Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Courtlin passed out in the apartment lobby, so a cop called me: “He [Courtlin] set up a picnic on your landing with some 24-ouncers,” the cop said.

“My custodian says he’s naked.”

“To his credit, Courtlin has his socks on,” the cop said.

A  tenant discovered Courtlin an hour earlier in the lobby. I told the tenant the trespasser was fairly harmless — no felony convictions, just criminal trespassing and disorderly conducts. She was OK with that; she didn’t say “I’m moving,” which would have been in line.

The cop said, “He goes to the well — apartment lobbies — for a while until he’s arrested, then he goes someplace else.”

The criminal hearing is in a couple weeks.

. . . Done. He got three days in jail. He’ll be back.
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Yiddishe Cup plays 7 p.m. tomorrow (Thurs., Aug. 4) on the lawn at John Carroll U., University Hts., Ohio. Free. Indoors if raining. Free ice cream, kids!

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I throw wiener roasts at my cottage on Lake Erie. I invite Catholics from Rocky River, Jews from Beachwood, and generics from all over the city. I wonder if my guests come for the lake or me? I hold raffles, we play cards. There’s booze and gambling.

Funny: in Cleveland very few people live close to Lake Erie, so the lake is a big deal. My house — in Cleveland Heights — is six miles from the lake.

Bill Wallace, an old friend from Washington D.C., is coming to town for the wiener roast. Yiddishe Cup will play klezmer music until 10 p.m., then we’ll go into “Wild Thing”-type music. Yiddishe Cup’s former drummer, Don Friedman, will sing “Mustang Sally.” Is that an attraction? Not likely. The lake is the attraction.

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fiction
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Yiddishe Cup plays 7 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 4, on the lawn at John Carroll U., University Hts., Ohio. Free. Indoors if raining.  Free ice cream, kids!

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The building manager called at 2:48 a.m. and said water was pouring from 202 into  102; the manager couldn’t get into 202 because our extra key was missing and the tenant wasn’t home. Take the door down?

The door came down at 5 a.m., right off the hinges.  Sludge was backing into 202 and 102 from 302.

At 11 a.m. a tenant’s ceiling fell in. I said, “We just spent $8,500 on a new roof for your part of the building. It better not be water coming in through the roof.  I bet it’s coming through the window well.” There were five inches of rain in the window well.

The above paragraphs describe two different incidents, in case you’re confused.

In the rental business, it’s always about water. One time I had a water line burst on the fourth floor and leak through four floors of the building.

Water goes wherever it wants. It’s not carpet.

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Steve, the building manager said, “I got a call last night at 3:51 a.m.  I was thinking it’s a tenant with a ceiling that fell on his head, but no, the guy wanted to rent an apartment. Man, did I light him up. That fool — 3:51 a.m!”

“Was he drunk?” I said.

“No, he wasn’t drunk! He said he had a dilemma. He said,  ‘I’m in a dilemma.’  I said, ‘You think so?  You also think this is standard business hours, too, or are you trying to get a jump on the market, you idiot!’”

Next subject: “Hey, did Billy give you the rent?” I said.

“Yes, I got the rent from your pal Billy,” Steve said.  “Billy?  That’s his legal name. What kind of person names his kid Billy.” Billy had flicked cigarette butts out his window onto parked cars below. One night he and his buddies flicked 30 butts. I wrote Billy a letter to straighten up and he did. Don’t knock Billy.

“That guy — calling at 3:51 am,” Steve said.  “No, I don’t think so!  Are there any boundaries to human stupidity?”

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“Billy” is a pseudonym.

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I wrote this piece, “How Much Money Can I Make Off Trump’s Convention?”, for  yesterday’s New York Times online.

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I’m a musician-landlord from Cleveland — a curiosity to New York Times editors, no doubt.

I post a new story here every Wednesday.

The Times didn’t activate the “comments” button on my Republican National Convention essay. If you want to comment on the piece, you can fire away here.

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My husband is a studio photographer and makes zero money. Even worse: I just lost my job as a teacher. My husband hides in his darkroom. He should donate his darkroom to the Smithsonian and get a real job. We’ve been married 19 years ago and 16 years of those years have been a huge mistake. He shops on the Internet all day for metrosexual bullshit like cameras, clothes and wine. I’m screwed. What should I do?

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fiction

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I’ve been to Dean Supply, Webb Supply, Hough Supply and Woodhill Supply. The countermen usually sit beneath Rigid Tool calendars.

