Real Music & Real Estate . . .

There are two kinds of musical chairs: the party game, and when tenants move from suite to suite within the same apartment building.

Typically, the tenant wants to step up from an efficiency (studio) to a one bedroom.  If you don’t let her, she’ll move out of the building entirely.  But if you do let her move across the hall, you have to decorate two apartments — the one she’s moving out of, and the one she’s moving into.

Do it.  Better than losing her.

And make sure the security deposit is brought up to the new rent level.  You never know, she could go ape-wire with new wall colors.  You can paint with neutral colors has many interpretations.  Tenants will not willingly use antique white.

I had one tenant who moved across the hall and left behind a pile of pizza boxes with maggots all over his pepperoni.  Luckily his new unit was close enough we had leverage to get him to clean up the old place.

Musical chairs — the bar mitzvah variety— is fun.  If you’re doing a job — any job, no matter how lowly, do it . . . blah, blah.  Yes, we’re glorified baby sitters, but we’re good glorified baby sitters.

For musical chairs we play everything from “Wipe Out” to “Moshe Emet” (Moses Told the Truth).  We try to rig the game so the bat mitzvah girl can win. Never stop the music when the kid is rounding a corner.

Yiddishe Cup’s violinist, Steve Ostrow, is in the union.  That’s because he’s in the Akron Symphony as well.

Cleveland Local 4 was big about the time hotel dance bands were big.

My other favorite union member is Karl Zahtilla, who has subbed a few times with Yiddishe Cup. He hung around with Chet Baker in L.A.  Karl plays jazz clarinet better than anybody else in town.

He used to play all the shows at the Hanna Theatre, the Front Row, Playhouse Square, and a lot of private parties.  He knows the Jewish stuff.  He played Orthodox gigs for years.

Karl grew up when clarinet was still a dominant instrument in popular culture.  Nice timing.

Natural gas, car gas and human gas.  It’s all organic.

Natural gas is what kills landlords.  The bills.  My buildings are pre-World War II — built when gas was cheap— so the decrepit single-pipe steam-heat systems pump all the heat to the top floor first.  Stupid.

It would cost a zillion dollars to change.  Not a great ROI.  Return on Investment.

Gas bills . . . how badly are you getting burned? You have to adjust for HDDs.  Heating Degree Days.

Gasoline . . .  That’s easier to calculate.  When the price at the pump goes up a dime, that’s about 10 cents.  Gasoline costs are about the same as two decades ago, based on constant dollars, and natural gas has more than doubled.

Human gas.  That’s an ocasional bandstand issue. “Who did that?”  We’re in junior high again.  Cheap time-traveling.

On our thirtieth wedding anniversary trip, my wife, Alice, and I were in a small town, Creel, Chihuahua, northern Mexico, along  with a lot of federal cops.  Some of them were crowded around a store window that had bullet holes in it.  This was déjà vu for me; I used to rent to the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Center, which always had its share of bullet holes, plus red food coloring, red Jell-O and toy baby doll arms piled in the doorway.  I never billed the government for cleaning up.

The Mexican federales wore all black.  Some had masks, so the drug cartel boys wouldn’t recognize them.  Other than that, Creel was like Put-in-Bay, Ohio: a resort town with tchatche shops everywhere. And there was a coffeehouse, featuring an open mic night, in the Best Western.

I often pack a harmonica when I camp— and  we had just spent a few days in the Copper Canyon mountains — so I did a blues harmonica ditty at the open mic.  An American, Diddle, backed me on guitar.

After this cross-cultural interlude, my wife and I walked past the store with the bullet holes again.  We heard a “rat-a-tat-tat.”  No, a “pa-pa-pa-pa-pa.”  We ducked and ran like Groucho Marxes. We wound up on the floor in a nearby hotel lobby, where a clerk jabbered about how she had never been so frightened in her whole life.

Me too.

And I had just paid thousands of dollars to get shot at.  At least in Israel it would have made some sense — solidarity with my people and all that.

How was your trip, Bert?

Nice except for getting shot at.

