Real Music & Real Estate . . .

I lived in a Cleveland Heights duplex  — a side-by-side.  Joe, the landlord, lived in the other half.  He wore a sleeveless T-shirt, smoked cigars and nagged his wife.

A note taped to the thermostat — on my side of the house — read: “Whoever is turning the thermostat up and not turning it down, is throwing money out the window!”  I lived with a social worker, a Case Western Reserve nursing student from a strawberry farm in Lake County, and a telemarketer. I met these guys off a bulletin board at Case.

I practiced guitar in the basement, trying to be Bob Dylan.

When the social worker moved out, a woman came by to look for a room to rent.  I met her at the house’s front door and said, “We’re looking for somebody clean, quiet, and . . .”

“Cute?” she said. She was wearing taped glasses. Nevertheless, she was not bad looking.

The strawberry farmer said to me, “You think she’s Jewish?”  (He was always looking out for me.)

“She’s a nurse from West 45^th Street,” I said.  “Not likely.”

The woman rented the room. Then the landlord’s wife, Gertie, kicked her out.  Gertie said, “Girls spell trouble. I’d rather deal with men.  You should take that as a compliment, fellas.  Why would a girl who makes a good living want to live here anyway?”

Joe, the landlord, chimed in, “We have to be indiscreet about this.  What if you all start bringing in girls?  It’ll look like a whorehouse.  You’ve always been gentlemen till now.”

I went down the basement to practice.  I was making $9/hour teaching blues harmonica at the adult-ed program. Not bad for 1977.

The nurse moved out, to her own place, a nearby double, and I called her and we went out. We hit it off.  I told my parents, “She’s from West 45^th Street.”

My father said, “Are her parents devout Catholics?”

“She’s Jewish.”  (She was. I wasn’t pulling my dad’s leg, for a change.)

My mother said, “I’m getting a new dress now.  Get married. You can get divorced later. You promised you’d get married when you’re 27 and you’re 27.  A Jewish girl in nursing?”

“Because she wants to marry a doctor,” my father said. “Anything wrong with her?  She’s a 26-year-old unmarried Jewish girl.”

“Girls are more independent nowadays,” my mother said.

The girl and I got married the next year. 

The girl, Alice Shustick, 1977

–
Footnote: Alice lived on West 45th Street because it was somewhat near Tri-C West nursing school, and the rent was cheap.

Tacky tourist attractions are popping up near the stellar Challah Fame. The latest shtick dreck is the Yiddishe Cup Experience, in the old Beef Corral at Cedar Center, South Euclid, Ohio.

Sombuddy pleaz open ah vindah!

Don’t go.  Repeat, don’t go. Here’s what you’ll “miss”:

1. The first Jewish traffic light (a semaphore actually), from Kinsman Road, 1925. The semaphore has matzo, knish, and seltzer symbols instead of red, yellow and green.  The semaphore was taken down in 1926 because the Italians couldn’t tell matzo from knishes.

2. Theodore Bikel and Mickey Katz hand puppets. Who made these?  [Josh Dolgin of Canada.]

3. The “Jewish Underground Railroad Experience.”  A sandbox. Supposed to be the Sinai.

5. A “Chagall” mural by Anonymous, scraped off the wall from Mira’s Cafe, Mandel JCC, Beachwood, Ohio.

6. A video clip from Harley Son of David, a movie about Jewish motorcyclists.  Music by Yiddishe Cup.

7. Klezmer-themed postage stamps from Lichtenstein and Malaysia. Musicians on the stamps include Marcel Salomon, Adrianne Greenbaum and Moshe Berlin.

8. A matchbook from Solomon’s restaurant, Cedar Center, 1966.

9. Itchy the Squirrel, an animatron who sings “Oyfn Pripetchik.”  (Poor fidelity, but surprisingly good Yiddish.)

10. Shtetl Avenue — a recreation of 1920s East 105th Street, complete with midwives, klezmer bands, appetizing shops and candy stores.   Staffed by teen volunteers from Agnon School.

The place is horrible. Don’t go.  Go to The Challah Fame.

(Yiddishe Cup, the band, is not affiliated with the Yiddishe Cup Experience.  Again: Yiddishe Cup, the band, is not affiliated with the Yiddishe Cup Experience)

I’m not good around movies. I frequently go negative right afterward. I can’t stand being in a dark room for two hours watching mostly junk. What percentage of movies are good? Not that many. I get dragged along to movies because I’m a social animal.

I went to Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon. I had read an interview with the “legend” in the Forward; I liked the word “Supermensch” in the title; and a friend said the movie was good.  Lastly, and most importantly, my wife wanted to go.

Shep Gordon is a booking agent/manager, who managed Alice Cooper, among others. Shep did a lot of drugs and messed around with a lot of women. He was loyal to his clients — for sure the ones interviewed in the movie. Gordon comes off as a very loyal sybarite.  In Hollywood that apparently qualifies as a “supermensch.”

