Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Think ethnic

Yiddishe Cup was nominated for the “best ethnic/world band.”  We were practically the only non-Afro/ non-reggae/ non-Caribbean/ non-Zydeco band in the contest.

With one email blast to our fan base, Yiddishe Cup would have won the Cleveland Music Award.

Sorry. Not our scene, Scene.   (Cleveland Scene magazine sponsored the contest.)  We did not want to email blast our Yiddishe Cup fans. We didn’t want to disturb world Jewry.

I think the judges — Scene editors — designed the ballot so we would win.  Their theory:  Young voters would spread their votes among the Afro bands, and Yiddishe Cup would pick up the rock-solid Jewish block.

Do you think the other bands held back on email blasts?  No! They sent out hundreds of emails: “Vote for us!” . . . “Make us number one!” . . . “We’re number one!”

Pathetic.

The winner was Mifune, an Afrobeat hip-hop band.   Mifune — you can’t even pronounce that.  At least you can pronounce Yiddishe Cup (if you’re Jewish).

The most-recent music awards contest was in 2010.  Nothing since.*

Scene, please reboot. Yiddishe Cup wants to be number one.  We’re ready to rock and e-blast now.   Free Cleveland coconut bars to everybody who votes for Yiddishe Cup!

*News flash: Scene just held another music awards contest (September 2013).  There was no “ethnic/world” category.  Foul ball!

—-
The photo at top is Daniel Ducoff (L) and Alan Douglass of Yiddishe Cup.  Their hats are Mongolian.
—

SIDE B

CENTIPEDE LANDLORD

I was the landlord in a panel discussion, sponsored by the Cleveland Tenants Organization and the Center for Families and Children

I wore a sports coat and polo shirt.  I looked good.

One problem: there was no audience, to speak of (to). Only two people.  One had an apartment full of centipedes.  She had put her money in escrow for several months, and the landlord hadn’t gotten rid of the centipedes.  She said, “I don’t mind a bug or two, but I don’t like them crawling on my ceiling, and me, when I’m sleeping.”

She also said there were grain moths when she moved in. She said the city inspector came out and said, “Where do you shop?” Which she considered a veiled racial remark.  “Like he thought I shopped in the ghetto.  I shop where everybody else shops!”

The woman’s landlord should have gotten rid of the centipedes. I would have liked to have heard from the landlord.

The other person at the presentation had been booted out of her apartment. Her common-law husband had kicked her out.  She had two kids and lived on $400/month.

Mr. Polo Shirt – me — had nothing to say.  Come move in with me?  Nope.

Lead paint. That’s boring. The meeting ended on that note.

Centipede eats lead and dies

I feel bad for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The PD is understaffed and demoralized. But I feel worse for myself. I want my local news, in print, on the breakfast table every morning.  (The paper is now home-delivered only four days a week.)

Yes, I’ve heard of the Internet and iPads.  I’m not going that way with my papes!

When John Gilligan, an ex-Ohio governor, died, I read about it two days late. That’s not right; I should have gotten that news sooner.

I’m signing up for Pony Express.

The Wall Street Journal stopped coming to my house the same day the Plain Dealer died (August 5).  All newspaper home-delivery got screwed up. A neighbor — nine houses away — still received the Wall Street Journal. I took hers. She didn’t need it!  (She has a different delivery guy, apparently.)

My cousin George, a big sports fan, is in a newspaper funk too, because he can’t read the Plain Dealer sports pages daily with his morning coffee.

Everybody over 50, please repeat with me: “Screw Newhouse!” (Newhouse owns the PD.)

My son Ted delivered the Sun Press, a weekly.  I was his sub.  My dad delivered the Cleveland News.  My grandfather delivered the Vilna Bugle (Shofar), maybe. My dad wouldn’t allow me to be a paperboy.  He wanted me to enjoy life more than he did.

I enjoy papes. Where are my papes?

—
SIDE B

This is a fake profile. The complete fake-profiles series is here.

WHATEVER IT TAKES

I’ve played Perchik and Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

Sometimes I get calls from small-town theater troupes to discuss Jewish stuff, like Fiddler. They ask about yarmulkes and the breaking of the glass, and chair lifting.

I make up stuff. I’ve been to enough Jewish weddings to know the rabbis make up stuff too — particularly about the glass breaking. There are many reasons why the glass is broken. All bobe mayses (old wives’ tales).

When I’m not acting, I do a one-man variety show. I play a little guitar, hand drum, even harmonica, and I sing. I know some Yiddish. I use backing tracks.

Here’s a promo pic from my glory days. I use it sparingly, now that I’m 59 . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I should advertise in the back of Hadassah mag like Ruth Kaye and Caryn Bark. Who are they?

Who am I? I hear you.  I live in Jersey and play the nursing home circuit in the tri-state region. And I work Florida in the winters.

I’ve played Tevye three times. I’ve also played the lead in Jesus Christ Superstar at summer stock in Ohio.

Whatever it takes.

L’shanah tova. (Happy New Year.)

I had two hot water tanks go out in the same building on the same day,  a Friday afternoon.

Four guys can carry in a 92-gallon commercial hot water tank .  And I can pay $5,400 for their fun.

No plumbers were around.  They were all preparing their boats for Lake Erie weekend-cruising.

I reached Stack Heating.   Stack said he didn’t do commercial hot-water tanks.  Just boilers. I reached Royal Flush.  They said they couldn’t get it until Tuesday.  Dale at Madison Plumbing could do it Monday.  Pompeii said never. B & B Hot Water Tank said no thanks.

I started flipping through the Yellow Pages.  That is the end of the world.

I braced myself for calls, like “Mr. Landlord,  there is no hot water.  How am I supposed to go to work without showering? ” . . . “I have to stay at my parents’ house and it’s 60 miles from work . . . ”

It’s not pleasant, these scenes.

I  got Bill the plumber.  He came by and blow-torched the old tanks to dry them.  (The tanks had flooded because a sump pump had failed.)   The plumber gave the first tank a 50-50 chance of recovery.  The second tank had 40 percent chance, he said.  I liked his odds.

