbrush.

This cost me. I’ve learned two things: a) Don’t do a “self-help” eviction. Lawyers love self-help evictions. b) Screen all tenants like crazy on the way in.

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Rerun

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I wasn’t in Rust Belt Chic –The Cleveland Anthology. An oversight. I’m Rust Belt chic. I’ve lived in Cleveland all my life and I use Rust-Oleum — a local brand — on fire escapes. A tenant fell on a fire escape Monday because it was rainy and slippery; he complained because we use good paint.

I’m not total lunch bucket like Pulitzer Prize columnist Connie Schultz, whose dad worked at the CEI plant in Ashtabula, or Rust Belt Chic co-editor Richey Piiparinen, whose dad was a Cleveland cop who got run over on the way home from an Indians game.

I told Richey I liked the anthology even though I’m not in it. I said, “I liked it and I’m not even into the Browns, booze, and broads thing.”

He said, “That’s good — ‘Browns, booze and broads.’”

1) The Browns. I’ve been to about five Browns games. One was the championship game in 1964. I’m good to go.

2) The Indians. I’ve been to about a game a year. Believe it or not, I’ve seen three no-hitters: Stieb, Bosman and Siebert. I’m good to go, again. Looking for a Tribe no-hitter tonight, by the way.

3) Booze. I’ve had very few Great Lakes Christmas Ales. No more than 10. But I’m 100-percent behind Great Lakes Brewing and heavy drinking.

4) Broads. I met a couple at the Last Moving Picture Company in 1976 and they’re probably dead by now from too much beer. Pong, the video game, was big then.

David Giffels in his essay “The Lake Effect” wrote, “There was never any color in the 30 miles of sky between Akron and Cleveland. It was a masterpiece of monochrome.”

I see color in the sky all the time around here. I see blue right now. Maybe I’m too upbeat for Rust Belt Chic. Go Tribe.

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I never report my music income. I’m a klezmer clarinetist and blues harmonica player, not a tax guy. I don’t give a shit about taxes. I play music eight hours a day, and in between I wait for the phone to ring for gigs. I have no life except music, and I’m proud of it.

I owe some people money. Big deal. That’s standard in the music biz. My go-to line is “Can you lend me five dollars to get home from the gig?  What’s five bucks?” (I often get paid by check for gigging.)

One musician yelled at me, “Five bucks is pathetic! At least ask for twenty!” He gave me a twenty. Nice.

I occasionally hock my instruments and show up at gigs with student-level gear. This, too, annoys bandleaders. Charlie Parker hocked his horn; I’m in good company! A bandleader once told me, “Tools, man, where are your tools?” I have tools — cheesy student tools, which I  play better than you! I once asked a priest for gas money at a wedding, and he gave it to me.

I have bad habits. I’m flawed. What about you?  Are you perfect?

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What is the meaning of life? Viktor Frankl says it has to do with 1) good works 2) loving somebody 3) responding well to your suffering.

When I first read Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, I was just taking over my dad’s business and wondering if I would acclimate to life in real estate. I figured I would, for my family, but I wasn’t going to make “real estate” my meaning.

Frankl talks about “Sunday neurosis” — “that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of control in their lives when the rush of the business week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.” I’ve had that Sunday void off and on for years. I’ve tried the arts. I have some friends in the arts. We talk about commerce versus art. We’re mostly in Cleveland, so we talk about commerce and the arts a lot. We sometimes talk about fame and success. At Heinen’ grocery store, a neighbor  said to me,  “We’re still talking about the bar mitzvah you played for us eight years ago.” I think that’s important. I’ve provided quality music to the Cleveland Jewish community. I’m not that great of a musician (I’m a better writer!) but I’m envisioning a drawing of a clarinet on my tombstone. And an apartment building?

What is the meaning of life?

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Cleveland cop Tommy Alusheff moonlighted as a comedian under the name Morey Cohen — a conflation of Morey Amsterdam and Myron Cohen.

Morey Cohen died in 2010. I knew him only by reputation. Morey wasn’t in the Sixth District — my old police beat. The funniest cop in the Sixth was Paul Falzone, who once told me, “I have eight minutes of material to Morey’s twelve. How can you tell Ronald McDonald at a nudist colony? He’s the one with sesame seed buns.”