On my last trip to Woodhill Supply, I asked for 50 water-saving Niagara showerheads.  Niagaras look like fat bullet microphones, so most tenants don’t realize they’re water-savers, and that’s a good thing. If the tenants knew the showerheads were water-savers, they would don’t rip them out and put in water-gushers. Woodhill also sells wrenches, cutters and snakes.

But Woodhill only had 37 Niagaras. I was going from 2.5 GPM to 1.75 GPM. I  did the same thing  20 years ago, but back then water-saving showerheads were super thin and cheesy-looking, so tenants ripped them out.  (I pay for the water.)

I will return to Woodhill when my back order comes in. MacArthur said that.

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A musician broke a vase at a wedding. He walked right into the vase before the ceremony, before anybody arrived. Many vases lined the wedding aisle. The musician said to the florist, “I’ll pay,” and the florist went to her warehouse and got another vase.

Two days later, the florist called me and asked for $50. She said, “Your musician didn’t pay.”

I gave the florist the musician’s number and said, “I think the host — the bride’s family — should pay for it. That was one fancy wedding.”

“Really, who do you want to pay for it?” she said. “He walked into it. There were 300 people at that wedding and he was the one who walked into a vase. It’s $50 — my cost.”

The musician called me: “I said I’d pay for it, but what do you think I should do?”

“You said you’d pay for it, so I guess you should pay for it. Or better yet, call the mom of the bride. She loved us. She’ll probably pay.”

The next day I  checked in with the musician. “Did you call the mom?”

“No.”

She would have paid!

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What was the worst Yiddishe Cup concert ever? Hard to say. There have been so many.  (Joke.) What about when we showed up on stage and a PTA-type meeting was on stage too?  The school principal, via the custodian, said no way were we getting on stage for our concert.  The custodian said, “The PhDs and MBAs think they know so much.”

We went on 20 minutes late.

We’re never late. It wasn’t our fault.

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I had a story, “Believeland in Cleveland,” in the New York Times online about the Cavaliers winning the NBA championship.

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1. SO FILTHY​

I have this band, Vulfpeck, which is so filthy. My lead singer is the shit — a Lebanese kid from Detroit who sings some Yiddish. And my drummer grew up next door to Aretha in Bloomfield Hills. He’s the shit plus one. My bass player has a following in Norway.

We’re on fire. We play at temples and Jewish arts festivals throughout the country, but we aren’t locked into the J bag. We’re in discussion with a major label, but I’m skeptical. The label says we’re “too Jewish.” We’re not too Jewish. We’re too filthy!

2. ​MUSIC DREAMS​

I hear animal voices, particularly cats and fleas. Significant to my music?  Yes. ​A coffee table book, Hope You Like My Music!​,​ has more than 100 photos of professional musicians. Some tied up, some with instruments in odd places. I’m in a bathtub with clarinet reeds, like Moses.

3. OUR ESTHETIC​

I admire musicians who, when you first hear their recordings, you know exactly who is playing. Like you say, “Hey, that’s Arnie!” because you hear the snorting hogs in the background, which is always Arnie’s thing.

Vulfpeck’s latest tune is “Gas.” It stresses colors and dynamics. One guy belches whole notes. Doesn’t feel forced either.
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fiction

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A.J. Jacobs read an encyclopedia for a year and wrote about it. Lee Kravitz apologized to his old enemies for a year and wrote about it. Another writer lived off dumpster food for a year. Ben Ryder Howe bought a Korean deli, ran it for two years, and wrote about it. (That was good: My Korean Deli.) I buy buildings, own them for decades, and write about that. That’s less contrived than the other guys, I think.

When a tenant with Alzheimer’s forgets to pay her rent, I put her checkbook right in front of her, and she writes. Then she moves out, because I can’t be her full-time nurse.

A tenant uses too many fresheners in the washing machine and clogs it up. Drama? Not quite. This paragraph doesn’t make the cut.

Philip Roth was jealous Primo Levi had a profession — chemist — to write about. It’s hard writing about nothing. I did that when I was young and failed.

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I did a background-talking gig. I read blog posts at a real estate convention while guests ate salads and drank, and ignored me. I should have played music. I said to the crowd, “Hi, I’m going to tell you how to manage real estate.”  The crowd listened for about five seconds, but nobody wanted to hear narrative comedy (a la David Sedaris) during cocktails. Also, I wasn’t properly introduced. I had to blurt out over the clanging of silverware, “Hi, everybody!”