Why not more about Shep’s mother, who liked the family dog more than Shep? What about Shep’s brother? He isn’t in the movie. Shep had a few marriages; I lost count.  Gordon hung out with just famous people. (Not entirely true; there were three or four non-famous people in the movie.)  He liked round tables, as compared to square tables, for his dinner parties. Round tables are more conducive to  good conversation. That was interesting.

I walked out when Gordon had a heart attack.  Maybe it wasn’t a heart attack. He was in a hospital bed with tubes in him.  I didn’t hang around for the diagnosis. Heartless.  Me or him?

In the Cedar-Lee Theatre lobby afterward, I was called a curmudgeon and cynic.  I went on Rotten Tomatoes the next day: one-in-four reviews said the movie was crap. So I was redeemed.  Right?  One in four.  I was redeemed.

I wonder what Searching for Sugar Man got on Rotten Tomatoes. I didn’t like that movie either. [Ouch. Almost all positive reviews.]  I thought Sugar Man was too much about the music business and not enough about the guy . . . “We were big in South Africa but not Detroit” stuff. I had a friend who was fairly big in Japan in the 1960s, but not in America. So was Joan Jett. I remember this stuff but don’t want to.

I need a 98-percent-or-better on Rotten Tomatoes to go to the movies. Ninety-eight is my sweet spot.  Sugar Man was 95; Supermensch, 75.

I’m going to check out Anvil! The Story of Anvil on Rotten Tomatoes . . .

98.  Yes.  Anvil! was inspirational; a bunch of Canadian guys with lousy day jobs got their old band back together and toured.  Check it out. And don’t kvetch to me if you don’t like it.

–

Ann Wightman, salutatorian,
Brush High ’68

I wrote this one for Cleveland.com last week: Class Reunions Shouldn’t Have to Be Every 10 Years.

My neighbor got rid of a lot of her books because she’s moving. Twenty-five years of books.  Many of them dirty.  I took these:

Cobbler, Mend my Shoe!
by Thom McAn

Stupid Bastard: The Life of Harry Purim
by Meier Meier

Amusing Car Sales
by Del Spitzer

Good Riddance, Chancres
by Rodney Benson MD

Fungo Batting
by Woody Held

Tie Your Own Tubes
by V.A. Szechtomijh

My Selfies
by Elaine “The Body” Sugarman

Put It Right There
by Vera Panting

The Cry of the Serbo-Croats
by Boris Crzwcwzw

10 Days to a Hairless Body
by Alice Greune

The Wiener in Bavarian Folk Arts
by Nathan Famoso

So You Want to Be Jewish?
by Saul Bernard Roth

The Story of the Harlem Cooperative Bakery
by Rose Towne Krug

100 Years in an RV
by Gabe Marquez

The Cheater
by Bernie Madoff

Algebraical Puzzles, Nuts, Wrinkles and Twisters
by Albert Einstein

Sexism at the Battle of Waterloo
by “Jilly”

Chillicothe: Ohio’s First Capital
by Les Peterson

Jesus in My Glove
by Mac “Octopus” Vouty

Cuckoos and Grosbeaks
by Nancy Debeak

Golf Your Way to Sexual Fulfillment
by Franz Godemiche

How to Identify a Child Molester
by Frederick McFeely Rogers

Bloods and Bills: My Life as a Successful Surgeon
by Kirk Benway MD

I Broke My Knee and Ran 10 Miles
by Mark Schilling

What It Means to Be a Coprophile
by “Raymond”

The History of the Electric Toothbrush
by Ralph Solonitz DDS

The Streets of San Francisco (and Richmond, California)
by Cindy L. Barbour

Covering Your Lawn with Sheet Metal
by Leo Kaufman

Throw Away Your Truss
by Charles Atlas

Jackoff in the Old Red Barn
by Ricky Dickey

An Appreciation of Aluminum Siding
by Kenneth Goldberg

Regular Guy: The Life of Nelson Rockefeller
by Barry Grovel

So You Want to Dance, Act, and Play the Clarinet!
by Priscilla Peck

Lieder and its Influence on Mick Jagger
by Aaron Alwitz

The Birdwatcher
by J. Philip Stratton

My .38 Special is So Special
by Stan Urankar

Masturbate Those Pounds Away!
by Weary Reilly

The Hipster Jogger Handbook
by Meghan Corriendo

Lesbianism in Western Ireland (1886 – 1891)
by Olive D’Olyly and Winnie Carr

Speling Maid Ez
by Kent Read

A Priest Looks at Group Sex
by Pedro Nanismo

Kreplach in the Congo
by Reb Yellen

All My Laundromats
by Johnny Park

Pet Insurance for Dummies
by Fido Buster

More Selfies
by Elaine “The Body” Sugarman

Bowl Game Jitters
by Glenn E. “Bo” Schembechler Jr.

