{"id":1794,"date":"2010-08-11T07:55:21","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T11:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=1794"},"modified":"2012-03-26T16:53:39","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T20:53:39","slug":"man-and-superman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/11\/man-and-superman\/","title":{"rendered":"MAN AND SUPERMAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Harvey Pekar<\/strong><\/span> (urn) Benefit, a hipster with shoulder-length dreadlocks said, “I wrote a book about my sex life.\u00a0 Three-hundred forty pages.”<\/p>\n

I asked, “You going to do another one?”<\/p>\n

“No, I don’t think people are that interested.”<\/p>\n

The Pekar benefit had characters, especially hippie dinosaur characters, myself included.\u00a0 (Another species of dinosaurs — old ethnics — gathered three blocks down at the Slovenian Workmen’s Home to hear Bobby Kravos’ polka band.)\u00a0 The Pekar benefit was at the Beachland Ballroom, formerly the Croatian Liberty Home, Collinwood.<\/p>\n

Ex-Cleveland Heights Mayor<\/strong><\/span> Alan “Popo” Rapoport, age 61 — and 23 years out of politics — was back on the scene.\u00a0 He danced a hora to Yiddishe Cup.\u00a0 He was running for the new county council seat.<\/p>\n

After the benefit, my wife, Alice, and I ate with Popo at a nearby cafe.\u00a0 He said he was in Collinwood, in part, to put up campaign yard signs at street intersections.\u00a0 He did the sign installations around midnight so he wouldn’t get a ticket for littering.<\/p>\n

I asked Popo what he had been up to for the past two decades.<\/p>\n

“Real estate law and probate,” he said. “Sometimes called graves and ground.”<\/p>\n

Alice said, “You should<\/strong><\/span> write a blog, ‘Graves and Ground.'”<\/p>\n

Popo said the Harvey Pekar toxicology report could take six weeks or so to come back from the coroner’s office.<\/p>\n

At the Beachland Ballroom bar earlier, Harvey’s wife, Joyce Brabner, had told me, “Harvey had worse [prostate] cancer than I let on.”<\/p>\n

When I offered Joyce my condolences, she said, “Some people get that confused and say ‘congratulations.'”<\/p>\n

“That too,” I said.<\/p>\n

I wanted to ask:<\/strong><\/span> “How can you suddenly croak of cancer in your sleep?”\u00a0\u00a0 (Harvey had died quickly at home in his bedroom.) \u00a0Instead I said, “Is there some Latin word for how he died?”<\/p>\n

Joyce said no. Then she left the bar area. She knew many people in the Beachland, including a free-lance photographer on assignment from the New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em> had run an article “The Upbeat Final Days and Busy Future of Harvey Pekar” several weeks\u00a0 earlier.\u00a0 In the piece, a Cleveland illustrator had said Harvey was chipper the day before he died.\u00a0\u00a0 Joyce wanted her side of the story out.\u00a0 Harvey, upbeat?\u00a0 Not likely.<\/p>\n

Would The Times<\/em> actually run three stories on Pekar?\u00a0 (1.) Half-page obit.\u00a0 Done.\u00a0 (2.) Chipper Harvey story. Done.\u00a0 And now Joyce’s take?\u00a0 Joyce was the PR wizard.\u00a0 Could happen.<\/p>\n

The angle: How could Pekar not have enough money to bury himself?\u00a0 The cheapest guy who ever lived! \u00a0He lectured for decent fees; had a piece — albeit small — of a Hollywood movie; and collected Social Security and government pensions.<\/p>\n

Joyce said the gobierno<\/em><\/strong><\/span> had cut off Harvey’s checks, pending determination of the cause of death. \u00a0Harvey died at 70 and left no will.<\/p>\n

Seventy is the new 60 for dying. Seventy is a raw deal.\u00a0 You’re supposed to reach 80 now, al minimo<\/em>.\u00a0 My dad died at 69 in 1986; very few people back then considered that unusual.<\/p>\n

Eighty-plus or bust.\u00a0 Alfred Lerner, the former billionaire chairman of MBNA and owner of the Cleveland Browns, died at 68 of brain cancer a few years ago.\u00a0 That was news on two fronts:\u00a0 (1.) The man died so young.\u00a0 (2.) The man’s mega-money couldn’t get him another decade.<\/p>\n

The Beachland Ballroom owner talked about erecting a statue of Harvey at Lake View Cemetery.<\/p>\n

Joyce said, “This town <\/strong><\/span>can’t raise enough money for a statue of Superman, let alone one for Harvey.”<\/p>\n

Paging Harvey Pekar.\u00a0 Your burial urn tsuris<\/em> cries out for a new episode of American Splendor. <\/em><\/p>\n

—-
\nFootnotes:<\/p>\n

1. There was talk of putting up a Superman statue in Glenville, the Cleveland neighborhood where two high school boys created Superman<\/em> in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

2. The sentence “Your burial urn tsuris <\/em>cries out for a new
\nepisode . . .” is stolen, in large part, from writer\/critic Mark Schilling.
\n—-<\/span>
\n2 of 2 posts for 8\/11\/10<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Harvey Pekar (urn) Benefit, a hipster with shoulder-length dreadlocks said, “I wrote a book about my sex life.\u00a0 Three-hundred forty pages.” I asked, “You going to do another one?” “No, I don’t think people are that interested.” The Pekar benefit had characters, especially hippie dinosaur characters, myself included.\u00a0 (Another species of dinosaurs — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pekar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794","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=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1810,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions\/1810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}