That was my one-and-only background-talking gig. I have, however, done a lot of background-music gigs.

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My essay “My Son the Sort-of Rock Star” was in the Washington Post, online, on Monday.

Which one is the sort-of rock star? (2011 pic)

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During the Torah processional at synagogue, Cohen said to me, “That zipper on your shirt makes a nice tie. Metallic!”  He shook his head. Cohen — a snappy dresser — wears a Brooks Brother suit, legit tie and vest. At home, Cohen collects clothes catalogs, like his men’s overcoat catalog from pre-World War II. Cohen once tried to sell me a bomber jacket. I said no. I can’t stand old Jews in bomber jackets.

He eventually sold the bomber jacket on eBay. “Same price you would have paid, Bert.”

“But you paid shipping.”

“No, that was an extra $12.50 to the buyer.”

Cohen kept looking at my zipper. I said, “I spray it with WD-40 to keep it shiny.” It had no name, not even YKK.

I just want to be comfortable at shul. I usually walk to shul — a major hike. I’m not trying to make a countercultural statement. The zipper shirt is the least of it. The rabbi often wears tennis shoes (for health reasons, I’m told). I’m not a complete shlub.

Cohen is a pseudonym

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Nancy Hoffman changed her middle name from Arlene to “3.” Nancy runs the Umbrella Cover Museum in Peaks Island, Maine, and does “eccentric artistry” (to quote her website). Nancy also plays accordion in the Casco Bay Tummlers klezmer band and is a friend of Avner the Eccentric.

I was at Nancy’s book-signing in Cleveland for Uncovered and Exposed: A Guide to the World’s Only Umbrella Cover Museum. Nancy kept a ledger of her book sales. That didn’t seem eccentric.

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Yiddishe Cup plays for the community-wide Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel Independence Day) celebration tomorrow evening (Thurs., May 12) at Landerhaven, Cleveland.  Free.

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I don’t purposely visit graves of famous people, but I do bump into those graves on occasion. Harvey Pekar is buried next to Eliot Ness at Lake View Cemetery. I happened to be at the cemetery and asked about Harvey’s grave. A docent said look in section 7, lot 9-0, but there was nothing there, just a stick. This was a few years ago. Now there’s a tombstone.

At John D. Rockefeller’s grave, there was a quarter on the base of the monument. A tour guide said visitors sometimes put money on John D’s grave. The money is in repayment for the dimes Rockefeller gave out to kids, the guide said.

I saw a tombstone with a Jewish star at Lake View. I think I could go long and deep at Lake View, or I could go next door to Mayfield Cemetery, which is Jewish, but for that I’d have to rejoin Temple-Tifereth Israel for the cemetery plot. Or I could use my cousin’s unused plot out at Hillcrest Cemetery, where my parents are buried. Also, I could go to Park Synagogue’s cemetery, but my wife prefers Lake View. So I’ll probably go there.

My main beef with Lake View is they don’t allow bikes. Cars are OK, but if a biker goes through Lake View, the management has a conniption. The cemetery has steep hills and the management is afraid of bike-car collisions.

Let me think about Lake View. Give me some time.

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Irwin Weinberger and I sometimes drive home together from gigs. We’ve been doing this for so many years I know everything about him. He collected stamps. That came up on trip #401.

We talked stamps for an hour, coming back from Akron. Slightly boring? No, very boring. I had some first-day covers and canceled stamps my dad got from work. The stamps were in manila envelopes marked “For Ted.” (My dad was Ted, not Toby, at work.) My father worked for a key-manufacturing company.

Mr. Polatsek, an old guy in my neighborhood, gave me stamps. The first stamp was Wisconsin Worker’s Compensation  (1961). He visited the local elementary school and passed out stamps to all the kids. He once took me to a stamp show at the Manger Hotel. It was old guys and me. I ran into Mr. Polatsek again years later — when he was actually old — and asked him about his collection. He said it had been stolen. He said,  “Now I only collect pictures of my grandchildren.”

In college, I got stamps in the mail, forwarded by my mother. I told her to stop sending the stuff: W.C. Handy (1968), Leif Erikson (1968). It was embarrassing for a quasi-hippie to get stamps from his mom in the mail.

Irwin, I’ll look at your stamps when I get really, really old. Meanwhile, readers can read about Irwin’s stamp collection at his new blog.