The first tank went on after six hours of pampering. We were good.

Still, it was no picnic.

 . . . Dear Landlord,  I have  deducted $275 from my rent payment because I  stayed in a hotel for three days due to the lack of hot water.

Didn’t happen!

—
SIDE B

In honor of the mildest summer ever . . .

WICKIN’ COOL

I threw out my dad’s wife-beater T-shirts. About time. My father died 27 years ago. The wife-beaters were balled up in my dresser drawer.

When it’s 90-plus degrees — which it isn’t often this summer — I think “wife-beaters.” I used to wear my dad’s wife-beaters around the house.

My wife bought me a wicking T-shirt with UV protection at Target. Only $11. It was cooler than the wife-beater.

I saved one of my father’s T-shirts for posterity and threw the rest out.

Underwear fashion is generational. My grown sons aren’t interested in my wife-beaters. My dad wore his wife-beaters under dress shirts for work, for his day job at the key company.

I’m going to buy a couple more ultra-light wicking T-shirts.

No doubt, my sons will pitch my ultra-lights when I’m either dead or not looking. By 2025, T-shirts will be spray-on from a can.

Meanwhile, I’m wickin’ cool.

—
A version of  “Wickin’ Cool” was on CoolCleveland.com 7/12/12.

Re: my op-ed in today’s NYT (8/17/13)

Welcome, New York Times readers.

I know you’re busy. You have other things to do.  Like working out  . . .

Guys, give me a New York minute!

Please enter your email in the space on the LEFT and click “submit.”  (TMI: Scroll down on the LEFT to a pink button that says “Yiddishe Cup Home.” You’ll see  “join the mailing list” there.)  You’ll get one email a week, every Wednesday morning.  Just one email a week.  And I won’t sell your email address to anybody.

I’ve written a lot about real estate.  Check out the stories here.

I’ve written a lot about music too.

Byliner chose one of my essays as a top non-fiction magazine article of 2012.

I’ve been in the Times op-ed section four times lately.  Who else can say that?  (Friedman, Brooks, Dowd.  They don’t count! They’re not freelancers.)

Subscribe to this blog.

At minimum, buy this album from my son the musician!  (I’m a stage dad, today only.)  My son has 100,000-plus hits on some of his YouTube videos. His pic was recently in Rolling Stone.

My op-ed today is a lot about family, so you might be interested — you still reading this? — to learn more:

My son Jack’s band, Vulfpeck, will be in New York  on October 4.

My son the lawyer, Ted, is a two-time Jeopardy! champion. The Times left that out!  Ted is a top-notch lawyer.  Ted, sue somebody for me.

Yes, I’m a proud dad.

My daughter, Lucy, and her husband,Tim, didn’t make the op-ed. (Lucy said, “Thank goodness.”) Here’s an equal opportunity addendum: Tim is a first-grade teacher, and Lucy is a corporate event planner in Chicago. Check out Lucy’s  event at the White House.

Shabbat shalom ( for those who celebrate).

See you here every Wednesday, or else!

P.S. I bought the paper — the Times.  The whole freaking Times.  That’s why I’m in it so much.  Bezos and me, we’re partying right now.

Stratton (white cap) surrounded by minority investors in NYT

I didn’t feel like playing the old Jewish standards, such as “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn” and “Tumbalalaika.”   Instead I read neo-beatnik prose from my blog.

Bad move.

I was performing at a nursing home. A resident in the front row said, “Play something we know!” and walked out.

My accompanist — keyboardist Alan Douglass — told me to change my act.  He said, “The Who went to their greatest hits whenever they faltered.”

I stuck with the blog stuff.  I wanted to be like Dylan at Newport — my own man.

Again, bad move.

Afterward, I  told my wife,  ‘I feel like I just played Sowinski Playground.”  (Sowinski was a city playground where vicious rapes occurred in the 1960s.)

I’ve learned my lesson: My Ferlinghetti schtick  isn’t going to cut it at Myers Apartments independent living.  Next time I’ll play “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn” and “Tumbalalaika.”

—

SIDE B

ROBERT WOODWARD

Robert Woodward, who died in June, was a newspaperman, but not the Bob Woodward of Watergate fame.

Robert Woodward worked as a clerk at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He was a tenant of mine.

Bob Woodward

He signed his lease renewals in green ink. I always made it a point to countersign in green. Sometimes I had to go out of my way to find a green pen. This went on for decades!

I’m not sure what Bob did at the PD. I occasionally saw him at the movies. He was a film buff. Once we coincidentally flew on the same flight to New York. He was going to see movies.

Woodward was a tenant for 37 years. He died at 65. He had been dead in his suite for about four days. A sister called. The cops went in.

Bob never bugged me, except for appliances. He never wanted people fixing stuff in his apartment.

—
This is not Bob’s life story!  For instance, not covered here:  Bob wrote op-eds about gay rights for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal .

Zack put down a security deposit for the apartment, then changed his mind.

He was going back with his wife.  Try some counseling. Not moving in.

The apartment was off the market for a week!  I kept the deposit.  Zack said I was a thief.  I re-read him the application: “If the applicant is approved and makes a deposit –- and then decides not to move into the apartment –- the deposit will be forfeited.  THE DEPOSIT WILL NOT BE RETURNED TO THE APPLICANT.”

Zack said, “See you in small claims court!”  Then he added, “Wait. I’m taking the apartment! We’re going to have a real good relationship.  Tell your building manager, I’ll see him on Sunday with coffee and donuts!”

Zack worked demo and was a hauler. He might rent the apartment just to trash it — to demo it.

Zack didn’t show up Sunday. He called a week later.  He still wanted in.  He said he would be there in two days. I figured there was a 10 percent chance he would show.

What if  he did?

I called Zack back: “I want to part ways.  You go yours, I go mine. I’ll give you your security deposit back.”

“Man, I already have my truck packed!”

“I think there’s a lot of ill-will, and we should part ways.  I’ll mail you the deposit.”

He said he wanted the deposit right now. “Things are all awkward between my girlfriend and me.  I need the money,” he said.