Sitz-Bathing Around the World
by Lee Huang

How to Get into Princeton
by Muncy Rowfant and Michael Yu

Fracking Jews
by T. Boone Soltzberg

Guess Your Neighbor’s Net Worth
by Alton Whitehouse IV

Thank you and Goodbye, and Hello
by Hillary Clinton

Peeing is the New Smoking
by Amy Streem

Social Media for Seniors
by Betty Dumchick

Life on the Outskirts of Beer
by Isaac Miller

–

A major hat tip to Gilbert Sorrentino. Forty-nine percent of the above book titles are from Sorrentino’s novel Mulligan Stew (1979).

The German wiener photo is by Eric Broder

File this under Fake Profiles.

My son Teddy had a birthday party at Putt-Putt on Northfield Road. This was in 1990.  I think that’s the last time I played Putt-Putt — official Putt-Putt. There are only 49 Putt-Putt courses left in the United States.

There was a Chinese miniature golf course on Libby Road at Broadway Avenue in Cleveland. (I think that’s where it was.)  It had a Buddha that went up and down.   My high school friends and I couldn’t get enough of that course.

Arnold Palmer Miniature Golf  . . .  Just had to say that.

I would like to live long enough to play Putt-Putt with my grandchildren.  (First, I need the grandchildren.)  I want to stay healthy enough to bend down and pick up the ball.  That’s the hardest part of mini golf.

Adventure golf, such as Pirate’s Cove, sounds good.

Putt Putz

–

There’s a  vid version of this post — slightly more in-depth.  (Originally posted in 2011).

–

Come to Cain Park, Cleveland Heights, 7 p.m. Sun. (June 29) for a free klezmer concert by the Josh “Socalled” Dolgin Sextet, featuring super clarinetist Michael Winograd.  (Jack Stratton on drums.)

Josh Dolgin

—
Here’s a new vid, Don Bryon Salutes Mickey Katz.

The letter is from Milt — a friend of my parents — to his kids. 

May 15, 1990

Dear Children,

In 15 days I’ll be 71.

As you know, I’m not religious, but I do like a good party.

About my funeral: Use the gentile funeral home, Fioritto in Lyndhurst, to deliver my body to the Workmen’s Circle Cemetery.  Just bury me.  Invite some family and friends.  No rabbi!  I’ve never gone to synagogue, so don’t start with that now.

Pick a convenient Sunday afternoon to throw a memorial service at the Workmen’s Circle hall on Green Road.  There is plenty room, a loudspeaker, and a kitchen. Anybody who wants to speak, can speak. Except Bernstein.

I want a nice sendoff: trays, Scotch, music, dancing, food, coffee, pastry, wine and cold beer.  Whiskey too.  Hire a klezmer band — Bert Stratton’s band.  (Bert is Julia and Toby’s son.)  But remember, one hour of klezmer is enough.

Get the trays at Bernie Shulman’s at Cedar Center.  They’re good and cheap, but you have to pick up the goods yourself.  Get pastries from Acme supermarket at Mayfield near Green.  Their pastries are excellent and much cheaper than the Jewish bakeries.

I want coffee, lots of coffee; the Workmen’s Circle can make it by the gallon.  And plenty of soft drinks and wine — good wine. No Champagne.  And hire kitchen help.

Mom will say I’m nuts.  She can stay home if she wants!  This is what I want.

Love,

Dad

–

Footnote: Milt died 16 years after he wrote the letter.  He ate a lot and never exercised and lived to 87.  He had a graveside service with no band and no food.  No hard feelings, Milt.  All mourners received a copy of Milt’s brisket recipe at the funeral.

“Milt” is a pseudonym.  If Milt’s children want his real name here, they’ll let me know.

Ask me about my bike trip

On the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure (GOBA), I’m around far fewer Jews than I’m used to. I’m most comfortable with a 20 percent-or-more Jewish crowd in life. If the Jewish count is less than that, I get a bit uneasy, mostly because less people understand my sense of humor.

My high school was about 25 percent Jewish; my college was about 20 percent Jewish; my social scene in Cleveland is 58.7 percent Jewish; and my place of worship is 100 percent.

On GOBA, there are at most 20 Jews out of 2,500 riders.  It’s like a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota.

Oddly, one year (2009) I pedaled GOBA with an Orthodox woman. She brought more tuna fish than Nixon took to China. She wore a skirt. There was an Amish woman with a skirt too. The Frisco Kid: Gene Wilder and the Amish thing. Maybe both women will be at GOBA this year.