I’ve been in the rag trade for 17 years, selling Yiddishe Cup T-shirts.  Black tees with the band’s logo superimposed in white.

East Coasters buy the tees just for the look.  Yiddishe Cup, the band?  Feh.  The T-shirt?  Cool.

The tee is a limited edition.  Probably about 750 of them in the world.  I don’t advertise.

You have to be invited to wear one.

Sometimes I get a photo from, say, Mount St. Helens, Wash., of a man in a Yiddishe Cup T-shirt.  I played his wedding.  Or a photo of a Missoula, Mont., man wearing a Yiddishe Cup T-shirt on a cattle ranch.

I give the T-shirts to newlyweds and bar mitzvah moms.  Or the bat mitzvah kid, herself, if I think she’s woman enough to handle the impending peer harassment.

I saw a young man on Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, in a Yiddishe Cup T-shirt, with black jeans. Was this hip kid a Cuphead?  I asked him where he got the tee.  He said at a thrift store for $1.  He had never heard of the band.

The Red Roof Inn is the band’s official hotel.

The worst one is in Southfield, Mich.  The smoke detector was ripped out and a guy was already in the room.  A greeter?  Joe Louis?

The wake-up call the next morning never happened.  The cops raided a nearby suite, so we really didn’t need the wake-up.

The band’s favorite restaurant is Bob Evans. The man himself, Bob Evans, died a couple years ago. I had my picture taken with him in Rio Grande, Ohio.  (Also, had my pic taken with actor/singer Theodore Bikel at KlezKanada. That didn’t kill Bikel.)  At Bob Evans, order the potato-crusted flounder, coleslaw and biscuits.

The Waffle House — that was a mechaya (pleasure) for a while-a.   I told Steve Ostrow, Yiddishe Cup’s vegetarian trombone player, the brown strips in his omelet were mushrooms. (They looked like mushrooms.)  Turned out to be steak.  We haven’t been back to Awful House. I miss the home fries with onions.

Here’s another band favorite: The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.  A woman—all decked out in Northwestern purple — said she would put us on the school’s Web site (Rabbinic Management Program page) if we did an original song while wearing purple shirts.  She saw us at a gig in Florida and is married to the dean emeritus of Kellogg, so maybe . . .

My father, Toby, was never shy about discussing money— who had it and who didn’t.  He never hid his salary.  On our street he topped all the Italian bricklayers.  Toby excluded polka star Frankie Yankovic from the calculations.  Yankovic was several streets over, where the big houses were.

Our neighborhood was Levittown-plus living: 3-bedroom/1½ bath colonials.  The paradox was our neighbor, right across the street. He had a freaking airplane (Piper Cub).  And six kids too.  This neighbor, Mr. Cermak, was a second- or third-generation drugstore owner.  (Odd: a Christian with a drugstore.  All the other pharmacists my family knew were Yidn.)

You could make big money before the Revcos came in, particularly if you were the storeowner and the pharmacist.  Mr. Cermak was both.  Mr. Cermak was his own boss.  My dad took note of that.
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Where are they now? . . . Mr. Cermak lives in the same house.  He has been there 60 years.  The plane is gone.  So is Yankovic.   So is my father.

A couple of my musicians freaked out when a critic called Yiddishe Cup’s first CD “schizophrenic.”  (Or was it the second, third, or fourth CD?)  The reviewer, who said a ton of nice stuff, said we were schizophrenic because we attempted so many different styles.

That’s all the band members could think about: we’re schizos.

You need the skin of a rhino to be a performer.

I mean, I’ve had two death threats in the real estate biz.  That bothered me. “I’ve got a gun” stuff.  One guy was pissed because I was a Jewboy born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  (He didn’t say “mouth.”)  The other guy was just pissed — pissed at everybody.  Tenants hate landlords.  We know that.  You need the skin of a rhino.

Everybody has an opinion. Particularly in the arts.   If you don’t have one, here are a couple:

The quickest way to knee-cap a jazz group: “They don’t swing.”

A blues band: “No soul.”

A klezmer band: “Dorks in vests.”