Irwin

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Footnote . . . From one of my plate-block books: “We have heard from collectors who reside in the tropics, where provision of stamp gum is almost impossible, that they have had very good results by dusting a little corn starch or unscented talcum powder (free from oils and perfumes ) on the gummed side of their stamps. We do not recommend this procedure, but pass it on to collectors for this own experimentation, should they reside in unusually humid communities.”

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Yiddishe Cup plays a concert in Metro Detroit, at Cong. Beth Shalom, Oak Park, Mich., 4 p.m. Sun. (April 17). $10. More info here. Motown and matzo.

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Arvids Jansons. I got a desk from him when he moved out.

Argero Vassileros. Her nickname was Argie.

Michael Bielemuk, the professor. He had many floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

Maria Trifiletti. She stole light bulbs from the halls, so we glued the bulbs into the sockets.

Saram Carmichael, a transvestite who solicited customers from her second-floor window. The johns waited at the bus stop.

Stan Hershfield, one of the few Jews on the West Side. He was raised in an orphanage and loved the word bupkes (beans).  “Stratton, I have bupkes so don’t hondle me about the rent.” (Hondle means haggle.) When Hershfield painted the wood floor in his kitchen, he said, “Only the best, Stratton, Benjamin Moore!”

Malfalda Bedrossian. She was never late with her rent.

Chris Andrews slept in a coffin. (He had a regular name.)

Merjeme Haxhiraj, an Albanian who talked me down every year $10/month on her rent.

John “Chip” Stephens, a Chet Baker-like figure in looks, music and name. He played jazz piano and landed a tenure-track job at a university in Missouri.

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This post originally appeared in slightly different form on 9/30/09.

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Klezmer clarinetist Giora Feidman plays well and is a master of special effects. However, “L’Academie Klezmér” shuns him. Feidman’s nickname is Mr. Chalk-Chalk. (In Yiddish that’s Tshok-Tshok.) This onomatopoetic expression refers to Feidman’s guttural-sounding notes. Members of L’Academie (like some teachers at KlezKanada and the late KlezKamp) decry Feidman’s frequent clarinet hiccupping, yelping, slurping and grepsing.

Feidman helped start the klezmer revival. He played Carnegie Hall in 1981. I interviewed Feidman in the early 1990s for the Cleveland Jewish News and asked him to take potshots at other klezmer musicians, some of whom were bad-rapping him. Feidman declined. Feidman said klezmer music is “not a particular kind of music. It is a language of the inner soul — a truly universal means of communication.” I tried to get him beyond that feel-good stuff, to trash-talk, but no dice.

Feidman often plays with a string-bass player and an acoustic guitarist. He plays West Side Story tunes, American swing, Meron nigunim and klezmer. Not many clarinets are that versatile. He does 90-minute shows, playing lead the whole time.

Feidman turns 80 on Saturday. He will get into L’Academie Klezmér posthumously.

Giora Feidman, circa 2015. (Photo by Felix Broede)

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At his 90th birthday party, Mort Gross talked about real estate. (Yiddishe Cup played Mort’s party.) Mort sounded like my dad, except Mort was a lot richer, lived a lot longer than my dad, and was more outgoing and more philanthropic than my dad. Mort developed properties; my dad never did that. Mort had a yacht in Florida and a Rolls Royce. My dad never got beyond Buick.

Mort had three favorite expressions: 1) A deal is a deal  2) Wait a minute [to kill a deal], and  3) Don’t do paperwork twice.  I learned this at the party.

I didn’t understand item #3, and I forgot to ask the person who did the roast for an explanation of item #3 — “Don’t do paperwork twice.”  I said to  one of Mort’s son, “Those were very good toasts, and I’ve heard hundreds.”

Maybe the toasts were sappy, and I was just thinking about my dad a lot. A second son toasted, “Our parents instilled in all of us a love of Judaism, and we all married Jewish girls. In fact I did it twice.”

I’m telling you, they were good toasts.

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I had a piece in the New York Times 3/12/16. “I’m not Evil.  I’m a Landlord.”  Check out the comments in the post below, “For NYT Readers.”  The comments are good!

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I’m a musician-landlord from Cleveland — a curiosity to New York Times editors, no doubt. Definitely not a Harvard professor. You want more real estate stories? Here’s one.  Heads-up: it’s long, but it’s my best and is the basis for my Dear Landlord memoir.

I post a new story to this blog every Wednesday.

The Times didn’t activate the “comments” button on “I’m Not Evil. I’m a Landlord.” If you want to comment on the piece, you can fire away here.

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