In 2010 I met a Jewish doctor from Dayton, Ohio; a Jewish guitar player from University Heights; and my buddy — and fellow cyclist — Irwin Weinberger (Yidddishe Cup’s singer) played “Ose Shalom” on Friday night.  This was after a fried fish shabbes dinner at the Fraternal Order of Eagles hall in McArthur, Ohio. We made kiddush over Miller Lite, which technically isn’t brucha (blessing) material. (Tain’t a grape.)

GOBA kicks off in Mansfield, Ohio, this Sunday.

—

Gear shift . . .

Is there a market for a Jewish-tinged “Chosen to Ride” bike tour of the Midwest?

Day 1

We meet at Chicago Midway airport and bike to Pepe’s, a Mexican restaurant on Cicero Avenue. Traffic is crazy but fun in Chicago. Bring a helmet and a sword.

Lodging at the Beloit, Wisconsin, Holiday Inn.

Day 2

Lunch stop at the Park View Motel, Richland Center, Wisconsin, next to AgriDairy. See the Frank Lloyd Wright silo.

Dinner at the Ground Round, Dubuque, Iowa.

Day 3

Pitch tents on the lawn of the Omaha JCC and check out the exhibit in the hallway about The Bagel, the name for the old Jewish ‘hood in Omaha.

Chosen to Ride

Day 4

Dinner in Nevada, Missouri.  We’ll eat in the cafeteria at Cottey College, an all-women’s school.

Days 5 and 6

Shabbes in St. Louis. We spend time off the bikes and at riverboat casinos, where we suck cig smoke and lose a few fun bucks. Each night we’re at Ted Drewes custard stand.

Day 7

Dinner at Wabash College, an all-men’s college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Equal rights for men.

Day 8

At the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, we attend a concert by Gabe Kaplan and Yiddishe Cup. Kaplan doesn’t look like Gabe Kaplan anymore. He’s a million years old. (As is Yiddishe Cup.)  Kaplan’s best joke is “A widower in Miami Beach asks his date, an elderly woman, if she likes sex, and she says, ‘Infrequently.’ The widower says, ‘Is that one word or two?’”

Day 9

Our farewell banquet is at Ken’s Diner in Skokie, Illinois, a glatt kosher hamburger joint. Music by the clarinet/harp duo of Kurt and Annette Bjorling.

Think about it.

—-

Yiddishe Cup is in Parade the Circle noon Saturday (June 14), Wade Oval, Cleveland.

A young man opened up a street-wear store in my building.  Street-wear is hip-hop clothes, like low-slung pants.

I was nuts to rent to the guy.  He just sat on a beat-up couch in the store and never really opened. I hired workers to do dry wall and electrical work, and block off doorways.  The tenant said he would do the rest.

He complained about the awning out front.  It spelled “Main Street” — stodgy — to him.  He wanted a funkier look. I wanted the classic green canvas awning to stay.  He knew that up front.  I had it in writing.

He complained about the basement.  He said, “It’s old.  There are rats maybe.  The walls are crumbling.”  I hadn’t even promised him a basement.  It was an add-on.

He said he was going to paint the interior of the store black.  OK, paint it black. Fine.  Just do it.  Get off the couch.

Some hip-hop buddies from New York stopped by to give him design pointers.  They sat on the couch too. The tenant said to me, “People are going to come from LA and New York to shop at this store.”

He didn’t get off the couch. “My dad thinks you’re ripping us off,” he said.  “He’s an extremist.  But still, the basement is a wreck.”

I thought, “Spend some money.”  I said, “The basement is the least of your worries.  You don’t know what hit you.  Wait till you get the city’s code violations letter. Forget about the basement.  You’ll have bigger problems.”  For instance, he had no electrical service.  He had low rent and was supposed to do the “build out” — the electrical, the improvements.

I gave him one month’s free rent.  I couldn’t do more.  No, I gave him $2000 off on the new electric service panel.

Nothing much happened.  Finally I said, “I’ll give you all your money back plus $500 if you move out.”

He took that.

I rented to a tax-prep guy. He wears shorts, but not low-hanging.

—
Yiddishe Cup is in Parade The Circle, Wade Oval, Cleveland, noon June 14.

I audiotaped a family dinner in April 1973.  I told my dad I was doing “cinema verite.”  (Don’t knock it. Louis Armstrong did a lot of audiotaping.)

In 2010 I played the audiotape for my adult children. They thought I sounded like my then college-age son Jack.  My parents had asked me questions about my college roommates.

My mother said What’s So-and-So from your dorm doing?

Doing what?  I stonewalled my mom, like a good college kid.

My son Ted, listening to the tape in 2010, said, “You’re weird, recording everything.”

Weird?  No.  Wired?  Yes.  You can never have too much documentation. (“This is the age of investigation and every citizen must investigate” — Ed Sanders.) For instance, I wish my mother had saved my dad’s letters from Fort Benning, 1941.  My mother threw nearly everything out.  When she moved to assisted living, I cleaned out her apartment in about two hours.  Two hours, not days.