“You can pick up the check from Rachel.  She has bangs and is in her twenties,” I said. Rachel worked at the corner bakery. I didn’t want to tangle with Zack.

A basic rule of landlording: Once you get ’em [troublemakers] in, it’s hard to get ’em out.

Maybe I played it too safe. I’ll never know.

—

The latest from Jack Stratton and his band Vulfpeck:

My friend Jimmy plays basketball at age 55.  But he’s hurting.  Jimmy has plantar fasciitis and is temporarily out of action.

I’m glad Jimmy is hurt.  Some guys  think they’re going to be pain-free forever.  It’s  fun — sick fun — to watch them get zapped by the middle-age hand buzzer.

I ran into a guy who was on Penn”s all-star lacrosse team.  In 1955.  He’s 80.   He said, “You have to know when to quit, but it’s impossible to know.  I never know.”  He has stopped playing lacrosse, squash, basketball and singles tennis.  His advice: “Take up painting.”

I said, “I already do things like that.”  (I play klezmer music.)

Jimmy — my b-ball friend — wants to play basketball at 70.  Jimmy’s “painting” is cooking.  He makes an excellent roasted lamb.

Every decade or so, I throw out my elbow braces, thumb splints and knee braces.  Sometimes I get so emotionally attached to the stuff, it’s hard to throw out.  Like, if you sleep with a molded arm splint for three months, you can’t just pitch it.

I recently threw out my “Clarinet Tendinitis 1991” folder  containing exercise diagrams.

I did biofeedback back then.  I did it just once. I went to a blind masseuse who believed in inducing terrific pain.  His dog should have stopped him.  Deep tissue / deep purple.   He was eventually accused of  rape.  (Different customer.)

I have a new bag of orthotics — mostly knee braces.

I’m supposed to balance on one foot for 30 seconds with my eyes closed.

Try it.  If you succeed, you are well. If  you don’t, you’re  still OK; you’re “worried well.”

You’re well. Be well.

This is a fake profile.

I spit whenever and wherever I want.

I search the city dump for old toilet seats and crumpled milk cartons.  I use them for collages.  I reject traditional beauty.

I love TV.

I have very sexy legs.

I have a big house. I need another one.  I’m going to see a real estate agent on Friday.

I can’t read in the car.  That’s my major weakness: motion sickness.

I want to be Mr. Rogers, but not from Pittsburgh.  I’m tender and vivid, kids tell me.

My fields of expertise?  A few . . .

Rock and roll trivia, Oriental rugs and baking.  I talk mostly about baking, because everyone thinks that’s great; everyone likes cake.

I wear a Speedo bathing suit around the house in the summer. I hate air conditioning.

I trigger crises.

I love movies — all kinds: avant-garde, Jewish, Gay/Lesbian.   My favorite movie is The Awning Fabricator.  It’s Serbian.

Exercise sucks.

I’ve had ink ooze from my pens into my pants.

My girlfriend, Kiki, is sumptuous, intense, curvaceous and grotesque. She is  also a fugitive, mostly from my wife.

Let’s meet for lunch.  I’m in Aspen today.  I would love to see you.

Check out my lifestyle.

—

Footnote: Four percent of the above verbiage is stolen from the  Poetry Project Newsletter.

—

Forecast: Klondikes at Wiley

Be at Wiley tomorrow night (7:30 p.m. Thurs., July 25). See Yiddishe Cup.

Wiley Middle School is at 2181 Miramar Blvd., University Hts., Ohio.  Free music, free ice cream.  Indoors if raining. 

I wish I had been in the military. I could have been in but I didn’t go in when I could have.  I was against Vietnam.  I learned quagmire — the word — from Walter Lippmann in Newsweek.   ‘Nam was a quagmire, Lippmann wrote.

I think I can take orders, and I don’t generally sass people, and I’ve never argued with cops or umpires.

Some of my high school classmates went into the service.  Some  are on the war memorial on Green Road.  By and large, these guys weren’t in the college-prep classes.

One high school friend went to Annapolis, though. He eventually became acting head of the FBI in Cleveland.  I visited him in his office overlooking Lake Erie, and we brainstormed on ways to thwart terrorists.  I didn’t have much to contribute.

When I was about 10, I sent away to the Air Force Academy for photos, and the academy mailed me an application.  That was exciting.

I was mistaken for a military man just once, when I represented the Armed Forces at a sign-review meeting at city hall. The Armed Forces rented stores from my family.  A sign-review board member said, “You walk like a military man.”

Aten-hut! Thank you.

The Armed Forces recruiting center contained the four major branches: Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force.  The Army turned its basement area into a gym with punching bags and a Nautilus.

In 2008 the recruiters moved out; they went across the street to a newer building, and left us with three ratty sofas, a rusty Nautilus, barbells, a mini-trampoline, and a punching bag.  And that wasn’t the half of it.

I wrote to the Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Kentucky,  re U.S. lease W912QRM504000025:

There is 40 years’ worth of  junk in the basement: 27 chairs, a punching bag, American flag, scrap shelving, metal framing, boxes of Army of One promotional material, two bikes, six pieces of Nautilus-like weight equipment, barbells, a mini-trampoline . . .

A 1970s stereo system, file cabinet, and a lot of assorted paperwork, of which I’ve enclosed an invoice from 1991, just to give you a flavor for what’s down there.

The government paid for the hauling. That was my last dealing with the military. “Sgt. Stratton” never happened. Nor did “Private  Stratton.”  I feel a little guilty about that.   (I know, typical ex-hippie revisionist thinking.)

—

Yiddishe Cup and ice cream drip on the lawn at Wiley Middle School, 2181 Miramar Blvd., University Hts., Ohio, 7:30 p.m. Thurs., July 25.  Free concert and free ice cream.  Indoors if raining.

—-

Clevelanders, go to “Hava Nagila (The Movie)”  7:30 p.m. tonight (July 17) at the art museum, Gartner Aud.  You won’t regret it.  Terrific archival footage. You don’t need to be  Jewish or a klezmer nut to enjoy it.   Helps, but not essential.  Features Harry Belafonte.

