Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader, Bert Stratton, is Klezmer Guy.
 

He knows about the band biz and – check this out – the real estate biz, too.
 

You may not care about the real estate biz. Hey, you may not care about the band biz. (See you.)
 

This is a blog with a gamy twist. It features tenants with snakes and skunks, and musicians with smoked fish in their pockets.
 

Stratton has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.


 
 

THE MICKEY KATZ NON-MOVIE

Eric Krasner wanted to make a movie about Mickey Katz, the Cleveland-born klezmer clarinetist and comedian. Eric came to Cleveland from Atlanta to look around. He wanted to see where Mickey was born, and where Mickey’s wife grew up, and where Mickey’s father’s tailor shop had been. I said, “I’m not a filmmaker — and I don’t want to tell you what to do — but if you want another opinion, I don’t think you should show every place Mickey took a shit.”

1959 album

1959 album

Eric and I visited the Euclid Avenue Temple (now Liberty Hill Baptist Church), where Mickey was married in 1930. Eric filmed the men’s room and said, “This is where Mickey urinated after his wedding.” Eric asked me why Katz (1909-1985) wasn’t more acclaimed in Cleveland. For one thing, Mickey is not well-known here. He’s not Bob Feller or Superman, or Pekar.

Eric and I went to Glenville, an East Side neighborhood where Mickey spent his teenage years. We found the Glenville Hall of Fame but no Mickey plaque. At Katz’s birthplace, near East 51st and Woodland, Eric drew a sign, “Birthplace of Mickey Katz 1909,” and hung it on a fence and filmed the sign.

Eric announced on Facebook he is giving up on the Mickey Katz film. Mickey’s son Joel Grey has declined to participate in Eric’s film, and that’s a big neg. The movie is toyt.

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3 comments

1 Kenneth Goldberg { 07.17.19 at 10:57 am }

There’s always the tasteful video at the Maltz Museum they’ve shown since the museum opened.

2 Mark Davidson { 07.18.19 at 1:53 pm }

I was following his FB page for years and was so disappointed to see that he was cancelling the film. I wonder why Grey wouldn’t participate?

3 Walter Pachl { 08.15.19 at 7:24 am }

Sad news.
I still wonder where one could find Lyrics of Mickey’s yinglish songs.
Regards from Vienna, Austria
Walter

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