![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/cousin-grows-in-brooklyn.jpg\" "\\"cousin")
<\/a>The place:<\/strong><\/span> Brooklyn<\/p>\nThe venue: the Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
The show: Jay-Z on the mic.<\/p>\n
The kingpin: Cousin Brucie Ratner, owner of the Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
Brucie isn\u2019t<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 my cousin, and I don’t know Jay-Z’s music.\u00a0 But I felt part of the Barclays Center’s grand opening.\u00a0 I walked around the outside of the arena.<\/p>\n Furthermore, I occasionally play gigs for the Ratner family in Cleveland. The Ratner patriarch — Albert — likes \u201cOyfn Pripetchik\u201d (At the Hearth).\u00a0 Albert doesn\u2019t even have to ask.<\/p>\n Bruce Ratner told the New York Times<\/em> he used to be embarrassed he was a developer. He was an anti\u2013war protestor back in the day, he told the Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n Brucie is<\/strong><\/span> me x 1 billion dollars.<\/p>\n I was at a wedding in Brooklyn.\u00a0 Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s sister was there.\u00a0 I sat across from Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s marketing agent. (Jay-Z is married to Beyonc\u00e9.)<\/p>\n The music at the wedding was arena quality. A gospel singer from the Blind Boys of Alabama sang the ceremony. A doo-wop group did the cocktail hour.\u00a0 An eight-piece New Orleans brass band walked\u00a0 into the wedding through an industrial garage door and wailed for hours.<\/p>\n Where was<\/strong><\/span> I — other than two miles from Jay-Z?\u00a0 I was in a former brass foundry, close to a toxic site, the Gowanus Canal.<\/p>\n I saw guys in Brooklyn Nets T-shirts.<\/p>\n My band, Yiddishe Cup, once played the Brooklyn Center for the Performing the Arts in Flatbush.\u00a0 Not too cool, apparently.\u00a0 (My band or Flatbush?)<\/p>\n I think<\/strong><\/span> the wedding venue was in Red Hook, a section of Brooklyn.\u00a0 Not sure.\u00a0 Maybe Carroll Gardens (another Brooklyn neighborhood).\u00a0 I like to know where I am.<\/p>\n Boys, hit ’em with \u201cOyfn Prip.\u201d\u00a0 Cousin Brucie might drop by.\u00a0 Just like back home.\u00a0 (There is a Brooklyn, Ohio.) \u00a0 Jay-Z in the house?\u00a0\u00a0 Strike up “Money, Cash, Hoes.”<\/p>\n — TOO SMOOTH<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/p>\n I sat<\/strong><\/span> on a bench at Horseshoe Lake and read the Cleveland Jewish News<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 I felt like Isaac Bashevis Singer with the Yiddish Forverts<\/em>.\u00a0 (Typical Singer opening: “While I was sitting on a park bench I noticed that my left shoelace was untied.”)<\/p>\n I had a letter to the editor in the CJN<\/em> and wanted to make sure the paper got it right.<\/p>\n The park bench at Horseshoe Lake had a plaque: \u201cIn loving memory of Arthur Lipton. He played at Carnegie Hall.\u201d My question: Did Arthur Lipton get paid, or was he in a youth orchestra? Did they — the orchestra — rent Carnegie Hall?<\/p>\n The CJN<\/em><\/strong><\/span> got my letter right.<\/p>\n The “wombs and tomb” section of the CJN<\/em> is the crux of the paper: the births, bar mitzvahs, weddings and deaths. Deaths are always a good read. Who owned what business. Who fought in Japan. In the weddings, there is usually a U. of Michigan grad. Does every Jewish family in Cleveland have a Michigan connection? I skip the bar mitzvah and birth announcements; I\u2019m too old for those, or not old enough.<\/p>\n On returning from the park, I saw a dog crapping on my front lawn. I paused at a distance, to see if the owner would clean up. She did.<\/p>\n Great day.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Snack time: I opened a new jar of peanut butter.<\/p>\n It was creamy! I bought creamy by mistake!<\/p>\n Heinen\u2019s should be more distinctive with its labels:<\/p>\n My (future) park-bench epitaph: \u201cAlbert Stratton preferred crunchy peanut butter.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The place: Brooklyn The venue: the Barclays Center. The show: Jay-Z on the mic. The kingpin: Cousin Brucie Ratner, owner of the Barclays Center. Brucie isn\u2019t\u00a0 my cousin, and I don’t know Jay-Z’s music.\u00a0 But I felt part of the Barclays Center’s grand opening.\u00a0 I walked around the outside of the arena. Furthermore, I occasionally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","category-on-the-road"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12423"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12647,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12423\/revisions\/12647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSIDE B<\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n