This is KlezFiction . . .

I dream about klezmer music and Buddy Holly. I want to be Buddy Holly, but I have to settle  for Klezmer Guy.

Animal voices — the sound of cats and fleas.  Significant to my music?  I need to find out.

There are no rules for good music, only examples of it.

Yiddishe Cup’s Meshugeneh Mambo is a terrific record.  Klezperanto –- another good choice. (By the group Klezperanto.)

The wrong song in the wrong place can be the right song.

Hope You Like Klezmer, a coffee table book,  has more than 100 color photos of klezmer musicians.  Some tied up, some with instruments in odd places.  I’m in a bathtub with reeds, like Moses.

Half-ended melodies are fun.

I’m here.  Hineni.  Take it or leave it.

Please, don’t go!

Fine, go.

I want to play medium-sized halls — 1,500-seat venues — this summer with my band: the Buddy Holly Klezmer Band.

—
Check out “Renting the American Dream” in the latest City Journal.  It’s not fiction.  Read the comments too.

—
Yiddishe Cup plays Wiley Middle Scho0ol lawn, University Heights, Ohio, 7:30 p.m. Thurs. July 25.  Indoors if raining.  Free ice cream.

Here’s a vid from the 2009 Wiley show:

Whatever happened to Sylvia Rimm?  She dispensed child rearing advice on public radio and in the newspapers.

She advised my wife, Alice, and me to subsume our individuality; create a united front to raise our kids. We did that for a few days.

Alice often quoted Sylvia Rimm — whenever Alice wasn’t quoting Freud, Spock, Leach or Brazelton. Alice wanted our kids to gain a “sense of mastery” — skills, basically. For instance, a trip to Disney World was garbage, according to Alice, because the kids wouldn’t learn anything.

Alice was overruled; we went to Disney World anyhow.  The kids loved Figment, a Disney character, and went ape for Miss Piggy. And don’t forget the Ninja Turtles. At Epcot the kids spent time on the floor at the Moroccan restaurant, wrestling.

Good times. Let ’em roll.

Our children took many lessons — ping pong, gymnastics, Hebrew, accordion. We didn’t allow much TV — mostly Mr. Rogers and The Simpsons. (When our kids grew up and moved out, they watched every show from the past 40 years.)

I liked Bettelheim’s book A Good Enough Parent.   I liked the title.

My then-teenage son took my car to the SAT exam.  I needed the car because my band equipment was in the trunk, and I had a gig! I took my wife’s car to the SAT testing site and swore loudly at my son in the parking lot. An adult, overhearing me, said, “Hey, ease up!”

Was I out of line? Ask Bettelheim, the expert.

Where is Sylvia Rimm?  Also, where is Eleanor Weisberger –- another Cleveland child therapist. I think she’s dead.  [Wrong.  She’s 93.]  What about child expert Susan Glaser? [She’s around.] Does every Jewish woman in Cleveland dispense child rearing advice?

I just Googled “Sylvia Rimm” . . .

Dr. Rimm is a psychologist, director of Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio . . . Dr. Rimm draws experience and inspiration from her wonderful husband; her very successful children: 2 daughters and 2 sons, and their spouses; and 9 vivacious grandchildren.

Rimm shot: her very successful children.

We want Bettelheim!  Bruno lied, beat up kids, and had a foul temper. He made the rest of us look good!

—
I wrote “Taxi Driver.” Check the story out, from today’s CoolCleve.

Yiddishe Cup‘s Bert Stratton tries to identify musicians and songs from selected recordings.  Stratton received no prior information.  Ratings are 1 to 5.

***

1. “Oy Avram” Yiddish Princess

This recording reminds me of Daniel Kahn, the young Jew in Berlin.  Maybe he’s not so young.  Let’s call him 35.

Middle age is a long slog, isn’t it? What about 63, is that still middle age?

What’s really, really old? Anybody 10 years older than yourself.

The lead singer on this is Sarah Cooper — or whatever her name is.  She has a leaf blower in her right lung.  Sing, baby, sing! I give it a 5.

Sarah Mina Gordon, vocals; Michael Winograd, synths; Avi Fox-Rosen, guitar; Yoshie Fruchter, guitar; Ari Folman-Cohen, bass; Chris Berry drums.

***

2. “Blooz” Michael Winograd’s Infection

My philosophy is do something new every day, but always in relationship to the past and tradition.  If I have Kashi Island Vanilla today, I go with Kashi Autumn Wheat tomorrow. Sugar Pops, no thanks.  Corn Pops, double no thanks.  Call them what you will.  Joe’s O’s or Cheerios?  Depends.  I’ll go with Joe’s on Mondays and Cherrios on Tuesdays.  And don’t forget Ralston’s Tasteoos.

Miguel Winograd

This tune?  This is the Wino, Michael Winograd, on clarinet. He constructs his tunes with great care: one note, then silence, then another note.  Give it a 5.

Michael Winograd, clarinet; Frank London, trumpet; Daniel Blackberg, trombone; Brandon Seabrook guitar; Michael McLaughlin, accordion; Jason Nazary, drums.

***

3. “Sher 199” Bessarabian Hop. Michael Winograd 

Again with the Wino?  He’s sucking up all the klezmer oxygen.  Is he living in Barcelona?  New York?  L.A.?  He probably has three houses.  He’s big.

His clarinet is Canadian, that much I know.

I have no idea who his sidemen are, but they are very, very flexible.   They play with time and stretch out the composition. The accordion is a little choppy. It’s a 4.

Winograd, clarinet; Joey Weisenberg, mandolin; Patrick Farrell, accordion; Pete Rushefsky, tsimbl; Daniel Blacksberg, trombone; Nick Cudahy, bass; Richie Barshay, drums.

***

4. “Epstein” Poykler’s Shloft Lied. Matt Temkin’s Yiddishe Jam Band

That’s got to be Temkin. He wears his hat backwards and hangs out in Brooklyn.

I know another backwards hat-wearing drummer, but in Cleveland. My guy is Greek and does apartment cleanups after fires. Married to a Jewish girl.  Plays some Jewish.

