![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/bar-montes-bar.jpg\" "\\"bar")
<\/a><\/p>\nAt Monte’s bar<\/strong><\/span> in South Euclid, there was a lot of talk about blacks, but no blacks.<\/p>\n For instance, a Harley Electra Glide was a \u201cnigger-lighted\u201d Harley.\u00a0 The Harley Electra Glide was the black man\u2019s bike because it had after-market trim lights.\u00a0 The white man\u2019s bike was the Harley Sportster, the chopper.<\/p>\n \u201cNigger fishing\u201d meant casting from the power-plant pier instead of from a boat.\u00a0 Sheepshead was a \u201cnigger fish,\u201d usually caught from the pier.\u00a0 Lake Erie perch was a high-end fish, often requiring a boat to catch.<\/p>\n Monte\u2019s bar also<\/strong> featured<\/span><\/span> Italian specials like tizzone<\/em> (\u201ccoal\u201d) and mulunyan<\/em> (\u201ceggplant\u201d).<\/p>\n I went to Monte\u2019s to see my neighborhood friend Frank, a mutuel clerk at the racetrack.\u00a0 He wore a snub-nosed .38 in a shoulder harness and always had a wad of cash.\u00a0 Frankie didn\u2019t like dirty money.\u00a0 \u201cI can\u2019t stand it when people give me dirty bills,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Frank\u2019s mother had played banjo in an all-women\u2019s band, and his father had idolized trumpeter Harry James.<\/p>\n Frank played<\/strong><\/span> trumpet in a white soul band. \u00a0He kidded me because I dabbled in a \u201cnigger band\u201d — a band with blacks.<\/p>\n A bad-ass mo'fo, 1969, Michigan dorm<\/p><\/div>\n I was interested in soul jazz (Hank Crawford, Wes Montgomery), which I had\u00a0\u00a0 heard at my college dorm.\u00a0 I had lived across the hall from three Detroit black kids who were from inside 8 Mile — way inside.\u00a0 Two were\u00a0 dopers into scag (heroin), grass and cocaine.\u00a0 They railed at me for being so straight and suburban.\u00a0 I bothered them.\u00a0 They would say: “Bert, you be a trippin’ motherfucker . . . You\u2019re a bitch with your shit . . . That motherfucker be trippin\u2019 . . . ”<\/p>\n They kidded<\/strong><\/span> me because they loved me\u00a0 . . . “Stop playing that country shit!”\u00a0 (I played blues harmonica along to Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry tapes.)<\/p>\n When money was low, the dopers would go to the parking garage across from the dorm and sniff gas from cars for a high.\u00a0 That was called \u201chitting the tank.\u201d<\/p>\n The third black kid was a non-doper.\u00a0 He was middle-class,\u00a0 an “elite.”\u00a0 He moved to another floor and became a doctor.<\/p>\n At Monte’s bar, <\/strong><\/span>patrons liked the idea<\/em> of blacks and black slang.\u00a0\u00a0 I was the maven on the subject.\u00a0 Frankie suggested I go to the ghetto and talk shit.<\/p>\n Great idea.\u00a0 I went to Hough and walked past an angry black man (not too hard to find in the early 1970s) and said, \u201cWhat\u2019s happnin\u2019, man?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNothin\u2019 to it,\u201d the man said, not breaking stride.<\/p>\n I <\/em>was<\/strong><\/span> hip.\u00a0 He was hip.<\/p>\n I stayed hip for\u00a0 another two years, until I took an ulpan<\/em> (Hebrew course) at Case Western Reserve Hillel.<\/p>\n —-<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\u201cMonte\u2019s bar\u201d is a made-up name.\u00a0 “Frank” is also a pseudonym.<\/small>
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\nMore on Frankie at today’s CoolCleveland.com.\u00a0 See “Mom’s Dating Service.”<\/a><\/span>
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\nWorld-class shofar playing from Cleveland . . .<\/span>
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