My audiotape is boring.  “I don’t want any dessert” — that kind of thing. I hope somebody throws it out.  Maybe I will.  For one thing, there’s a horrible sax solo after the dinner recording, and I sound like a jerk — on sax and at dinner:

Dad:  “What the hell you got it [tape recorder] on for?  There’s nothing going on.”

Mom: “He likes to do it.”

Bert:  “I don’t listen to them anyway, so what do I care.”

—-

I had an essay in Belt Magazine last week.  Belt is online dispatches from the Rust Belt.  “On Lee Road.”

A New York editor wrote, “You should write a book.  After reading your wonderful essay in the New York Times this morning, I’ve spent the last couple of hours reading everything you’ve written that I could find online. You root your essays in your personal experience, but they have a universal appeal.”

The editor concluded, “A humorous book about real estate would have tremendous commercial appeal.”

Yes!  But what if I worked a year on the book, got a paltry advance, and only four people read the book?  Besides, I’ve already published a book. I published a novel in the 1970s about sex and college.  It was small press (my press). I gave a copy to Allen Ginsberg. You can find it on Google.  A Cold Night in Ann Arbor.

I’m fried from writing books that go nowhere.  I wrote unpublished books before that New York editor was born.  I wrote Check My Balance (about my mental health and the family business), and Riding on Mayfield (about my youth) and Kicked in the Groin (about my hernia operation).  None of them got published, and I had great agents too.

One time — when  I was in Latin America — my dad acted as my literary secretary.  He wrote to my literary agent, “We’re very proud of Bert and are very pleased you are representing him.”

I’m glad my dad was “very proud” of me.  I still think about that.

But I’m done.  I just wrote the New York editor back: “I’m not going to write the real estate book.”  If anybody wants to read about real estate, they can always click here for 92 Klezmer Guy posts about real estate.
–

The above is Philip Roth–style fiction.  Yes, my dad was my “literary secretary,” and the bit about the unpublished novels is based on fact, but I never received any email from a New York editor.  If I had, I would have written back, “Yes, I’ll do it.  Can I pay you?”

File this under fake profiles.
—

SIDE B

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG

Every year I pause to thank the major commenters to this blog. I could do Klezmer Guy without comments, but it wouldn’t be as interesting.

In no particular order, thanks to kibitzers Marc, Ken G, Jessica Schreiber, Gerald Ross, Ted, Bill Jones, Mark Schilling, Ellen, Seth . . .

David Korn, Dave R, Irwin Weinberger, Alice, Don Friedman, Lea Grossman Hapner, Ari Davidow, Pierce G, Charlie B, Jeff Moss, Nancy Kane, Jack, Gerry Kanter, Michael Wex, Faruk Ahmed and Steven Greenman.

See your name here next year by writing in.

An extra gracias to
Ken G and Mark Schilling. They crank out comments in bulk — always insightful, inciting and/or stupid.

Lastly, thanks to bloggie illustrator Ralph Solonitz, the best and cleverest drawer around. Here’s an old post about Ralph and his motorcycle.

During the last days of the shah of Iran, I taught Iranian teenagers at a fly-by-night ESL school in Cleveland.

I punched a kid from Hamadan.  The school director called me into his office and said, “What’s with the discipline problem all of a sudden? These kids are under 18.  We’re liable.”

I apologized to the principal and promised I wouldn’t punch anybody . . . else that day.

Javad –- another Iranian — flicked a pen into the air during class and said, “Excuse me, is this toss?” I was in the middle of teaching the song “Tom Dooley.”

Solheil –- Iranian #3 — said:   “Dooley means dick in Farsi.”

I punched Soheil.

Javad interrupted, “Anus is asshole?”

I didn’t touch Javad.  I just punched Solheil!

The principal wasn’t happy with me.  My students were smaller than me, and the principal was very solicitous of them; he washed the kids’ clothes in Woolite and presented each new student with a can of Right Guard.  He also took the kids bowling, to the art museum, and threw parties. He took the boys to the dentist, the visa office, the optometrist, and the jeans store.

The principal was also the school owner, and he was burning out.  He said to me, “I don’t know what stinks more — an Iranian or nine cats. These sons of millionaires have two undershirts and two underpants, and I still don’t know color they are.”

The ESL school didn’t last.  I wonder where the principal is. [Google: Washington state.]  I bet the Iranians are in California.  I never see Iranians here. But if I ever do see an Iranian, I’ll punch him just for old time’s sake (assuming he is under 5-5 and 110 pounds.)

I-ran a school

—

I have an essay up at City Journal,  “Tales From Landlordia.”