Frank London is on trumpet. That’s a no-brainer.  He’s on every klezmer record.

Clarinet and keys? I have no idea.

Temkin hires sidemen from the same  Brooklyn Home Depot parking lot as Winograd.  I wish the Home Depot in Cleveland had this kind of talent.  Give it a 4.

Temkin, drums; Mike Cohen, reeds; Binyomin Ginzberg, keys; Brian Glassman, bass; Rachel Lemisch, trombone; Allen Watsky guitar: Frank London. trumpet.

***

5. “Baladi” Balada. Bulgarian Wedding Music.  Yuri Yunakov

This is Slavic Soul Party.  Heavy brass and breakneck tempos. These guys drink slivovitz by the gallon. I have one word for them: slow down. Give it a 3.

Yunakov, alto sax; Neshko Neshev, accordion; Lauren Brody, synth; Seido Salifoski, dumbek; Catherine Foster, clarinet; Carol Silverman, vocals.

***

6. “Shake Hands with your Uncle Max” The Jewish Songbook.  Jason Alexander

Who is the singer?  He bears a strong resemblance to an incompetent.  Give it a 3.  No, a 2.   I’m seeing ghosts, I’m fainting. Give it a 1.

Alexander, vocals; Mike Garson, piano; Chuck Berghofer, bass; Don Heffington, drums; Marc Ellis, guitar.

***

7. “Mazl Tov Dances” You Should Be So Lucky! Maxwell Street Klezmer Band

A Mickey Katz tune, yes!  This is KCB [Klezmer Conservatory Band].

Yes, I know the Mickey Katz reboot is over, but not for me. I knew Mickey’s cousin.  She was in a nursing home in Cleveland.  She was about 100.  My hobby is Mickey’s geo-hagiography.  I walk by his [former] apartment in Cleveland Heights all the time.

The music is harmonically deep and soulful.  Give it a 5. Thank you, KCB!

Ralph Wilder, clarinet; Alex Koffman, violin; Ivo Braun, trumpet; Sam Margolis, trombone; Gail Mangurten, piano; David Rothstein, bass; Steve Hawk, percussion.

***

8. “Meshugge ’bout my Myed’l” Klezmerfats!  Peter Sokolow

Pete Sokolow

Sokolow is — forgive me — an animal.  A rhythmically complex animal.  Not only can he bang out chords, he can play — and can he talk; he’ll drey you a kup for three straight hours at KlezKamp, and all good stuff.  Read his interview with professor Phil Brown. That’s the best musician interview ever.

Pete combines earthiness, gravity and buoyancy.  What’s his weight these days?

I like to guess ages and weights. I’m taking this blindfold off.

Oh jeez, why didn’t you tell me you’re 500 pounds!

Pete, he’s ancient.  He’s 73.

A 4 rating.

Sokolow, piano, vocals.

***

9. “Ko Riboyn Olam” Stempenyu’s Dream.   Steven Greenman.

Greenman, about to rob a bank

I cheated.  I should put my blindfold back on. This is Greenman, the LeBron of klezmer violin.  But Steve didn’t take his talents to South Beach.  He stayed here [Cleveland]. Give Greenie a 5, on that alone.

Greenman, violin, vocals; Michael Alpert, violin, vocals; Pete Rushefsky, tsimbl; Mark Rubin, bass.

***

10. “Rumenye”  Homesick Songs.  Golem

Golem

This is Reverend Gary Davis singing in Yiddish.  Joking, man.  Really out there, but good. It’s Ezekiel’s Wheels.

This is meaty.  I’m guessing the band weighs 1423 pounds, total.  I’m close.  What’s for lunch?  Give it a 4.7.

Annette Ezekiel, vocals, accordion; Aaron Diskin, vocals; Alicia Jo Rabins, violin; Curtis Hasselbring, trombone; Taylor Bergren-Chrisman, bass; Laura Cromwell, drums.

Dr. Lester Adelson, 1960s

Lester Adelson, the former chief deputy coroner of Cuyahoga County, was fun and morbid. He said he wanted to write a book called My Life is Death.  He  said he missed ice picks.  “Nothing against frost-free refrigerators,” he said. “But back when people went at it with sharp objects, they could generally be stitched back together again.”*

He was at the coroner’s office 37 years.

Adelson said to me, “The only violent natural death is lightning, you follow?”

I didn’t.

He said lightning — the electric charge — zaps you immediately.   You die by “lightning.”  If you drown or get hit by a tornado,  you don’t die by “tornado” or “drowning.”  You die of more arcane causes.

Adelson said, “I don’t remember my mother’s labor pains, but you’re born in someone else’s pain — your mother’s — and you die in your own.”

He liked to quote Shakespeare.

Coroner / Shakespeare / bowtie / Harvard grad / Jew.

Interesting.

Dr. Lester Adelson.  He even wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine (Feb. 4, 1960) about the various deaths in Hamlet.  Claudius poured poison into the ear of Hamlet’s father.

Adelson wrote: “When one considers the sensitivity of the human ear, including the external auditory canal and the eardrum, it appears difficult to accept the proposition that a drug can be poured into the ear of a sleeper without arousing him, as the Ghost asks one to believe.”

“If the elder Hamlet’s eardrum had been perforated . . . ”

Adelson retired from the coroner’s office in 1987. He died at 91 in 2006.

—–

*from a Plain Dealer editorial, 3/20/06.

—

“No More Greasy Fries,” the vid:

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Annette Ezekiel Kogan, Golem bandleader

The Workmen’s Circle annual free Yiddish concert is 7:30 p.m Sunday (June 23) at Cain Park, Cleveland Heights.  Golem performs. No tickets necessary.  Simply show up.

1. CLEVELAND 1975

I wore red Adidas tennis shoes to an audition for a soul band at E. 91st Street and Union Avenue.

The bandleader, Amos, liked my shoe color and my skin color. He said, “Ain’t no Holiday Inn going to hire no band without a white guy, and right now there ain’t nary a grain of salt in this room.”

I wasn’t too good on sax and harmonica, but I got the job.