Falzone ran for county sheriff and president of the patrolmen’s union, and didn’t win either. He eventually became police chief of Bratenahl, a suburb. In 2008 Cuyahoga County tried to put Falzone in jail for theft. Something about drugs and guns missing from the Bratenahl property room. Falzone was acquitted and sued Bratenahl for “humiliation.” No joke there.

Falzone: “So I’m on patrol and walk into the Viking Bar. I see a 16-year-old punk with a Miller’s. I say, ‘When’s your birthday, kid?’ He says, ‘October 10.’ ‘What year?’ ‘Every year.’”

I also know a Myron Cohen imitator. He’s Dave Rothenberg, a resident of Myers apartments in Beachwood. Different story. Non-cop.

Rerun

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My son Ted parked his car at the Brookpark Road Rapid Transit lot and flew to Las Vegas. The Rapid Transit lot was cheaper than the nearby airport lot. My son didn’t come back. I thought he was going on a vacation, but he got a job in Las Vegas and stayed for a long while.

My son’s 2007 Ford Focus sat in the Brookpark lot for two months, until my wife, Alice, and I loaded our car with jumper cables and a generator air pump and drove to the RTA lot, which is next to Ford Engine Plant #1 and a couple strip bars. I said to Alice, “Ted’s car is technically in Brook Park, not Cleveland. That’s good. If the car has been towed or stolen, we can deal with Brook Park red tape better than Cleveland red tape.” But the car wasn’t towed or stolen. It was there. The doors were unlocked, and the tires were low, and there was a bottle of bourbon in the backseat.

I drove Ted’s car to the Lusty Wrench in Cleveland Heights. Sam Bell, the mechanic, said, “The car is basically in good shape with 89,000 miles. The battery will not make it, and as you know the side-view mirror is taped on. But the tape actually is not a bad solution. The rear tires are round, black and hold air. The car is serviceable.”
What I want to know, Is Greater Cleveland really this safe? I need more data. Please park your car for two months at a Rapid stop and tell me.

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<em>Rerun

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My father had about 15 pairs of shoes when he died. I didn’t take any of his shoes even though we wore the same size. He had a foot fungus, and my mother told me to pass. My dad had wingtips, golf shoes and tennis shoes. I never saw him in sandals, work boots or hiking boots.

My dad wore Purcells. He was pretty good at sports. For one thing, he was a fast runner. He took me to the Arena for the annual Knights of Columbus track meet, and we often played tennis. My dad would hit balls with me after work. He would say, “Racquet back. Hit it now. Racquet back, hit it now.” He wore Bermuda shorts and Purcells and no shirt. That was appropriate attire in the 1960s, at least on the public courts in South Euclid, Ohio. I didn’t appreciate the tennis instruction from my dad. I moped. I should have hustled. He was usually the only dad out there. I should have hustled.

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A version of this post appeared here 5/1/13.

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Maggies were linoleum salesmen/hustlers in Cleveland. “Maggie” is derived from Magnoleum, a flooring brand. Harvey Pekar wrote a comic strip about maggies in 1982. I didn’t hear the word maggies again until recently, when my cousin Danny Seiger expounded: “The maggies carried thick samples of linoleum that looked like Venetian marble. They sold nine-by-twelve sheets for fifteen dollars. Nobody had fifteen dollars back then, so the maggies took five bucks on installment, and came back with a roll of tissue-paper. They could carry it upstairs real easy. It weighed three pounds. The maggies laid the tissue-paper linoleum on your kitchen floor, collected the five bucks, and never came back.”

The maggies sold more than linoleum, Danny said. They sold ties at barbershops and socks at saloons. Each maggie had a territory and a product line.

I Googled “Maggies” after my cousin Danny left. Maggies, an Irish music group, popped up. Then I tried “Maggies + Pekar” . . .

Michigan State University Libraries,
Comic Art Collection.
“The Maggies: Oral History”/story by Harvey Pekar;
art by R. Crumb. 2 p. in American Splendor, no. 7 (1982).

I phoned Danny Seiger and read the Pekar story to him. I wanted to know if Turk’s deli — where the maggies hung out in Harvey’s comic — was the same place as Seiger’s deli. Danny said, “Turk’s was at One-hundred Seventeenth. We were at One-hundred Eighteenth.”

I said, “There were two delis right next to each other? How many delis were there in Cleveland?”

“There were seven on Kinsman, and twenty-eight in Cleveland in the 1930s,” Danny said.