I play house concerts; I perform in people’s living rooms and sleep in their bedrooms. I play guitar, sing and tell stories.  I’ve taught a class or two at old-timey music camps in West Virginia.

The house-concert scene is my Airbnb, except I get paid; I don’t pay.  And I usually sell a handful of CDs.

I wish the  house-concert scene was bigger.  Fifty people in a living room is my best draw.

I saw the movie Inside Llewyn Davis recently and thought to myself “that’s me!” except I’m happier than that guy.  Right now I’m doing a Bix Beiderbecke transcription in a bedroom in Columbus, Ohio, and enjoying myself.  I’ll  be in Pittsburgh tomorrow. I live cheaply and save money, so when I’m 65 — three years from now — I’ll stop this train and settle down.  I’m thinking about Austin.  I’m tired of sleeping in other people’s beds.

—
SIDE B

The  post above is a fake profile. This one is true.

I WAS A HERRING ADDICT

In my refrigerator, I had Golden Herring (Brampton, Ontario), Ma Cohen’s (Detroit) and Ducktrap River (Belfast, Maine). In wine sauce, not in cream sauce. Must say “tidbits.”

Ma Cohen’s was the best. It was lower in sodium and sugar than the others. They all had omega-3s.

I bought my Ma’s at Corky & Lenny’s, my Ducktrap at Whole Foods, and Golden at Heinen’s. For a while I thought “Golden” might be the owner’s name, like in Al Golden, my late uncle. I Googled the company; Golden is owned by Lorne Krongold of Brampton, Ontario.

I stopped by a Polish deli in Slavic Village, Cleveland. The place had a ton of herring, even matjes herring, which I had only seen previously at KlezKamp.

Here’s an interesting tidbit:  1) Herring was a major source of protein for impoverished Jews in Eastern Europe.  2) Don’t take herring to a hunger center.  They’ll refuse your donation.  They’ll say, “We can’t even give this stuff away.”

If you don’t get it — herring — you probably think this subject is idiotic. But listen,  you can acquire herring love. Start out on sardines and move up. A third way: anchovies.

My sister and I used to eat anchovies right from the can, straight. My sister isn’t that crazy about herring. I don’t get that.

I’m down to a jar of herring a month.  Something bad about salt, my doc says.
–
An earlier version of this post is a video.

I was a Jewish greaser in high school.  It was me, Neil Zuckerman and Tom Steiner — three Jewish greasers from a class of 650.  There were plenty greasers, just not many Jewish greasers.

Go Charles F. Brush Arcs!

During the winter we hung out at the pool hall.  In 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 run into many Jews.  Fine.

Those Jewish kids were rude.  I wanted to be Italian. I got my first kiss from a dago, Elaine Monachino, by the pavilion in the park.   I worked hard for that kiss.

I wasn’t invited to any bar mitzvahs, and  I didn’t go to any Jewish spin-the-bottle parties.  I didn’t even go to temple, because  my parents didn’t belong.  Maybe if they had, I’d be more Jewish.

My religion now is basically Swedish cars.  I like Saabs and Volvos.  My first car was a ’64 Saab 96.  I was no fool!  But in my neighborhood I got no brownie points for working on cars.  If you weren’t pre-med, you were nobody.

I wish my high school had a hall of fame for Jewish greasers. I think there’s one for the Jewish A-holes — the kids who teased me and became lawyers and doctors.

I started fires in high school.  That’s worthy of note, isn’t it? Wastebasket fires. Ron Levine — a major asshole — teased me because I wore off-brand penny loafers in eighth grade.  Not Pedwins.   So I switched to pointy black “rack” shoes — Regals –  and kicked Levine’s ass, or tried to.  I kicked his hand and fractured his wrist.

Ricky Miller — #2 major asshole — teased me for wearing white socks.  How was I to know white socks went out of fashion the night before?  I didn’t have a personal stylist!

I like it here in Mentor.  Shalom and out.

If I ever see another Jew . . . Wait, no hate.

I’m in the ex-Jewish column.  I’m comfortable here, next to Aleutian.

–

File under fake profiles.  Fortify yourself; I think May will be fake profiles month.

Some excellent free activities are sex, talking about the weather, and defecation.

A few more: dreaming, library books, jaywalking.

I sell toilets – not free.

You want a urinal?  What kind?  Stainless steel?

When I sleep, I see gold and brown dots, and movement.  It’s entertaining and free.  I have a friend who sees bright lights — red and black — when he falls asleep.  I don’t.

People say, “Hey, look out your window and get some sensory stimulus.”  That’s fine, but I prefer looking inside toilets.  The blank looks I get.

How about a 0.8 gpf for $150 total?  Would you buy one?  Niagara Stealth.  How about five Stealths at a discount?

I say, “I know you don’t want to talk about toilets, but think of the sudden shifts, the transitions, the swoosh.”