Amos thought harmonica was corn pone, not a respectable axe for a black man, but it was OK for a white. He said, “We can use that harp. You hip to Tower of Power? They got a bad white dude on harp. You hip to War? Another bad brother of yours on harp.”

The keyboard player had doubts — not just about my playing. He didn’t like Amos’ pot smoking.

The keyboard player broke up the band a few weeks later. He said. “Weed is communicating with the demon.”

“What you think?” Amos said. “What you gonna do when we play cabarets and shit? It ain’t no motherfucking church!”

“I said, I quit.”

Regardless of the church/cabaret conflict, we would have broken up. At our next rehearsal, Amos’ son was on drums, then a woman drummer sat in. The other horn player — an old guy, about 40 — had no teeth. He said, “I can’t play without my choppers.” But he could play. He played bebop.

Amos wanted to try gut bucket blues, even country western. “I’m unemployed! I’ll try anything,” he said.

I stopped by the Hibachi Lounge at Union Avenue and E. 103^rd Street, where we were scheduled to play. The bouncer wore a red jump suit and a red wide-brim hat; he shuckled (davened) at the pay phone like he was listening to Dial-A-Jewish-Concept. Several women line-danced to the jukebox.

The women stopped dancing when they saw me.

What's happnin', ladies?

Was I cool?

Ask the women.  I got out of there.

2. DETROIT 2002

Yiddishe Cup shared the bandstand with a soul band at a fancy wedding. I asked the soul singer if she had seen the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown, which had just come out.  She said her father, pianist Johnny Griffith, was in it.

The tenor player said, “The movie didn’t feature the horn players.  It should have.”

The tenor player tuned up.  He sounded better than most Yiddishe Cup jazz solos.

The tenor player liked our klezmer stuff, particularly our “Araber Tantz.” “What kind of scale is that?” he asked.

“In Yiddish it’s called freygish,” I said.  (Freygish is the “Hava Nagila” scale: E F G# A B C D E.) “It has a flatted second and a 1½-step leap from the second to the raised third.”

“Very cool,” he said.

About time.

—

Public service announcement.
For all you readers down in Wayne County (Wooster), Ohio.
From Ellen Pill:

[Editorial comment from Bert Stratton:  Don’t Buy from the Jew. Harsh! My grandfather Albert Zalk ran a “Jew store” in Yazoo City, Mississippi. They liked him down in the Delta.  My wife’s grandfather George Rosen ran a “Jew store” in Clarksburg, West Virginia.  I was there a few times.  The town loved the Rosens.]

I’m waiting for the guy I had an affair with to die.  He’s 78 and kind of well-known.

I wore a red “wet look” vinyl coat to his English Lit class.  This was quite a few years ago. The other girls wore rags I wouldn’t even wear to paint in.  I’ve always been fashionable.

I was a pretty good student.  I wrote a Chaucer paper about the miller — or somebody, I can’t remember – maybe the pardoner.  I compared the pardoner to the then-omnipresent countercultural huckster, such as the Columbia Records pitchman:  “But The Man can’t bust our music.”

The professor called me into his office and said, “I want to see more work like that!” He had a Ph.D. and a couple books out. He paid attention to li’l ol’ me.

We walked across campus.  We got ice cream.  I got the hairy eyeball from girls — and guys — my age. Awkward.

The prof lived in the suburbs.  I was at his house only once, when his wife was out of town.  He had a bedroom dedicated to just books, and me apparently.

The prof was fascinated by the “youth culture.” He thought I could help him on that count.  Wrong.   I was a high school English-teacher manqué, not a rabble-rousing hippie.  He didn’t even know what “make out” meant.  He would say “How you making out?” in his class, and kids would giggle. It’s like today when kids say “hooking up” and we don’t know what the kids are talking about.

The prof once asked me, “Have you ever taken pot?” Taken pot?  Also, he didn’t know what hash was.

We talked by phone every night after midnight.  Pre-cellphones.

The prof and I had our liaisons at the house of a professor who was on sabbatical in California.

I just Googled the prof . . .

Holy shit, he’s still teaching! He’s on Rate Your Professor.  Some students like his lectures; some say he rambles. One alum writes: “I took his course 41 years ago and still remember his comments on my papers. I write for TV now; both his entertaining insights and his honest assessment of good and bad in my sophomoric work help me earn a living.”

Maybe I’ll rate my prof.

No, let’s leave this unrated.

—

Yiddishe Cup, 2012, Parade the Circle

Yiddishe Cup plays Parade the Circle noon Saturday (June 8) at Wade Oval, University Circle, Cleveland. 

Shul Guys is a Jewish motorcycle club in Cleveland.  What kind of name is Shul Guys?  A wussy, disgraceful name.

There is a Jewish club called Hillel’s Angels.  Better.

My friend Ralph Solonitz  is the leader of the Vilde Chayas (Wild Animals).  I think it’s just him.

Ralph

The mayor of Beachwood, a Jew, belongs to a motorcycle club that hangs out at the Chagrin Falls Popcorn Shop.  Some of the guys in the mayor’s club ride trikes. That’s not motorcycling, that’s day care.

Bertha Solonitz, 2012

Ralph has long hair, a leather jacket and black boots. He’s a 100% kosher hog (and this blog’s illustrator).

Ralph’s mother, Bertha, is a big fan of Yiddishe Cup.  She follows the band around, or vice versa.  I  said hi to her at a Holocaust survivors’ luncheon, and she said, “You know who I am!”

“Yes, your son is a great artist!” I said.  Maybe that’s why she follows the band around.

Mrs. Solonitz is from Lithuania.  Ralph’s father, Julian, was from Lithuania, as well.  Ralph’s father grew up in Vilna, now in Lithuania, though for a long time in Poland.  Mr. Solonitz fought in the Polish army (part of the Soviet army) during World War II.

Julian Solonitz, 1946

Maybe Ralph rides his motorcycle and wears the leather gear because he hasn’t liberated anybody lately, like his dad did.  Ralph’s father was with the army unit that liberated Majdanek concentration camp.