Wedding clients never forget you. You’re in their video.

When I run into an old wedding client, he says, “Abigail and Isaac, this is Mr. Stratton.  He played Mommy and Daddy’s wedding.”

I say to the kids, “You weren’t there.”   (I’m not good with kid chat.)

Some of these weddings were 15-20 years ago.

In real estate, that kind of long-term psychic pay-off  is minimal.  Last decade I got a letter from a recovering alcoholic who said I saved her life when I kicked her out of her apartment for being drunk and not paying her rent.

I’ve rented to a lot of drunks.  The “not paying her rent” part had been the problem.

Nobody tells you why they aren’t renting. Nobody says the apartment smells like a rugby team slept there, or the fan blades have cat hair on them.

When I go into an empty apartment and it smells — even after being painted — my guys attack the unit with over-the-counter air fresheners.  The spray kind, oil kind, waxy kind. Odor-eaters too.

Odor is a deal killer.

Another deal killer is gray, the color.  Gray around the tub.  Gray caulk.

Also, if the apartment bathroom is not totally white — like a decent hotel suite — the apartment won’t rent.

I’m an official “old guy” now. An arts agency made a documentary about roots music in Ohio, and a bunch of  baby-boomers, including me, was the subject.  We were the old fogies on the porch picking away at authentic instruments.  Meanwhile, my “old guys” — Muddy Waters, Dave Tarras, Mickey Katz — are dead.

I saw a 92-year-old piano player recently.  He wasn’t dead.

I still get nervous when I play.  Good, I’m not dead.

I played at Nighttown, a local club, for the “old guy” DVD-release party.  Something like my 1,028th Yiddishe Cup gig.  I played “Nelika” in 7/16 and stopped halfway through it.  I didn’t take the repeat.  Man, I was playing it in 9/16 or 10/16.  I was so ahead of the game.  I was freaked out by my fellow musicians in the room.

Always good to be nervous. Me and nervous go way back.  My first couple recitals at Victory Park elementary school were debacles.  I had memorized the tunes and then forgot where I was.  Let’s take it from the top again, shall we? Those grade-school gigs are hot-stamped on my brain.  Worse, a violinist prodigy always followed me.  Philip Setzer.  He wound up in the Emerson String Quartet.

[For goys only: “A.K.” in this post’s title stands for alter kocker (old cocker).  An A.K. is anybody 10 years older than you.]
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Tomorrow:
No more of  these “tomorrow” teasers.

Not too many sidemen care about the contract.  They just want to know their cut.  And that’s the way it should be.  The sidemen aren’t dealing with the kvetching bar mitzvah moms and uptight brides.  And they aren’t having meetings at their houses discussing whether the bride is going to circle the groom or not.  (The bride often circles the groom seven times at a Jewish wedding.)  Or is the dad going to do the welcome toast before or after the challah blessing?

I always try to get paid at the gig — take the client over to a corner table and have him sign the check. I get at least a double portion for being the bandleader. Why?  Because Yiddishe Cup is not just a club-date band. (Club date means private party band.)   Yiddishe Cup is a concert-playing band that rehearses and has ongoing expenses — like advertising and travel expenses.  And I want to recoup that.

In Cleveland if a top-flight musician gets $200 per night, he’s happy.  That’s $50 an hour.  I pay my guys more.
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Tomorrow:
AT THE A.K. LODGE . . . Where the old guys hang out.

Yiddishe Cup’s singer, Irwin Weinberger, wrote a sweetly nostalgic song about attending baseball games with his father, who was a Holocaust survivor.  Irwin even mentioned The Rock in the song: Rocky Colavito.  (Next up, a song about Harvey Kuenn for the Detroit market.)

Nowadays Irwin is laissez-faire on sports — unless the Indians get hot again.

Guys are supposed to talk about sports, and drink when they get together.  I know this isn’t always a fact.  One Yiddishe Cup musician calls sports a “cult.”  This musician is proud he doesn’t know a thing about pro sports.

The whole town went ape-wire over the Cleveland Cavaliers. He didn’t care.