A good bowel movement is as good as sex; Harvey Pekar, the comic book writer, said that.  I sold 10 toilets to Stratton — this blog’s author — with that literary crap. The froth, the bubbles, the shine.

I still have an intensity, to this day, that goes back to age 21. Yes, my life is scarier now that I’m 35, but I’m not at “flush” yet.    I have a slick pack of possibilities, and I appreciate deep listening.

Gurgle.

Lavatory means sink to a plumber. Commode, yourself!  By the way, you look like an elongated toilet seat.

When a stranger takes off her pants and sits on one of my toilets, that’s a good feeling — a fragile catastrophe, a tinge of very heavy weight, a grand opening.

The key factors: the empathic rictus, the squeeze, the brilliant flash.

It’s all binary.  One and two.  Map it.

–

Fourteen percent of this post was stolen from the Poetry Project Newsletter.

The complete fake-profile collection is here.

The father of the bride wanted to meet me a week before the wedding, at the country club, to go over the plans.  I wasn’t driving 35 minutes one way to a country club I’d been to a million times! I said, “Come over to my house.”  My usual M.O.

I prevailed. The dad came over with his daughter and wife. The daughter asked if  Yiddishe Cup could play “B’shem Hashem” for the processional.

We didn’t know it.

The mom said, “You don’t know it?  Everybody knows it.”

Never heard of it!  [Neshoma Carlebach recorded the tune.]

At the wedding, the dad yelled at the event planner because the cocktail bar opened late, supposedly.  The wife came up to me five minutes before the band’s starting time and said play.  “Start the music!” as if we were late.

During the cocktail hour, the band took a short break.  The dad said, “Why aren’t you playing?”   Yes, sir, right away, sir!

The dad said nobody could hear us.   Maybe we should have been louder.  I like quiet music but most people don’t.  He said,  “It’s like you’re not even here.”  Our keyboard player fetched another speaker.

Gig over, at last. The dad said he’d mail the check.  This happens.

But I didn’t get the check; I got an email.  “I want to express my . . .”  joy?  No.  “Disappointment” about your break, your starting time, etc.

I called the dad for the money.

He said, “In my business I like to know when my customers are unhappy.  If they’re unhappy I give them a discount.  I want you to know I’m unhappy.  I’ll mail you the check.  It’s not about the money.”

It’s always about the money.

“Mazel tov on the wedding,” I said.

No check.

I sent a statement a month later.

No check.

I called his business.  His secretary paused about five seconds before she said, “He’s not in.”

I asked my son the lawyer to draft a document.  My son said it wasn’t worth suing the dad.  “OK, I’ll go small claims,” I said.  “I have his bank account number.  I’m ready.”

About a month later I got a check in the mail with a Post-it note: “Sorry this was so late.”

What?  I’m still wondering. If the dad wanted me to squirm for a couple months, he succeeded.

–

I had an op-ed in the New York Times on Sunday, 4/13/14.  “Jazz and Real Estate.”  

Benching the Sunday Times

Forget the New York Times.  You don’t need it.  SUBSCRIBE to this blog. You need a weekly fix of real estate-and-music news.  Enter your email in the column on the right, where it says SIGN UP HERE. You’ll get one email a week, every Wednesday morning.  Just one email a week.  And I won’t sell your email address to anybody.

I’ve had five op-eds in the Times lately.  (My previous op-eds can be found in the columm on the right, where it says ARTICLES.)

***

My dad, Toby Stratton (1917-1986), age 50:

***

My son Jack — the Los Angeles musician in the op-ed — was on All Things Considered and written up in Rolling Stone, The Atlantic and Le Monde.  All in the past three weeks.  He’s the leader of Vulfpeck, which has more than 4,000,000 streams on Spotify.  My favorite Vulfpeck tune is “Outro.”  Catch the sax solo at 0:47 . . . .

***

See you back here on Wednesdays, I hope.

P.S.  If you want to read 92 more stories about real estate, click CATEGORIES — Landlord Biz.   (Or if  you prefer to focus on music, or Cleveland, or my dad, go to the right-hand column and click the appropriate CATEGORIES link.)

My son Ted was interested in ice cream.  One summer he worked the night shift at Pierre’s, loading ice cream onto trucks.  One summer he worked at East Coast Custard on Mayfield Road, making shakes.

He owned a shake mixer and concocted date shakes at home, using date crystals from California.  He had a following (his mother).

After his junior year of high school, Ted and I drove through the Upper Midwest, hitting A&Ws and assorted other chazerai shops, while looking at colleges .  (He wound up at Brandeis. Oops.)

We rode the amphibious Ducks in The Dells, Wisconsin, and saw The House on the Rock, which Teddy described as an “affront to Frank Lloyd Wright.”  Ted was good with words, even back in high school.