Maybe Ralph has freed somebody and not told me.  Ralph should take his motorcycle out to Vrooman Road and liberate the Slovenians in Lake County.

The Cleveland Jewish News periodically runs stories about Jewish motorcycle clubs. It’s an easy story to write.  Just name-drop: Shalom n’ Chrome from South Carolina, the HawkChais from Iowa.  Harley, Son of David  is a Canadian documentary that used two tracks from a Yiddishe Cup recording.

Consider joining the Vilde Chayas.  Ralph needs company.  And you get this jacket:

Sam and Frank — Cleveland cops — grew up on E. 79^th Street and St. Clair Avenue.

Sam said, “I’m going to have a silver wedding anniversary and invite my three ex-wives.”

Frank said, “If you and the commander — plus your exes — get together, you’ll need the FOP Hall.”

Frank said, “I remember when you were an old man.” (Frank was 37; Sam, 47.)

Sam said, “I’ve got 1139 days left.”

Frank said, “We’ve got to make you a short-timer’s calendar.  I had one in the service with the finger on it.”

Sam and Frank, on a drug sweep, rolled down St. Clair Avenue, Collinwood, in a junker at 1 a.m.

Sam said, “Where did we get this piece-of-shit car?”

Frank said, “Mentor.”

“Where in Mentor?

“At the flea market.”

“Right.”

At Pepper Avenue and 140^th Street, Sam said, “He’s moving. That car is moving.  Let’s catch him dirty while he’s rolling.”

Sam threw the guy up against the car hood.  He was dirty; he had a joint on him.

Frank said, “Let him go. Let’s go to Mandalay [playground] and get some white guys.”

—

SIDE B

Here is the annual “inside baseball” post.  Your name might be in here . . .

BLURTS

We interrupt this blog to tell you this blog is four years old.

First off, thanks to the major comment writers.

In no particular order, thanks to Marc, Jessica, Gerald Ross, Seth, Gerry Kanter, Ted, Adrianne Greenbaum, Bill Jones, Mark Schilling . . .

David, Irwin Weinberger, Jack, Don Friedman, Alice, Ken Goldberg, Steven Greenman . . .

Charlie B, Ben Cohen, David Korn, Jack Valancy, Ari Davidow and B Katz . . .

Special thanks to Ralph Solonitz. I encourage him to draw as many pics as possible.  Works out well.  I met Ralph about 22 years ago when he designed Yiddishe Cup’s logo.  That’s still your best logo, Ralph.

I have an essay, “Renting the American Dream,” in the latest City Journal, which will be online soon. Also, CoolCleveland.com runs Klezmer Guy blurts regularly.  Here’s a blurt (Carma) from today’s CoolCle.  My older son left his car at the Rapid Transit parking lot for two months.  Check the story out.  It’s funny.

Please see the “categories” listing on the right side of this blog.  I recently added a new category, 13 BEST POSTS, as judged by me.

“Categories” is also a good place to read 78 posts in a row about real estate.  Spend a couple weeks reading archived posts!

No doubt I could increase my comments tally by writing “thanks” or “hi” after every comment.   But I have standards.

And they are low. When I stumble upon a new blog, I immediately read the posts with the most comments and feel guilty about that.

The bell rings, round five.

—

I wrote  Carma for today’s CoolClevelandcom e-blast.

My son Ted parked his car at the Brookpark RTA lot and flew to Las Vegas. The RTA lot was cheaper than the airport lot.

My son didn’t come back.  He thought he was going for a vacation, but he got a job in Las Vegas and stayed there.

My son’s 2007 Ford Focus sat in the Brookpark lot for two months, until my wife, Alice, and I loaded our car with jumper cables and a generator-pump and drove to the RTA lot, which is next to Ford Engine Plant #1 and a couple strip bars.

I said to Alice, “Ted’s car is technically in Brook Park, not Cleveland. That’s good. If the car has been towed or stolen, we can deal with Brook Park red tape better than Cleveland red tape.”

The car wasn’t towed or stolen.  It was there. The doors were unlocked. The tires were low. There was a bottle of bourbon in the backseat.

I drove Ted’s car to the Lusty Wrench in Cleveland Heights the next day.  Sam, the mechanic, said, “The car is basically in good shape with 89,000 miles.  The battery will not make it, and as you know the side-view mirror is taped on.   The tape is not a bad solution.  The rear tires are round, black and hold air, but they’re not very good.”

The car was serviceable.  It worked.

I want to know, Is Greater Cleveland really this safe and accommodating? I need more data.  Please leave your car for two months at a Rapid stop and tell me what happens.

The cops at the Sixth District police station in Cleveland considered me a hippie spy from the Heights.  But when I told the cops I was a Seiger (“My uncle owned Seiger’s Restaurant on E.118^th and Kinsman”), the cops warmed up to me. The cops — the older ones, the bosses — all knew Seiger’s Restaurant.

Cleveland Jewish News, 1968

Seiger’s Restaurant was a Damon Runyon casting hall on Kinsman Road. All manner of hustlers, cops, businessmen and shnorers (beggars) hung out there. The shnorers were Orthodox Jewish tzedakah (charity) collectors who had their own booth in the back.

Seiger’s, 11802 Kinsman Rd., 1957

My Great Aunt Lil Seiger served the shnorers kosher food from her apartment, which was at the back of the store. The shnorers wouldn’t eat the non-kosher food from the restaurant. The deli was kosher-style, not kosher.  “We served the rabonim [the rabbis] on special china and silverware,  milchig [dairy]’,” Lil’s son Danny said.

Seigers: Audrey (daughter), Lil, Danny (son) and Itchy, 1948

Rabonim — and cops — ate well at Seiger’s. Nobody ever got a ticket for an expired parking meter, and sometimes cars were parked two-lanes deep on Kinsman.  “I couldn’t even spend a nickel in Seiger’s,” retired cop Bill Tofant said.

Itchy Seiger, my great uncle, was the owner and chief kibitzer (glad-handler/talker).  He had been a cloak maker in Galicia, Austria-Hungary.  Itchy was the greeter.  Aunt Lil did the cooking, except the breads and strudels, which she bought.