Seiger’s, 1958, (with fire damage)

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A version of this first appeared here 8/4/10.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVqxjhb2iCU

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This 1-minute video is geared toward klezmers under 40. And if you don’t fit into that category, it’s still worth watching. Not everything is about you.

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I was a Jewish greaser in high school. It was me, Neil Zuckerman and Tommy Steiner — three Jewish greasers in a class of 650. There were greasers, just not Jewish greasers. In the winter we hung out at the pool hall, and in the summer we went to the swimming pool three times a day. We hung with the Catholic girls.

I live in Mentor now, with my motorcycle and dog, and don’t see many Jews. I always wanted to be Italian. I got my first kiss from a dago. I wasn’t invited to any bar mitzvahs. I didn’t ever go to temple.

I got no brownie points in my Jewish ’hood for working on cars. If you weren’t pre-med, you were nobody. Levine, a jerk, teased me when I wore the wrong kind of penny loafers in eighth grade. Not Pedwins. I switched to pointy black “rack” shoes, Regals, that night and became a greaser. Rick Miller, another podiatrist-in-training, teased me for wearing white socks. How was I supposed to know white socks had just gone out of style?

Put me in the ex-Jewish column, next to Aleutian.

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A version of this post appeared 4/30/14.

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My parents often name-dropped Billys:

1.) Billy Rose. He put together the Aquacade show at the Great Lakes Exposition in 1936-7. The Aquacade was a theater-like pool. There was an orchestra and synchronized swimming. Johnny Weissmuller starred in it. Billy Rose took the show to the New York World’s Fair in 1939.

2.) Billy DeWolfe, a character actor. Billy De Wolfe occasionally ate at Seiger’s, my Great Uncle Itchy’s restaurant on Kinsman Road.

3.) Billy Weinberger, a Short Vincent Street restaurateur. He owned Kornman’s. Billy Weinberger moved to Las Vegas in 1966 and took over Caesar’s Palace. Billy was close with the Cleveland mobsters who started Vegas. My Uncle Al — not a gangster — once got discount hotel rates from Billy in Vegas.

I never name-dropped Billys to my kids. My parents took all the Billys.

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A version of this post appeared here 10/19/11.

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Funk a Deli (formerly known as Yiddishe Cup) plays at John Carroll U. 7 p.m tomorrow (Thurs., Aug. 10).  On the lawn. Free ice cream. Featured guest artists: Shawn Fink, Jack Stratton, Rick Lawrence, Maury Epstein and David Krauss.

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After my mother died, I put her furniture in storage in the basement of one of my apartment buildings on the West Side. The furniture sat there for five years until my son Teddy took the furniture when he went off to law school. The furniture was mildewed, but usable.

When I visited Teddy at law school, I saw my mom’s furniture and got something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder. Seeing her yellow kitchen table again was a punch to the solar plexus. I had eaten at that table for 18 years, and now it was in student-housing in Toledo. It was Formica. It was 1950s.

During high school, I was laconic at that table. How’s school? I ain’t talking. My dad didn’t talk much either. My entire family didn’t talk much. And we didn’t watch TV. We ate a lot of fish. Halibut was very cheap, believe it or not. For breakfast, we ate pink grapefruit.

Toledo 2012

A version of this post appeared here 5/9/12.

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I attended my late mother’s cousin’s funeral. I didn’t know the cousin. There were about 80 Jews at the funeral home. I didn’t know any of the mourners, except the professional Jews — the rabbi and cantor. Buddy Kassoff, the cousin, had died. He got a nice eulogy. A daughter said he had no vices, never swore, was always cheerful, and never passed judgment on anybody. When I got home I told my wife about the eulogy, and she said, “You must not be related.”

Buddy had owned a car wash for fifty years. His father had been a musician, and I had once phoned Buddy, maybe 10 years ago, to get the inside musical scoop on his dad, but there wasn’t much scoop – no musical memorabilia, for instance. I don’t recall meeting Buddy in the past fifty years.

I should have gone to the shiva instead, where I would have had a proper conversation with someone. In any event, I don’t regret I went to the funeral. Like I tell my kids: go.

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Some Geauga County kids put on “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” a play about the Theresienstadt concentration camp. I spoke to the actors at their theater in Chardon, Ohio. I figured they’d be obnoxious, but they weren’t. I explained what a Jew is. They sang a Theresienstadt-based song for me. I asked them who, in their world, was the most famous Jew. I thought they would say Jesus. They said Billy Crystal.

