Shouse phoned me, suggesting Yiddishe Cup pony up for the Workmen\u2019s Circle annual banquet. Yiddishe Cup would be the honoree. He said, \u201cStratton, you know how these things work.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t know how these things worked.\u00a0Not in 1994. I thought Yiddishe Cup would be honored because we were good. Sort of an arts prize.<\/p>\n
Two Yiddishe Cup musicians told me they couldn\u2019t afford the price of the dinner, let alone bring friends. Crazier still, Shouse said, \u201cBuy a table.\u201d I corralled three people, including my wife, into coming.<\/strong> I didn\u2019t want to hock <\/em>friends for a chicken dinner at a cheesy Alpha Drive party center.\u00a0Also, my friends wouldn\u2019t want to listen to speeches about Workmen\u2019s Circle, an organization most of my friends had never heard of.<\/p>\n Shouse phoned<\/strong><\/span> Yiddishe Cup\u2019s singer and said: \u201cStratton gave $55. Greenman gave $25. How about you, and who are you bringing?\u201d The singer was speechless.<\/p>\n One Yiddishe Cup musician didn\u2019t even show up for the tribute.<\/p>\n Another Yiddishe Cup musician replayed a phone message from Shouse: \u201cThis dinner is in your fucking honor! You\u2019re sophisticated. You know the rules.\u00a0Do your part!\u201d<\/p>\n Shouse raised a lot of money for the arts.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Ben Shouse (Photo by Herb Ascherman) [Shouse died in 2003.]<\/p><\/div>—<\/p>\n FREE CONCERT THIS SUNDAY. 23500 Laureldale Road, Shaker Heights, Ohio. Near Laurel School.<\/span><\/p>\n Bring a lawn chair or blanket. Bring dinner. Plop yourself and your possessions on the grassy median strip on Laureldale Road.<\/span><\/p>\n The band will play a mix of klezmer and soul music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ben Shouse was a volunteer fundraiser for the Workmen\u2019s Circle. He had a booming voice and a shock of gray hair like H.L. Mencken, and he wore suits like Mencken, and he smoked a cigar like Mencken.\u00a0Politically speaking, Shouse was un-Menckenable.\u00a0He was a retired labor union boss and an autodidact (he liked words like inculcate), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cleveland-full","category-klezmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740","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=28740"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28963,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740\/revisions\/28963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ben](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/shouse-by-herv-ascherman.jpg\")
\nFunk A Deli, a k a Yiddishe Cup, is playing on a front lawn near you this Sunday (June 13, 5-7 pm.). <\/span><\/p>\n