We visited the mustard museum in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin.  Then we hit the A&W, where Ted asked for a “mama burger, papa burger and a rooty tooty.”  He knew that terminology from a junk-food guide.

That trip to the Upper Midwest was one of my favorites — l0oking for A&Ws and colleges with my son.

Root beer!  (I’m still good for a Diet Hank’s or Diet IBC at Tommy’s in Cleveland.)

—
“Root beer,” to rhyme with “put beer.”  That’s how we say it here.

Here are my greatest letters (my greatest hits) to tenants:

1. Dear Tenant, The building manager heard you yelling out your window, “I’m a porno star and a sex machine.” This isn’t the only time this has occurred.

2. Dear Tenant, You flicked 20-to-30 cigarette butts out your window.  Some of these butts landed on cars and left burn marks. This must stop!

3. Dear Tenant, You got in a fight with a female in your apartment and tore the door jamb off. Also, you have slipped unsolicited notes under the door of other tenants.  That can be construed as sexual harassment, depending on the content of the notes. You are a self-described drunk.  That, too, won’t do here — at least not outside your apartment.

4. Dear Tenant, There was very loud recorded music coming from your suite between 3-5 a.m.  That’s when people sleep. You aren’t living in a dormitory.

5. Dear Tenant, You were incessantly buzzing a neighbor’s entry buzzer, banging on a neighbor’s back door, and banging on your ceiling. You phoned me and said a neighbor’s cat was annoying you by running across your ceiling.  Tenants are allowed to have cats.  The tenants pay extra for cats.

6. Dear Tenant, The hallway smells outside your apartment. You need to clean up immediately. 

7. Dear Tenant, you and a female visitor were drunk and screaming in the parking lot.  She lay down on the ground.  She could have gotten killed.

8. Dear Tenant, You disturbed other tenants’ sleep at 3 a.m. by loud talking, running through the halls, and kicking on the locked door.  Three tenants complained.  Three!  That’s serious. Please understand, this building is not party central.

–

In case you missed Jack Stratton on NPR’s All Things Considered, click here.

I played tennis with a 70-something fatso with emphysema who smoked for 40 years.

I lost.  He used junk shots, spin and pace, and didn’t move.  He reminded me of all the old guys I had played when I was a kid — wily old guys I had lost to.  I had entered city tournaments, and old guys beat me with placement and finesse, while I, with too much youthful enthusiasm, walloped balls against the back fence.

At my match with the 70-something guy, he informed me he was going to die of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD).

“Well, at least you know what you’re going to die from,” I said.

“Or I might get hit by a bus,” he said.

He didn’t get hit by a bus.  He beat me.

I rescheduled after the match.  I told my wife, “I’m going to beat the fat guy.”   (I called him something worse than “fat guy.”)  My wife called me rude and said, “You don’t have to dehumanize your opponent.”

We played again and I won 6-3, 6-2.  It took me only 50 years to beat a wily old guy.  I had to become a wily old guy to beat a wily old guy.

Save the date: August 31, Cleveland.

We’re having a costume ball at The Challah Fame fundraiser.  We’ll have styling stations with plenty of gear in case you forget to dress right; we’ll have Greek fishermen’s caps, Tevye vests, Russian cavalry boots and wash-off Yiddish tattoos.

We’re blocking off three blocks on Euclid Avenue for bowling, pierogis, borscht, schnitzel, herring, slivovits and brewskis.  The theme is The Other, as in Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and Martians.  IDs not necessary.

Live music,  of course.  We’ve already booked Beyond the Pale and Sharon, Lois, and Bram.

We’ll march up Euclid Avenue to East 17th Street, where the Alpine Village used to be, and play Austrian oom-pah music. [Mickey Katz played at the Alpine during the war.  The club's owner, Herman Pirchner (an Austrian), wanted to show he wasn't pro-Nazi.]

Robert Gates, former secretary of defense, will lecture on “The Klezmer CDs We Found at Bin Laden’s Lair and What That Meant.”  Other lecturers are the usual suspects: Wex, Sokolow, Horowitz, Netsky.  Also, a Ladino lecture by Septimo Rodriguez:  “Soluciones para pequena empresas Ladinas.”

Finally, a motorcycle ride out to the Popcorn Shop in Chagrin Falls, led by Mayor Merle Gorden of Beachwood.  (We’ll have three-wheel motorcycles for rent.)

Save the date: August 31.

—

SIDE B

The post above is so stupid it deserves another . . .

BLOW HARD

I sometimes get a spiritual lift from playing clarinet. This might happen during a pop tune like “Hallelujah,” or an old Naftule Brandwein klez number, or even a scale. I never know.

Young musicians ask me, “I see you put a lot of heart into your music. Where’s that coming from? How do you do that?”

I have no answer. I say, “Blow hard. Don’t worry about it. Blow hard.”

Blowhard?