The kids wanted to know about “the beanie ” — the yarmulke. (Note: I don’t where a yarmulke.) I said it shows one’s humbleness, vis a vis God. Was I right? I gave the actors a couple Yiddishe Cup CDs and said, “The people at Terezin didn’t listen to klezmer music but enjoy these.” Was I Jewish enough? Was I above average?

On one foot

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A version of this post appeared here 10/28/15.

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I advise two young men. They are my advisees. One is a student of real estate, and the other is a pop musician. The pop musician says “cats” a lot, and the real estate guy says “cap rates” a lot.

The real estate student and I hiked suburban Cleveland. We found a Norfolk & Western right-of-way in Solon that my advisee contemplated buying. We saw a couple great blue herons. Herons and land. How much?

The musician advisee wondered whether he should move to L.A. or New York. He said everybody in L.A. was trying too hard to be famous and attend the right parties, but there was a lot of opportunity in L.A., particularly for music licensing. In New York, he said, it was more about “wearing a weird hat and playing in the subway.” I was lost; L.A., NYC — it’s all Ohio to me. He asked me about Roth IRAs; that was more in my strike zone.

The real estate student moved away. He’s buying and selling around the country. Once in a while he’ll email me, but not so much these days. The musician moved to L.A. He checks in around tax time.

The Advisor

Footnote: No, the advisees are not children.

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I’m Cush Pack, an intense sex explosion. Guys like me because I write dirty poems. My best poem is “The Poet and the Pediatrician,” which doesn’t sound dirty but it is. My dirtiest poem is “I Want to Wet Your Feelings.” It’s been published in a couple anthologies.

I go clubbing almost every night. All kinds of clubs. Last night I crashed the Shaker Heights Country Club and trashed the parish priest in public. The golfers in the lobby went ballistic. One guy said, “Did I just hear this chick call the priest an atheist?” I do teasy push-pull stuff like that. I like a reaction.

My newest poem is “Who Must File,” about my accountant. Yes, I’m a middle-aged self-supporting woman from Shaker Heights. My “Who Must File” poem is in Belt, an online journal of erotica. My bio note reads: “I like curly fries.” That’s all. I try to play it cool.  Next week I”m changing it to “I’m into herring.”

Tell me something about yourself, please. What are your electives? Come on, pull my rip cord. No, I’m not an undercover cop. Let’s talk. I’m Cush Pack.

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A version of this appeared here 3/18/15.

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The Hotpoint refrigerator — the “value” brand of G.E. — is a good product. It lasts 20 years.

I got 24 years out of a Magic Chef stove.

I used to buy Spanish refrigerators, called Welbilt. The spelling said it all. Good for only nine years. Frigidaire isn’t much better — 10 years. [Exception: the Frigidaire in the photo below lasted 22 years, then got a rash.]

I buy appliances from a small distributor out of Stow, Ohio. He’ll hook up the gas flexline (pigtail) to the stove for $20.  I could buy at Home Depot or Sears, but my Stow man is hassle-free. Sears is the worst.

Refrigerators are fun; they don’t screw up that often, they’re cuddly, and you can occasionally get a free beer or pop in the refrigerator after the tenant moves out. Also, open ketchup.

Frigidaire with rash

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A version of this post first appeared 6/26/09

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Michael Hecht, the rabbi at long-gone Congregation Beth Am in Cleveland Heights, liked music and often talked to me about klezmer. He also liked opera and classical music. He hated rock. It was too loud. He told Yiddishe Cup to turn its volume down, for the second time, at a Chanukah party; our sound guy said, “I can’t turn it down. Our sound system is completely off.”

Hecht, born in Germany in 1936, started Johns Hopkins at age 16. He wrote articles for Good Housekeeping, Conservative Judaism, the Cleveland Jewish News and Women’s League Outlook. That Women’s League Outlook, I can live without. I was at Rabbi Hecht’s funeral in January. The service lasted more than an hour. Many eulogizers hammered on Rabbi Hecht’s love of music.

Rabbi Hecht used to go to the Cleveland Heights Library to take out classical CDs to duplicate. According to one eulogizer, Rabbi Hecht liked the Beatles. OK. “In his [Hecht’s] collection he also had some Led Zeppelin and even Metallica.”