Some of the other guys did.

The previous time Yiddishe Cup was sports batty was 1997, when the Indians were in the World Series, and Yiddishe Cup was playing Simchat Torah gigs.  (Goys: Simchat Torah is right after Succot.)  We hid in the temple’s cloak room and caught bits of the action on a small portable TV.

Yiddishe Cup is not sports adverse. Yiddishe Cup plays a variety of fight songs, including The Yiddishe Cup Fight Song, which is a major-key freylekhs (hora) interspersed with the verbal chants of  “Go Cup Go” and  “De-feat Maxwell Street.”  Maxwell Street, from Chicago, is our archrival.  They probably don’t know that.

Here are other fight songs you need to know in our part of the Midwest:

1. Ohio State.  Use “Hang On Sloopy” or “Fight The Team Across the Field.”  Sometimes we hold off on “Hang On Sloopy” until the Buckeyes score.  That’s the protocol.  Be aware of this if a guest is listening to the game at a gig.  If you play “Hang on Sloopy” before the Bucks score, it’s bad luck.

2. Michigan’s “The Victors” is a biggie. This tune is one of the most insipid tunes of all time.  Or greatest — depending.

Other requests: Michigan State, “On Wisconsin,” and the Pitt fight song, which is not the same as the Steelers’ song.

Forget about Notre Dame unless they get a Jewish quarterback again.

Be flexible.  For instance, Yiddishe Cup knows “Are You From Wooster?”:

If you’re from Oberlin or Denison or Wesleyan U.,

The Scots will take good care of you before they’re through.

Wooster has many international students and a lively Hillel.  Check out The COW (The College of Wooster) with your 16 year old.  Great school.  Yiddishe Cup has played there a half dozen times.

Another good, small Ohio school is Kenyon, which Yiddishe Cup has played a few times.   Kenyon has a Medieval dining hall out of Hogwarts.  The school’s swim team dines there wearing big purple capes and eats tons of priceless food.  Swipe that college ID card.  Free food to students, $50,000 to Dad and Mom.
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Tomorrow:
DOUBLE PORTION OF MANNA . . . Bandleaders’ pay.

The band biz is a fraction of the real estate money, but the time commitment is about the same.  And as for the psychic payoff, the band is several times higher than the real estate biz.  Nobody is going to give you credit — at least long-lasting credit — for fixing a toilet.  Nobody is going to write on your tombstone: “This guy provided heat for many apts.”

The real estate biz — that is humble stuff.  The arts — one big ego trip.  My dad said that.  He was probably right.  Where did he come up with the word ego?   That wasn’t his style.

Right after I started Yiddishe Cup, in 1988, I told the Cleveland Jewish News, “We’re not in it for fame and fortune.”

That lasted about six months.  After our first concert, we began dining regularly at The Big Ego, which is next to The Big Egg, W. 51^st Street and Detroit Avenue.  Figuratively speaking.
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Tomorrow:
The Yiddishe Cup Fight Song . . . Go Cup Go

My father made money with leverage. He took $13,000 in 1965 and bought an apartment building — The Marlowe in Lakewood, Ohio.  Then he bought another building the next year, St. Ed’s, and a year after that, Lakeland.  He was flying.  Leverage works — if you’re lucky.  And he was lucky.

My dad’s mantra was “just make the deal.”  Pull the trigger.  Which is what he did — often.

I, on my own, pulled the trigger a few times. For instance I bought the Riverview building from the Chisling family.  Interesting name.  Maybe they were trying to tell me something.  I bought the Roycroft building from a man who was dying of cancer, he said.  He was “dying” like we’re all dying.  He’s still around, years later.
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Tomorrow:
“OVER EASY”AT THE BIG EGO . . . Musicians lunching at the Big Ego diner.

When you’ve done more than a thousand gigs, you can safely tell the brides’ moms what’s what.  Only once in a while will you run into a “play this, play that” mom.   Or  “My sister wants to sing.  Don’t let her!  And why are you taking a break right now?”  Micro-managers.  Don’t they have anything better to do on the big day?