There was a party room, seating about 65, in the basement. The matchbooks read: “Seiger’s Restaurant, Delicatessen, Barroom and Rathskeller.”

Danny and Itchy Seiger, back row, from R. Shiva for Anna Soltzberg, South Euclid, Ohio, 1964

I didn’t go to Seiger’s Restaurant often.  My parents didn’t think Kinsman was the right direction for a Sunday drive. More often we wound up out east — the other direction — at the Metroparks.

Danny — my cousin —  started showing up at Yiddishe Cup gigs in the 2000s. I asked him about the mini-feud between his father (my Uncle Itchy) and my grandmother, Anna  Soltzberg (nee Seiger).  Itchy and Anna had been half-siblings. (Enough with the genealogy, Klezmer Guy!)  Danny said Itchy and Anna had had two things in common: sugar diabetes and iron wills.

My grandmother’s candy store — near Itchy’s deli on Kinsman — had frequently been “oyf tsoris” (badly off), and Itchy rescued it, Danny said.

Anna Soltzberg, center, 1950s. Others unknown

“Everybody loved Itchy,” Danny said. Everybody but my grandmother, who complained about Itchy’s buy-out terms on her store.  Later, my grandmother opened a candy store further east on Kinsman, near Shaker Heights.

Cleveland Plain Dealer , 1947

“At the restaurant, there were two brothers, the Schoolers,” Danny said. “One, Joe, wanted a soft matzo ball. The other, Morty, wanted a matzo ball as hard as a baseball.  Ma made both kinds.  That’s how we thrived.”

Somebody should take Danny, age 80, and a video camera for a stroll down Kinsman. Walk Danny through the old neighborhood and into Seiger’s, which was recently a soul food restaurant.  (Today it’s boarded up.)

New World Restaurant, formerly Seiger’s, 2010.

The audio,
Danny: “This is where Ma made the mish-mash soup. She gave the recipe to Corky & Lenny’s. This is the counter where Jim Brown bounced a $10 check.  I should have saved it for the autograph.  This is where Oscar Schmaltz downed an industrial canister of soup.  Oscar weighed 400.”

—

Footnote:  Seiger’s is pronounced Sigh-ger’s (rhymes with High-gers) by Jews, and See-ger’s by cops.  Seiger’s closed in 1968.

—

For relatives only . . . family photo above, taken at the shiva  for Toby Stratton’s mother, Anna Soltzberg.
On floor, from L: Bert Stratton,  sister Leslie.

Middle: Aunt Lil Soltzberg of Washington;  Janice Bregman (wife of Marc Bregman); Aunt Pearl Bregman; Great Aunt Molly Mittman; Marcia Seiger.

Top:  Uncle Milty Soltzberg, Toby Stratton, Julia Stratton, Uncle Sol Soltzberg, Great Uncle Sam Mittman, Aunt Lil Soltzberg of Delaware, Great Uncle Itchy Seiger, Danny Seiger.

(Sol Soltzberg, Milty Soltzberg, Pearl Bregman and Toby Stratton were siblings.) Marc Bregman — the son of Pearl Bregman — probably took this photo.

I live near two large Amish settlements  — Middlefield, Ohio and Holmes County, Ohio. I know some of  the differences between the various Amish sects. Some Amish use battery-powered lights on their buggies.  Some don’t.  Some use the triangular orange “slow vehicle” sign, some don’t.

Speaking of guys-in-black, I also know some very frum Orthodox Jews.  I  know what the crocheted yarmulke means versus the black hat.

I’ve only been around Amish and Jews once.  I saw an Amish man in the lobby of Green Road Synagogue — an Orthodox synagogue in Cleveland.  I said to myself, “I’m wrong.”

This “Amish“ guy was probably a hipster Jew trying to look Amish, with a wide-brim hat, beard, no mustache and a vest.  Like Solzhenitsyn.

I saw 15 Amish women in blue dresses and white bonnets come out of the kitchen.  They carried parfaits on trays.

Then I saw a horse and buggy at the side door. (How does a horse and buggy get to suburban Beachwood? By truck.)

Solzhenitsyn stacked bales of hay in the temple lobby and brought in chickens. He was John, an Amish from Middlefield, and he worked for an Orthodox Jew who owned a mattress factory and was hosting a sheva brochas (post-wedding dinner).  Yiddishe Cup played the dinner.  We played our usual repertoire of  Yiddish, Hebrew and klezmer.  I asked the Amish buggy driver what he thought of the music.   He said, “It sounds like Mozart.”  Maybe because of the violin?

The man stacking the hay said some Amish in Ohio play harmonica — the 10-hole diatonic model.  “That’s all, for instruments,” he said.  “Other instruments [like flute, guitar] might lead to forming a band.”  A Jewish joke?

The rabbi  jokingly asked if Yiddishe Cup knew any Amish songs. We tried “Amazing Grace.” Probably a first for Green Road Synagogue.   The Amish liked the song.  We also played a Yiddish vocal, “Di Grine Kusine” (The Greenhorn Cousin), which the Amish didn’t seem to go for.  I thought they would like our Yiddish repertoire,  since the Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch.

Now I know:  go easy on the Yiddish at Amish-Jewish parties.

Alan Douglass, Yiddishe Cup’s keyboard player, Green Road Synagogue, 2011

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The Klezmer Guy trio plays Nighttown, Cleveland Hts., 7 p.m. Tues., April 23.  $10.  Play it safe and make a res:  216-795-0550. 

An evening of social commentary, plumbing tips, and song.  As if Garrison Keillor was raised on pastrami. 

Alan Douglass, piano and vocals; Bert Stratton, clarinet and prose; Tamar Gray, vocals . . .

—

Next week “Klezmer Guy” posts up on Tuesday (April 23) instead of Wednesday.  Just so I can remind you one more time about the April 23 Nighttown gig.

—

Mazel Tov to Sen. Jack Stratton (I-Calif.) for reaching his goal on Kickstarter.  His band, Vulfpeck, hit the mark today.

Jack the Tummler . . .