<\/p>\n
Concertgoers sometimes ask <\/strong>if I know Harvey Pekar,<\/span><\/span> the American Splendor<\/em> comic book writer.\u00a0 Particularly at out of town gigs.<\/p>\n I know him.<\/p>\n Harvey and I had a mutual-aid relationship for years.\u00a0 This “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” trope was Harvey’s modus operandi. \u00a0He wrote some nice things about my band, and I helped him out — not the least of which was fixing him up between his second and third wives.\u00a0 This was right before Joyce, his present wife.<\/p>\n Harvey’s casual girlfriend was driving him crazy.\u00a0 “She’s like a Third World country making impossible demands on an industrial nation,” Harvey said.\u00a0 “She eats all my food, borrows my money, doesn’t lock her doors, or even get a car title.\u00a0 One thing about Lark [Harvey’s second wife], she was competent.”<\/p>\n I told Harvey I had a fix-up for him<\/strong><\/span> with a rabid left-winger.\u00a0 He said, “Tell her I passed out leaflets for Henry Wallace when I was a kid!”<\/p>\n And he added, “Tell her I’m not a schleppy file clerk.\u00a0 I’ve got some things on the line.\u00a0 Oui <\/em>wants some of my comics, and a guy in L.A. wants to make a movie maybe.” \u00a0\u00a0The L.A. director was Jonathan Demme.\u00a0 That movie didn’t happen.<\/p>\n For an anti-social guy, Harvey sure didn’t like being alone.\u00a0 He said his second wife’s exit had totally blindsided him.\u00a0 “There was no real sign of the doom coming on,” he said.\u00a0 “But maybe it was my fault — her leaving.\u00a0 I’m high-strung and emotional. \u00a0I didn’t see it. Yeah, she yelled a bit, but compared to my first wife — who was constantly hysterical — it was nothing.\u00a0 I don’t run around.\u00a0 I’m an old-fashioned guy.”<\/p>\n Harvey hit it off with a nurse, a friend of my wife. One point for the Strattons.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Harvey grew up on cantoral music. <\/strong><\/span> During the klez revival boom (1990s), he heard recordings of the legendary klez clarinetist Naftule Brandwein<\/a>.\u00a0 That made an impression on Harvey, but didn’t completely knock him out.\u00a0 For Harvey, truly innovative music lay between Ayler and Zorn — far-out, improvisational mastur . . . mastership.\u00a0 Brandwein wasn’t a jazz guy.<\/p>\n Harvey sold me a couple Jewish “sides” (LPs), and I told him what I knew about klezmer.\u00a0 He also did some reading and listening, and pretty soon was fairly knowledgeable about klez.\u00a0 He wrote about my band in the Boston Herald<\/em>.\u00a0 That piece was about klezmer in general; my band was mentioned in passing, as in Yiddishe Cup is “socially motivated.”<\/p>\n That meant Yiddishe Cup played a lot of parties. \u00a0I still use the quote in my band’s PR because of the “Boston.”\u00a0 Boston used to be the Jerusalem of klezmer.\u00a0 Now the Jerusalem moves around. \u00a0It’s in Cleveland today.<\/p>\n Before Harvey became famous — before the movie American Splendor<\/em> came out — I went to his house with all my Pekar comic books.\u00a0 He signed issue #1, which I put in a glassine bag.<\/p>\n I still have a lot of his comics, <\/strong><\/span>unopened.\u00a0 I used to take handfuls of Harvey’s comics on trips out of town, to show off Cleveland.<\/p>\n Where is my Harvey Pekar bobblehead doll?<\/p>\n —<\/span> Concertgoers sometimes ask if I know Harvey Pekar, the American Splendor comic book writer.\u00a0 Particularly at out of town gigs. I know him. Harvey and I had a mutual-aid relationship for years.\u00a0 This “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” trope was Harvey’s modus operandi. \u00a0He wrote some nice things about my band, and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pekar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1226"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24178,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions\/24178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCheck out our new video clip “Going Tin,”<\/a> live from The Ark, Ann Arbor, Mich.\u00a0 It’s the Klezmer Guy blog in 2-D.\u00a0 Rated alluring.<\/span>
\n—
\n<\/span>See Yiddishe Cup:<\/span>
\nSat. Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m.\u00a0 Purim, Park Synagogue<\/a>, Cleveland Hts.\u00a0 Family-oriented.<\/span>
\nSun. Feb 28, 7 p.m.\u00a0 Nighttown<\/a>, Cleveland Hts.\u00a0 Downbeat<\/em> named Nighttown one of the top 100 jazz clubs in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"