All in all, simcha (weddings and bar mitzvahs) work is pure pleasure. Most everybody is there to have a good time, and you can sound awful and nobody will notice.  You can even rehearse new tunes on the bandstand.  As long as you play “Sunrise Sunset” — or don’t play it, as the case may be — everybody is happy.
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Tomorrow:
PULL THE TRIGGER . . . Make the Deal.  Do it.

Some music school grads are prima donnas. The worst are violinists.  They’re very concerned about intonation.  When I played in a trio with a couple Cleveland Orchestra members, I kept a tuner on my music stand the whole time.  I tuned each note as I played.  I was scared.

What’s a little intonation problem if you’re playing klezmer music?  None.

These music school grads, they put in 10,000 hours in little practice rooms and want some respect for their prison time.

In Yiddishe Cup we occasionally get into squabbles on the bandstand about intonation, but nobody bugs me about being flat or sharp because I’m writing the checks.
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Shabbat shalom
Tomorrow:
HOLD THE SUNRISE . . . If you play “Sunrise,” you’re sunset.

Odds are actuaries have interesting jobs. What could be better than figuring the odds on everything.

For instance, what are the odds I’ll rent a store to somebody more substantial than a tattoo parlor if I hold out?  What are the odds I’ll get the gig if I reduce the size of the band?  (I rarely do that.  The guys who get “reduced” don’t like it.)

We’ve turned down a lot of gigs.  Takes guts.  Musicians like to play.  But you have to say no to low-paying gigs.  Sometimes the client will counter with “it’s good exposure.”  You’re supposed to respond with the old saw: “Many musicians have died from exposure.”

I’ve had stores empty for three years.

I had a barber who wanted to put photos of “fades” in her window.  No, it was more than fades.  Tonsorial art — artistic designs cut into hair.

I let her in.  She was a Puerto Rican Lesbian cage fighter.  She had a couple tattoos on her face, like Mike Tyson.  She said she was part Jewish.  Maybe she was looking for lower rent.

The odds are you’re not Jewish if you say, “I have some Jew in me.”
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Where are they now . . . The cage fighter, Roman, still rents from me.  She’s solid — pays on time and has a great business.  She was my building manager for a while but had to quit because she had no place for her dogs.

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Chag sameach
Tomorrow:
INTONATION OPTIONAL . . . What’s tuning?

I always read the seating placards at parties. I’m there first, so I know everybody’s names – all my old customers.  “Jon and Carol [Weinstein], how are you?” . . . I played your son’s bar mitzvah a million years ago and remember your names.

Also, I  write down the bride and groom’s names before I  introduce them.  That way I’m less likely to screw up.  I’ve never messed up, but once a guy in my band did.  He called the bride Mindy instead of Michelle, or something like that.  To remedy the situation he called out the tune “Michelle.”  The bride — named Michelle — made him stop the music cold.  She hated that song.

Volatile songs: “Sunrise Sunset” and “YMCA.” Songs from Fiddler on the Roof make some Jews nervous.  (Russian Jews love Fiddler; American Jews — at least klezmer aficionados — often hate it.  They think it’s not the real thing.  Hey, it’s been around 45 years.  It’s old-time music.)
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Tomorrow:
JEW OR NOT A JEW? . . . Puerto Rican Lesbian cage-fighting barber.

Instrument cases, they’re like coffins. Red velvet.  Often musty.  Occasionally mildewy.

A clarinet is a chopped-up piece of African granadilla wood, stained black.  It’s just a big wooden flute with a lot of hardware.  It takes a minimum of seven years’ practice to sound decent.  Kids sound horrible on clarinets.

When some schmuck calls and yells at me about no heat, I just fire up my clarinet.

You need gigs, or you’ll quit practicing.  Playing for oneself, that lasts only about six months. I hung with a community band once; the conductor ranted at us like we weren’t good enough to park cars at Severance Hall [home of the Cleveland Orchestra].  I dropped out.

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Tomorrow:
TWO GUYS JAMMIN’. . . Fritz Kreisler and Fritz the Cat.