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.


 
 

CONTAGIOUS

by Bert Stratton

 
I’ve probably been to eviction court 100 times in Lakewood, Ohio. In the old days I actually stood in a real courtroom with a judge with a gavel. But nowadays I meet up in a conference room with a magistrate. The guy knows me. Believe me. We sometimes exchange pleasantries post-hearing. But not usually. The guy is in a hurry. The other day I faced off with a deadbeat tenant — nothing unusual here — except he announced to the magistrate and me, “I probably shouldn’t even be here. I have a contagious disease.”

That got our attention. He said he couldn’t go to work because of the disease. The magistrate shut him down and gave him the eviction notice — the red tag — right then.

The magistrate

Post-adjournment, the tenant explained he was “skin-to-skin contagious.” So you have to touch him to get what he had. That made us all feel better.

—
And please read my essay “Rolling the Dice” in the latest Forum magazine. Author Jim Sollisch says it’s one of my better outings.

1 comment

1 Ken Goldberg { 03.11.26 at 9:05 am }

That’s about as long as these should be, Sonny….
As to the court session, soon it will be nothing but an obnoxious form to fill out – detailed health information, etc. Actual people are a thing of the past….

Leave a Comment