<\/p>\n
The thing I do with my hands \u2014<\/strong><\/span> no joke \u2014 is play the clarinet.\u00a0 I have the same clarinet I had when I was 13.\u00a0 Selmer Signet X.\u00a0 I like pushing the keys and hearing the pads snap shut on the black wood.\u00a0 My clarinet is pretty indestructible.\u00a0 I once heard an expert say clarinets “get blown out” after a couple years.\u00a0 Not mine.\u00a0 It works fine.<\/p>\n Landlord and<\/em> musician . . . I’m a hyphenated guy. \u00a0Depends what kind of cocktail party I’m at, whether I say “landlord” or “musician” first.<\/p>\n I don’t try to hide the landlord part.\u00a0 I should!\u00a0 Everybody hates landlords.\u00a0 Nobody paid rent as a child, so people think they should live free as adults too.\u00a0 The walls, heat and water \u2014 that should be free, like the wind, rain and baby food.<\/p>\n I used to feel guilty about <\/strong><\/span>charging rent.\u00a0 I hadn’t really done anything to deserve the rent, other than to maintain a building \u2014a building which I hadn’t even built. Now I’m middle-aged, and, hey, I feel fine collecting rent. \u00a0Somebody has to keep these old buildings from falling down.<\/p>\n Landlord-musician.\u00a0 I know one more in Cleveland.\u00a0 He’s a self-described “dago.” \u00a0Tough guy. \u00a0Wears a toupee, plays accordion and trumpet, and tells dirty jokes.\u00a0 He’s got a strip center on the West Side.<\/p>\n Strip center<\/em> \u2014 weird term.\u00a0 Short for shopping strip center.<\/p>\n I don’t have any strip centers<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 I have about 25 storefronts: Main Street-style.\u00a0 The stores are on street level, with apartments above.\u00a0 Like Disneyland’s Main Street.\u00a0 But with mice.\u00a0 Not Mickey.<\/p>\n There’s no money in the arts: I’ve rented to art galleries.\u00a0 They all go under.\u00a0 Things that don’t go under: bars, beauty parlors, tanning salons and flower shops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The thing I do with my hands \u2014 no joke \u2014 is play the clarinet.\u00a0 I have the same clarinet I had when I was 13.\u00a0 Selmer Signet X.\u00a0 I like pushing the keys and hearing the pads snap shut on the black wood.\u00a0 My clarinet is pretty indestructible.\u00a0 I once heard an expert say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klezmer","category-landlord-biz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","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=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11709,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/11709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}