This man into Metallica  . . .

Rabbi Michael Hecht, 1936-2017

Rabbi Hecht had three children. They must have brought the rock records home.

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My father, Toby, didn’t want an obituary. He thought that might tip off the IRS to his change in status. Nevertheless, when Toby died, an editor at the Cleveland Plain Dealer asked to write something. The editor was a friend of my dad’s.  My mother said no. The writer persisted, because years prior, Toby had gotten the editor a moonlighting job — editing the newsletter for the key company where my dad worked.

No again, my mother said.Toby wound up in the Cleveland Jewish News. That was OK.  Not too many IRS agents read that.

Theodore “Toby” Stratton (1917-1986) Photo 1984

It wouldn’t have mattered; my dad lived his entire adult life under an alias: Stratton. He had gotten “Stratton” out of a phone book. His birth name was Soltzberg. How had he felt about all that? Fine, he often told me.

I had my doubts. (His two brothers stayed Soltzbergs, while Toby rode off to become Stratton of Judea.)

His only regret, which was momentary, he claimed, was when his then 21-year-old daughter dated a sheygets (gentile boy) from Parma who had no college degree. Back then Toby said, “If I hadn’t changed my name, this wouldn’t be going on!” He picked “Stratton” in a waiting room, waiting for a job interview.  He got the job and changed his name in 1941.

The story sounded like BS to me. I thought Toby might have been embarrassed and insecure about his Jewishness.  A lot of Jews back then jumped to the U.S.S. Wasp. I’ve read  half the Jews in the U.S. changed their names. [Commentary, August 1952,”Name-Changing — And What It Gets You,” by J. Alvin Kugelmass.]   Some of the impetus for the name-changing was anti-Semitism and a desire to “pass.”  (I’m not blaming anybody. Different times back then.)

When I was right out of college, I told my dad I was going to change my name to Soltzberg. He went nuts. He said, “You’re looking for trouble!  Don’t do it!”

Decades later I lectured on Mickey Katz at the International Association of Yiddish Clubs convention; I was wearing a “Stratton” nametag and an old man approached me, asking, “Are you related to Toby Stratton?”

“He was my father.”

“I left town in 1941,” the man said, his eyes on my nametag. “It was there, right there in my apartment, when he talked about changing his name. He had gotten turned down by three chemical companies.  He was one of  the smartest guys I ever met.  He changed his name and got a job right then.” Solid.

For years one of my Soltzberg uncles had told me Toby jumped ship because my mother had wanted to “pass.” I liked the right-in-my-apartment story better.

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A version of this appeared here 9/16/09 and in the Jerusalem Post 1/16/12.

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I helped shut down the O’Jays, the Grammy-winning soul band, last summer. The O’Jays were playing at a neighbor’s. The homeowner, who pays $107,343 per year in taxes (true), apparently thought he could do whatever he wanted, party-wise. He hired the O’Jays for a backyard party.

Lying in bed, I didn’t know it was the O’Jays. I knew it was loud music at 11:30 p.m. I called the Shaker cops, who said the homeowner had a permit. I said, “I’m a musician! I’ve played in Shaker outdoors and been shut down at 10 p.m. I think it was on Rocklyn Road at a bar mitzvah, in fact.”

“The officer on the scene reports it’s not loud,” the police dispatcher said.

I walked over to the scene, a quarter-mile away. There were several off-duty Shaker cops working the party. On my cell phone I called the police station and asked, “They have a permit to play to when?”

“One-thirty a.m.”

“You’re kidding!”

“All neighbors are invited to go in,” the dispatcher said.

I stood outside the house (the Halle mansion, by the way) next to an old black woman who told me I was listening to the O’Jays. She was on her way home from the ER and felt lousy, but then heard the music, stopped, and felt better. I asked her if she wanted to go in – to the party in the backyard. She said yes. We got to checkpoint, where the off-duty cop said, “Is your name on the list?”

“No, but I called the station and complained, and they said all neighbors are invited.” The cop walked us over to the bandstand, and the woman got to meet a personal hero, Eddie Levert, the bandleader. Then the band shut down. The off-duty cop said, “Too many neighbors are complaining.”

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Yiddishe Cup marches in Parade the Circle noon this Saturday (June 10), Wade Oval, University Circle, Cleveland.

Parade 2012

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